“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.
Kara opened the driver’s door. “Back seat, buddy. Your paws can’t reach the pedals.”
The dog jumped into the back, tail wagging, and thrust his head between them as they both climbed back into the truck. Jace scratched the dog’s ears.
“You need a bath, dog,” he muttered.
“You need a name,” Kara decided.
“How about Dog?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Duke?”
The dog whined.
“He’s not a Duke. But definitely a D name. How about Darby?” Kara asked.
The dog barked as if agreeing. Then he nudged Jace’s hand with his cold, wet nose as if asking for pets.
A lump clogged his throat as he obliged. Rocky had done the same. Oh, Rocky had a good home after that pitiful yelping and running after the car. The rich kid whose daddy shelled out the five hundred for him had bragged in school to Jace about all the tricks Rocky was learning. How Rocky slept in his bed every night and how they took Rocky everywhere, including a vacation to the mountains, where Rocky went hiking and fishing with them almost every day.
Each time the rich kid told Jace these stories, he hated himself.
Hated his mother more.
Even at thirteen, he knew he should have let go and walked away from the rich kid waxing poetic about Rocky, but like a guy who never got over losing the woman he loved with all his heart, he’d listened to every tidbit, every single story about Rocky.
Just to know his beloved dog was doing okay.
He’d done the same with Kara, when her father had met him for lunch a time or two after their breakup, asking Jace what went wrong. Listening to how she was doing, making sure she was okay because he still cared.
Even though he didn’t want to care.
Thankfully, those tortuous visits stopped when he applied to become an agent and training started at Quantico. He learned to deal with life’s curve balls and managed to forge ahead.
Yet he never forgot Kara.
At the cabin, Jace climbed out of the vehicle, opened the door for Kara. Darby bounded out of the car. Halfway expecting him to bolt for the woods, Jace was surprised to see the dog bound up the cabin stairs and stand by the screen door.
Kara laughed. “Look, he thinks he’s home.”
