LITMIR.BIZ

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Nash knelt to meet her eyes and scratched under her chin, ignoring the profuse drool that spilled out of her wobbly cheeks and pooled onto the already sticky floor. “You are such a good girl, Greta. We’ll be at work soon, I promise.” He patted her head and she flopped her tail on the ground, her wags loud and slow. Greta was the epitome of a family dog at home, but a fierce K9 on the job. In so many ways, she’d been his anchor these last challenging years.

      Until a spectacular night with the K9 clinic veterinarian, Patience Colton. He’d not thought it possible for a woman to soak into his psyche after only one evening, but Patience had. Whenever he found his anxiety rising due to something as simple as the kids messing up the kitchen, or more serious reasons, like trying to find and apprehend the Groom Killer, his mind went back to that night like a homing pigeon.

      He closed the sink drain and added liquid soap to the running water, reminding himself for the fifth time in as many days that he had to call the repairman. He didn’t have time to be hand-washing his half siblings’ endless dishes. They had a chore list that they were actually pretty good at following, but his rule was “academics first,” and with the heavy backpacks that came home, the dishes seemed to pile on. Nash was accomplished at many things, but fixing a cranky dishwasher wasn’t one of them.

      As the bubbles grew into a frothy mound, his mind flashed to the soft, very sexy rounds of Patience’s breasts. It hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d done, giving in to his needs, but he had no regrets over their one-night stand almost three months ago. A surge of protectiveness toward that night—no, toward Patience—blindsided him. It wasn’t fair to call it a one-night stand. It had been more. Or maybe he’d misinterpreted the obvious pleasure she’d enjoyed at his hands as more than the sexual release they’d shared.

      He wasn’t dating anyone regularly, how could he with four half siblings to take care of? But that night with Patience had reminded him that he needed some caretaking himself. And while both he and Patience had agreed that one night was all their lives allowed, both for time and family reasons, maybe they shouldn’t have been so hasty in their agreement. He sure wouldn’t mind seeing her again.

      A beautiful woman like Patience was probably already involved with someone else. Although she’d said she wasn’t, and that she had no plans to date anyone. She needed her personal life to remain simple, she’d said, because of the heavy demands being the K9 vet and community vet in general made on her. Didn’t they all have demanding jobs, though, in Red Ridge? The small mining town was incredibly productive for its size, and required nearly every citizen to do their part to make the municipality thrive. Besides, if Patience was anything like him, no matter how busy life got there were those moments of realizing you were missing something... Yeah, maybe he’d ask her out again. Of course, that could lead to more than he was able to handle, but he wanted to handle Patience—

      The house phone rang and he answered, cradling the receiver between his jaw and shoulder. “Maddox.”

      “Nash, it’s dispatch.” He recognized Shelly Langston’s voice. She worked dispatch for Red Ridge County since he’d been on the force, and probably ten years before that. Shelly filled in whenever Frank Lanelli, the senior dispatcher, was off.

      “What do you have, Shelly?”

      “We’ve got a child who fell off a bike on the way to school, over the highway shoulder on Route 10. They want Greta on the scene.”

      “We’re on our way.”

      He hung up and motioned for Greta, but she was one step ahead of him, at the door with her leash in her mouth.

      “Good girl. We’ve got today’s first job.”

      They worked as one, leaving the house, getting into the police K9 vehicle, arriving on scene and helping to determine if the child had fallen by accident or if a vehicle had forced them off the road. Greta used her expert sniffer to relay information and Nash translated to the officers and first responders. Immediately after they’d wrapped it up, they were called to a home burglary downtown, and then later, to the site of an arson. Before their shift finished, Nash and Greta had participated in no fewer than eight cases, from shoplifting to drug dealing to escorting a lost memory-care patient back to his care facility.

      No matter how long the day grew, as tiring as the work was, thoughts of a brilliant evening with the lovely Patience Colton never left him. Maybe he’d scrape up the nerve to call her. In an unofficial capacity, of course.

      Patience looked at her staff, all gathered in the break room. Reception was closed after normal clinic hours, and they’d endured an especially long day of surgeries and urgent calls.

      “That’s it for today, folks. Unless we have another emergency call, I want everyone going home and getting a good meal and rest. This weekend could end up being just as taxing.” She referred not just to the fact that the K9 unit was often busiest on weekends due to a surge in criminal activity, but the fact that weekends were when weddings happened. Most couples had quietly postponed their weddings once it was a clear a killer was targeting grooms, but everyone was on edge, worried that the Groom Killer could strike again at any moment. There were always couples who wouldn’t let anything stop them from their big day.

      “Do you think that the animals are trying to tell us something, Doc?” Pauline, the newest vet tech, didn’t ask the question with cynicism. She was new and trying to absorb all she could about how the facility worked. The staff had discussed more than once the apparent connection between animal distress and human anxiety. Animals were empathic, and Red Ridge’s pets had to be feeling the edginess of their owners these last months. It’d be abnormal to not be worried about the serial killer.

      “It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s fact that they seem to have an edge on us when it comes to predicting bad behavior, and to a T each patient has demonstrated the signs of stress brought on by a perceived threat. Our resident parrot has been squawking twice as much, the cats have been mewling no matter their pain level, and the dogs have whimpered at random times. While any of that could be coincidence, as we’ve had a high number of surgeries this week, I’m inclined to trust experience. Go home and get some rest—you could be called back within hours. Let’s all pitch in and get Surgery cleaned up. I don’t want anyone tackling that alone—we’ve made a mess!” Her staff laughed and she used the energy to buoy her through the next thirty minutes of a thorough scrubbing down of their operating room.

      It was a mess from the day’s routine spaying and neutering surgeries, and the unexpected gunshot wound. She’d spent two hours picking out birdshot pellets from a sweet labradoodle’s right haunch. These were all in addition to the regular duties she had as the K9 veterinarian. The RRPD encouraged her clinic to help the community whenever possible. But her first duty was always K9.

      Not to mention the personal connection. The Red Ridge K9 unit, training center and clinic were dedicated to the memory of Patience’s mother, who’d died in childbirth. Her father, Fenwick Colton, lived up to his reputation as a wealthy, self-serving ass most of the time. But when it came to her mom’s legacy and the K9 facility, Fenwick didn’t waver. Until recently, when he’d threatened to shut down funding because of Colton Energy’s dwindling bankroll.

      Her father had put his family through its paces, fathering five children by three different wives. Her older half sister, Layla, was the only one from Fenwick’s first marriage, while Patience and her older sister, Beatrix, were from his second trip down the aisle. After their mother died birthing Patience, Fenwick remarried again and had her younger half brother, Blake, and then half sister Gemma. While Patience enjoyed a pretty good relationship with all of her siblings, she’d always felt closest to Layla. She’d taken her cue from hardworking Layla, too, dedicating herself to veterinary work as diligently as Layla did to Colton Energy.

      Which made Patience furious with her father for mismanaging his funds and putting the K9 program at risk. She was convinced that it was by no fault of Layla’s that Colton Energy was struggling. If anything, Layla’s contributions kept the company from going belly-up much sooner. Patience wanted to ask Layla more detailed questions about it but her caseload prevented her from digging too deep into the financial records. She

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