Operation Power Play. Justine Davis
laughed once more, and he was glad she was focused on the dog, because he couldn’t help smiling at the sound of it. It took him a moment to realize that the strange tightness in his face was the result of smiling so much in the past few minutes, something he’d grown long unused to.
“Hello there, boy,” she said, petting the dark head. “What’s his name?”
“Cutter. At least, that’s what his tag said when he showed up.”
The woman looked at the boat-shaped blue name tag that hung from the dog’s collar, then up at him. “He was lost?”
He nodded. “Hayley—his owner—tried for months to find where he belonged. And by then he’d made it pretty clear he intended to stay.”
Green Eyes smiled as the older woman spoke. “Your girlfriend takes in strays, does she?”
“My—” He stopped short. Girlfriend was not a word he’d used in reference to himself for a very long time. “No. No, Hayley’s not... She’s on her honeymoon. That’s why I’m dogsitting.”
“Well,” Green Eyes said, straightening up from her attentions to the dog, “congratulations to her. And her new husband.”
“They deserve it. They’re good people.”
“I’m Connie Day,” the older woman said abruptly. “And this is my niece, Sloan Burke.”
“Dunbar,” he said automatically, as if he were on duty after all. “Brett Dunbar,” he amended awkwardly. Should he offer to shake hands? That was always iffy with some women. And if this was how out of it he was when it came to non-work-related contact with other people, he should probably give it up altogether.
“We should be on our way,” he said, letting the fact that he was still a bit sweaty decide the shaking-hands question. Not to mention that he was going to start stiffening up here if he stood around in the chilly air much longer. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too,” Green Eyes—Sloan—said.
“Come on, Cutter. Get back to nagging me to pick up the pace.”
She laughed once more, and Brett couldn’t help smiling a last time. But maybe it wouldn’t be the last. He’d be running this way the next time it rained hard, and this was the Pacific Northwest in winter, so that was never far off at any given time.
But when he turned to go, Cutter didn’t move.
“Dog?”
Cutter turned his head to look at him, but his furry backside never left the grass he was sitting on.
“Cutter, let’s go.” He took a few more steps. Nothing.
He sighed. He dug into his pocket for the leash, tugging a length out from the reel.
“Who was it who said when you get to thinking you’re important, try giving orders to someone else’s dog?”
Brett’s gaze snapped to her face. She was smiling again, widely. And he found himself grinning back. It felt even stranger than the smiling had. He reached out to snap the leash on Cutter’s collar. “He’s usually pretty good about it. He must just like you.”
“But we’ve only just met.”
“He’s a quick study.”
He couldn’t believe himself. He sounded as though he was flirting with her. Not a talent of his at the best of times. He turned back to the dog. Cutter was staring at him intently. Intensely. In a way he never had in the time he’d stayed with him.
He tried to look away. Managed only a second. The dog was still staring at him. He remembered all the jokes that abounded at Foxworth about knowing how sheep felt.
Mesmerized was the word that came to mind.
And then other words popped into his head, spoken by almost everyone at Foxworth at one time or another.
He just gives us that “Fix it!” expression, and we know we’re stuck.
It all came together in a rush, Cutter’s sudden and unexpected course change, the older woman’s tears, his refusal to leave and now That Look.
Uh-oh, Brett thought. Now what?
Sloan Burke wasn’t surprised to learn that the lean, rangy man she’d occasionally seen running was a cop. Or a deputy, to be more accurate, she thought, although detective probably superseded that. Jason had explained it once, back in the days when law enforcement had been his life plan, before a terrorist attack had sent him to the military, determined to defend the country he so loved.
There was a look, a demeanor about such men. Something that set them apart. In this man’s case, as in her husband’s, it wasn’t bluster or swagger, just a quiet strength that required no bragging and a straight, level gaze that told you whatever the job was, he would get it done.
And yet the dog at her feet was apparently the one in charge at the moment.
“I should have known he was only letting me pretend I’m in charge.”
She laughed, both at the man’s wry tone and that he had chosen the words she had just thought. “At least you realize.”
“I should have sooner. He’s got quite the reputation, this one.”
“For?”
“Finding trouble. And demanding his people fix it.”
She started to laugh again, but something in his expression told her he was serious. “Detective Dunbar, why do I think you don’t mean typical dog trouble, like finding holes in fences or the cat next door to chase?”
He seemed to hesitate, as if he wasn’t certain he should tell her, before he said, “Brett, please. And no. Last one was a kid with a messed-up family. Before that it was a kidnapping. Then a cold case, a long-lost brother. And those are just the ones I know about.”
She stared at him. “Must really take away from their day job.”
“That is their day job.”
She drew back slightly. “You mean that’s actually what they do?”
He nodded. “They help people. People who have nowhere else to turn.”
“What are they, a charity?”
“Might as well be. They don’t take any payment except the goodwill—and willingness to help them help someone else later—of the people they take on. They did it before Cutter came along, but now it’s all they can do to keep up with what he finds for them. He’s got a...sense about things. It’s hard to explain.”
“So he finds people who need help, and your friends, they follow his lead?”
He looked as if he half expected her to laugh. “It sounds crazy, I know.”
“Which part?”
She hadn’t meant it to sound sour, but it did. She saw it register in the slightest narrowing of his eyes. She didn’t elucidate—she wasn’t about to explain to a total stranger that while she could believe the dog would help people, she wasn’t so sure about people helping people. Not anymore.
She glanced back at the dog. “Well, I can see I wasn’t according you the proper respect. I thought you were just a pretty face.”
Cutter’s tail wagged as if he’d understood. He got to his feet then and crossed the distance between them. Coming not to her but to Aunt Connie, nudging her hand with his nose.
Connie, who had been watching all this with interest—and, Sloan noted, without saying a word, which was unlike her—responded by petting the dog’s head.