dirt after any loud, sudden noise. It was embarrassing. Though much better now than it had been when he’d first woken up. Back then, a door closing could make him shake like a tree in a strong breeze.
“There was an accident.”
“An accident with a bomb-sniffing dog would involve a bomb.”
“Can’t put anything past you.”
“Must you be sarcastic?”
“Apparently.”
She looked like she wanted to smack him, except that would involve contact, and from the way she hovered just outside his reach, that wasn’t going to happen. Was she keeping her distance to avoid setting off the wolf, or to avoid setting off Owen?
Owen wasn’t sure what he’d do if she touched him. That single second of touching her—before the wolf took offense—had been bad. Or maybe it had been good. He couldn’t decide.
“You’re in one piece,” Becca said, “and so is he.”
Only because they’d been put together again better than Humpty Dumpty, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He also wasn’t going to walk where she could observe him long enough to register that he still couldn’t walk quite right. While the coldness in those eyes that had once gazed at him so warmly was hard to stomach, the pity would be even harder.
“We’re fine,” he lied. “Home on leave. I plan to get this place ready to sell, then we’ll be out of here.”
“You’re staying in the house?”
“Where else?”
She eyed it as if it might collapse in a heap any second. He wouldn’t be surprised.
“I’ve slept worse places,” he said.
Her hazel eyes flicked to his. “Where?”
He wasn’t going to talk about that. Not now. Not with her.
Actually, not ever and with no one.
“I’ll only be here until I sell the place.”
“Sell?” she echoed, as if hearing the word for the first time. “But your mother—”
“Isn’t ever going to be well enough to come back.”
It had taken him a long time to accept that, even longer for his mother to, but now that they had, the house was an unnecessary burden.
“You don’t want to live here when you—”
“No,” he interrupted. Here was the last place he wanted to live. Here was too close to her.
“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.