Chapter 4
Normally, Noah would call himself a master multitasker. He had to be in order to handle the intricacies of search and rescue. And investigative reporting too, for that matter.
Okay, that wasn’t the problem. If those were the only things on his mind, he’d be golden. But a certain blonde USFS officer had wound her way into his very molecules and dug in.
Sabrina.
Yesterday, he’d gotten busy and she’d drifted away from him at the recovery site, then he’d lost sight of her. It had gotten late, and Dancer needed some downtime before he burned out, so Noah had bugged out of there, regretfully, without Sabrina’s phone number.
And calling up the USFS office to casually ask for her felt pathetic. Especially since she hadn’t sought him out either.
Also pathetic? Hanging out at the K-9 training facility in hopes of running into her.
The training facility sprawled behind the main police building, a complex maze of specialized areas designed to challenge both dogs and handlers. From his position near the covered break area, Noah could see officers coming and going from the department’s main entrance.
What he could not see was a reason why Sabrina would darken the door of the police station, but it was all he had. No one would question him if he spent the entire day here. Multitasking. Allegedly.
“You’re kind of a disaster today,” he told Dancer as they lined up for another practice run. His partner gave him a look that clearly said Noah was the disaster in this partnership. Fair enough. The dog had never met a task he couldn’t focus on completely.
Meanwhile, Noah’s attention could generously be called split.
Because after a long dry spell of not being an investigative reporter, all of a sudden, a story had dropped into his lap.
Coincidence? It didn’t feel like it. He hadn’t given up investigative reporting because he felt done with it.
More like it was on hold. Now that he’d been presented with a mystery to solve, a story to pursue, he could admit the vague restlessness he’d been experiencing lately would only be addressed by diving into the reason a body had turned up in the Dark Canyon Wilderness.
Something about the whole situation made his blood rush, the way it used to when he was on the verge of breaking a story wide open.
Officer West had more than a little to do with that too.
“Let’s run the advanced recovery sequence,” he told Dancer, pushing thoughts of fierce female officers aside. For the moment. “Hunt.”
Dancer moved with fluid precision through the complex scenario they’d set up, following the scent trail Noah had laid earlier.
This was the kind of work that had earned them their reputation—deliberate, technical and precise.
The dog paused at a junction of crossing trails, nose working the air before confidently choosing the correct path.
“Nice work,” Noah murmured. He should be taking notes. The article he was supposed to be writing was all about these advanced discrimination techniques. Instead, his mind kept overlaying the search grid from yesterday’s recovery, mapping how the victim’s position related to the natural terrain.
The laptop waited on a nearby table, his article notes a jumble of false starts and trailing thoughts. He pulled it open while Dancer took a water break.
Advanced scent discrimination requires a careful balance of instinct and training. The handler must—
Must what? Follow the evidence? Trust their gut when patterns emerge?
The case of why a dead woman had ended up buried under a pile of rock had all the hallmarks of something bigger.
His cursor blinked as his old instincts rose to the surface.
He had a whole folder of articles he’d written about similar cases.
Young women found in remote locations, staged to look like accidents.
“Got a minute?” Steve from the K-9 unit interrupted his dangerous train of thought. “We could use your expertise with Kelly’s new shepherd. He’s struggling with scent differentiation.”
“Sure.” Noah closed the laptop before he could fall deeper into that research hole, actually grateful for the distraction.
The other handlers were good guys, completely dedicated to their specialized training routines.
He needed to focus on his day job until he had time to really dig into the story forming in his mind.
There was actual work to do, the kind that paid the bills, but not if he slacked off chasing a few leads that didn’t exist yet.
Kelly, a newer freelancer from Telluride, stood with her young shepherd in the complex trails area they used for discrimination training.
The dog had potential—great nose, solid work ethic—but Noah could see the tension in his body language.
Whatever was throwing him off had been building for a while.
“Walk me through what’s happening,” Noah said, shifting into teaching mode. Complex search problems were his sweet spot—when he could focus on them. Dancer sat at attention, always ready to demonstrate proper technique.
“He keeps losing the trail,” Kelly explained, frustration evident in her voice. “Does great with simple tracks but fails when we add crossing patterns. Gets distracted by older scents.”
Now this was familiar ground. Noah pulled out training aids from his vest. “Let’s break it down. Dancer, show them the sequence.”
His partner’s ears perked up. They’d developed this demonstration over years of working with new teams. Noah laid out scent articles in a pattern, explaining each step. “The key is building their confidence with discrimination. Let them work it out instead of trying to force the issue.”
Dancer moved through the sequence with practiced ease, showing how to work crossing patterns without losing the primary scent. The shepherd watched intently, and Noah could practically see the wheels turning in the younger dog’s mind.
Kelly shifted closer than strictly necessary as Noah demonstrated the pattern layout. Her light floral perfume invaded his space.
“You make everything look so easy,” she said, her smile bright and wide.
She’d been dropping hints for weeks that she’d like to get coffee sometime.
Honestly, he couldn’t put his finger on why he hadn’t taken her up on it.
Kelly’s long brown hair curled up at the ends, and she always wore subtle makeup that accented her eyes perfectly, as if she’d spent a long time in front of the mirror perfecting her look.
In short, exactly his type. Beautiful. They had K-9 handling in common. And it would be easy. Not a lot of effort on his part.
Maybe that was the problem. Falling into a casual relationship with a pretty woman who would do all the work didn’t sound very appealing.
He wanted passion. Fire. Explosions. A reason to wake up every morning and an even better one to draw him to bed each night. He wanted intense.
Sabrina’s fierce blue eyes appeared in his mind’s eye again, and just thinking about her put a hum in his gut. Poor Kelly couldn’t hope to compare.
Dancer moved through the sequence with practiced ease, showing how to work crossing patterns without losing the primary scent. The shepherd watched intently while Kelly used the opportunity to brush against Noah’s arm as she asked another question about scent discrimination.
His phone buzzed. Excellent.
He bobbled it out of his pocket like a stupid, eager teenager when, normally, he ignored the thing. Real interaction floated his boat most days, but right this second, he was thrilled to have a distancing mechanism. “Apologies, let me get this.”
It was a text message from Jacob.
Mark’s gone AWOL again. Not answering calls. I’m worried about him.
Noah’s chest tightened. Mark had been different since quitting the Army—quieter, more withdrawn. Now this mysterious security job? Something was definitely up with his older brother, and that sat like a rock in Noah’s gut.
The Coltons looked out for each other. Always had. He’d moved back to Dark Canyon to be closer to his family. He should be more on top of what was going on with them.
“Sorry,” he told Kelly, ignoring her flirtatious smile. “Need to handle something with my brother. Give me five?”
Her disappointment was clear, but Noah was already moving toward the break area, typing out another message to Jacob:
Noah: Have you tried stopping by his place?
Jacob: He’s never there.
Noah: I’ll track him down this week.
He’d been so busy lately he hadn’t checked on Mark in person. That needed to change.
“Sorry,” he told Kelly, deliberately halting a solid six feet away from her as he pocketed his phone. “Family stuff. Where were we with the training sequence?”
Her smile dimmed slightly as she registered his distance, but at least she didn’t close the gap. “The crossing patterns?”
Dancer nudged his hand, grounding him like always. Noah was here to help with training issues, and he owed it to her to be present. He smiled in a way that hopefully conveyed, Never going to happen, without being too insulting.
She gestured to where her shepherd paced, eager to try again. “You were saying something about confidence.”
“Yeah. Watch how Dancer processes each intersection.” He set up a new pattern, more complex this time. “See how he slows down, really works the scent before committing? That’s what we want to build.”
The next hour passed in a blur of demonstrations and adjustments.
Kelly’s shepherd began to show improvement, his movements becoming more deliberate as he gained confidence.
When the training sequences grew a little more rote, Noah left her and her dog to run through their paces solo, which allowed his mind to wander back to those old case files still buried in his laptop.
A few years ago in Colorado, a woman was found in hiking territory wearing city clothes.
The official ruling had been accidental death, but something about the scene had never sat right with him.
He’d started digging, found similar cases in Utah and Wyoming, but his mom had gotten sick before he’d finished that story.
“Earth to Noah.” Steve’s voice broke through his thoughts. “We’re breaking for lunch. You coming?”
“No, I’ve got a few things to catch up on.” Like the article currently stuck on a blinking cursor because he couldn’t focus on basic training protocols when his brain kept spinning bigger stories. “Thanks though.”
After Steve and the others left, Noah pulled up his notes. Maybe if he approached it from a different angle. Write about how working with new teams kept the training fresh. But his fingers had their own ideas, opening that folder of old articles instead.
The similarities were there. He wasn’t imagining them. The clothing, the locations, the careful positioning that looked just a little too perfect.
Dancer’s head settled on his knee with a soft whine. That dog would be an excellent therapy dog if he ever lost his desire to hunt. But for now, he played the part of Noah’s best friend exceptionally well.
Movement near the main building’s entrance caught his eye. Officer Sabrina West strode out of the police department, her purposeful energy drawing his attention like a magnet. Even from this distance, he could see the fierceness and sheer presence that had hooked him yesterday.
“Dancer, heel,” he called automatically, launching himself out of his chair to stride toward Officer West before she vanished again.
As he strode toward the parking lot, the lab fell into perfect heel position because, unlike his handler, he actually had some chill. Noah tried to moderate his pace to something that didn’t scream, Desperately chasing after a woman, but he had a feeling he wasn’t quite pulling it off.
She must have sensed him coming because she glanced over her shoulder well shy of the first row of cars. Intense blue eyes locked on him, her smile edged with something he’d like to call pleasure.
She was happy to see him.
And he liked being the one to put that expression on her face.
“Officer West,” he called, letting his own pleasure lace the phrase with warmth. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“So, this wasn’t an ambush?” she asked, amusement practically dripping from her voice. “The way you came after me felt very focused.”
He lifted a brow. “I’ll own that. There was no way I was letting you slip away a second time.”
“Is that what I did?” Now she was outright laughing at him. “Or did I finish up a grueling fourteen-hour shift and look around to see if I could locate the intriguing SAR expert I’d just met, only to find an empty canyon?”
Noah crossed his arms, his grin widening. “You looked for me?”
The once-over she gave him put a hard flutter in his gut. “Of course. How else would you have had the opportunity to ask me to dinner?”
“Let me correct that grievous oversight immediately. Phone, please.” He held out his hand and curled his fingers in a gimme motion.
She didn’t hesitate, pulling it from a utility pocket in her pants, which was far sexier than he was expecting. “Are you entering your phone number so we can exchange text messages for a few days?”
“No, I’m entering my phone number so you can text me your address. I’m picking you up at seven.”
She laughed again, taking her phone back. “Bold. Efficient. I like that.”
“Life’s too short to waste time playing games. I’d like to get to know you better.” He shrugged. “Why bother pretending otherwise?”
Something flickered in her gaze that gave him the distinct impression she appreciated the sentiment. Good. They were starting out on the same page. Always an excellent place to be.
“Any dietary restrictions or preferences I should know about?” he asked.
“If it fits on a plate, I eat it.” Making a show of tapping on her phone, she glanced up as his buzzed. That same intensity that had drawn him yesterday sparked between them. “See you at seven then.”