Patricia Potter - The Soldier's Promise

He was sweating when he finished. He took a hot shower, then dressed in a clean pair of jeans and polo shirt before the vet arrived. The cabin was bad enough without his looking like a deadbeat. Amos could still be taken away from him if the army thought he wasn’t being treated properly.

Josh stared at his image in the mirror and thought about the visit from the mayor. He needed a haircut. Bad. There were touches of gray in his sandy hair although he was only in his mid-thirties. Lines had deepened around his eyes and tightened around his mouth. He looked tired and cynical. Face it. You look like hell. It hadn’t mattered for months but, for some reason, it did now.

His cell phone rang. He recognized the number immediately. His attorney. He’d called him yesterday about the deed.

“I got your message,” Laine Mabry said. “The deed was been received by the clerk’s office but not recorded. I raised hell and today it’s official. I faxed a copy to the mayor and I’m sending you a copy.”

“Thanks.”

“There’s something else,” the attorney said. “The police chief in Covenant Falls called me. We’re old friends. He wanted information about you.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“That as far as I knew you were an upstanding citizen and anything else involved attorney/client privilege, as per your instructions.”

“The police chief, huh? What time would that have been?”

“About eleven yesterday.”

So the call was made after the mayor’s visit. He felt like he had been kicked in a tender region. Yeah, he had been a smart-ass, but he’d liked her and thought she felt the same. More than liked her. If she hadn’t been wearing a ring...

But then what would she want with a broken-down soldier with few prospects? “Thanks,” he said.

There was a pause. “It’s your business, but why not just satisfy curiosity? People in small towns are naturally curious.”

“There’s things I want to forget, that’s why,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t want anyone to thank me for my service, not when it killed my best friend and a bunch of other really good guys.”

“Understood,” his attorney said, and hung up.

Josh put the cell in his pocket and wondered who else the police chief had contacted.

Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d gone out of his way to be rude and avoid people. Rudeness hadn’t worked with the mayor, and he’d found himself enjoying the verbal duel. And he was intrigued with her...even though she wasn’t his type at all.

He tried to brush away the attraction he’d felt for the mayor, tried to do the same with the arousal that had an irritating way of returning when he thought about her.

It was nothing but the fact he’d been too long without female company.

The list. Back to the list. He had finished scraping paint and filling in holes on the living room walls. He planned to prime it today, then paint it tomorrow.

There was also the Harley outside, but that was at the bottom of his list.

Other than giving it a brief inspection, he’d hadn’t had time to work on it since the bike had arrived from Georgia, along with his other belongings. It hadn’t been used since before his last deployment to Afghanistan.

He missed it. It was one of his few big purchases, and he’d ridden across the country on it while on his leaves. It had been his only vehicle until he’d bought the used Jeep Wrangler to pick up Amos.

He sipped a second cup of coffee as he looked around. He wondered how the property had looked when Dave’s family had owned it. Or why his friend had clung to it despite never coming back.

He finished his coffee and went into the smaller, second bedroom and searched through the cartons that had been shipped from Georgia. He hadn’t gone back to the base to do it, just asked a friend to pack everything except his uniforms. He’d wanted those left behind.

When the boxes arrived, he’d discovered his off-duty clothes had been way too big after months of hospital food, and now he lived in newly purchased jeans and T-shirts. The other boxes included his stereo and CDs, a small television and a couple of paintings he’d bought to brighten his rooms in the bachelor quarters for noncommissioned officers.

Then there were the six boxes of books, everything from biographies to history to novels. He’d opened one of the boxes and was currently reading a suspense novel when he couldn’t sleep.

Bookcase. He added that to the furniture list.

Then there was the box containing dog toys he’d purchased just before picking up Amos. Like other military dogs, Amos was trained with toy rewards rather than treat rewards, and he’d dearly loved his ball and rubber KONG toy that Dave had carried all over hell and back. But Amos hadn’t been interested in the new batch. Still, Josh placed several toys in each room, then went back to work priming the living room walls.

The vet arrived at noon.

Stephanie Phillips looked around as she stepped inside, her gaze going to the primed walls, the cans of paint, the ladder and the fireplace. “You’ve been busy.”

“Lots to do.”

“You’re going to stay, then.”

Josh shrugged. “It needs repairs whether I stay or not.”

“That’s not a very definitive answer,” she said.

“Maybe because I haven’t decided yet.”

“And it’s really none of my business.”

He let the silence answer for him.

“I hope you do. We need some new blood in town.”

“Or at least a new patient.” The ungracious words popped out before he could stop them. She’d agreed to make a house call, and he needed her. But the old protective wall had gone back up after discovering the mayor had had him investigated.

“Now, that’s cynical.” But her smile belied the cut of the words.

“And you don’t deserve it. I apologize.” He moved across the room to an open door. “Amos is in the bedroom.” He turned and gave her a wry look. “Neither of us bite. It’s safe.”

“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” she said.

He led the way into the bedroom and watched as she knelt beside Amos, who had crawled halfway under the bed after hearing the door open.

“Dr. Phillips...”

“Stephanie,” she corrected. She started talking to Amos in a voice so soft Josh could barely hear the words. Her fingers ran through his fur.

“You’re a fine fellow,” she said softly. “And you have nothing to fear from me. You just don’t know who to trust, but that’s okay. You’ll learn. You’ll like it here. Woods. Rabbits to chase.”

Amos had tensed when she first touched him, but now under her gentle hands and soft voice, the dog started to relax.

“He’s a very handsome dog,” she said. “I’ve not seen a Belgian Malinois around here before.”

“He’s smart as hell. He saved a lot of lives out there. He deserves some peace.”

“He was trained to detect explosives?”

“He was what they call a dual-purpose dog. He could detect explosives as well as track enemy combatants.”

“We always need trackers around here. People keep getting lost in the mountains.”

“He’s not ready for that.”

“Not now, but...”

“I’m not concerned with anything but now,” he said shortly.

She nodded. “He’s thin. Too thin. What does he eat?”

“Not much of anything. I tried dog food at first. Some that the vets at Lackland recommended. He ignored it. I tried hamburgers and steaks on the trip. He would nibble after leaving it for a while, but never much. Same yesterday. I got him a steak from Maude’s Diner. He couldn’t be less interested.”

“And those are good steaks,” she said. “My dogs would die for them.”

She whispered something to Amos, then stood. “Amos, can you sit for me?”