Alone in the Dark

Her expression grew serious. She didn’t want to dwell on this. What she wanted was just to make it all go away. She didn’t like looking over her shoulder, being afraid.

“Had,” she emphasized. “Look, I’ve been giving this some thought. We don’t even know that the rose is from Walter. Maybe one of my other pet owners wanted to say thank-you.”

“So where’s the note?”

She shrugged. “Maybe it got lost. Blew away. The wind’s been pretty bad off and on today.”

Was she afraid? he wondered. Was that why she was so determined to ignore the possible seriousness of the situation? “If someone wanted to say thank-you, why didn’t they just say it?”

“I don’t know.” Why was he making it so difficult for her? “Because they’re shy. The point is, although I really do appreciate it, you don’t have to go out of your way for me, Coltrane.” And then her expression softened. “Unless of course you felt like coming over and sharing a cup of coffee with me and this was just a handy excuse for you.”

He wondered if she knew that her vulnerability was getting to him. “The coffee was your idea.”

“You’re drinking it.” She shook her head. It was official—her brother was going to have to surrender the pigheaded crown because there was a new champion in town. “Does everything have to be a debate with you?”

“It wouldn’t be if you didn’t automatically jump in on the other side.”

“Sorry, it’s in my nature.” Patience shrugged, willing to back off for now. “There were a lot of people I had to hold my own with.” She thought of her brother and cousins. “You know how it is.”

“No,” he replied flatly, “I don’t.”

“No siblings?”

Finishing his cake, he pushed the plate aside. “I have a sister.”

From his tone, she made a natural assumption. “But you’re not close.”

He and Laura had once been extremely close, the way two siblings involved in a dire situation could be. But now both wanted to forget the childhood that linked them to tragedy.

“We exchange Christmas cards.” How was it that she’d managed to turn things around again? “Look, this isn’t about me.”

“No,” Patience agreed cheerfully, “it’s about me. And I’m curious about you. This is the first time I’ve seen you out of uniform and outside the clinic.” And as such, she wanted to make the most of the opportunity. She’d been curious for a while now. Unlike the other K-9 cops who came to the clinic, Brady volunteered nothing. “You never come to my uncle’s parties.”

He finished his second cup, then set it down. “I’m not much of a party person.”

“Neither is my brother Patrick, but he shows up.” She reached for the coffeepot, but Brady shook his head, placing his hand over the top of his cup. Patience withdrew her own hand from the pot. She nodded toward the cake, silently offering him another slice, but he turned that down, too. “Haven’t you heard, Coltrane? Socializing is good for you.”

“General rules don’t usually apply to me.”

A rebel. She’d known as much when she’d first seen him. There was something about the way he’d held himself, something about the way he’d walked that told her he preferred the road less taken.

Why did she find that so intriguing?

“I’m beginning to get that.”

Brady rose from his chair. “Good.”

No, Patience thought, rising to her own feet, not good at all.

Chapter 4

Brady glanced toward King. The canine was still in the corner, doing his best to polish off the soup bone she’d given him. King seemed to sense that his master was looking at him. The dog raised his head and eyed Brady. It appeared to Patience as if the two were really communicating.

The next moment the dog abandoned both the bone and Tacoma and came trotting over, however reluctantly, to Brady’s side.

She couldn’t resist petting King’s head. The dog all but curved into her hand, showing her that, Brady’s partner or not, he was very receptive to the affection she showed him.

“I’m impressed,” Patience told Brady as she stroked the dog’s fur. The top of the dog’s head came up past her waist. If she hadn’t known that the animal was a purebred, she would have said he had a little Great Dane in him. He was large for a shepherd. “That’s some rapport you two have. King seems to read your mind.” She flashed a grin at Brady. “Which is more than the rest of us are able to do.”

Seeing how impatient he was to be gone, Patience walked Brady to the front door. Tacoma followed in their wake like a silent Greek chorus, just waiting for an opening.

“You don’t have to walk me,” Brady told her. “I know where the door is.”

“I know I don’t have to, I want to,” she emphasized, stopping at her door. “Not everything has to be just for pragmatic reasons, Coltrane. Sometimes people just do things to be polite.” Why was he so afraid of being friends? He’d obviously thought enough of her safety to put himself out and play sentry. So why couldn’t he just accept her friendship? “You stood guard at my door for who knows how long—”

He interrupted before she could take off on another verbal odyssey. “I sat in the car for maybe thirty-five minutes.”

“Whatever.” She waved a dismissive hand at his words. Facts weren’t important here. Intent was. “I wasn’t asking for an accounting, Officer.” Temporarily stymied, she sighed and shook her head before she turned it up to his. “Don’t you ever loosen up?”

“This is loose,” he informed her tersely. And if he was suddenly wondering what it would be like to kiss this five-foot-four, nonstop talking machine, she didn’t need to know about it. Hell, he didn’t even want to know about it.

But the thought lingered just the same. As did the curiosity.

“It’s loose only if you’re a steel girder,” she quipped. She cocked her head and wondered all sorts of things. In the two years that he had been bringing King into the clinic, she’d only learned his name, rank and serial number. With his air of secrecy, he would have made a hell of a soldier. “Are you involved, Coltrane?”

Of all the questions she could have asked, this one completely threw him. “What?”

“Are you involved?” Patience repeated. Maybe Coltrane was so removed from everything, he didn’t understand what she was talking about. “Is there someone waiting for you to come home right now, standing by the window and wondering why you’re late?” she elaborated after a beat.

“No.”

She shook her head, as if she’d stumbled across the root of his problem. “There should be.”

His life was just fine the way it was. No attachments, no complications. Streamline. “I thought you were a vet, not a psychiatrist.” If he meant to make her back off by insulting her, the amused smile on her face told him that he’d missed his target.

“Hey, even vets get to observe human nature once in a while,” she told him. “And no one should be lonely.”

His eyes narrowed like thunder clouds before a summer storm. “Who says I’m lonely?”

I do. But he obviously didn’t appreciate her telling him so. She backed away. For now. “Sorry.” She held her hands up in surrender. “I guess I’m reading into things again.”

He accepted the apology, but his tone was far from friendly. “It’s a bad habit. You should stop.”

As she opened the front door Patience struggled to keep a straight face. “I’ll work on it.”

The wind whipped its way through trees now, clearing out dead leaves that went showering out into the night air, performing a macabre dance as they scattered.

The evening felt chillier than it should have been.