Page 54 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

Buried in me, forehead on mine, his whole weight held on his forearms. His eyes are open. He's breathing hard.

"Jason?"

"I need this." His voice breaks on a low, ragged breath, his forehead pressing harder against mine. "I need you right here. Like this."

"I'm right here." My hands slide up his back, fingers digging into the hard muscle between his shoulder blades.

"Hold onto me."

He moves with a deliberate rhythm, one hand under my hip drawing me flush against him. He's rough with me and fiercely protective in the same breath. It's a man asking me to stay with his body because he won't ask with his mouth.

My heels lock behind his thighs. Heat climbs from where we're joined, up my spine, into my teeth. I come with my nails in his shoulders and his name gone to pieces in my mouth.

He follows me over with my name broken in half. Then his face is in my neck and he stays there, all of him, until our hearts come down.

After, he's quiet. Quieter than I've ever seen him. He moves his fingers through my hair and stops.

He's bracing for the end of the sixty days. His arm wraps heavy across my waist—a man holding tight to something he expects to lose, waiting for me to choose between this mountain and Spokane.

I lie with my ear over his heart. His pulse is slower than mine. It always is.

Tomorrow. I press the promise into the warmth of his chest, the same delay I've given myself for three nights running. Tomorrow I'll pull out the notebook and tell him who I was to him over the Atlantic.

The porch of the tack room looks down the whole yard. Day eleven, and the light goes off the ridge at five. We sit on the top step with two mugs and both dogs, and the runs go quiet one at a time.

Juno leans against my shin, and Barnaby sits quiet at his knee. I take a slow sip of the black coffee, watching the steam rise into the dusk.

I've rehearsed what I have to tell him the way I used to rehearse a handoff report. Name. Date. What I did. What it cost. Flight 402 out of Bagram. October. I held your femoral line for nine hours over the Atlantic, and I hummed you my father's song so you wouldn't cross an ocean afraid. Four sentences. I've given longer reports to people with less right to hear them.

I put my hand on the zipper of the inside pocket. The notebook is warm from my body. Juno lifts her head off my shin and puts it back down.

"There's something I need to tell you."

He goes as still as the porch post, eyes on the yard, mug in both hands.

"Five years ago⁠—"

Boots on the gravel. Fast.

"Major." Griff rounds the corner of the barn, his left hand clamped over his right forearm. Blood drips through his fingers into the snow. Chief trots at his flank with his ears back. "The brass valve on the wash trough. Sheared off under the pipe wrench."

I'm off the step before the sentence is done.

"Porch light." Jason is already up. The yellow bulb clicks on over the steps. "Kit's in her truck."

"Glovebox side. Red bag."

He runs for the 4Runner. I guide Griff down onto the bottom step, pushing on his uninjured shoulder. Chief presses against my thigh, whining once before sitting flat on the gravel.

"Sit. Keep the arm above your heart." I strip off my gloves and push back his canvas sleeve. The sheared brass gouged a four-inch furrow along the outer muscle of his forearm, bleeding steady into his palm.

Jason drops the red bag beside my knee. The zipper is already open.

Saline. Gauze pads. I clamp my thumbs across the pressure point near his elbow, holding down until the flow slows to a dark seep.

"Squeeze my fingers."

He grunts, his jaw locked tight, and his grip closes around my knuckles with solid strength.