Cornered In Conard County

Dory was smiling herself, verging on a laugh. “Why doesn’t he get rid of them?”

“You think he hasn’t tried? Oh, my.” Betty threw her head back and laughed. “I’ll let him tell you. It’s a story and a half.”

Several hours later as she dressed to go meet this K-9 guy with Betty, Dory wondered why she should need protection. Her brother always had been good to Dory before that night. More tolerant than most brothers that age with a girl of seven. Their relationship had been warm and loving.

Until that night. Every time she remembered him standing there drenched in blood, holding out his hand, holding a bloody knife, she wondered what his intentions had been. Would he have killed her, too? She still didn’t understand why he’d killed her parents. Or how it was he hadn’t gotten a life sentence.

But all those unanswered questions ate at her, and the nightmares proved that she was afraid of him to this day. Maybe that fear was groundless, but he had killed their parents and offered no good explanation for any of it that she had ever heard, not even much later when she was old enough to ask the questions.

Impatient with herself, she yanked on a polo shirt to go with her jeans and tried to look forward to seeing the nasty ostriches. And the dogs. She’d always liked dogs.

Just one step at a time, one day at a time, until her emotional upset settled once again. She’d be fine.

* * *

CADELL MARCUS STOOD near the ostrich pen, eyeing his pair of nemeses with restrained dislike. Except for some pretty feathers, these were the ugliest-looking birds he’d ever seen. He was a tall man, but they towered over him, a fact they never seemed to let him forget. Dinosaurs. Why weren’t they extinct?

But there they stood, edged into the small pen he sometimes needed to use because, occasionally, despite ostrich demands, he needed his corral for things besides them.

Nor did he ever let himself forget those birds could kick him to death with a few blows. Not that they tried, but they’d sure given him the evil eye often enough, and when they stopped being scared of him and quit hunkering down, they had discovered great delight in pecking at his cowboy hats. Two expensive ones had bitten the dust before he’d realized what he really needed was a football helmet when he came within six feet.

He’d rounded them up into the small pen today, because Betty Cassell was bringing that friend of hers out to see about a guard dog. Betty had given him only the sketchiest of accounts as to why she felt it necessary, so he hoped he’d get more of the story when they arrived.

In the meantime...those damn ostriches would have to behave whether they liked it or not. At least the electrified fencing contained them. He couldn’t imagine trying to catch them if they ever got out. He’d need Mike Windwalker, the veterinarian, with his magic dart gun.

They were glaring at him now. He glared back. “You two don’t know how lucky you are that I don’t send you to a boot factory.”

He finally heard a motor approaching and the sound of tires on the gravel. Both birds redirected their attention and backed up, settling low to the ground in a protective posture. “Stay that way,” he suggested, then went to greet his guests.

A smile lit his face the instant he saw Betty. Something about her always made him smile. But the woman who climbed out the other side of the car made him catch his breath. He wouldn’t have thought a living woman could have the face of a Botticelli angel, complete with long blond hair, but this one did. She caught and held his gaze until he realized he was being rude.

Then he saw the rest of her. Oh, man, no angel could have a body like that. Or at least shouldn’t, because it caused an immediate firestorm in him, jeans and loose blue polo shirt notwithstanding.

“Hey, Cadell,” Betty called with a wave.

Cadell gathered himself with effort, mentally whipped himself back into line and focused on her. He approached with outstretched hand. “Good to see you, Betty.”

“Same here,” she said, shaking his hand. “And this is my friend Dory Lake.”

He turned and could no longer avoid looking at her. Simply breathtaking. With blue eyes the color of a summer sky. At one glance she made him feel dusty, unkempt and out of his league.

But she smiled warmly and extended her hand. When he reached for it, the touch was electric. “I heard about your ostriches.”

“Not everything, I’m sure.” Well, at least he could still talk, and the ostriches provided a bridge over his reaction to her. Never had a woman left him feeling so...well, hell, he was a cop. No one, male or female, ever left him gobsmacked.

Until now.

“Betty said you inherited the birds with the ranch?”

His grin returned. “Yup. I have no idea where they came from, just that apparently my dad had been taking care of them. Long enough to put in electrified fencing so they can’t escape. So there they are.” He turned and pointed to the pen. “Don’t get too close—they peck.”

She smiled, a beautiful expression. “Betty says you want to get rid of them?”

“To a good home somewhere the climate will suit them better. So far, no takers.”

“I have to confess I had no idea how big they are,” Dory said.

“Eight feet or so at maturity. Say, let’s go look at the dogs. They make much better company.”

He could feel the evil eyes following him as he led the ladies around his two-story ranch house to the dog run and kennels out back. At the moment he had six in various stages of training, mostly Belgian Malinois, but a German shepherd had joined the mix. In all he had ten kennels with access to fenced areas behind. It would have been unkind to expect them to live on concrete with their messes.

The dogs stood immediately, curious, ears pricked attentively. No barking, no crazy antics. Training showed.

He waited while the ladies looked them over, then Dory surprised him, pointing at the shepherd. “That’s a different breed.”

“Most people don’t even notice,” he answered. “Yeah, he’s a German shepherd. The others are Belgian Malinois, sometimes called Belgian shepherds.”

She looked at him with those blue eyes. “Do they behave differently?”

“A bit. The Malinois can be stubborn. He needs a good handler, but he’s also more powerful than he looks. A great police dog. But the shepherd is more obedient, so...” He shrugged. “I’ve worked with both breeds over the last decade or so, and I love them both. Either breed would make you a good guard dog, but they’re energetic. I hope you like to jog.”

Her smiled dawned, and he felt his heart skip. Too much perfection?

“As it happens, I jog every day. Two or three miles. Would that be enough?”

“Like anything else, the faster you go, the faster they tire. They’ve got a lot of endurance, though, which is why they’re such good working dogs. Both are also courageous to a fault.”

He watched her look from dog to dog almost pensively. He pointed to two on the right end of the kennels. “Those two are almost ready to join the force as K-9s. Their handlers are about to finish training with them. But the other four are at various points in training, and any would make a good guard dog quite quickly.”

She nodded. “Which would you recommend for a computer geek who can forget the time of day half the time?”

Cadell couldn’t suppress a laugh. “The shepherd would lie at your feet and give you soulful looks. The Malinois might poke you with his nose to get your attention. But...they can all be mischievous. No guarantees on that.”

He didn’t expect her to decide just by looking, so he opened two of the kennels, freeing the shepherd and one Malinois. Far from racing away along the dog run, they stepped out, surveyed the newcomers, then politely sniffed both Betty and Dory. Once their immediate curiosity was satisfied, both sat on their haunches and waited expectantly.

“I’ve never seen dogs so well trained,” Dory exclaimed.

“Most people don’t want to be jumped on,” Cadell replied. “They will if you want them to, but I don’t recommend it. Hold out your hand palm up. Once they’ve sniffed it, you should be able to pet them.”

* * *

DORY LOVED THE look of both dogs. Something about their eyes, at once alert and...empathetic? Did dogs feel empathy? She had no idea, but she was drawn to squat down so they were at eye level. Both dogs met her gaze steadily, which surprised her. She held out both hands, one to each dog, and as promised got nosed. Only then did she reach out to bury her fingers in their thick coats.

She’d never had a pet, she knew next to nothing about what she was getting into, but she knew in that instant that she very much wanted one of these dogs. She had the worst urge to wrap her arms around both their necks and hug them.

Amazed by her own response, one she almost never felt with people, she sat back on her heels and tried to regain her composure. “They’re both beautiful. I have to decide right now?”

“Of course not,” Cadell answered. “But it might help if we went out in the paddock and played a bit with them. They have different personalities, just like people do. One of them will catch your eye more than the other.”