Chapter Five
T ris stood silently before the monument, looking not at the statue of the handler in the center, but the four dogs in front of him, the breeds that made up most of the Military Working Dog force. From the Doberman on her left to the German shepherd, the Labrador, and what Logan laughingly called a “maligator,” meaning a Belgian Malinois, the four-footed service members—for in her view they were nothing less—made her ache a little inside.
“What they do for us,” she whispered in wonder.
“Yes. That’s why Chance Rafferty does what he does. Why he started They Also Serve , because his K9 partner didn’t come home.”
She’d read about the organization that was based on the Rafferty ranch, taking in the repatriated dogs the military had deemed unsalvageable, but she hadn’t realized the personal aspect for the man who ran it.
“That’s a wonderful thing. I’ve been meaning to find out more about it.”
“I’ve done some work for him, customizing a couple of dog runs, and some fencing.”
She tilted her head, curious. “So you don’t just shoe—and magically cajole—horses?”
He shrugged off her teasing compliment. “I started out as a farrier—horseshoeing only—but started playing with other stuff when I had time, so now I do the occasional specialized job. Keeps it interesting.”
She had the feeling some people would be a little surprised at the agile brain behind the working-man exterior. Including herself, she had to embarrassedly admit.
She started to walk toward one corner of the monument space, where there was another sculpture. It was of a dog handler sitting cross-legged, pouring water from his canteen into his helmet, for the loyal dog beside him, whose paw rested on the man’s leg, a silent declaration of the bond between them. She got close enough to read the inscription on the base, and her throat tightened impossibly.
“Not Forgotten Fountain”
“In everlasting memory of all the heroic war dogs who served, died, and were left behind in the VietnamWar.”
She glanced back at the main monument. “That one makes me proud,” she said, barely able to get the words out, “but this one makes me cry.”
“Not one of our better moments,” Logan agreed. “Leaving them behind like they were just old equipment we didn’t need anymore.”
“We betrayed them. I’m just thankful we stopped that hideous practice.”
“Sometimes we’re slow to learn, but we do learn.” Logan bent and swirled his fingers through the water in the base of the fountain. “And now we’ve got a place for any dog to drink from when they visit.”
“Thank you, Mr. Burnam,” she said softly, using the name on the base and knowing John Burnam, a former dog handler himself in that awful war, was the moving force behind all of this.
She wiped at her eyes as she stood silently looking at the fountain, at the trust implied in that simple gesture, the paw upon the leg. And then she looked up, to see Logan watching her with an expression she couldn’t name, except that it warmed her, even on this sunny April day.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to get all weepy on you.”
“Don’t. Do not apologize for being able to feel so deeply about something like this. It’s admirable. It’s…beautiful. You’re—”
He cut himself off sharply. Her brain wanted to finish his sentence for him, wanted to finish it as “You’re beautiful.”
She felt suddenly off-balance, in a way she couldn’t blame entirely on her emotional reaction to this tribute. So off-balance that she wished she’d driven over here herself, instead of now having to ride back to her car with him. He was acting as if he felt the same way, remaining silent until they reached where she was parked. She wanted to make some light, cheerful remark, maybe a joke about where they might collide next, but she couldn’t seem to do it. When he dropped her off, even though he politely waited until she was in her car and had it started, he said only, “Drive safe.”
She sat there, hands on the wheel, but unable to quite move her hand to put it in gear. And she tried not to think that that could be the description of her entire life, since David had died.
*
Logan watched the road as he drove back to Last Stand, but part of his mind was on something else, the time that rocket attack had hit the forward-operating base he was stationed at. He’d heard the first hit, instantly ordered his crew to dive for shelter. Bare seconds later the hangar they’d been working in had been rubble. After the shock of the near miss, he’d gone a little weak in the knees, feeling hot and cold at the same time.
He felt that way now. Like he’d had a near miss. Like he’d barely escaped disaster.
It was her reaction to the Not Forgotten Fountain that had made him nearly slip the leash. He nearly groaned aloud at the aptness of the dog metaphor.
With a conscious effort, he managed not to spend half his time looking for her car in the rearview mirror. She’d gotten here fine, she could certainly cover the seventy or so miles back to Last Stand without him dogging her.
Yet another dog metaphor.
He did groan aloud at that one. Why not, since there was no one to hear him? No one in that passenger seat she’d just occupied. Which he could imagine her in regularly. She’d taken no offense at the rather worn interior of the cab, or if she had she hadn’t voiced it. He had a habit of tossing his worn gloves and any material they’d accumulated when working at the forge or with a torch, and the heavy leather apron that kept the sparks from igniting his clothing, into the footwell on the passenger side, and as no one usually sat there he took his time about cleaning that out. But she had simply climbed in and dodged the debris and brushed off his apology for the state of things with those words that had made him feel…he wasn’t sure what.
Because you work and work hard out of it. That’s nothing to apologize for.
Her tone had been both approving and admiring, something he had to admit had felt good. Very good. Too good.
Didn’t learn your lesson with Gretchen?
His jaw tightened at just the thought of the disaster that had been.
But this wasn’t the same. At all. There was simply no comparison between Tris and the flashy, image-conscious woman who’d picked him up in a bar and lured him into a relationship he’d never understood until much later, when he’d finally realized she’d been using him as a merit badge of sorts, to show off to her friends how egalitarian she was, a woman like her dating a mere blacksmith.
He might not be sure of much else, but Trista Carhart was not that kind of woman.
A memory struck him then, of the dedication ceremony at the opening of the high school sports complex that had been part of David Carhart’s redesign. He’d only seen video of it on the local news that night, but even then it had struck him, the way the architect’s beautiful wife had looked at him with such love and pride. In fact, it had been one of the things that had awakened him to the difference in the way Gretchen looked at him.
It had left him in a ruefully painful position. Stay with Gretchen because, at least for now she wanted him, or go on alone, hoping one day he might find a woman who would look at him that way, as if he was all she needed in this sometimes crazy world. He wasn’t sure exactly how much that image had had to do with it, but two weeks later he put an end to whatever that relationship had been, even knowing the likelihood of him finding something better was slim to none.
As he reached the city limits of Last Stand, he was wishing he’d thought to ask Tris where she planned to go next weekend.
Whether it was so he could avoid her or be there, he wasn’t sure.