Chapter 24
Logan
I’d been in the barn since five, and the morning had a shape to it I didn’t love.
The stalls were mucked and the feed rounds were done.
Duchess had taken her joint supplement buried under a fistful of alfalfa because she would rather starve than cooperate without a bribe.
The hose was coiled, the aisle was swept, and I was replacing a latch on the tack room door while Tova dozed in the center of the aisle with her chin on her paws and her ears twitching at sounds only she could hear.
It was a normal Pawsitive morning, normal work, except today, Lark was going to call her parents and ask them for money.
She couldn’t put it off any longer.
We’d sat at her kitchen table until midnight going over what she would say. Rehearsing. Although she refused to call it that. “I’m not rehearsing. I’m strategizing. There’s a difference.” There wasn’t, but I let her have it.
She laid out the approach: the amount she needed, the repayment timeline, the five years of documented outcomes at Pawsitive that any reasonable person would find compelling. All of it was organized and clean. She was treating this like a business transaction, not a call to family.
Because evidently, business was her parents’ love language, if they had one at all.
I’d played her mother. Not because I’d met the woman, but because Lark had told me enough that I could fill the gaps.
I asked the questions her mother might ask, the ones designed to remind Lark that she’d made the wrong choices and this was proof.
She answered every single one without flinching.
Her voice stayed level and her jaw stayed set.
Her hands shook the entire time. And I fucking hated the words coming out of my mouth.
Lark had accepted my offer to be beside her today when she made the call. That alone told me what kind of day this was going to be.
If there was one thing I knew about Lark, it was that she did not accept help easily.
She redirected it, outpaced it, or buried it under so much caretaking that nobody noticed she was the one drowning.
The fact that she’d said yes meant she knew today was going to hurt, and she was letting me be close enough to see it.
But we had to get through Gimbal’s pickup first. The new owner was coming by sometime late morning. Lark had been in the training ring since sunrise running the standard poodle through final commands, doing the handoff prep she always did before a placement.
Gimbal had been ready for a week. The prep wasn’t for the dog.
I tightened the last screw on the latch and tested the swing. It held.
“One more thing off the list,” I told Tova.
She exhaled through her nose without opening her eyes.
I was reaching for the next task when my phone rang. The screen showed Isaac Baxter, and the guilt was instant.
The last time we’d talked was a text exchange weeks ago, right after I’d left Warrior Security. Isaac had vouched for me to Hunter, arranged the whole thing, and I’d repaid him by quitting without a word and then going quiet when he reached out.
He’d told me things had changed for him. Told me he’d been hurt and was recuperating. I never followed up on any of it, because I’d been too deep in my own shit to be a decent friend.
I picked up. “Hey.”
“There he is.” Isaac’s voice came through friendly and unhurried, not a trace of anything I deserved to hear. “The glorified ranch hand. How’s life among the animals?”
“Good. Better than good, actually.”
“Better than good.” I could hear him grinning. “That’s new vocabulary for you, brother. You want to tell me what changed, or do I have to guess?”
“Believe me, I know better than to tell you any details.”
“That means there’s a woman. I can hear it in your voice. Logan Stroud said ‘better than good,’ which means either you met someone or you found one hell of a dog.”
I leaned against the stall door. Tova cracked one eye open and looked at me.
“Both, if we’re being honest.”
His laugh was full and warm, the kind that came from real delight and not performance. “I need the whole story. Start from the beginning.”
I let out a heartfelt sigh. There was no getting out of giving him at least a little. “Her name is Lark Monroe. She runs Pawsitive. And that’s all you’re getting.”
“So coy. You’re terrible at giving juicy details. You’ve always been terrible at it. I don’t know why I keep trying.” A beat. “But I’m glad, Logan. I mean that.”
The easy warmth of it sat in my chest. I’d forgotten how simple it was to talk to Isaac. He never held things against you. He just kept showing up.
“I should have called you back,” I said. “Weeks ago. Checked on you. I’m sorry, man.”
“All good, brother.” He said it clean, no residue. “Besides, I’ve had my own situation.”
“Yeah? Having to do with your scuffle?”
“Yeah. But more. So much more.” His voice dropped into a register I had never heard from Isaac Baxter, quieter and steadier, as if the ground under him had shifted and he’d found new footing on top of it. “Her name is Fallon.”
I straightened up. Isaac dated. He charmed his way through rooms and cities and entire social circles without leaving a mark on himself.
That was part of who he was, and he’d never pretended otherwise.
Zodiac Tactical knew what they had in Isaac and used it: an operative who looked like a movie star but could fight like a SEAL.
But the way Isaac had just said this woman’s name had nothing to do with any of that.
“Tell me about her.”
“I’m still working on the words. I’ll have to tell you face-to-face the next time I see you.”
“Now who’s being coy? That could be months.”
Gravel crunched outside the barn. I glanced at my watch, and it was just past ten thirty. That would be Gimbal’s owner.
“I’ve got to go, man,” I said. “We’ve got a client stopping by this morning.”
I walked out of the barn with Tova at my heels. A black SUV had stopped in front of the house, the engine still ticking.
The driver’s door opened, and Isaac Baxter stepped out with his phone pressed to his ear, grinning at me across twenty feet of Montana dirt.
I stopped walking.
“Surprise, asshole,” he said, into the phone and to my face at the same time.
I dropped my phone to my side. “You son of a bitch.”
He pocketed his and came toward me. He looked good, his brown hair a little longer on top than whenever I’d seen him last. He still moved with the easy confidence that made him the first person anyone noticed in a room.
But he was favoring his left side, and when I pulled him into a hug, he drew back from the pressure on his ribs.
“You’re hurt worse than you let on.”
“I’m healing. There’s a difference.” He held me at arm’s length and looked at me carefully. “You look better. You look like you’re actually sleeping.”
“I am. Most nights now.”
“That’s progress.” He squeezed my shoulder once and let go, then looked down at Tova, who had planted herself at my feet and was studying him with the steady, assessing gaze of a dog who took her job seriously. “And who is this?”
“Tova. She’s mine.” The words still felt new in my mouth, even now. “Long story. Helps me with nightmares.”
The passenger door opened.
This had to be Fallon. She stepped out, and the first thing I registered was the deliberateness. Every movement was chosen, each step placed with precision, and underneath the control was a stiffness I recognized from being around enough injured people to know what managed pain looked like.
She was slender, black hair pulled up, and when her gaze landed on me, I understood what Isaac hadn’t been able to put into words on the phone.
Her eyes were gray and direct and arresting, and they took in the entire property in one sweep before settling on me. She didn’t offer a smile; she assessed.
“Logan, this is Fallon.” Isaac’s voice went quiet when he said her name. “Fallon, the brother I told you about.”
Her handshake was brief and firm. “He talks about you.”
“Don’t believe any of it.”
She gave a half smile. “Oh, I know how untrustworthy this one is.”
She was already looking past me toward the barn. Her whole body had oriented toward the sound of Lark’s voice carrying from the training ring, and I watched the shift happen in real time. Whatever polite interest she’d had in me was gone.
The connection landed. They were here for Gimbal, the hEDS service dog Lark had been training. Fallon had hEDS. Isaac had arranged the service dog for her after our text messages.
I looked at him. He met my eyes and gave a small nod.
“You could have told me,” I said.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Lark came around the corner of the barn with Gimbal at her side.
The standard poodle moved with the clean, attentive gait of a dog who knew she was working, her dark curly coat catching the light, her head up and her focus matched to Lark’s pace.
Lark had her clipboard tucked under one arm and a pen behind her ear, and she was already smiling before she reached us.
She shook Fallon’s hand and then Isaac’s, warm and easy, and I watched her clock Fallon’s careful movement without making a thing of it: no hovering, no fuss, no concerned tilt of the head. She went straight to the dog.
“This is Gimbal,” Lark said and knelt beside the poodle. “She’s been waiting for you. Let me show you what she can do.”
They moved into the training ring together, and Isaac and I followed to watch. I hooked my arms over the paddock fence. Isaac settled in beside me. Tova lay down in the shade near our feet.
Lark walked Fallon through Gimbal’s training with the ease of someone who had done this dozens of times but had never once treated it as routine.
The brace command came first. Lark gave Fallon a gentle push at the shoulder, and Gimbal pressed her body against Fallon’s leg, solid and immediate, a living support to lean into when her joints wouldn’t hold.
“Do it again,” Fallon said, voice surprised.