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When they were on the road back to the cabin, he couldn’t stop feeling a little betrayed. Yeah, he understood Rafe not telling him about Al’s involvement, but still...
Kara seemed more relaxed than Jace felt. He still felt uneasy about this location. On the way back to the cabin, he had to take it slow, shifting the truck’s gears and making them grind, much to Kara’s amusement.
The long, winding road seemed to go on forever, twists and turns that he loved taking on a motorcycle on his time off. Not in a pickup truck with Kara riding shotgun, where local vehicles appeared out of nowhere going fast, crossing over the double yellow line.
Dusk draped over the valley by the time they were on the country road to the cabin. Sunlight dappling the trees grew thinner. He hated this road, and how tight it seemed, because he didn’t like being in spaces that had no real exit plan. Anyone could come down this road and ambush them, and they’d be screwed. At least on the motorcycle he could make a quick exit with Kara.
He had navigated another twist in the road when Kara cried out, “Oh, stop!”
Jace stepped on the brakes, avoiding the truck fishtailing by twisting the wheel the opposite way. A low curse tumbled out.
Her door opened and Kara bolted out of the truck. Jace pulled off the road and followed her.
A dog. Trotting alongside the road, the mutt stopped as he spotted Kara. As if sensing a friend, or food, the dog ran up to her. Jace groaned. They didn’t have the luxury of pet-the-dog time and this one looked like a stray. He called out a warning.
“Hey, be careful. He could bite.”
“He won’t bite me. Will you, buddy?” she crooned, holding out her hand. The dog, a beagle mix by the look, came up to her as if she was a tasty bone. He sniffed her hand and wagged his tail, looking up at her.
“Oh, Jace, he’s half-starved. No collar, either. Do you suppose he escaped from home?”
“He’s probably a stray.”
“Uncle Phil did say sometimes people come here to dump dogs.” She sniffed. “He’s always trying to find homes for them. I bet this is one of the dumped dogs.”
He came closer, held out his hand. The beagle sniffed his hand and stared at him with large, brown eyes that seemed almost soulful. Aw, damn. Damn dog looked almost like Rocky, the beagle mix he’d been forced to give away when he was thirteen. Rocky, who went to a rich kid who had always wanted a beagle and offered five hundred dollars for Jace’s dog.
His mom decided they needed the money more than the dog, who was “eating us out of house and home.”
Some moments you never forgot. Rocky was one—the dog howling as his mom drove him away, Jace hanging out the window, Rocky running alongside the car until he became a tiny blip on the horizon, the tears making him into a fuzzy dot...
He did not need this now. Baggage.
Kara was already headed back to the car, digging into the plastic grocery bags for the roast beef and tomato sub he’d bought. She pulled the roast beef free. Instead of giving it to the dog, she handed it to Jace.
“Here. It’s your food. I only got a salad.”
Great. Now he was feeding strays. Jace held out the meat and the dog swallowed in one gulp. Yeah, dog was starving. He looked hopeful, as if Jace had more.
“We can’t leave him here, Jace. Please.”
He jammed a hand through his hair, realized it was the same hand covered with roast-beef residue and released a laugh.
“I don’t know...”
“Jace, please.” Kara turned her big baby blues to him, at the same time the beagle looked at him with big brown eyes. Two sets of soulful eyes, pleading for help.
He was a sucker for helping people, bringing justice to the world because he’d been an abandoned stray.
Jace looked around. The sun had almost vanished now behind the treetops. “All right. Just for tonight and tomorrow we’ll look for his owner.”
He opened the truck’s back door. “In.”
The dog jumped inside, and then wriggled into the front driver’s seat. He sat there, grinning at Jace.
Jace glanced at Kara, who laughed and finally the tension between them broke.
“Guess he’s driving,” he drawled.
