Chapter 7
SEVEN
After gate duty ended, Colin found Mac at the kennel fence where they usually met on break when they were in the office.
Mac was leaning against the fence with a look on his face that said he’d spent the last half hour cataloguing something besides Malinois puppies.
Thomas “Mac” MacAllister was about as good-natured as they came, and was teased mercilessly for it at Watchdog.
It didn’t help that Mac reminded everyone of Woody from Cheers.
He was tall, blond, and had nothing but nice things to say about everyone.
To top it off, Mac had grown up in Alberta, Canada and was former RCMP, federal division.
In other words, a Mountie. Before Colin had met him, his idea of Mounties came straight from that old cartoon character, Dudley Do-Right, with red uniform, horse, and hapless damsels tied to railroad tracks.
The truth was RCMP handled organized crime, national security, border integrity, drug trafficking, and outside of Ontario and Quebec, served as the provincial police force.
Colin’s perception of Mac as Dudley Do-Right was quickly corrected the first time he worked beside him. Mac proved to be smart, capable, and absolutely deadly when it came to his job.
But at that moment, Mac looked every inch like a nice, easygoing guy. When he spotted Colin, he raised his hand in greeting, accompanied by a big, open smile.
“Okay,” Mac said. “You just came from the gate, correct?”
“I did.” Colin stopped beside him and looked over the kennel yard, already knowing what was coming and wondering what he could say. Watchdog was a notorious gossip mill.
“Then can you tell me what the heck is going on in there?” Mac jutted his chin toward the offices.
“I was inside when Kyle came tearing out of the big conference room where a couple of new clients are I guess. Next thing, Gina and Lach are making a beeline for the room. Then Kyle’s back with Arden—in tears, mind you—and they’re heading back into it.
Now the whole brain trust is locked in the conference room with the clients. Charlie and Shane, too.”
Colin feigned surprise. He whistled low.
Mac tilted his head at him. “Sorry, but your face is doing that thing it does when you know something.” Mac waited. “Tell me what happened at the gate.”
Colin took a deep breath. As he told Mac about Maren pulling up in the Subaru and asking to see Arden, Mac leaned against the fence post with his arms crossed and the smile he wore when a story was getting good.
“—and she’s got this kid in the back seat,” Colin said, then paused.
Is that him? Are you my daddy?
I can’t tell him about that. Just the thought made Colin a little queasy.
“What’s wrong? You look like a goose stepped on your grave.”
The afternoon had gone quiet around them, the kind of mountain quiet that still caught him off guard sometimes—no traffic sounds, no ambient city hum, just wind moving through the pines around them and the occasional creak of the fence.
“It was the little girl’s eyes,” Colin said. “I need you to understand about the eyes.”
Mac braced. “What about them?”
“You know Arden’s eyes.”
Mac considered this. “Yeah. Silver-gray. Very unusual.” His brow furrowed. “Are you saying…”
“That kid had the exact same eyes. Not similar. The same.”
“So…a cousin?”
“Nope. Her niece.”
Mac was quiet for a moment. “Sean’s eyes,” he finally said.
Colin nodded. “Has to be. Thing is, Arden didn’t know about her.”
Mac whistled. “Holy moly.”
Neither of them had met Sean Volker. They’d come on two years ago, hired into Mountain Division after most of the founding story had already happened—Kyle and Arden falling in love over Camo, buying up the properties on the foothill, installing the gate.
They knew the shape of it the way they knew any team’s mythology: Sean was Arden’s brother, SWCC, killed while trying to extract a SEAL team under fire.
Charlie and Shane had been there. And Camo, who had been a Military Working Dog with the SEALs had guarded Sean’s body and wouldn’t leave him.
Colin didn’t want to ask for more intel than that.
“And the woman is her mother?” Mac asked.
“No. She said she’s the aunt.” Colin shook his head. “She was jumpy. Kept looking behind her. I asked her if she was in immediate danger.” Colin paused. “She said no. But she’d checked over her shoulder before she answered.”
Mac raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“And I don’t know. She was exhausted. Coming off an all-night drive from San Diego. You drive that road solo with a little kid in the back seat, you’re going to be running on fumes by the end regardless.”
“True.” Mac let out a long, low breath. He looked up at the sky. He looked back at Colin. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s—wow.”
“I know.”
“Boss must be out of his mind. Not to mention Arden.”
“That’d be my guess.”
The kennel door swung open.
Camo came trotting out first, scanning the yard like an old pro. Then Jodie, with a squirming Malinois puppy in her arms trying to lick her chin. Beside her was Juniper, beaming up at the puppy.
Then Maren.
Her hand rested on Juniper’s shoulder. She’d taken out her ponytail or it had come down on its own somewhere between the conference room and here.
It was brown with golden highlights in the sun and it was longer than he’d registered back at the gatehouse.
His fingers itched to run through its length.
Stand down, soldier.
He straightened off the rail and put the thought somewhere he wasn’t going to look at it.
“That’s them,” he said quietly.
Mac nodded.
Mac’s whole face softened. “Cute little girl,” he said.
“If you say so.”
“Oh, here we go.” Mac didn’t take his gaze off Juniper. “You don’t like kids.”
“I never said I didn’t like them.” I don’t do kids was a different thing entirely and Mac of all people knew it. “We’ve got a working system. I leave them alone, they leave me alone, everybody comes out happy.”
“That’s not a system. That’s avoidance.”
“It’s a system.”
At that moment Juniper looked up.
She’d been absorbed in the puppy in Jodie’s arms—leaning in to scratch its ear, chattering happily—and then some instinct pulled her head up and her silver-gray eyes found Colin across the yard.
She gave him a small, careful smile. Unmistakably for him. She lifted her hand and waved.
His heart squeezed. He nodded back because he didn’t know what else to do.
Maren was looking at him too. She gave him a warm smile and now his heart was definitely doing things it shouldn’t.
She’s just grateful you let her in and didn’t turn her away. Don’t read anything else into it.
Mac was already moving toward them.
“Hey.” Colin straightened off the rail. “Hey, man…What are you doing?”
“Being polite.” Mac didn’t slow down. “My mama raised me not to stand on the other side of a yard from a kid who waved at me.” He glanced back at Colin, grinning. “Are you coming? The aunt gave you a nice smile.”
“I’m busy working.”
“I think that’s a fib, friend.”
Mac walked across the yard with the loose, cheerful stride of a man approaching a group of friends at a summer barbecue.
Colin fell in a half-step behind because not following would have drawn more attention than following.
At least that’s what he told himself, and not that Maren’s smile was pulling him in like steel to a magnet.
“Ladies,” Mac said, with a tip of an imaginary hat that was somehow not cheesy when he did it. “Looks like you have a puppy situation. Thought we’d better come investigate.”
Jodie’s cheeks pinked up and she quickly looked back down at the puppy trying desperately to lick her chin. “Situation is ongoing,” Jodie said. “Report: very cute but squirmy.”
“I can see that.” Mac reached out to scratch the puppy’s ears and he tried very hard to lick Mac’s fingers. Then he squatted down in front of Juniper and gentled his voice, dialing it down about three notches. “Hi. I’m Mac. What do you think of that guy?” He nodded at the puppy in Jodie’s arms.
Juniper considered Mac, then the puppy. Then she went back to watching Colin.
“She thinks he’s cool enough to name,” Maren said, when it became clear her niece wasn’t going to answer. “Pretzel.”
“Pretzel’s a solid choice,” Mac said, returning his gaze to the puppy. “From Bluey, am I right?” Mac smiled big.
Juni’s mouth twitched. Just barely.
She still didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze on Colin. He felt that silver-eyed gaze like a hand pressing on his sternum and he had no idea what to do with it except stand still and let himself be scrutinized by a preschooler.
Mac glanced up at Colin with barely concealed amusement. “Well,” he said under his breath, “looks like somebody’s got a fan.”
“Don’t,” Colin muttered.
“I’m just saying—”
“I don’t really do kids, okay?” Colin kept his voice low, but Maren was right there. He saw her study him, one eyebrow raised slightly. He felt his ears heat. “But she’s... she’s a good kid.”
Mac’s grin widened. “High praise from you, brother.”
“Hi again,” Juni said.
It took him a second to realize she was talking to him.
“Hi back,” he said.
“You were the first one we met.”
“I was.”
“But you’re not my daddy.”
Mac’s eyes went wide and he damn near tipped backwards, which is what Colin felt like he was about to do as well. Jodie coughed and Maren turned bright red. Juni went back to inspecting the puppy in Jodie’s arms, as if she’d just made a statement about the weather.
“Juni! That’s… um…” Maren looked helplessly back and forth between her niece and Colin. “He’s… It’s…”
“It’s okay,” Colin reassured her in a voice that sounded steadier than he felt. Mac had straightened up and was shaking slightly, trying desperately to hold back a laugh.
Mercifully, the door opened behind them.
Kyle came out first, Lachlan behind him. Gina was right behind them with Fleur trotting at her heel like a ginger-colored shadow. Kyle stopped when he saw them. Colin couldn’t entirely read his expression.