Chapter 2
Dean
The bell over the door chimes as it swings shut behind me, and the familiar smell of Maggie's Place wraps around me like a well-worn blanket.
Bacon grease and fresh coffee. Vinyl booths and chrome accents.
A jukebox in the corner playing something twangy that nobody asked for but everybody tolerates.
The checkered floor is scuffed from decades of boots—military and civilian alike—and the walls are covered in faded photos of airmen and soldiers who've passed through over the years.
Some of them are legends now. Some of them are gone.
All of them ate Maggie's Ridgeburgers and probably spilled their secrets to the woman who runs this place.
"Well, well, well." Javi leans back in the red leather booth, arms spread wide like he's welcoming me to my own execution. "If it isn't Pine Valley's most wanted fugitive."
"The dog ran. I chased. End of story."
"That's not what I heard."
"What did you hear?"
"That you got your ass handed to you by a five-foot-nothing veterinarian while the soon to be retired highly trained military K9 sat there like a golden retriever at a petting zoo. The Air Force won’t let you adopt him if you can’t handle him."
Ranger, currently sprawled under the table with zero shame, doesn't even lift his head. Traitor.
"Flyboy." Maggie O'Rourke appears at the booth with a coffee pot already in hand, because she always knows. Red hair streaked with gray, apron permanently stained, and a smile that makes you feel like you're home even when you're two thousand miles from it. "Heard you had an exciting afternoon."
"Does everyone in this town have a police scanner tuned to my personal humiliation?"
"Don't need a scanner, sweetheart." She fills my mug without asking.
"Jet saw Ranger tear past the Rusty Spur.
Sophie watched you sprint after him from her bookstore window.
And Mrs. Patterson called her sister, who called me, to say there was a 'very handsome young man looking very flustered' outside the vet clinic. "
"Mrs. Patterson thinks I'm handsome?"
"Mrs. Patterson is eighty-three and has cataracts. Don't let it go to your head."
Javi snorts into his coffee.
Maggie's eyes drop to where Ranger is pretending to be invisible under the table. "And how's my favorite troublemaker? You give your daddy a heart attack today?"
"He's not my—" I stop, because arguing semantics with Maggie is like arguing with the weather.
Ranger's officially retiring from the K9 unit next month, and the adoption paperwork is already filed, but until then he's still Air Force property.
"He's fine. Just decided to conduct an unauthorized tour of downtown. "
"Mmhm." Maggie's knowing look could cut glass. "Ended up at Dr. O'Connor's clinic, I hear."
"Coincidence."
"Right." She tucks the coffee pot under her arm. "The vet's a good one. Sharp. Doesn't take any nonsense."
"I didn't notice."
Javi's snort turns into a full laugh. Maggie just smiles—the kind of smile that says she's been watching soldiers fall for women in this town since before I was born and she's not fooled by any of my bullshit.
"Holler if you need anything, boys." She heads toward the counter, pausing to refill three other mugs on the way without anyone asking.
The woman's a mind reader. It's unsettling.
"So." Javi plants his elbows on the table, leaning forward with the gleeful malice of a best friend who's about to make my life miserable. "The vet."
"What about her?"
"She pretty?"
"Didn't notice."
"Liar."
"She had my dog in her face. There wasn't a lot of time for observation."
"But you noticed she was sharp. And doesn't take nonsense."
"Maggie said that, not me."
"You didn't disagree."
Ranger shifts under the table, pressing his nose against my boot. Even the dog is judging me.
"Fine." I drag a hand through my hair, which is probably still a disaster from sprinting six blocks in the Colorado altitude. "She's... competent."
"Competent."
"Very competent. Handled Ranger like she'd been working with military K9s her whole life. Gave me advice about stress-chewing that I'm pretty sure was also an insult about my dog-handling skills."
"Sounds like your type."
"I don't have a type."
"Your type is anyone who doesn't immediately fall for your charm. It's a sickness, Bingo."
The name lands like it always does—a small, embarrassing punch to the ego. Sixteen years later, and it still makes me wince.
"Don't call me that."
"It's your call sign."
"It's a call sign I got because you dared me to—"
"I dared you to sing 'Happy Birthday' over comms. You're the one who decided to up the ante."
The memory surfaces, vivid and mortifying. Flight training. A bet that seemed hilarious after four beers. The moment of pure, adrenaline-fueled stupidity when I keyed my radio during a live exercise and screamed "BINGO" at the top of my lungs for absolutely no tactical reason.
The instructor's silence had lasted approximately three seconds.
The laughter had lasted sixteen years and counting.
"I was young," I mutter into my coffee.
"You were twenty-two."
"Basically, a child."
"You were a commissioned officer."
"And yet..."
Javi's mouth curls, and despite everything, I feel the corner of mine twitch to match.
"So, what's the plan?" Javi asks, mercifully moving on. "You gonna go back to the clinic? Manufacture some fake dog emergency?"
"I'm not going to manufacture a fake dog emergency."
"You could say he's limping."
"He's not limping."
"He could be limping. Ranger, buddy—" Javi snaps his fingers under the table. "Do Uncle Javi a favor and develop a limp."
Ranger's ears perk at his name. He does not develop a limp.
"I'm not going back to the clinic," I say, more firmly this time. "She made it very clear that Ranger doesn't need a follow-up."
"And you're just going to accept that?"
"Yes."
"Since when do you accept defeat?"
"It's not defeat. It's respecting boundaries."
Javi stares at me like I've grown a second head. "Who are you and what have you done with Dean Mercer?"
The question lands differently than he intends. I take a long sip of coffee, watching the steam curl up from the mug, and don't answer.
The truth is, I don't know.
The charm used to come easy. The flirting, the jokes, the confidence that made everything feel like a game I was winning.
Somewhere along the line—somewhere between deployment three and deployment four, between letters that stopped coming and calls that got shorter—the charm started feeling like a costume I couldn't take off.
The squad is family. Javi, the others, even Ranger in his own chaotic way. But family isn't the same as someone. Someone who knows your real name before your call sign. Someone who's there when you come home, not just when you ship out.
Someone who looks at you like they see past the flight suit and the smile and the bullshit.
The way she looked at me.
I'm not most people.
No. She definitely isn't.
"Hey." Javi's voice cuts through the spiral. "You good?"
"Yeah." I set down the mug, forcing a grin. "Just tired. Ranger ran me all over downtown, remember?"
Javi doesn't look convinced, but he lets it slide.
"Speaking of Ranger." He pulls out his phone, scrolls for a second. "You hear about the new kennel project?"
"The what?"
"Base is upgrading the K9 facilities. New kennels, training yards, the whole deal. Brass is bringing in some kind of veterinary consultant to oversee the specs."
"Huh." I take another sip of coffee. "That's good. The current setup's pretty outdated."
"Yeah, Top wants all handlers to attend the briefing next week. You're not a handler, but he mentioned you specifically."
"Why would Top mention me?"
"Probably because your family literally runs one of the most well-known K9 security operations in Texas and he thinks you might have useful input."
Right. That.
The Mercer family legacy. My father's military career, followed by almost twenty years building Iron Creek K9 into the kind of operation that gets government contracts and magazine profiles. My older brother, Wade, running the show now, expanding into private security, building something real.
And me, a thousand miles away in a flight suit, chasing my dog through downtown Pine Valley because I couldn't even keep a lead from fraying.
"I'm a pilot," I say. "Not a handler."
"You grew up around working dogs. You probably know more about K9 programs than half the actual handlers on base."
"Knowing about something isn't the same as being qualified."
"Tell that to Top. He seems to think you're an asset."
The word settles uncomfortably in my chest. Asset. Like I'm a resource to be deployed rather than a person making choices about his own life.
My phone buzzes. A text from Wade, because the universe has a sense of humor.
Wade: How's Colorado? Mom wants to know if you're eating enough.
I type back.
Me: Fine. Tell Mom I had a vegetable this week.
His response is immediate.
Wade: A French fry doesn't count.
Me: It came from a potato. Potatoes are vegetables.
Wade: You're a disaster. Call home sometime.
I pocket the phone without responding. Calling home means questions about re-enlistment. Questions about the future. Questions I don't have answers to yet.
Maggie swings by with a fresh pot, tops off both our mugs even though mine's still half full. "You boys eating, or just taking up space?"
"Two Ridgeburgers," Javi says. "And whatever Ranger's allowed to have."
"Ranger gets a plain patty and a bowl of water, same as always." Maggie winks at me. "That dog eats better here than most of my human customers."
She disappears toward the kitchen, and Javi kicks my foot under the table.
"So, you'll come to the briefing? For the kennel thing?"
"I'll think about it."
"Top's going to make it an order if you don't volunteer."
"Then he can make it an order."
Javi shakes his head, but there's no heat in it. "Stubborn bastard."
"It's part of my charm."
"What charm? The vet clearly wasn't impressed."
Ranger chooses this moment to emerge from under the table and plant his head in my lap. His big brown eyes stare up at me with what I can only describe as hope.
"Don't look at me like that," I tell him. "We're not going back to the clinic."
His tail thumps once against the booth.
"I mean it."
Another thump.
Javi nearly chokes on his coffee. "You're already gone, aren't you? One encounter with a pretty vet and you're negotiating with your dog."
"I have conversations with my dog all the time. He's a good listener."
"He's a dog."
"An excellent dog who doesn't judge me."
Ranger licks my hand, which feels like judgment.
The burgers arrive, massive and dripping with Maggie's secret sauce, and the conversation shifts to safer territory. Training schedules. The new lieutenant who keeps getting lost on base. Whether Javi's crush on the barista at Timberline Espresso is ever going to turn into an actual conversation.
Normal stuff. Easy stuff.
But underneath it, my mind keeps circling back.
Her steady hand on Ranger's fur. The way her chin lifted when I underestimated her. The laugh she tried to hide when she saw my call sign.
Bingo. It suits you.
The sun's starting to set by the time we leave Maggie's, painting the Rockies in shades of orange and pink that never get old no matter how many times I see them. Javi heads toward his truck with a wave and a final jab about my love life, and then it's just me and Ranger on the sidewalk.
The walk back to base is fifteen minutes if I take the shortcut through town. Twenty if I go the long way, past the shops and the bookstore and the veterinary clinic with the hand-painted sign.
I take the long way.
The clinic's closed now, lights off, CLOSED sign hanging in the window. But I slow down anyway, like an idiot, like a teenager with a crush instead of a grown man with a career and responsibilities and a dog who's already caused enough trouble for one day.
Ranger stops too. Sits at my heel without being told, staring at the dark windows like he's waiting for something.
"She's not in there, buddy."
His ears swivel toward me, then back to the clinic.
"And even if she was, we're not—this isn't—" I scrub a hand over my face. "We're going back to base. That's it. Professional distance."
Ranger huffs and starts walking again, and I follow, because apparently my highly trained military K9 is now leading this relationship.
The base gates come into view, familiar and solid, and PFC Brooks waves us through with an enthusiastic salute that makes me feel ancient.
Home. Such as it is. A small house on base, a closet full of uniforms, a stack of paperwork that includes re-enlistment forms I've been avoiding for three weeks.
Ranger trots beside me, completely unbothered by the existential weight of his handler's life choices.
"You think Pine Valley vets ever consult on base projects?" I ask him as we reach my quarters. "Like, professionally?"
He looks up at me, tongue lolling.
I push through the door and flip on the light. The re-enlistment paperwork sits on my desk where I left it, untouched.
Ranger circles twice and drops onto his bed with a contented sigh.
At least one of us knows what he wants.