LITMIR.BIZ

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been prohibitive. Thanks to Kit’s growing reputation training service dogs, her bank account had finally crept out of the red, but it might be five years before she could actually take a vacation.

      Five years….

      Frowning, she sank into the old chair behind her wooden desk. It was the same place where her mother had handled the ranch’s account books and budgets. The pitted wood was cool beneath her fingers, smooth from years of use. Closing her eyes, she could imagine her mother lining up pens and stacking bills in neat piles as she calculated new ways to stretch a dollar.

      Kit did the stretching now.

      A local dog food company was pestering her to endorse a new product. The money would help her buy new tires for her Jeep and install an alarm system at the ranch.

      As she reached for her checkbook, she saw the red message button flashing on her telephone and quickly scanned the calls. She would be devastated to miss a call from her brother, who was impossible to reach and always phoned at unpredictable times. If she’d missed Trace today, it might be months before she heard from him again.

      Triggering her replay button, she fumed through two mortgage offers. The third message was from her oldest friend.

      “Kit, it’s Miki. I just got back from a new project in Santa Fe. You are not going to believe the assignment I landed this time. Let’s go drink double shots of tequila while I tell you about it, okay? I need some advice. Stop spoiling those gorgeous canines and give me a call.”

      Kit smiled, wondering what kind of bizarre situation her old friend had gotten into now. A year ago it was making a tour documentary for a punk band that performed with defanged rattlesnakes, and her most recent job had been shooting trailers for indie horror movies. Whatever her new assignment, it was bound to be strange. Miki attracted bizarre like honey attracted flies.

      The next message was the crisp, professional voice of Kit’s vet, calling to make an appointment for a vaccination titer, a procedure required to check the immunization status of the four puppies. Liz Merrigold had been the O’Halloran family vet for nearly a decade, as well as the local contact for the breeder who had supplied Kit’s current litter of training dogs. Liz always kept a sharp eye on the animals placed for training under her supervision, gladly providing medical advice and moral support, day or night.

      Kit jotted a note on her calendar to call and confirm a time for the visit. While she wrote, she triggered the last message.

      “This is Doctor Rivera’s office, Ms. O’Halloran. Doctor Rivera asks that you call the office at your earliest convenience. He’d like to speak with you.”

      Kit looked down at her hands. All the energy seemed to bleed out of her body. She sank lower in the chair, staring at the breeding awards that lined the walls of the study. Presidents, generals and movie stars smiled down from mismatched frames, mute records of her family’s contribution to humane and practical training techniques for service and working dogs. In twenty-five years her parents had personally trained over two thousand dogs, and Kit was determined to expand on their legacy.

      But her body might have different plans.

      After a long day of exercise, she could no longer ignore the deep throb in her right hip. Wincing, she pulled a heavy medical textbook from a nearby shelf. She didn’t expect to find anything new because she had read every relevant page at least fifty times. All of them pointed to the same conclusion: joint deterioration, pure and simple.

      Kit wished that Trace would come home. She missed his outrageously bad jokes and his off-key Rolling Stones renditions.

      But she never knew when her brother would appear, and she tried not to think about the possibility that he might never come back. Although the details were secret, Kit knew he was part of a highly trained covert operations team, and right now they could be deployed anywhere.

      Almost certainly, it would be someplace dangerous. More than once she remembered Trace calmly telling her that hell was their specialty.

      Baby gently nudged her leg. Kit sensed that the dog had come to offer reassurance with the warmth of her body and the soft thump of her tail. It was uncanny how pets developed a skill at reading their owners’ moods.

      Kit took a deep breath, stretching her legs slowly. Her joints felt stiff, but they were no worse than any other day, and that was something to be thankful for. Leaning down, she slid her hand through Baby’s soft fur. She had cried herself dry months ago, cursing her body, her genes and nameless bad luck. Neither the tears nor the curses had made her feel better.

      As she stared at the medical book filled with grim facts and sad pictures, something shook free inside Kit. Slowly it uncurled against her chest, blowing away restless fears and dreary expectations. She wouldn’t plan her future based on old medical files. She was strong. She would make her own future.

      She closed the textbook with a snap. No more obsessing about medicine and new discoveries. If you gave in to fear, you’d lost already.

      Outside the moon drifted above the mesa. Kit ran a hand through her hair and stretched. “I’m in the mood for a hero tonight. What do you guys say? Gary Cooper or John Wayne?”

      Diesel stared at her, cocking his head in the half-listening, half-baffled pose that always made her smile.

      Baby turned in a slow circle, stretching out on the floor.

      “Bogie it is, then.” Shaking her head, Kit went out to find Casablanca.

      TWENTY MINUTES LATER the Germans were storming Paris, Bogie was fighting a broken heart, and Kit couldn’t have been happier.

      Curled up on the couch, she watched black-and-white images play across the wide-screen TV that had been her father’s single vice. She smiled as the story wrapped around her, pulling her in and making her forget her own troubles. Ilsa and Rick would always have Paris, and she would always have Casablanca.

      Claude Rains leered at her. Kit fought a yawn as the day finally took its toll. She fell into dreams of black and white and a world filled with weary heroes.

      MOONLIGHT SHIMMERED across the floor. Baby stretched out at Kit’s feet, gnawing on a rubber chew toy.

      As Kit slept, the four dogs moved closer. At a look from Baby, Diesel vanished to patrol the courtyard while Butch and Sundance moved to check the backyard and rear doors.

      In silence, Baby lifted her paws to the windows that overlooked the mesa. There in the moonlight the dog’s ears pricked forward.

      A family of quail scurried for cover, routed from sleep by the shadow of a passing hawk. Wind hissed through the juniper branches that tossed in the moonlight.

      Baby absorbed all of these movements, assessing them as unimportant. But something else moved in the darkness, and it was a thing the dog had never sensed before.

      The other three dogs appeared from the shadows, drawn by the force of Baby’s uneasiness. As one, they sank down before the window, alert to the night.

      While the moon rose higher and war waged across North Africa, Kit slept on, caught in restless dreams. Ranged around her, the dogs kept a wary vigil, sensing new predators afoot beneath the desert moon.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      SILENT AND CONTROLLED, the highly trained covert operative jumped the courtyard wall and scanned the outside of Kit’s house. At the edge of the shadows, certain he was alone, he triggered his cell phone.

      Ryker answered on the second ring, sounding irritated. “0200 hours. This had better be important, Houston.”

      “Permission to break cover, sir.”

      “You’re persistent, I’ll say that.”

      Wolfe didn’t answer. The night was silent, the air rich with the pungent bite of piñon and burning mesquite logs.

      “Any new threats, Commander?”

      “A cougar

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