“Shouldn’t your enlistment be up by now?”
“I re-upped.” Several times. “I’m due to re-up again.” And he would if he could. “Men die if I don’t do my job.”
Her gaze narrowed on Reggie. “If he’s a bomb-sniffing dog that makes you his handler.”
“Becca, you had to have known all this—”
“How would I?” she interrupted. “You never wrote, Owen, except to tell me you wouldn’t be writing.”
He’d had his reasons. They still applied.
“I’m sure there was plenty of scuttlebutt on the Three Harbors grapevine.”
And as the local veterinarian, Becca had to have heard all of it.
“If it concerned you,” she said. “I didn’t listen.”
That shouldn’t hurt, but it did.
Chapter 3
I was being a bitch.
Heard it. Knew it. Couldn’t help it. He made me so damn mad.
Ten years since Owen had left Three Harbors, left me, and he hadn’t come back. You’d think I would have gotten over it, over him.
Guess not.
“I … uh…” Why was I here? What was I doing? “I should check those animals.”
“No one’s stopping you.”
Now he was being a bitch too. Great. I headed for the house.
Owen was different. Why wouldn’t he be? He’d been gone a long time.
He’d always been handsome, with a grin that could charm the socks off just about anyone. He’d charmed more than the socks off me.
Back then his dark brown hair had been long, curling over his nape, sloping across his equally dark eyes. I’d loved how those eyes could go from icy—when he was glaring at someone who’d dissed him—to smoldering whenever they stared at me.
His hair was now brutally short, and his eyes seemed darker, sadder—though there’d never been anything light about Owen McAllister. He’d always been a big kid—taller than everyone else, muscular long before the other boys. That hadn’t changed. He was taller by over an inch, shoulders wider by more than that. His biceps bulged; his thighs seemed too large for his jeans.
We’d been friends first. Good friends. Best friends. I missed that. You could always find another lover—theoretically; I certainly hadn’t—but a friend like Owen didn’t come around every day. Or any day apparently.
Then again with a friend like him, who needed enemies? He’d broken my heart, and I hadn’t yet figured out a way to mend it.
I reached the listing porch, glanced back. Owen and his dog hovered, unmoving, at the edge of the yard.
“Go ahead.” He bent and pulled something from Reggie’s coat. “He’s got some burrs that I don’t want in the house.”
From the appearance of the house, a few burrs wouldn’t hurt it. Perhaps Owen had seen enough of what was inside. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want to look either. But I had to, so I climbed the steps and went in.
I stopped just past the threshold—not only because of the smell—charred flesh and fur—but the sight. The place was ruined. Not that it had been in that great a shape to begin with, though Owen had done the best he could. He’d been a kid with very little money—all he’d had was time and hope.
The years had taken a toll. Damage had been done not only by the elements but by the teenagers that had come here to drink, dope, and screw. I saw evidence of all three—bottles and cans, the stubs of cigs and joints, several used condoms—scattered everywhere.
What I found in the living room was worse. The other had been kids being kids. Asshole kids, but still kids. This …
I stared at the charred remains.
This was evil.
*
Owen waited for Becca to disappear into the house.
Though she’d probably seen worse, or at least seen similar, he didn’t want to let her go inside and face that alone. But more than that, he didn’t want her to see him walk.
Childish. Foolish. Selfish. He silently berated himself with every ish he could think of as he gimped in her wake. He could have added gimpish, but he didn’t think it was a word.
Should be.
Shrapnel had made a mess of his leg. Tendons were damaged, nerves too. The break in his femur had been ugly. The doctors had said he wouldn’t be able to walk again. He’d refused to believe them, and he’d been right.
They’d also said he wouldn’t be able to return to active duty. He refused to believe that either. Owen had nothing else. He was good at nothing but the job he’d learned in the Marines. If he wasn’t Sergeant McAllister, who was he?
Reggie yipped. Owen had stopped walking to rub his thigh. The dog, which had healed much faster than Owen had, stood at the bottom of the listing porch steps.
“I’m okay,” he said, as if Reggie could understand. Sometimes he swore the dog could.
He’d certainly understood when Owen had shouted, “Run,” that day Reggie had found the turned-up earth at the same time Owen had seen the boy with the cell phone.
Which was why Reggie was in better shape than he was.
The kid had activated the IED a bit too soon, which meant that Owen and Reggie were alive and not dead after the big—