Linda O. Johnston - Trained To Protect

He saw her eyes shift slightly in his direction more than once. He didn’t think her smile was for him, which was fine. He kept his expression blank.

But he was looking forward to seeing her reaction to the reason he had been called out to the K-9 Ranch.

Still, the decision had been made to proceed with the demonstration that had brought Elissa to the ranch and to ignore, at least temporarily, the reason he was there.

He’d been asked by Amber to not only observe but to also help in the demonstration. He would pretend to be someone recuperating from an injury who was under a lot of psychological stress and needed soothing, perhaps by a therapy dog. Amber had said that Evan and her employee, ranch hand Orrin Daker, who was sometimes used as an agitator in K-9 training situations, would also participate.

That didn’t mean Doug shouldn’t at least be polite and greet her. “Hi, Elissa,” he said after the other introductions had ended. “And hi, Peace.” He’d heard her introduce her dog to the others, too, but he didn’t bend to pet her. Not when he was soon going to act like he needed some canine TLC from this therapy dog.

Besides, he now had even more reason not to allow his initial attraction to this lovely woman turn into anything. She was potentially involved in the case he’d just been assigned to handle.

But he felt a surge of warmth inside when she returned, “Good morning, Doug. And Hooper, too.”

Interestingly, her dog Peace got up close and personal with Hooper, her tail wagging furiously as she sniffed his shepherd’s face. Hooper seemed fine with it, sniffing and wagging back a bit. Good thing he wasn’t officially on duty at the moment.

“Okay, we’ll get started,” Amber said. “I’d planned to have some neighbors’ kids come over, but...well, things have changed. We’ll just do a demonstration with adults. Come this way.” She led them all back into the house.

With Hooper, Doug stayed back and held the door open for Elissa and her dog. “So you need the warmth of a therapy dog today?” she asked with a smile as she went past him, but he also saw puzzlement in her deep brown eyes. Yesterday she’d been somewhat dressed up. Today her outfit consisted of a blue plaid shirt over jeans—a look that seemed comfortable for her but might also help put stressed people at ease. Or at least that was what Doug assumed.

Soon Amber got the three men lined up in the living room, leaving her mother holding the leashes of Hooper, Evan’s dog Bear, and Amber’s Labrador retriever Lola at the far end of the room. Fortunately they were all well trained. Doug wasn’t sure how Sonya, a somewhat fragile-looking senior, would do with aggressive or even eager dogs.

“Okay,” Amber said to Elissa. “Assume these three guys were in the military and suffer from PTSD.” She looked toward Evan, who smiled at her. Doug knew that the statement was accurate as far as Amber’s guy was concerned. “They need a bit of TLC and soothing from a really good therapy dog. Show me how you and Peace would handle it.”

As far as Doug could tell—without knowing more about how therapy dogs worked—they handled it well, including him. First, Elissa knelt and tied a blue scarf that said “Therapy Dog” around Peace’s neck. Then, on direction from Elissa, Peace went up to each guy individually, sat before him on the floor to be petted, walked carefully around him while sidling against his legs, and acted wholly engaged and pleased, even wagging her tail, as each of the men knelt and hugged her—or, in Evan’s case, pretended to ignore her until the last moment.

There was more to it, too. Doug was impressed, especially as Elissa explained with each movement, each command, just how that was intended to help calm a nervous, scared or psychologically impaired person. But mostly she left it to her dog to interact with the supposed needy human.

And who wouldn’t be soothed by a loving, caring dog? Especially one trained, and handled, by someone as apparently loving and caring as Elissa?

Heck, he thought as he once again sat on the wood floor and pretended to mope as Peace came over and nuzzled him. He had to remind himself yet again that he knew far better than to even think of getting involved with someone entwined in a case.

And now it appeared that Elissa was exactly that.

Even Orrin, who must be used to being given all sorts of strange things to do here as a ranch hand, seemed to enjoy Peace’s attention. He was a young, strong guy wearing a red Chance T-shirt. Even as he pretended to be sad and sick, he wound up petting and hugging Peace as the dog lavished attention on him.

Then it was Doug’s turn. “Okay, dog,” he said gruffly. “What if I don’t want your attention?”

“That’s exactly why you need her attention,” Elissa said softly. “She wants you to hug her.”

Which Doug found himself doing with the furry, snuggling golden.

The demonstration went on a while longer. Eventually, Elissa also gave Amber and Lola a brief lesson on how the Lab could also be trained to be a therapy dog.

Amber seemed to have gotten everything accomplished that she wanted to. “Okay,” she said when her lesson was finished. “Good job, Elissa and Peace. Let’s go into the kitchen, shall we?”

She unobtrusively motioned for Doug and the others to stay there, in the living room, while she led Elissa and Peace through the door. In a couple of minutes she returned and requested that Orrin get back to work. The ranch hand left.

“She’s good,” Amber said once he was gone. “Real good. Her explanations to people as well as working well with her dog... I want to hire her no matter what.”

“I don’t like the idea.” Evan drew himself to her side. “No matter how good she is.”

“Me neither,” said Sonya, staring at her daughter.

“But that sign really didn’t say anything.” Amber directed her gaze toward Doug. “Did it? Is it really a threat? I know what real threats are like.”

Doug was well aware that Amber had received text messages not long ago containing some really nasty threats. Fortunately, that situation was now resolved. “We don’t know enough yet,” he said. “I’m just beginning our investigation.”

“Well, we’ll all be aware and be careful. But I don’t intend for some stupid, unclear sign to make me change my mind regarding something I feel strongly about. She’ll only be here part-time anyway.” And with that, Amber pulled away, turned and left the living room.

“Then you’ll really have to help us,” Sonya said pleadingly to Doug.

“I’ll do all I can,” he promised. But he was definitely concerned—about the Belotts and others who lived at the ranch, their dogs and now also about Elissa.

He might not be able to act at all on his initial attraction to her. But neither did he want her, or her dog, to be harmed.

“For now, I’ll join you while you talk with Elissa, and just listen in. We’ve already secured the sign and locked it in the back of my car.”

They’d wrapped it in plastic carefully so as not to obscure any fingerprints or other evidence.

The sign had been hooked onto the gate down by the road that morning when Amber and Evan had first gone outside to walk their dogs. They didn’t always walk that way but Evan had noticed something a bit off at the upper driveway.

The sign read Be Careful Who You Hire. It was a small cardboard sign, hung on the gate by the road with string and not too obvious. The dogs hadn’t alerted on it, either.

But it wasn’t something Doug, or the Chance Police Department, would ignore.

Like the rest of the house that she’d seen, the kitchen seemed utilitarian yet attractive to Elissa. A tiled floor and counters, too, lent themselves to being scrubbed clean despite the abundance of dogs undoubtedly brought in here. The metal sink and refrigerator were large, and the stove, with the microwave attached to the wall over it, was more moderate in size.