"Maybe we should call the police."

"We will. But if the bodies are burned like you say, they'll call me to identify what they are. Better if I take a peek first. Besides, my phone doesn't work. Does yours?"

He hadn't checked, and his phone was in the house anyway. "After you," he said.

The ground was uneven; Owen leaned on the shovel a bit. He still had a slight hitch in his giddyup he didn't want anyone to see.

Ten years and Becca didn't seem to have aged at all. The light wasn't good but what there'd been had seemed to shine right on her, like a beacon from above.

Not a wrinkle around her hazel eyes. Her skin was still redhead pale and smooth. Her only freckles dotted places no one could see. He remembered tasting them, tasting her.

Owen took a deep breath, but that only served to reveal another thing that hadn't changed. She still smelled like lemons and sunshine. He hadn't drunk a gla.s.s of lemonade since he'd left.

Lemonade had always tasted like her.

He stumbled, badly. Lost his grip on the shovel, which fell into her, and she stumbled too. He reached out and s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm-just because he was lame didn't mean he was ... lame. His hands were still quick, even if the rest of him wasn't.

The snarl that rumbled from the darkness had his skin p.r.i.c.kling. His free hand went to his empty hip again as a huge, black wolf loomed from the night.

Becca stepped in front of Owen. He still had a grip on her arm and pulled her back, which only made the wolf snap, jaws clicking shut centimeters away from Owen's free hand. Again, quickness was everything. He'd learned that the hard way in Afghanistan.

"He isn't hurting me," Becca said.

The wolf crouched, still grumbling but no longer snarling and snapping, its freakishly light green gaze fixed on Owen.

"You have a pet wolf?"

She stared at the beast as if it were the first time she'd seen it, and considering the animal's behavior that couldn't be the case. "Wolves aren't pets."

"Got that right."

The beast showed Owen her teeth. If he'd been confused before, he wasn't now. Definitely not a pet.

Frantic barking commenced. A bolt of brown fur vaulted through one of the now gla.s.sless windows of the house and hit the ground running.

Owen had time to shout, "Reggie, nein!" an instant before the two animals slammed into each other and rolled. Snarls filled the air. Spittle flew; teeth snapped.

"Call her off," he ordered.

"She isn't a pet. Call him off."

Reggie wasn't a pet either, but he had been trained by the best.

"Nein!" Owen ordered. "Aus!"

Reggie released the wolf's leg, as ordered. The black beast circled the brown one.

"Hier!"

The dog hesitated, his eyes flicking to Owen, then back to the wolf. Owen couldn't blame him, but he also couldn't let Reggie disobey.

"La.s.s das sein! Hier!"

This time Reggie followed the commands of "don't do that" and "come." Though his neck craned so that he could keep the wolf in his sight, he trotted to Owen's side and sat without being told to sitz!

"What was that?" Becca asked.

"German."

She cast him an exasperated glance. "I got that much, but why?"

"Reggie's a military working dog. Er gehorcht auf Kommando. He obeys German commands."

Most K-9 working dogs were purchased from Germany. There they not only nurtured the bloodlines necessary for K-9 work, but they had the best training programs for the same. Even dogs purchased young and trained in the States still learned commands in German to match their initial training-sit, come, stay-as well as to align them with all the other dogs.

"That's a Belgian Malinois."

Most people thought Reggie was an oddly unmarked and slightly small German shepherd. Not Becca. She knew her dog breeds. Always had.

"He is," Owen agreed. "A lot of Belgians are bred in Germany."

Becca offered her hand to Reggie, palm down, nonthreatening. He glanced at Owen. Military working dogs-MWDs for short-were not pets. They accepted admiration as their due, but only if it was allowed by their handler. Anyone who knew anything about MWDs would never touch one without asking first. That was a good way to lose a finger.

Reggie was better than most, he didn't need a muzzle in crowds, but he still wasn't cuddly and probably never would be.

"In ordnung," Owen said. Okay.

The dog sniffed her fingers. The wolf growled, and Reggie pulled back, with a low woof.

"Hush," Becca murmured, to one or both of them, Owen wasn't sure, but they both hushed. The wolf paced back and forth a dozen yards away. There was something odd about the animal that went beyond its far too human eyes.

"What kind of military work does he do?"

Owen didn't want to say, but from Becca's expression she already knew or at least suspected. It wasn't rocket science to figure it out, and for a veterinarian even less so.

"Explosive detection," he answered.

"Then why is he here?"

The world shimmied, as if something had exploded nearby, though Owen knew nothing had. He was still hoping that remnant would fade along with the constant urge to hit the dirt after any loud, sudden noise. It was embarra.s.sing. 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 scuttleb.u.t.t 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 b.i.t.c.h.

Heard it. Knew it. Couldn't help it. He made me so d.a.m.n 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 b.i.t.c.h 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.