She regarded Bogart thoughtfully. “That’s quite remarkable.”
James grinned with pride. “Bogart has a sixth sense about such things.”
“You need to keep that in mind.” Yardley then bent down and gave the Malinois a big hug. “Good boy! Such a smart boy, too.”
James waited patiently as Yardley lavished affection on his partner. Her voice became light and girlish when she dealt with the dogs. Then her smile would betray the sensuous woman behind the military posture. She was an enigma in a male-dominated field of K-9 law enforcement. Once in the armed services, she had left to train K-9s. Yet she commanded the respect of a general whenever she entered a room or came on the training field. It didn’t hurt that she was one helluva good-looking woman.
Not that you could mention that around her. She was tall and lean but with curves in all the right places. She had eyes so black rumor was she was part Apache. But then there was that long dark red hair, almost mahogany, usually stuck under a fatigue cap. Her strong-boned face held a hint of sensuality most often disguised with a no-nonsense expression. Her friends called her Yard. Everyone else called her ma’am.
James wondered from time to time what sort of man would be able to get behind those defenses and claim the woman only rarely glimpsed, like now? So far, he’d seen every man who tried get shot down. He hoped he’d be around when that changed.
Yardley came to her feet, produced a ball from her pocket and threw it. Bogart was off like a missile, chasing it. “What happened with Ms. Appleton’s boyfriend?”
“Her ex.” James flexed his shoulders, revealing more than he knew. “I leaned on him a little.”
“Can’t she take care of herself?” Yardley’s tone was that of a woman who wouldn’t need a dog or a man’s help to put anyone in his place.
That question had been on James’s mind, too. “She was doing okay with Bogart around.”
Yardley frowned. “You think she’s still in danger?”
He retrieved a ball from his pocket as Bogart waited patiently for another toss. “Not really my business. She made that clear.”
Yardley nodded. “Then she’s got some grit. Good.”
She took the ball from James and sent it sailing away. Bogart hustled after it as if it were a sirloin steak.
Yardley used the pause in conversation to think about what she should do next.
She knew more about her K-9 teams’ private lives than most trainers. It was that kind of a business. Man or woman, and dog, needed to be part of a support system, an extended K-9 family, which included keeping up with one another’s business, even if it was personal. Everything affected the bond between officer and canine. Nothing could be allowed to come permanently between that. When something did, they often needed help to work it out quickly, or they would fail.
While visiting a German breeder two years ago to observe their methods for selecting dogs to be trained, Yardley had had a chance to watch Bogart come into his own. And fell a little in love with this scrappy runt of the litter.
Bogart needed a master who knew when to hold him back, and when to get out of his way. From the beginning, James seemed to have an intuition about that delicate balance. But today, everything possible had gone wrong. Now there was something else in the mix.
She could tell James’s preoccupation had something to do with the young woman named Shay. Bogart had bonded with her quickly. Perhaps James had, too. There was no way to know how important she was to them. And neither man nor dog was going to be back in top form until that issue had been worked out.
She seldom made command decisions for her teams, but she wasn’t above steering from the rear.
“I’ll sign off on your readiness for duty, temporarily, but I’m going to recommend sending you and Bogart down to a place near Raleigh where you can get an intensive week of retraining. A sort of K-9 boot camp.”
James looked startled. “I’d prefer to work with you, ma’am.”
“I’d like that, too, James. But I’ve got a special forces team coming in to learn parachute jump techniques with their K-9s starting on Monday. I won’t have the time or manpower to spare for you for several weeks.”
“I don’t know how my chief will react to the idea of giving me more leave after all the time I took off to look for Bogart.”
“You leave Joshua to me.”
It surprised James that she referred to his senior officer by his first name. He didn’t know what her relationships were or how high up they went in both law enforcement and national security. But clearly, she had access to every power security player who mattered. If she wanted him at a K-9 boot camp for a weeklong refresher course, that’s where he was going.
But first he had to settle the matter of his partner’s disappearance.
CHAPTER ELEVEN