Page 22 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

A sudden flash of blue light cuts through the dim tack room as the phone display illuminates against the dark pine lid. I don't mean to pry, but the bright flash draws my eyes down to the tack box.

A new email notification sits at the center of the screen, the text readable even upside down:

Mercy Flight Northwest · Offer of Appointment · Response required within 60 days.

Silence locks in my throat.

Every veteran who comes through this program arrives from somewhere else, completes their sixty days, and moves on. Having a medical flight offer lined up shouldn't surprise me. It's standard procedure. But seeing the sixty-day clock printed in blue light right in front of my face hits like a cold blast off the summit.

A growing part of me, one I didn't plan on three days ago when she walked into my yard, wants her to stay.

Sixty days. It sounds like plenty of time on paper, but looking at her now, it's nowhere near enough. It's foolish to think there could ever be anything between us. She's an Air Force Major passing through my barn, a woman with a life waiting for her somewhere down the mountain. She was always going to leave.

My jaw tightens as the cold logic settles in, my guard slamming back into place.

Maren reaches for her gloves, her fingers brushing the edge of the phone. Her gaze stays fixed on the leather, missing the way my expression turns to ice.

"Tomorrow." I set my jaw, my words coming out low and gravelly. "Seven-thirty. Don't be late."

I turn and walk down the aisle before she can answer, Barnaby following close at my heel, leaving her alone in the quiet stall.

SEVEN

Sixty Days

MAREN

The morning air in the training barn doesn't just bite—it burns. Frost coats the iron latches in white needles, the temperature gauge by the double timber doors pegged at three below zero. The storm holds off over the peak, but the sky beyond the high transom windows has turned the color of bruised slate, heavy with three feet of fresh powder waiting to dump on the pass.

I slide the bolt on run seven.

Juno steps out without a sound. Her sable coat is winter-dense, her amber eyes scanning my boots before settling on my face. She matches my stride, her shoulders steady at my hip.

The leather lead hangs in a loose loop between my thumb and index finger, the way Jason showed me yesterday, his broad hands covering mine in the freezing stall until the tension melted out of my shoulders.

I expect that warmth to be here this morning.

Cold distance takes its place.

Jason stands at the end of the aisle near the bins, his canvas coat buttoned to the chin, his vest dark against his broad chest. Barnaby sits flush at his left heel, static as a stone monument.

Jason keeps his gaze on Juno's front paws in the dry cedar shavings, his slate-gray eyes cold as the frost creeping up the pine siding.

"Heel line." Jason stands motionless near the feed bins. "Three paces left. Turn on the mark."

The distance in his posture is an iron wall.

Twenty-four hours ago, his thumb was resting against the inside of my wrist, adjusting my grip, his chest pressed flat against my back while I breathed in the scent of dry pine and heat. Now, his eyes stay locked on the cedar shavings.

"She's on the mark." My posture stiffens as my guard pulls up like a shield.

"The mark is two inches right." He stays ten feet away near the timber post, his hands shoved deep into his vest pockets, his posture rigid. "Run it again."

I tighten my jaw, the deep throb behind my right kneecap flaring as I pivot on the concrete. Juno turns with me, her shoulder glued to my thigh, her ears swiveling to catch the wind rattling the tin roof.

We run the turns four times in silence, guided only by the dry scrape of our boots in the shavings and the cold draft whistling under the eaves.

His broad back disappears into the tack room before the heavy timber door clicks shut.