Janice Carter - For Love Of A Dog

A soldier’s best friend?

Army captain Luca Rossi hasn’t forgotten the dog who saved his life in Afghanistan. He just didn’t expect to be reunited with him on an Ohio soybean farm. Kai Westfield, the photojournalist who agreed to transport Amigo back to the States, has a different future in mind for the mutt that’s bringing her orphaned nephew out of his grief. This tranquil, beautiful place is also healing the wounded soldier...and Kai deserves credit, too. But she’s only holding down the fort here until her dad recovers his good health; she can’t wait to get back to the big city. Can Luca summon the strength to stop Kai—and the peaceful life he envisions with her—from slipping away for good?

“Can I help you?”

Kai didn’t smile, and she heard the lack of warmth in her voice. Not the traditional greeting for folks around Lima, Ohio, but there was an air of something suspicious about the man. Amigo must have sensed something, too, and started barking.

The stranger took off his ball cap, exposing a head that had been shorn in the not-too-distant past. She couldn’t tell exactly what color his eyes were, but they looked tired. In fact, he looked like he could use a good night’s sleep. Or several.

He was about to say something, but Amigo’s barking became almost frantic—a keening howl she’d never heard the dog make.

“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered, grasping the door handle. The dog leaped from the truck and raced for the man, circling around and around him, jumping up and nipping at his hands.

The man, bending to touch Amigo’s head, said, “I believe this is my dog.”

Dear Reader,

A few years ago I read a magazine article about a young American soldier in Afghanistan who had befriended a stray dog while his unit was working in the Afghan mountains. A few days after the soldiers returned to base camp, they were amazed to see that same dog show up at the gate. It had apparently followed them all the way. The soldier knew this was a special animal and worked through a lot of red tape to take the dog back to the States with him.

That article resonated strongly with me and was a reminder of the deep bond between humans and animals, especially dogs. I decided to write a story about that bond and the healing effect it has on people. In For Love of a Dog, the bond between Amigo and Luca Rossi, the soldier whose life the dog saved, and between Amigo and Thomas, the silent boy grieving for his parents, proves to be the catalyst for both man and boy’s emotional recoveries. My heroine, Kai, watches over this healing process, guarding the tie between Amigo and her nephew, Thomas. She’ll do everything in her power to ensure it’s not broken.

While writing this novel, I learned that many military personnel have adopted stray dogs to bring home with them. Their effort and obvious love for these animals is another reminder of how important dogs are to our physical, emotional and mental health.

I hope you like this book and can empathize with the connection between humans and the animals that serve us and love us.

Enjoy!

Janice Carter

For Love of a Dog

Janice Carter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Writing has been a passion of JANICE CARTER’s from a young age, but that passion ebbed and flowed with the course of her life, emerging when she was a young mother. Needing a night out, she took a romance-writing course at a local community college and began a story that eventually became her first novel, a Harlequin Intrigue. Following that success, writing became a second career for her (after teaching), and she went on to publish ten more Harlequin novels. Janice says she’s been very lucky to be able to do what she enjoys most: writing about people and their connections to one another. In other words, love and romance.

For Evelyn Ruth Carter, who soared in a hot-air balloon at age eighty and rode on the back of a motorcycle at eighty-five; her spirit, insight and tenderness inspire all who know and love her.

Acknowledgments

A big thank-you to Scott Carter and Jim Weigand for their information on soybean farming and farm machinery! Thanks also to veterinarian Dr. Stephen Hess for his help regarding treatment of injured animals, especially dogs!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

“THAT’S A DOG.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kai looked from the pathetic creature in the carrier crate to the young soldier. “I was asked to take back a package. No one said anything about a dog.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am, this is the package. And he’s not just any dog. This here is Amigo.”

“No, no. I can’t do this. And please don’t call me ma’am.”

“Sorry, ma...miss, I assure you, it won’t be a problem. He has all the required papers for his passage to the States. You won’t have to do a thing...well, except collect him from baggage when you arrive in New York, and, uh, we’re hoping you can see that he gets to his final destination since those transport plans haven’t worked out.”

“Sorry?”

He had the grace to flush. “I apologize. A last-minute glitch.”

“So what is the final destination?”

“An address outside Newark, New Jersey.”

“And how am I supposed to arrange that?” She was trying to toss any and every reason at him for not going through with this crazy request. A dog!

“Um, if you don’t have your own vehicle, perhaps a taxi or one of those shuttle vans? We’ll be happy to reimburse any cost to you.”

“We?”

“All the guys in my squad—Captain Rossi’s men. We organized this for him.”

“This is really too much...uh—” she squinted at his ID “—Corporal McDougall. I was expecting a small package that I could put into the mail when I got to the States. Not something alive.” She stared at the dog, his dark eyes peering up at her. Sad, chocolate-brown eyes. Kai looked back at the soldier. “I’m sorry, but there’s just no way.”

The soldier’s face crumpled. For a horrifying second, Kai thought he might cry.

“See—” he paused to clear his throat again “—when I say that Amigo isn’t just any dog, I really mean it. He and the Cap were almost predestined to get together. We were in this valley in Helmand, and one morning Amigo wandered into our camp. He was so skinny you could count every rib. One ear almost torn off—that one there, the right.”

Kai followed his pointing finger. Sensing he was again the center of attention, the dog wearily raised his head. Kai noted the jagged edge of ear. He was pathetically thin. A village dog, typical of those she’d encountered in India and South Asia. Pale yellow-brown short hair, longish snout and white-tipped tail now tucked beneath his hind end. Not a dog someone would be drawn to in any pet store. Or anywhere else for that matter. But apparently this dog was special.

“Your flight doesn’t leave for three hours. Could we have a coffee while I tell you all about Amigo and Captain Rossi?”

Kai looked into his earnest blue eyes and felt herself relent. The captain was clearly special, but why the dog? Her curiosity won out. “All right, Corporal McDougall, lead the way.” She followed him as he pushed the trolley holding the dog in its crate, trying to stifle her resentment that, once again, she’d allowed herself to be soft-soaped into a situation she wanted no part of. You really have to learn to say no. She thought back to the American Embassy party in Kuwait City. Free-flowing Champagne and a heady conversation with a very attractive marine whose rank she couldn’t recall but who knew someone who needed a small favor if she was flying stateside from Frankfurt.