Page 46 of Operation Protector
I get it, dog. I’d like that, too.
He yanked his gaze back to his coffee mug.
“Colby?” she asked, and he knew she’d seen his sudden jerk.
“I just…” He struggled for a moment, then blurted out the first coherent question he could think of, nodding at Ziggy. “Does he help?”
She smiled softly and reached to stroked the soft fur. “Yes, he does. He’s so…interested. In everything. That was something I lost for a while.”
“After your husband died?”
She nodded. “I didn’t care about anything, for a long time. Then my neighbor’s dog had puppies, and I met this guy. He was the littlest of the litter, and the quietest. His siblings kept knocking him down. It’s silly, but I felt like we could…understand each other.”
“Not silly at all,” he said, his voice a little rough at the images she was putting in his mind.
“I missed my husband so much, I needed something, anything, to fill at least some of the hole he’d left. And once I had Ziggy, I started to remember things besides the awful ending. Like how Josh was the one who pushed me to start my business, who supported me trying. He always had my back, always told me I could fly if I’d just trust my talent enough to lift off.”
He wondered what that must have been like, to have someone so on your side, so encouraging…instead of someone telling youthe work you loved was useless, pointless and something to be ashamed of.
“What did he do?”
She smiled. “He was a locksmith.”
“Well, that’s useful.”
“It is. Do you remember when the automatic locks at the emergency room at the local hospital went haywire about five years ago, and nobody could get in or out?”
“I do. It was all over the news, nearly caused a riot.” He knew where she was going then. “I read they called some guy out in the middle of the night and he had it fixed in like twenty minutes. That was your husband?”
“It was.”
He thought he recognized her expression. “You were proud of him,” he said softly, wondering what that would feel like.
“Very. And he of me. And that,” she went on, “is how it should be. A marriage, I mean.”
He looked at her then. “You don’t have to remind me. I realize that now.”
“I can’t imagine purposely making someone I supposedly love feel the way she’s made you feel.”
“No, you couldn’t, could you?” He had no doubts about that. Ziggy squirmed and let out a sleepy little woof. He reached out and petted the little guy. “Sometimes… I felt like a stray dog who got adopted, but then dumped because he wanted to hunt or herd instead of being a lap dog.”
“To do what he was bred to do,” Ali said, getting it immediately, not to his surprise.
“Exactly. And to me, her world was like trying to herd sharks.”
Ali grimaced. “How on earth did you last as long as you did with her?”
He shrugged. It seemed foolish to him now, beyond foolish. But it was the only answer. “Because I promised forever.”
“And Grace.”
“Yes.” He let out a compressed breath. “She deserved better than the hell she’s gone through. She deserved parents worthy of her. With a marriage that wasn’t built on…”
He really didn’t have any words for that, and waved a hand in defeat.
“You mean a marriage like, say, Hayley and Quinn’s, for example,” she said.
“Yes. They are…remarkable.”
