DREW
Again.
The universe pulled him toward bed. Toward blackness and oblivion, at least for a few hours. And he would have kicked off his shoes and succumbed to it if he wasn’t met at the door by a troop of hungry faces.
“Sorry.” He sighed. “I know I’m late.”
He went through the motions, putting food in each of their bowls, adding the correct supplements and medications. Then he patted every one of their heads the way they liked.
The English bulldog was the one to break the tension, of course.
She snuffed and snorted, wiggling at Drew’s feet, more interested in getting her butt rubbed than dinner.
He sighed and sank to the ground to give her what she begged for.
Excitement radiated from her stocky tan and white body as she grabbed a squeaky duck off the floor and presented it to him.
“Pudding, if you don’t eat your dinner, Blitz will,” he muttered.
The border collie glanced up at his name, gave a light wag of his tail, and kept eating. Not a surprise. He burned so many calories just existing, he never missed a single scrap.
Pudding ignored him, turning to rub her burly body against his legs with several delighted snorts. The shepherd, Diesel, was more attuned to the moods of his handler. He came over and quietly lay his head in Drew’s lap, calm and reassuring. Telling Drew he knew he’d tried his best.
Except he hadn’t. He’d failed Rufus and Kyle.
Drew dropped his face into his hands.
Naturally, that’s when his phone rang. He didn’t need to see the screen to know who it was. He didn’t want to answer, but his fingers worked against him.
“We missed you at family dinner,” his mother said in her stolid voice.
“Sorry.” Drew sighed. “Something came up I had to deal with.”
“I’m sure.” She dismissed his excuse with just two words, like she was picking a piece of lint off her sleeve. “Next week, then.”
He closed his eyes and said nothing. He should have flown to North Carolina to get Rufus himself. If he had, he might’ve been able to convince the rescue to give him the dog.
If he’d gotten there before Theo Phipps, that is.
Except . . . he hadn’t known about the will. It was so uncharacteristic of Kyle to cross his T’s and dot his I’s like that. But his brother was always full of surprises.
“And you will be attending the ceremony next weekend?” his mom said in his ear, not asking so much as laying the expectation.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll be there.”
He’d rather chisel Pudding’s dried drool off the ceiling, but he would go.
This was so like his parents. It wasn’t enough to just hold a memorial service for Kyle when he died, pretending he hadn’t taken his own life.
They had to broadcast their grief. Make sure no one important missed their suffering.
And just to ensure they didn’t, it would now take the form of an annual local event.
Drew’s stomach churned. All at once, he was grateful the first actual anniversary of his brother’s choice to leave this world would fall on a weekday.
He would sit in the high school auditorium with his parents next weekend, listening to whatever the principal chose to say based on the award being given and the size of the donation his parents surely made to the PTA.
But on Tuesday, the actual first anniversary, Drew could remove himself from everyone.
Everything. Spend it alone with his thoughts.
His guilt.
Just not Rufus.
“Good. Principal Beck will be announcing the scholarship winner, and it’s important you be there.”
He tried not to snort. In memory of his brother, a US Army dog handler who’d clearly and firmly rejected his parents’ desires for him to follow their paths into medicine, they were going to set up some deserving local kid for medical school.
“Right,” Drew murmured. Affirming and acknowledging what she said, the way he’d learned to in childhood. It was easier if you played along.
He stood abruptly, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. Then he scooped up Pudding’s bowl, putting her behind a gate to finish eating where Blitz couldn’t sneak in and steal from her.
“I need to go now, Mom. See you next week.”
He hung up before she could add anything else. It was champagne cocktail hour anyway—a routine in place well before Kyle died in which his parents got acceptably inebriated every night before bed because their comfortable lives were so hard.
He wandered into the backyard. Blitz followed, having given up on Pudding’s dinner.
Seeing a new opportunity, he snatched up a ball and begged Drew for a task.
The yard wasn’t huge, but Drew had squeezed a set of agility equipment onto the grass.
It was a bit like a hamster wheel for the border collie.
Drew positioned himself in the middle of the makeshift ring and barked a few commands at the black-and-white dog.
And even though he’d already performed a good chunk of the day at PetExpo, Blitz lit right up, racing over the ramps, weaving between poles, and diving through rings like they provided the air he breathed.
The hardest part for him was stopping on the table and waiting a whole five seconds.
This time, he made it about four. And kept going, even when Drew settled into a chair on the small deck and stopped telling him what to do.
The dog found it soothing, so he did too.
Diesel came to the back door, content to watch the younger dog expend his energy, with zero desire to participate.
He glanced at Drew, and they settled in, looking on together.
The old K9 officer had had a long, successful career with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and was just about to enter retirement when his handler’s young son developed severe allergies.
Hardey didn’t know what to do when he couldn’t keep his partner, so he approached Drew, who’d just opened K9 Academy in an effort to lure Kyle back home.
Drew went to great lengths to give Diesel the retirement he deserved.
He’d hoped to do the same for his brother’s dog.
His chest tightened as he wondered briefly how Rufus was spending his night.
Drew had known Theo was involved as soon as the foster contacted him to say his adoption application was denied.
Kyle and Theo had been attached at the hip growing up.
Although they’d entered different branches of the military, they clearly stayed close, and Theo was the only person who might have known or cared where Kyle's dog would end up.
But his sister . . . Drew had never figured in Caprice Phipps.
He’d only briefly encountered her a couple of times when he’d come home from college.
Even as a teenager, she was strikingly beautiful, with her supple brown skin and wide, dark eyes.
Drew couldn’t deny his brother for being drawn in, though he suspected some of Kyle’s infatuation had to do with their parents’ disapproval.
Drew had always watched out for his little brother, made sure he kept his head above water, especially around their mom and dad.
But the moment Caprice came on the scene, she took that from him.
He was surprised when they announced their engagement.
Distressed when his parents instructed him not to attend the wedding.
And relieved when he went anyway and found the bride on her way out.
Kyle was brokenhearted when they finally spoke about it.
All he would say was, “She’s better off without me.
” But when his brother took his life a year later, Drew knew who to blame.
Caprice had played with Kyle, made him dependent, then pushed him away when he needed her most, leaving him to battle his demons alone.
And he lost.
Drew would’ve been content never laying eyes on her again.
But so much stood between him and Kyle, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised to see her at the airport.
Her hair a little different, posture more confident, but still more stunning than he remembered.
Even holding the end of Rufus’s leash, grinding her heel into the last good thing he was trying to do for his brother.
He sipped his water, leaning back in his chair and trying to figure out why Kyle would ever leave his beloved dog to the girl who broke his heart.
The date on the will was recent—within a few months of his death. Maybe Theo coerced him. Maybe she coerced Theo. Except he couldn’t discern why either of them would be interested in a retired, traumatized Belgian Malinois.
She basically said she wasn’t a dog person, though it couldn’t have been more obvious.
She had such a look of revulsion when he caught her staring into the crate.
He watched Theo take the dog to relieve himself before they left, and she stepped away when Rufus sniffed her, clearly more concerned about her outfit than letting him get familiar with her scent.
And now Rufus had to live with her. He hoped he peed on her favorite purse.
Actually, there was a high likelihood he’d do worse than that.
Drew knew little about Rufus’s history aside from the military exercise that sent both him and Kyle to the hospital, and from there into early retirement.
Kyle obviously never recovered, and Drew doubted the dog was doing much better. Especially after losing his handler.
But maybe all Drew needed to do was wait Caprice out.
A day or so with an anxious, traumatized canine would have her rethinking her plan, whatever it was.
He hated that Rufus would have to endure more stress, but after seeing his brother’s signature on the will, it seemed like the only straightforward path to helping him.
Blitz finally broke his circuit, parking himself in front of Drew for his reward. He gave him what he was after—a few liver treats and a quick game of tug—then led all three dogs to the bedroom they shared.
He felt more at ease by the time he fell into bed.
He left the airport lower than he’d been in a year.
Like he failed Kyle—again. But this wasn’t over.
Denver wasn’t that big. He could keep tabs on the situation, wait it out, and be ready when things got desperate.
It would only be a matter of days, maybe hours, before Caprice Phipps had enough of Rufus.
She’d be searching Drew out soon enough, begging him to take the dog.
And he’d be ready when she did.