She spoke again, her voice ragged. “I wasn’t a good soldier.”

  Oh my God. “What in the hell makes you feel that way?”

  “They got rid of me.”

  He felt as if his heart would break into pieces. “So you feel like a failure, too?”

  “Yes.”

  He jumped up, filled with fury, and began to pace the porch, heedless of disturbing the dogs.

  As his wrath began to ebb, he found voice to say, “I owe Bradley a debt.”

  “I’m sure you do,” she whispered.

  “Not for the rest of it. For bringing us together. I’m very glad that I met you, Jenna Blair. And nothing will ever change that. Nothing.”

  CONARD COUNTY:

  K-9 DETECTIVES

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Rachel Lee

  Rachel Lee was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

  Books by Rachel Lee

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Conard County: The Next Generation

  Cornered in Conard County

  Missing in Conard County

  Murdered in Conard County

  Conard County Justice

  Conard County: Hard Proof

  Conard County: Traces of Murder

  Conard County: Christmas Bodyguard

  Conard County: Mistaken Identity

  Conard County: Christmas Crime Spree

  Conard County: K-9 Detectives

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Jenna Blair—Discharged from the army as “unfit for duty” after she was betrayed by command. She hates men now.

  Kell McLaren—Former marine who devotes himself to helping his K-9 recover.

  Misty—Jenna Blair’s dog who helps to bring Kell together with Jenna.

  Bradley—Kell’s canine, suffering from PTSD of his own. He’s crazy about Misty.

  Celia (NLN)—The victim of childhood abuse, deceased, ran away from her church into the army.

  Vince (NLN)—Celia’s cousin who learns what happened to her. He vows payback.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Excerpt from One Night Standoff by Nicole Helm

  Prologue

  Dear Vince,

  I know it’s been over ten years since you saw me, but you kept sending me birthday presents, so I’m sure you give a damn about me. I need to tell you what happened after the last time I saw you.

  My stepfather, Aloysius Bund, pastor of the Church of the Well-Lived in Conard City, started abusing me when I was ten years old. I was terrified and ashamed, but I didn’t know he was the one who was wrong.

  It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I heard something at school about another girl and realized it wasn’t right. I told the Elders, Miss Hassen and Mr. Zeb, but they didn’t believe me. They told me I was lying, that the pastor was a holy man who would never do such a thing. They warned me not to tell my lies again and called me sinful.

  Because the Elders didn’t believe me, I thought no one would believe me.

  I took the only escape I could see. I joined the Army because it would take me beyond reach. I thought I would be safe there.

  I wasn’t. Some guy sexually assaulted me on the third date. It didn’t count, they said, because I was dating him.

  I need someone I trust to know why I killed myself.

  There is no safe place for me anywhere.

  Love,

  Celia.

  The fingers holding the letter tightened, then relaxed, allowing the sheets of paper to fall onto a desk.

  Vince’s hands clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles turned white.

  He then typed a note and printed it on a sheet of paper.

  A few minutes later, Vince rose and went to the outer office to speak to his assistant, a woman he had trusted with his life on more than one occasion.

  “Send this anonymously to this guy.” She knew what anonymous meant and would make sure no trail returned to him.

  Then, back in his office, he stared down at Celia’s letter. Time to get some intel from an old friend in the Conard County Sheriff’s Office. He needed to know whatever there was to know about that church.

  His deep, furious voice spoke one word: “Payback.”

  Chapter One

  The war was over. For some. Jenna Blair stood on the porch of her aunt’s house and dropped her duffel on the wood planking while she stuffed her hand into her camo pocket and pulled out a key ring. One key. The key to her aunt’s door.

  A key to her past. To a girl she doubted she could recognize anymore.

  A heavy sigh escaped her. Pointless to think that way. Pointless because the intervening years always changed people. Her change might have been faster or harder than that of some, but change was the order of life. A natural progression, however painful and abrupt it had been.

  She had chosen this path, she reminded herself as her hand hovered near the door’s lock. Funny, though, how that path had come in a full circle right back to her aunt’s door.

  The door she had exited, the one she was about to enter. Past meet future.

  Oh, hell, she thought. Time to get on with it. No point in mordant ramblings or philosophical thoughts that probably didn’t have an original smidgeon in them. Self-indulgence.

  She squared her shoulders, twisted the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Slinging her duffel over her shoulder, she stepped inside, closing the door and her eyes at the same time.

  She smelled the faint odors and aromas of her childhood here, but time had changed those, too, and right now the house smelled a bit musty. It certainly sounded empty, lacking even the ticktock of the grandfather clock.

  Aunt Bernice had set off on her round-the-world cruise four weeks ago. A cruise that Bernice had dreamed of forever. Jenna remembered all the times she and her aunt had pored over brochures and maps, planning together.

  Bernice had finally saved the money, only to set sail just before Jenna returned home. They’d always planned to take this cruise together, but Jenna had changed her mind. The Army had shown her more than enough of the world for a while. She had been a military nurse, sometimes in field hospitals in combat areas. The memory of wounded and torn bodies would follow her into the afterlife.

  Climbing the wooden stairs at one side of the entry hall, she headed straight for her bedroom. That hadn’t changed, either. The rather sober dark blue-and-white decor she’d chosen for her college self was still there. She dropped her duffel on the made-up bed and felt almost surprised when dust didn’t rise in a cloud. Bernice had apparently never stopped caring for it.

  Then she opened the folding doors of her closet and found her old clothes still there. But mostly she noted the scent of lilac her aunt so loved. In an instant, Jenna’s eyes prickled with tears. God, how she loved Bernice.

  Stiffening herself, she reached for an old pair of jeans and a green T-shirt emblazoned in gold with the word ARMY. She’d had her mind made up that long ago, but she didn’t want to wear it now. Instead she pawed around for something less triggering and found it.

  The clothes were somewhat looser now, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the comfort she felt wearing them. Old training shoes were still good enough to wear. Jenna now reaching for Jenna then.

  She opened the dark blue curtains, looked out briefly at the summer sunshine and the side of Old Lady Hassen’s house, which needed a coat of paint. Hardly surprising, given that the woman was in her nineties and barely nodded to her neighbors. If she depended on her church, the Church of the Well-Lived, she might wait forever for the help or the money to do it.

  Then Jenna remembered her primary task.

  Bernice’s dog was at the vet’s. She needed to go get Mistral. A fancy name that Bernice had loved but that had inevitably become Misty.

  On the way out, Jenna stopped to wind the grandfather clock and set the time from the military-issue watch on her wrist. The ticking resumed and the house felt closer to normal.

  Grabbing her aunt’s keys from the hook just inside the kitchen, she got her aunt’s car and set out on her mission to recover Misty. She’d seriously missed that dog. Bernice had adopted her as a puppy shortly after Jenna had joined the Army, and the two had become friends when Jenna was home on leave.

  The fur-face had a way of worming herself into hearts. Jenna wondered if Misty would even remember her, then wondered why she should. The dog had never failed to remember her when she came back on leave. It was Jenna who was trying to leave memories behind.

 
Misty had been boarded for the past month with the vet who maintained his office and kennels just outside of town along a narrow county road. Mike Windwalker, his face revealing his Indigenous ancestry, greeted Jenna warmly and told her right off that Mistral was fine.

  “She sure loves her walks, though. She’ll keep you busy, Jenna.”

  The mixed-breed dappled dog with striking mismatched eyes of gold and blue, jumped up at the sight of her and started barking. Her feathery tail wagged so hard that Jenna had to laugh, and when she squatted down to greet her, Mistral just about knocked her over. Slobbery kisses, lots of them, and it took a couple of minutes to calm her down.

  “Yes, sweetie, you’re coming home.” Jenna laughed. “Home with me.”

  Dragging the leash Bernice had left behind, Misty ran to the car and jumped into the back seat the instant Jenna opened the door.

  “I guess she knows where she’s going,” Mike Windwalker chuckled. “Have fun, you two.”

  The countryside remained familiar to Jenna. Slightly rolling spaces between mountain ranges, dry and dusty in the August heat. No sense of homecoming commingled with the familiarity of the thousands of acres of ranch land.

  She saw some cattle and some tumbleweeds caught on fences. This area certainly hadn’t changed.

  The minute Jenna and the dog were in the house, Misty dashed wildly to every room, taking a few minutes to sniff, but finally returning happy and panting to the kitchen, where Jenna waited for her with crunchy biscuits.

  After a supper of canned pea soup, Jenna took the dog out to the large front porch and sank into one of the Adirondack chairs, enjoying the warm evening and its gentle breeze. Misty had been trained to stay on the porch, so no worries there. She did intently watch anyone who strolled by and offered some wags of her tail.

  She hardly noticed the friendly waves. To Jenna’s relief, no one stopped to chat. She wasn’t ready for that yet. She needed some time to let the change to her life soak in.

  She was home to stay. No worrying about what lay right around the next corner. Days without plans or duties, other than a dog. Time to make the biggest transition of her life, excepting only the death of her parents and her entry into the Army. Even nursing school hadn’t felt this momentous.

  Now lazy days awaited her, a chance to recover and get her feet under her in this new life. She wondered how she’d adapt to filling her own hours with whatever she chose. She was hardly used to those choices anymore.

  But she didn’t worry about it one way or another. She felt detached in so many ways now. As if only anger remained.

  She sighed and stroked Misty’s head. The dog tried to lean into her, a difficult task given the width of the arms on the chair.

  “We’ll go for a long walk in a little while,” she promised Misty.

  Those amazing mismatched eyes looked up, that feathery tail sweeping the porch. She would never know if Misty had only picked out the word walk from that sentence or if she’d caught it all. Jenna believed that dogs understood a whole lot more than most people thought.

  She caught sight of a man approaching. He was tall and lean, wearing old jeans with a chambray shirt and hiking boots. Almost black hair, cut short. He walked a dog, what appeared to be a large brown-and-black Malinois. Misty rose, taking instant interest. A chuff escaped her.

  The man and dog halted on the sidewalk in front of the porch. Something about him rang a distant bell in Jenna’s memory, but she couldn’t identify him.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice warm. “You must be Jenna. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m Kell McLaren. This pooch is Bradley, and he and Misty like to romp together in the front yard. Okay by you?”

  Misty had already made up her mind. She leaped down the porch steps in a flash, barking happily, and Bradley answered. Kell bent and unhooked his dog’s leash.

  Decision made, Jenna thought with faint amusement. The two dogs began running in circles, taking turns chasing each other in the large yard. They were about the same size, so neither won the chase, not that either appeared to care.

  Kell mounted the steps as if he had done so many times and didn’t need an invitation. He settled in the chair at an angle to Jenna’s. “Bernice said you were coming home to stay. I did that nearly a year ago.”

  That’s when her memory snapped back. Sergeant McLaren, the Marine recruiter who’d come to her high school when she’d been a junior. The years had treated him well, she thought. He still had that strong jaw and nose, but his face had been weathered some by wind and sun.

  “I haven’t had any time to settle in,” she remarked.

  “It takes a while.” He smiled, his gray eyes crinkling a bit in the corners. Totally attractive, something she was in no mood to recognize. “It did me. Bet it won’t be long before you’ll be looking around for some way to get busy again.”

  “At the moment, I’m planning on learning to drift for a change. What did you do?”

  “Got myself involved in contract work once in a while.” His smile turned into a grin. “Once an adrenaline addict, always an adrenaline addict. Wait and see.”

  “I don’t know that I want that kind of adrenaline again.”

  “There are different kinds. But I know exactly what you mean.”

  He probably did.

  The dogs had run themselves ragged and climbed onto the porch, panting and grinning.

  “I’ll get them some water,” Jenna said, glad of a brief escape. Kell disturbed her in some odd way. As if she couldn’t quite breathe.

  When she brought the big bowl of water back to the porch, she carried biscuits for the dogs. Between them, they lapped up almost the entire bowl of water, then sat politely waiting for the treats they could no doubt smell.

  Jenna had to smile at those hopeful furry faces, then handed them each a biscuit. “I wonder how they can enjoy anything when they gulp it down so fast.”

  “Ask them. Maybe the smell’s enough.” Kell rose, leash in hand. Bradley sat straight up and waited for the clip.

  “I always feel like I’m separating Romeo and Juliet when I take Bradley home.” Kell flashed another smile. “I’ve intruded long enough. See you.”

  Jenna watched man and dog stroll away and wished she’d been hospitable enough to offer some lemonade or other soft drink. But she hadn’t really wanted to socialize, not with a man, any man.

  Or had she?

  * * *

  KELL MCLAREN WALKED Bradley another mile or so around town before heading home. His K-9 walked right beside him, as he always had.

  Jenna Blair was back. Bernice had told him she was coming home as if it would be a joyous experience.

  Kell had his doubts about that. Jenna had been a nurse in the Army, and nurses got to see some of the worst of it when they dealt with casualties.

  He also had some idea, from his own experience, of just how much adaptation was required for this transition. Coming home was harder than going to foreign places to begin with. He had no idea why, but he knew that almost everyone he had talked to had come back from the war feeling as if they had stepped onto a different planet. Everything seemed strange. Uncomfortable.

  Becoming comfortable took a while. Switching from the rigid military to a more relaxed civilian life took a while, too. Switching from an existence full of threat to one with few threats was another difficult journey.

  For a while, a hair trigger would remain.

  Regardless, he thought Jenna was an attractive woman with her bright green eyes and auburn hair. He also thought she wouldn’t appreciate him noticing that, though he couldn’t say why.

  He and Bradley reached the small house he rented in exchange for doing repairs. The owners wanted to sell it eventually, but in its present state, they didn’t have a chance.

  He and the dog settled into their late dinners. Sometimes Kell wished he enjoyed food as much as Bradley apparently did. He ate only for fuel. When that had begun, he had no idea.

  So he ate a heaping plate of instant mashed potatoes along with two fried hamburgers and a whole package of frozen broccoli and didn’t taste much of it. Bradley sat beside him looking hopeful, waiting for the plate he knew he would get to lick.