In her office Monday afternoon, thinking about Greg when she should have been number-crunching, the ringing of her cell phone brought her abruptly back to the tasks at hand...until she noticed Greg’s number on her screen.

  “Hello?” Had something happened with Jedi? The dog had shown signs of a weakened immune system due to malnutrition when he’d been rescued and brought to Furever Paws.

  “I think something’s wrong with Jedi.”

  Wendy was already on her feet, shutting off lights, reaching for her satchel, as she said, “I’m on my way.”

  During the drive home, she’d call the veterinarian who’d been watching over Jedi most recently, since Doc J. had relocated to Florida.

  And she’d need symptoms to relay.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Whining.”

  “Is he lying down?”

  “Not really. Right now he’s half standing, half lying on me. His legs are on the floor, but the upper half of his body is in my lap.”

  Deep pressure therapy.

  Deep pressure therapy?

  Was Jedi trying to offer comfort to himself? Giving himself the therapy he knew to give others when they were stressed?

  Or was he...

  Had he noticed...

  Was Greg struggling?

  But the whining...

  “What was he doing before the whining started?”

  “Sitting here.”

  “Where is here?”

  “We’re sitting outside... I pulled a lawn chair over under the tree in your backyard. Figured it would be good for him to have some outdoor time.”

  The backyard, even with city wildlife, could be rampant with bacteria that could harm a dog with fragile health.

  “Was he running? Did he get stung?”

  “No, he was just sitting beside me, and next thing I know, he’s whining. And then climbing up in my lap.”

  By this point, she was already halfway home. She figured, since Jedi was well enough to stand and offer trained deep pressure therapy, that she had time to assess the situation more thoroughly before calling the vet. She still had no idea what to tell him.

  Maybe the dog had been stung. His immune deficiency hadn’t included allergies that she knew of.

  “Is he showing any signs of anaphylactic shock?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You know what they are?”

  “Yes. I’m CPR-certified.”

  Of course he was. And at the moment, that was great news. But it still didn’t tell them what had caused Jedi to have this reaction.

  Maybe Greg had been distracted and hadn’t seen what happened. She’d have to phrase the question carefully. She didn’t want to sound like she was accusing him of negligence. “What were you doing right before he started whining?”

  “Reading.”

  “On your phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, a book?”

  “I was reading about nightmares as a result of trauma, if you must know...” His truculent tone might have amused her if she hadn’t been suffused with chills—and a sense that her plan could actually be working. It was sounding more and more like Jedi’s behavior wasn’t a sign of something wrong with the dog, but the dog sensing that something was wrong with the human, just as they’d been training him to do.

  If she was right, then Jedi might really be able to help Greg. And by proxy, she could help this man who’d been a godsend to her and her veterans for so many years.

  She was home, already parked, and on her way out to the backyard as she said, “As you were reading, were you feeling some of the feelings you felt the other night, when you had that nightmare after the rough landing in the storm?”

  She had to work to keep excitement out of her voice.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  At her back door, she saw the two of them, man and dog, sitting, as he’d said, under the lone tree in the yard. Greg’s hand moved along Jedi’s back, calmly, from neck to hip, long slow strokes, over and over.

  “I’m here,” she told him, hanging up just before heading over to join them.

  Blinked back tears. Of no known source.

  And went out to greet the men in her life.

  Chapter Ten

  Yeah, she had his attention. There was no denying that Greg’s mood lightened at the sight of the long-legged, curvy woman with her bangs and braid walking across the grass toward him.

  Jedi looked, too. Wagged his tail. But didn’t climb his front half down from Greg’s lap. Greg continued to pet the boy as Wendy approached—wanting Jedi to know that he was enough. That while he was in training to be a working dog, he didn’t have to earn affection.

  “He seems fine,” she said, her gaze assessing their charge.

  “He does now,” he agreed. “I’d apologize for calling, but you said to report any behavior that was out of the ordinary. Whining was on the list...”

  And he was a man who followed orders—most particularly his own.

  “I’m glad you called,” she told him, taking a seat in the grass next to the dog, legs together, knees up to her chest. She didn’t touch Jedi, though. “There are tones to the whining...one signifies pain, and we listened for that a lot when he first arrived at the animal rescue in such terrible shape. He can’t tell us what hurts, when it hurts, how badly it hurts...he can only whine when it gets bad, and hope that we humans can figure it out. There’ve been no reported accounts of him whining in pain, by any of those of us who’ve been around him, for six to eight weeks now...”

  Greg just nodded to show he was following. She’d already filled him in on some of that during his training session. She seemed to be leading up to something. He waited.

  “The other whine is one you and I haven’t gone over yet, as it wasn’t pertinent to your work with him.” Odd how she was looking at the dog, not at him. Not at all.

  “I’m thinking that Jedi is even more ready to go to work than we knew,” she said, watching the dog. Watching his hand on the dog? He continued to lightly rub Jedi’s back as her gaze followed the movement.

  “The last couple of weeks before he came here, his trainer had been working with him to recognize signs of distress...specifically to get him ready to be of service to a veteran with PTSD, as a lot of veterans suffer from the stress element as well as other issues...”

  His hand stilled. For a second there he felt violated. As though someone had intruded on his right to privacy. His life, his struggles, were his own. He kept them that way. Kept everyone safe from them, too.

  He was responsible. To himself. To others.

  No one knew...

  His promise to himself. No one would ever know. Or need to know. He had everything handled. But now, there was Jedi, unknowingly broadcasting that Greg was in distress.

  As anger shot up, Jedi climbed down from his lap. And in the next second, when the untoward emotion had dimmed, as it always did in him, he missed the dog’s close presence.

  “This could be a breakthrough in his training, Greg!” Wendy said. “We’re assessing his ability to recognize and then follow through with trained behaviors, and he might have just shown us that he’s got it!”

  Her excitement startled him. He’d been thinking about how it affected him, to have his mood and his feelings so obvious to anyone, even a dog—but Wendy’s words gave him a new perspective. Was it embarrassing for someone to pick up on his negative mood? Definitely yes. But this appeared to be an important milestone for the dog. It meant the training was working. The mission’s success mattered more than his potential discomfort.

  “It might be coincidental, but I don’t think it’s a mistake that you were reading about trauma-induced nightmares—something you’ve recently experienced firsthand, probably triggering a physical response within you—and Jedi gives the trained behavior to the signals you were giving off. He’s supposed to whine, to wake up his owner if they’re in the throes of a nightmare or a flashback. For some things, like an impending migraine, he’s trained to nudge his owner’s hand, to alert him or her to take a pill before the headache has a chance to escalate to full-blown, excruciating pain.”

  Greg nodded along, only half listening. He could understand the logic behind all of this, see how that kind of training in a service animal could be useful—to others.

  “Have you had any other nightmares since that initial one here the night of the storm?”

  That last part of what she’d said grabbed his attention because of one word. Initial.

  She thought the emergency-landing-based nightmare had been a first for him. And why wouldn’t she? He was just a wealthy guy who liked to fly so much he volunteered his time with a Pilots for Paws program.

  She didn’t know what he’d been through. His years of fighting the insidious beast, the secret battle he waged at home alone... All of that was still safe. Still hidden. Just as he wanted it to be.

  “One or two,” he allowed. No harm in admitting that. He could have crashed and died. It would have been strange if he hadn’t had a few nightmares afterward.

  “So the sensations you felt from those nightmares, they’d be close enough to the surface that reading about them could trigger a likeness.”

  Yeah. Probably. She seemed so excited about the idea...the most excited he’d ever seen her. “Maybe,” he said, wanting to keep her happy.

  “And Jedi whined!” She didn’t suddenly hug the dog. She didn’t want to interfere with his training.

  But her smile...the tone of her voice as she said, “Good boy” sure felt like a hug to Greg, and the words weren’t even directed at him.

  He hadn’t been having a nightmare, of course. Hadn’t been experiencing any of the violent, fight-back energy he generally woke himself up with after a bad one. But, while reading, he could have been feeling some of the insidious fear that built up to the attack instinct...

  And Wendy actually thought Jedi had sensed that in him? That the dog had been responding that way—climbing on his lap, whining at him—as a way of trying to stop the sensations from escalating?

  If that was right, if Jedi really had those capabilities, the dog’s talents were being wasted hanging out with Greg.

  But that was fine, since Jedi was never meant to be his dog. He just had to get Jedi through the training, and then the animal could go to someone who really needed the help. Who wanted and deserved that help in acknowledgment of all they’d suffered as a result of their service. Jedi, in particular, could be a great match for a soldier who came home suffering from PTSD.

  That wasn’t him. He didn’t have the migraines. Or the mood swings.

  He’d just been born with the curse of an overly active nighttime imagination that blew his current and past daytime activities out of proportion sometimes.

  As dreams, and their shadow side, were wont to do.

  * * *

  Wendy didn’t sleep well Tuesday night. Jedi, stretched out on top of the covers next to her, didn’t seem to mind her tossing and turning. The dog snored right through a lot of it. He wasn’t taught to care about such things.

  For his sake, she was glad.

  For her own...she just couldn’t seem to settle. Not when she couldn’t stop thinking about Wednesday’s visit between Jedi and Duke. Would it be a step forward in making Greg a believer?

  Or was the obstinate man going to deny his own needs for the rest of his life? If that’s what he was doing. Could be she was too biased, her own form of post-traumatic stress. Seeing likenesses to Michael because of the nightmare Greg had had in her home that first night. Not because the likenesses were really there.

  But he was still having nightmares.

  And he hadn’t mentioned the plane in days.

  She knew better than many how much flying meant to Greg Martin.

  If Greg had been up in the sky, enjoying his first love, he’d have said something about it. The guy was always going on about the special freedom being in the sky gave him.

  A number of times he’d been after Wendy to go up with him. Even tried to use her service animals to get her to agree, once or twice, when a dog he was transporting was skittish about getting in the plane. He’d suggested that the dog would be more comfortable if Wendy was there. Had even said he had a safety belt in the back if she wanted to sit in the cargo area with the dog.

  She’d demurred, of course. Her schedule was busy. She’d known the dogs would be fine in the safe confines of their kennels.

  The real reason, which she’d been loath to confess to a man as strong and sure as Greg Martin, was that she was afraid of heights.

  Always had been.

  Michael had teased her about it, working under the theory that doing so would ease her tension. It was why he’d thrown her high in the air and let her drop into the water, making up the splashing game.

  He’d never thrown her high enough to scare her, but he’d nudged her boundaries, trying to help her to push past them.

  Later, he’d understood suffering from irrational fear. But by then, he’d been unable to help himself, let alone anyone else. And he hadn’t been willing to accept her help. Greg seemed equally resistant to accepting any help. She could only hope that taking Jedi to meet Greg’s friend on Wednesday—the dog’s first, albeit unofficial, meet with a veteran in need—would show Greg how much he could potentially benefit from Jedi’s help himself, in the interim.

  If he didn’t figure that out soon, it might be too late. After the whining episode on Monday, Jedi would be ready to move on sooner rather than later. Who knew when there would be another dog with training who needed to be fostered? If Greg really needed help to get over the near crash?

  And once Jedi was gone, and they no longer had the excuse of training him, would she and Greg go back to only seeing each other when she had a dog that needed a flight?

  Or worse, if he wasn’t flying, would they never see each other at all?

  These were the thoughts that kept her restless all night, right up until the sun started rising and she decided that there was no point in staying in bed. It was a quiet and subdued Wendy who was waiting when Greg came in his SUV to pick them up. They’d arranged to see Duke early, before his prelunch therapy session, and she’d dressed in navy business pants and a cream-colored loose-fitting top for the business meeting she had with a new client afterward.

  Greg, who’d be spending part of the afternoon at her house with Jedi, looked much more in place in the vehicle, with the dog, in his tan shorts and short-sleeved pumpkin-hued shirt.

  And yet, something about him seemed slightly off. Her mind was fuzzy from lack of sleep, and it took her a minute to figure out what it was.

  It was his stance. He was favoring his left leg as he’d led Jedi out to his vehicle. Favoring it again, because she’d noticed that that leg always seemed to be the one that gave him trouble.

  If she’d been thinking clearly, she probably would have left it alone, but she was too tired for her brain-to-mouth filter to be working. “What’s with your leg?” she blurted out about five silent miles down the highway.

  “It’s stiff.”

  “Why?”

  “I pushed it too hard at the gym last night.”

  “It’s always your left leg,” she pointed out, trying to make sense of the puzzle. “You got something against it? Don’t push them equally?”

  “It’s an old injury,” he told her. “Tore my quadriceps tendon. Surgery only helped so much...”

  Tendons weren’t like ligaments. They didn’t regenerate. Another Michael lesson. Tendon damage was the reason her brother had lost most of the use of his right shoulder.

  She wanted to know how he’d torn it. How old he’d been. If he’d been playing football, and if so, in high school or just a start-up game among friends. But even as tired as she was, she couldn’t miss the grimace on his face, signaling his discomfort with the personal conversation. As usual.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “About your tendon, and for being rude. I didn’t sleep all that well last night.”

  He glanced at her then. “Did Jedi help?”

  Odd question. But then she remembered their conversation about nightmares under her tree.

  “I wasn’t having nightmares. I just couldn’t get to sleep. And no, he didn’t help. He slept through it all.” Or most of it.

  “Anything in particular keeping you up?”

  She thought about dodging the question. Or making something up. But her thoughts were running slow and sluggish, and when she opened her mouth, there was nothing there to come out except the truth.

  “I was worried about you, actually,” she admitted.

  He stiffened noticeably at that. “What about me?”

  “Your flying. I didn’t want to pry, but you haven’t mentioned going up since the lightning strike, and—”

  “I’ve been up twice.”

  Well. There you go, then.

  She’d been so certain he’d have told her.

  Swallowing back hurt, she said, “Oh, well, good! Great!” she said, starting to feel better as his words sank in. Greg was flying.

  She’d been overreacting about his anxiety.

  He didn’t need Jedi and life was on track.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she blurted, then flushed. What right did she have to ask that question, as though she was entitled to be privy to his inner thoughts?

  “Because the flights weren’t great.” His tone of voice—so raw, so unlike him—had her turning, openmouthed, to look at him.

  After a few long seconds he said, “I take off, I land. Not much in between. Not yet. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to fly for you again.”

  She hadn’t even been thinking about him flying for her...except that if he didn’t, she wouldn’t have any reason to see him again once Jedi had been placed.