Chapter 18 Jaime
JAIME
ONE MONTH LATER
The Papillon flew.
Tiny body, enormous ears, all nerve and precision. The handler barely seemed to move; a flick of fingers, a shift of shoulders, and the little dog snapped into a tight wrap around the first jump standard before launching cleanly over the bar.
No hesitation at the weave poles. No stutter at the tunnel entry. It burst out the other end like it had been shot from a cannon and skimmed down the contact zone without missing a beat.
The crowd murmured appreciatively. Beside me, Chris inhaled sharply.
“Oh, that’s early,” he muttered. “Too early on the cue. He’s going to overrun the next— see? See?”
The Papillon adjusted mid-stride and nailed the turn anyway.
Chris clicked his tongue. “Lucky.”
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “You’ve done one dog show.”
“I did not just do one dog show,” he said, affronted. “I trained for one dog show.”
“You didn’t even finish it.”
He ignored that.
“Pampi would’ve crushed that wrap,” he continued, gesturing vaguely toward the course. “She would’ve collected tighter and saved at least half a second before the dog walk. And that tunnel entry? Please. She would’ve committed way earlier.”
I resisted the urge to remind him that Pampi had once tried to detour off a practice course because someone had opened a bag of treats three rings over.
Chris slumped back in his seat with a long, dramatic sigh. “Pampi would’ve done so much better.”
Over the past month, ever since the finals had been postponed and then officially reinstated without us, I had endured a steady evolution of Chris’s coping mechanisms.
Denial had lasted three days. He’d insisted there was some loophole, some appeal process we hadn’t considered. Bargaining had involved an alarming number of emails.
Today, he was firmly in what I privately categorized as competitive delusion. The stage where every single dog in the ring was inferior, and he and his “princess” could obviously outperform them all.
Being officially disqualified because of our involvement in the investigation had not suited him.
He’d responded by building makeshift agility obstacles behind the pack kennels.
Poles fashioned from PVC piping. Jumps assembled from spare lumber and a concerning amount of zip ties.
He’d run drills with Pampi at dawn and again after dinner.
They ate together, trained together, and more than once I’d woken in the middle of the night to find both of them sprawled across my bed, snoring in sync.
He’d even handcrafted Pampi a new collar. Bright blue. It matched the shirt he was wearing no.
He hadn’t bought this one from Peter’s Hill’s website like the others. This one he’d had custom made at some print shop in town, Pampi’s face emblazoned across the front in high resolution.
I had not come with him when Chris had it made. I had standards.
On the field, the Papillon finished its final jump cleanly. The buzzer sounded. Applause rippled through the stands.
Chris sighed again, lower this time, almost mournful. “He drifted on the dog walk. Pampi would never drift.”
I was beginning to feel something dangerously close to pity. With a resigned breath, I slowly unbuttoned my jacket.
Chris didn’t notice. He was too busy dissecting imaginary flaws in a nearly flawless run.
I cleared my throat. He hummed distractedly. I coughed, louder this time.
Chris turned to me, and then his gaze dropped. For a full three seconds, he simply stared at my chest.
“You—” He blinked. “You wore it?”
I didn’t answer immediately. I let him take it in. The same obnoxious shade of blue. The same oversized print of Pampi’s face.
His mouth fell open. “You wore it.”
He stared at me like I’d just handed him the world.
And for the first time since we’d walked into the arena that morning, he stopped watching at the ring and started looking at me instead.
The change was quiet but unmistakable. No exaggerated reaction, just the slow widening of his pupils, the tension settling into his shoulders, his gaze lingering with intent. I knew that look.
Before it could turn into something public and deeply inconvenient, I buttoned my jacket back up.
Chris made a soft, wounded noise. I ignored it.
“Of course I wore it,” I said, as if this had been inevitable. “Custom printing can’t have been cheap. Especially for such small quantities.”
He blinked. “Small quantities?”
“If you only ordered two,” I clarified. “Per-unit costs go up. Bulk runs are more economical.”
He leaned in, one hand sliding to the back of my neck, fingers warm against the nape. He pressed a quick kiss to my temple.
“I had three made,” he said smugly.
I paused. “Three.”
“Yeah.” His thumb brushed lightly against my skin. “Tony came with me. He wanted one too.”
I glanced out across the arena almost reflexively. My attention snagged on a familiar broad-shouldered figure two sections down.
For a second, I thought I was imagining it, but it was the same blue shirt in the same shade.
Tony must have really had bonded with that ridiculous dog the day he’d been stuck watching her while Chris and I chased Marion across half the hotel.
Chris followed my line of sight and grinned. “See? I’m starting a movement.”
“God help us.”
His fingers were still at my nape making slow, unhurried circles now.
That spot had become a recent fixation of his. At first, it had been teasing. Light touches. Testing boundaries. I’d found it mildly ticklish and deeply unnecessary.
Lately, it felt different. Every time his thumb pressed just below my hairline, warmth ran down my spine.
My wolf reacted without thinking, a quiet thrum beneath my ribs. He hadn’t marked me yet, but my body responded like he had.
I shifted closer, pretending to adjust my seat. Chris’s hand settled more comfortably at the back of my neck, his palm broad and steady.
“So,” he said softly, brushing another brief kiss just below my ear. “Have you thought about what I asked?”
My wolf leaned into him. I kept my expression neutral.
“Thought about what?”
His thumb pressed again, deliberate this time, and I felt the answering pull all the way down to my bones.
He didn’t answer my question right away. Instead, his thumb traced a slow line along the back of my neck, thoughtful.
“Next year,” he said finally. “If we came back. For real. You, me, and Pampi.”
“No. We’re not even actual handlers,” I said. “We were impersonating one. That’s different.”
“We could become actual handlers.”
“We’re busy.”
He huffed. “You’re busy.”
“You’re about to be busier,” I countered. “Cooper’s already stacking more responsibilities on you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is,” I said. “You don’t have the time. I don’t have the time. The K9 unit barely has breathing room as it is.”
At that, he went quiet for a fraction too long.
“I asked Cooper,” he said casually.
“Asked him what?”
“If I could join the K9 unit.”
My spine stiffened before I could stop it. He grinned, satisfied. “Ha! I knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“You’re the one blocking it.”
“I am not—”
“You are,” he insisted, pleased with himself. “Cooper keeps giving me non-answers. That means you told him something.”
I straightened, slipping into the calm, clipped tone I use during evaluations. “I just don’t think you’re a good fit.”
His brows lifted.
“The dogs get too excited around you,” I continued evenly. “You over-stimulate them. You give them too many treats. You blur reinforcement timing.”
“That is slander.”
“It’s accurate.”
The real reason was simple. My focus always seemed to shift the second he walked into a room, and the dogs picked up on that. My attention went to him first, everything else after. That wasn’t good for the job.
He leaned closer, resting his head against my shoulder. I could feel the curve of his smile against the fabric of my jacket.
Chris’s fingers slid from my nape, down the center of my back in a slow, absent-minded stroke. Warmth followed the path of his hand. My shoulders loosened despite myself.
“Okay,” he said lightly. “But if we did come back next year…”
“No.”
“But—”
“Not happening.”
His hand even drifted lower, settling at my waist. His thumb pressed gently into the dip of my hip, slow circles that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with patience. I could feel my resolve thinning.
“Pampi could easily podium,” he went on. “We’d take bronze. Minimum.”
I pulled back just enough to stare at him. “Bronze?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Third place?”
“That’s still podium.”
I scoffed. “Pampi could take second. Easily.”
Chris’s grin spread, triumphant. “So… next year then?”
I leaned back into him before I could think too hard about it. His chest was warm and solid at my back. The noise of the arena faded into a dull hum.
“Maybe,” I said.
“And my spot in the K9 unit?” he asked quietly.
I exhaled slowly, watching another dog line up at the start gate. A clean course. A steady handler. A partnership built on trust.
“We’ll see.”
His arms tightened subtly around me. Chris pressed one more kiss against the back of my neck, right over the place his hand always found.
THE END