Soraya Lane - The Returning Hero

“So did Sam ever teach you any of his commands?”

Jamie shook her head. He could tell she loved the dog, and it looked as if the canine reciprocated—the trouble was plain simple communication. Bear was sitting faithfully beside Jamie, and her hand had fallen to the top of his head, which told him that there was no reason they weren’t going to form a good team. They just weren’t in sync yet, and that’s what he was going to help her with.

“The thing with this dog is that he’s extremely easy to teach, so long as you make your commands and actions clear and consistent,” Brett told her. “You don’t have to be Sam, but you do have to understand how he learns.”

“Do you mean like how they need to be rewarded by play?”

Brett grinned. “Exactly. This dog was chosen for the dog detection unit because when we tested him as a youngster, his commitment to a game of ball was unwavering.”

“So I need to play with him?” she asked, staring down at the dog.

“Yeah, you need to play with him, and you need to let him be with you all the time, because that’s how Sam treated him whenever they were together.”

Jamie was laughing and he loved seeing her happy, as if for a moment they were both here for any reason other than because of what had happened—that they were just two friends catching up under the sun, like old times.

“You guys always act so tough, but when it comes to your dogs, you’re like marshmallows.”

“It’s part of the bonding process, you know that,” he told her, pretending to be offended. “And we are tough, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah, that’s what you all tell each other, but really? You’re just lonely when you’re away and want a warm body in your bed to snuggle up to.”

Brett laughed, unable to help himself. “How did you figure us all out so fast, huh?”

Jamie held up her hand to shield her face from the sun. “So are we just going to start with the basics?”

He nodded. “Why don’t we run through sit, stay and heel, then I’ll teach you how to play with a ninety-pound canine. Sound good?”

The smile she gave him made him drop his gaze, focus on the dog instead, because he was walking a dangerous line between helping out a friend’s widow and wanting to be here because he’d always liked Jamie and still did.

And if he were honest with himself, it’s why he’d taken so long to come back. It hadn’t just been about his injury, it hadn’t just been because he was struggling to come to terms with losing his best human friend and his canine best friend, it was because when it came to Jamie, he didn’t trust himself. He could have all the best intentions in the world, but without Sam here, he was screwed.

* * *

Jamie watched as Brett moved across the grass, Bear running along beside him and then bounding ahead to catch the ball.

“You just need to have fun with him,” Brett called out. “Let him know you love playing just as much as he does.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at them as they charged around her small lawn.

“It’s not about the space, it’s the quality of time you spend with him. He wants you to guide him, to be his leader and his equal, too. He will always look to you for direction, because that’s what he’s been trained to do.”

“So in other words he wants me to be his wife?”

They both laughed and she watched as Brett nodded to the dog to follow him.

“You must miss your dog,” she said, wishing she could take the words back the moment they left her lips.

Brett’s mouth fixed in a hard line, his jaw clamped before he took a visibly deep breath. “Every goddamn day,” he told her, running a hand through his short brown hair. “Teddy hardly left my side in four years. It was like he always knew what I was thinking before I’d even thought it myself. And then...”

Jamie felt like her breath had died in her throat, her lungs refusing to cooperate. The day Teddy had died had been the day Sam had died, too.

They stared at one another. She watched as Brett swallowed. Neither of them wanted to talk about that day, because somehow Brett had made it home and her husband and Brett’s dog had been killed. She wished the comment had never come out of her mouth, but it wasn’t like she could take it back.

“Have you had any ongoing veterinary care for Bear? I’m hoping after all he did for the army that he’s on a full pension.”

He’d changed the subject but only just, although she wasn’t complaining.

“When I collected him he was pretty much healed, on the outside at least,” Jamie told him. “He had a bandaged paw still and lots of missing or singed fur, but they made sure he was almost back to health before letting me take him. And they seemed to look after him pretty well when he was quarantined.”

“I was the one who carried him back to the truck,” Brett told her, his voice low. “He managed to come toward me, but the ringing in his ears must have been as bad as it was in mine because he couldn’t even walk in a straight line, and his paws and legs were badly burned. There was no part of me that could have tried to get away without helping him, and it was like he wanted to do the same for me.”

Jamie refused to look away, no matter how uncomfortable the conversation was making her, because she knew how hard it must have been for Brett to talk about what had happened, even just a little.

“I can’t believe you even managed to lift him, after what had happened to you,” she said softly.

Brett dropped to his haunches and slung his arm around the dog. “If it hadn’t been for this boy,” he said, stroking the dog’s fur as he spoke, “everyone in that truck would have died that day. It wasn’t until I collapsed that I realized why my body was burning so bad, what a mess my leg was, and then I passed out from the pain and shock. Bear was braver than any of us.”

Brett was staring past her now, and Jamie didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. It was so nice having him here, having a familiar face to chat to, that she wanted to make sure he stayed for the afternoon.

“What do you say we take him for a walk?” she suggested.

Brett smiled, clearly relieved she’d changed the subject completely.

“Do you usually take him out?” he asked.

She grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but he’s kind of massive and I’m worried I won’t be able to control him if we come across another dog or something.”

Brett shook his head. “Did that husband of yours teach you nothing about this dog?”

She laughed. “No, because it was like they shared the same brain! Bear just did what Sam wanted him to do, like they had some silent communication thing going on, and he went everywhere with him so it wasn’t like I was ever in sole charge.”

Brett sighed. “Fair call.” He followed her inside and stood back as she locked the doors. “How about you tell me what you’d like to do with him?”

She checked the side door was locked before gathering Bear’s lead from a drawer and facing Brett.

“I guess I want to be able to walk down for a coffee and sit without worrying how to handle him if there’s another big dog coming toward us. And walk through the park, throw a ball for him and know he’ll come back when he’s off the leash, that sort of thing.”

Brett opened the front door and held it open for her, waiting as she clipped the leash to Bear’s collar.

“He’s too well-trained to have a fight with another dog, and he will never, ever chase a ball and not bring it back to you. It’s why he made the squad in the first place.”

“Were you with Sam the day he chose him?”

Brett shook his head. “No, but I remember him being so excited that he’d finally found the perfect partner. Bear was with a family who loved him, but they were moving overseas and had put him up for adoption. When Sam went to see him, he tested him out with a ball and he knew straight away that the black giant was going to be his sidekick.”