His Rodeo Sweetheart

He headed toward the entrance to the kennel.

She rushed to catch up to him. “Let me go in with you.”

Adam knew to stay behind. He’d been strictly forbidden from dealing with Thor, but that didn’t stop him from asking, “Can I go in, too?”

“No,” she told her son. “Stay here.”

She patted him on the head again, something she seemed to do more and more of late. Reassuring herself that he was still there. At least that was what one of the other moms at the hospital had told her when she’d spotted the gesture.

Ethan had rounded the end of the building. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about Thor’s behavior.

Still, she heard herself say, “Be careful,” as he slipped inside the “doghouse,” as Claire liked to call it, a spacious room with a man-sized door leading to the dog run. Inside, an uneaten bowl of food lay in the corner. It worried her. Every day she hoped the dog would get better. Now she didn’t know what to think.

Thank God he made a house call.

Fate, she admitted.

Thor lay just outside the back door, and Ethan moved slowly, his footfalls light. There had been dozens of times when Claire had done the same and she’d always taken care to use a soft voice to announce her arrival. Now she understood why the dog had been startled to the point that he’d tried to bite her. She’d snap at someone, too, if she’d been taken by surprise.

“Hey, Thor,” she heard Ethan say. When she joined him, it was in time to see Ethan kneeling by the dog’s side, but this time the dog’s reaction was different. Normally he cocked an eye, maybe lifted his head in mute greeting, then went back to ignoring the world. This time he opened his eyes, immediately lifted his head, then stood. He moved toward the man who knelt beside him and sniffed, only to be clearly disappointed by his investigation. The dog’s head lowered. His shoulders appeared to slump. He lay down at Ethan’s feet.

“He’s missing his handler,” Ethan observed.

His male handler, she realized. She was just a poor second in the dog’s eyes. Not worth getting to know.

“He was injured pretty severely,” she said. “I’m thinking he probably lost consciousness. I would imagine he has no clue what happened to him.”

“Yeah, I had a friend send me his file.”

He’d done that for her? For the dog? Somehow, that took her by surprise.

He buried his fingers in the dog’s fur, held them there for a moment, and if she hadn’t been watching him closely, she might have missed the way he inhaled deeply. It was as if the dog’s presence reassured him. He ran his fingers through Thor’s coat, and she wasn’t sure if it was a professional gesture, or a personal one. Another deep breath and then he began to move his hands up and down the dog’s body, feeling for the scars now covered by hair, she realized. Another dog that’d been injured by a bomb blast. She’d seen far too many in the past three years. Thor had nearly had his leg taken off. The missing patch of fur right below the knee was the only visible sign of his injuries.

She knelt down next to Thor, too, touching him. Whatever Ethan’s problem was, she understood all too well the soothing reassurance of a dog’s coat. How many times had she come out and done the same thing, sometimes in the middle of the night, her son completely oblivious to her midnight visits?

“Anything?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Their gazes met and there it was again. The sadness. It lingered in his eyes like a bad stain. “No sign of pain anywhere. That’s good.” He went back to examining the dog.

She had to inhale deeply, too, but for another reason. What was it with this man, that she found herself studying him just as intently as he examined Thor?

He seemed to have recovered himself now. He cupped the dog’s head. Thor looked up at him obediently. “We always do a complete physical before releasing a dog to civilian life, but it’s entirely possible the loss came later.” He lifted the dog’s lips, checking gum color. “Scar tissue can do more damage than the initial injury.”

Satisfied with what he saw in the dog’s mouth, he examined Thor’s ears next.

“So what now?”

“Damn. I wish I were back on base with all my instruments.”

“Do you need me to make a call? My brother’s wife has a friend who’s a vet, and she could bring her truck over.”

“No. That’s okay.” He moved Thor’s head so he could peer into the left side ear. “I can’t see any obvious obstruction. I’m betting scar tissue.”

He held the dog’s head again, lifting an index finger and seeing if Thor tracked his progress, similar to what a human doctor would do. His hands had stopped shaking. He had gone into full-on doctor mode.

“Looks good. I was thinking some kind of lingering pain might be causing his lack of appetite, but that’s not it. He’s unresponsive to pressure test, and his teeth look good, so no abscess in the mouth.”

He moved in closer to the dog, sat down next to him, stroking his head. Thor did something she’d never seen before then; he placed his head in the man’s lap. She saw Ethan freeze, and then his expression changed. His face softened as he silently communicated reassurance with his hand. And just like his human counterpart, the dog inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.

Claire wanted to cry.

“What’s the matter, buddy?” Ethan said to the dog.

She moved in closer. “Sometimes I wish they could talk.”

He stroked Thor’s head absently. “Well, if they could, this one would probably tell us he’s depressed.”

“Is that possible?”

“They’re a lot like humans.”

“So what do we do?”

“It’ll take some time for him to adjust, and to come out of his depression.”

“If he comes out of it,” she added.

He nodded and Claire’s heart dropped. If he wasn’t in perfect health she couldn’t adopt him out to a new family. Well, she could, but it’d be more difficult to place an animal with issues. Nearly impossible, as a matter of fact. There would be interviews and screening and maybe even a trial period. Time. That was what it would take.

“Is he going to need special help?”

She’d forgotten about her son with his nose pressed up against the chain-link fence, but his words tore at her heart. “Special help” was what she called his cancer treatment. She hated the C word, avoided using it at all cost.

“He’ll need special training,” Ethan said, “to compensate for his lack of hearing. He’s used to listening for commands so we have to teach him to look only for nonverbal commands, arm movements. The good news is he already knows most of them. We’ll have to teach him some new ones, and teach him to constantly keep his gaze focused on his handler, but retraining him is possible. No more walking up to him unannounced. Make sure he sees you before you touch him. That should stop the biting.”

“That’s easy,” Adam said. “I can do the training, too.”

Claire shook her head at her son. “Honey, it’s not as easy as that. It’ll take a professional. What Dr. McCall is suggesting isn’t like teaching a dog to sit and stay. He’ll need to learn to listen without hearing. That means he can never be out of his kennel. If he can’t hear he won’t be able to hear us and learn boundaries. What if he ran into the woods?”

There was nothing but open land between the ranch and the coast. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. There were coastal towns, but the point being, if Thor got out, they’d be lucky if they ever found him again.

“I’ll help him learn.” Adam’s soft words pricked at her heart. Alas, her son was in no condition to take on the task of training a dog.

“No.” She made sure her word was firm. “We’ll have to find someone else to retrain him.”

“I know someone.” Ethan straightened.