Law’s heart jackhammered in anticipation. World’s fucking greatest K-9 team! Fearless. Ferocious. Born fighters.
But there was danger here. No names. No faces. And no backup. CID didn’t trust even other soldiers on a mission like this.
They would need to ratchet it down. Keep things quiet until everything was in place.
“Battise?”
Jori’s voice sent Law’s head swiveling toward her. She hadn’t moved from the spot he’d last seen her.
“Are you okay?” Her expression was neutral but her eyes were a little too wide. She back-stepped when he turned his stone-cold warrior expression on her.
Law watched her with hard eyes, riding the adrenaline surge of his breath moving in and out as reality settled back in around him. Not desert. Mountain. Home. But the danger was real. Sam was real. Sam had alerted to the presense of another, something she’d never done before during their daily perimeter checks.
“Don’t move again until I tell you to. Got that?” The words were said quietly but with such force he felt them in his chest.
He waited until she nodded. Her eyes were too wide and her mouth was slack. Not a good way to start their time together. But he had a job to do. He turned and walked inside.
The main room consisted of a living area with a sofa, TV, and fireplace. His eyes moved systematically left to right as he did a perimeter check of the room. His left hand remained on the handle of his weapon. Above was a loft open to the floor below. Law wasted no time searching there. His focus went to Sam, who still sat beside the table. She wasn’t agitated or looking around in expectation of spying an invader, as even a family pet would do if it suspected a stranger was nearby. Sam’s action was clear. The intruder had had one destination. Law went to the table.
The only thing there was his laptop. Beyond the dining area, sliding doors led onto a back deck. Could someone have gotten in that way? He checked. A cutoff broom handle lay in the door’s track to prevent it from opening even if unlocked.
Satisfied that the intruder was gone, Law walked back toward the front door. As he did so, he refocused his attention on Jori. He’d left her standing alone without explanation. He needed to do something about that.
She stood on the gravel drive where he’d left her. He took a careful breath, taking in the details of her for the first time. She wore a blue turtleneck sweater, puffy vest, leggings, and knee-high boots. The briefest sketch of a smile widened his mouth. The boots matched! Then he saw her face. It was pale and pinched. She was afraid. Of him? It hit him like a punch in the gut.
He stepped onto the porch. “Someone’s been here.”
“Okay.” She didn’t move, but he saw her gaze shift and fasten on his left hand.
He looked down at the Sig Sauer in his hand. When had he pulled his weapon? It was an automatic response to a perceived threat. He holstered it and set the safety. He needed to distract her, fast, before she ran screaming for her life.
“You can come inside.” He made an elaborate gesture of welcome with his hand. “I won’t bite. At least not without an invitation.”
Jori found she couldn’t return his smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. The shaggy wounded veteran who had come to Warriors Wolf Pack three weeks earlier had been a very bitter, angry man. Now something had shifted that anger into purpose. She could hear it in his voice. See it in the gleam in his eyes. She wasn’t at all certain of its origin. Did it have anything to do with his suspected intruder? Or had he slipped into a place where he made up his own reality? And how was she supposed to handle that? Nothing about that was in the doggy training handbook.
Once inside she looked around, trying to sound casual. “Did you find any signs of forced entry?”
He shrugged and wiped at the sweat at the back of his neck from the adrenaline rush of moments before. “I don’t always lock my door. I’ve nothing here I care about.”
She would have cared if she’d lost the laptop she spied on the table. But that didn’t seem a tactful thing to point out just now. “Could it have been kids messing around?”
Law moved to check his kitchen, even opened the refrigerator. “Not kids. They would’ve eaten something. Drunk my beer. Trashed the place looking for money and weapons. Meth heads would have taken the computer to fence. This person wanted something specific. He didn’t mean to leave a trail.”
“Oh.” He still thought there was an intruder.
His jaw began to work. “Go ahead. Say it.”
Jori took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to like her thoughts. She could see it in his expression. But she had seen him moments before. On his face had been the look of a man a million miles away from their reality. Caution told her to take an indirect route.
“Someone would have to be pretty stupid to break into a law enforcement officer’s home.” She pointed to his holstered gun.