Second Chance Soldier Read online

  She turned to face Bear and him. “Is it a good thing for them to see training sessions they’re not involved in? I thought it might confuse them.” She looked toward Bear as if she expected him to answer, but the lanky shepherd just sat on the pavement and looked at her.

  “I don’t mean right next to them,” Evan said, catching up with her, “and there is a difference of opinions at times between professional trainers, but my belief is that it’s good for pups to see that they’re not the only ones humans are working with.”

  “You’re the boss,” Amber retorted, keeping her expression wry to ensure he knew she was kidding.

  Although, for the moment, he actually would be in charge.

  Did it help that he looked a bit military? His T-shirt today was a camouflage print, which he wore over jeans. Maybe he was attempting to impart a silent message, or a reminder of his background, or—Well, she’d just have to see how things went.

  She had donned an outfit that morning she felt was appropriate for her both being a student yet being in charge…sort of. It was a loose black T-shirt with white letters that said Chance K-9 Ranch, something her dad had gotten made when he’d bought this place and had given shirts as rewards to students in his classes.

  He hadn’t given Amber an opportunity to take part, but she had at least received a shirt. Today, she wore it over athletic pants.

  She held back a little to follow Evan and Bear through the gate and beyond the area where the pups were again enclosed. They continued for a short distance, yet when Amber caught up and turned, she saw the young dogs jumping in their enclosure, all three seeming to watch what was going on.

  A good thing or not? Well, Evan would be the one to work with the pups so he’d better know what he was doing.

  “Okay,” he said. “First, I want to reiterate that Bear is retired from the military and doesn’t do any official active-duty police K-9 work, either. But he’s great to demonstrate training skills. I gather that you want me both to give a demo today of what Bear can do, and also to explain how he learned it, maybe give you an initial lesson in training K-9s, or other dogs, too.”

  “That’s right.” She stared into his face. His expression was solemn, but he didn’t look away. “I’ll want you to give me further private lessons, but today’s will just be a start.”

  Private lessons? Why did the term make her insides turn suddenly warm? Sure, the guy was hot, but no way could she follow up with anything between them that was truly private.

  Besides, with his PTSD, he probably had no interest in getting close to any woman, especially not his employer.

  “Fine. Okay, first I’d like you to stand there and watch while I put Bear through his paces.”

  For the next ten minutes, Amber was in awe. Evan had done a good job working during his interview mostly with the minimally trained shepherd pups, but Bear? He was wonderful!

  The regular stuff at first, like sit, stay, down, heel, both with verbal commands and motions, all appeared completely natural to Bear. Evan’s tone working with him was soft yet sure, and each time the dog obeyed, it was followed up by praise. The humid air seemed almost to reverberate with “good dog.” And once he was through with that, Evan pulled a tug toy from his pocket. This time, instead of throwing it, he grasped the rope tied to one side and engaged in a short tug-of-war with the dog, who made amazingly happy growling noises in return.

  One of the most impressive things was how, at heel, Bear stayed right at Evan’s side even as he turned and twisted, no matter how fast he did it. “This is an important ability for military and police K-9s,” he told her. “Bear’s also skilled in sniffing out things, particularly explosives. I’ll have him demonstrate that someday, too.”

  Eventually, he stopped and Bear sat down immediately at his feet. Evan looked at Amber. “Your turn now.”

  Her heart rate quickened. She told herself that it was okay if she didn’t do great. Bear was Evan’s dog. She had purposely left Lola inside with her mom, since their Lab wasn’t to be part of this training episode, even though she had been taught well by Amber’s dad.

  “Fine.” She hoped her tone sounded professional enough. “Tell me what I should do.”

  “Okay, here’s how I’ll start teaching future trainers, whether or not they’ll eventually get special K-9 handler lessons.” Standing facing her, with Bear lying on the ground beside him, Evan described a scenario where the trainer was to choose a particular command. “You know the drill as far as what’s standard. I always use regular short and precise words, always the same to get the same result. I’ll walk away now and you can go through the same commands I used before, but do them in a different order.”

  Before he stepped back, he edged up to Amber and pulled a ball from his pocket so that it was hidden from Bear’s gaze.

  “Can’t he smell it?” she asked.

  “Of course, but he’s a good boy. And though he gets games as rewards, he’s trained to respond just as much to praise.”

  “From me?” Amber figured Bear would be much happier if his master praised him.

  “You’ll see.”

  Amber felt Evan’s hand at her side near her own hand and had an urge to grab his warm fingers and hold on. Instead, she gripped the ball and stuffed it into her pocket—not easy to do with her snug pants—as Evan moved away.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye, needing some kind of nonverbal reassurance that she could do it, but figuring he’d just look away.

  He didn’t, though. His deep blue eyes looked back into hers, and he smiled and gave an encouraging nod.

  Heck, it wasn’t as if Bear would attack her, or even ignore her, if she did things wrong…

  She nodded back, then looked down toward the reclining dog on the ground. She walked away a few steps, then said, “Bear, come.”

  She wasn’t surprised when Bear rose and approached.

  “Good dog,” she said, feeling mushy inside. Sure, she got Lola to come on command, but Lola was her dog. Or at least her mother’s.

  “Good,” Evan said. “Now the next one.”

  For the next ten minutes, Amber put the smart, obedient shepherd through his paces, listening as Evan praised her at times, and also gave her suggestions of what to do next, and when to throw the ball as a reward.

  His voice, his praise… Amber felt proud of herself, as if she was the dog obeying commands. She also had an urge, when the exercise was over, to dash in Evan’s direction and give him a big hug. Though actually, he was the one who should hug her as part of his praise…

  “Good start, Amber,” he finally said, coming over to her and gesturing to Bear. “Sit, boy.” Of course the dog obeyed.

  Amber would probably have sat at his command, too, just then—she was that happy, that revved up by her success.

  And was that the first time he had called her by name? Probably. On top of everything else, it made her feel all warm inside.

  Still… “I’ve made an internal note about what you told me, but I was still only working with Bear.”

  “So far,” Evan agreed. “That’s the first part. Before you can teach anyone else, you need to know how to do it yourself. You’ll be able to observe it when I work with your students this afternoon, assuming they’ve really learned lessons about training dogs. Otherwise, I’ll start fresh with them, too.” He paused for a moment. “You’re okay with how we’re doing so far?”

  He hadn’t appeared to lack confidence. He still didn’t.

  But Amber appreciated that he did recognize that she was in charge—or at least that he wanted it to look that way.

  “Sure,” she said. They began walking back toward the gate, Bear at Evan’s side. Did she want this exercise to be over?

  She’d see Evan again this afternoon, watch him training the others—but they wouldn’t be alone.

  And she still had a lot of curiosity…

  She moved slightly ahead of him, then stopped.
“Can I ask you some questions, like why you use the methods you do? When I was interviewing others for this job, I saw a lot of different ways to train.”

  “And there are a lot of methods that work well, but mine’s best.” His smile appeared cocky and, despite his looking away quickly, sent a shiver of interest through her. “I’ll tell you why I chose it, but let’s go get a cup of coffee, okay? It could take a while.”

  “Good idea,” Amber said.

  Spending more time in Evan’s presence sounded like a good idea—especially since the reason was to teach her something more. Or so she tried to tell herself.

  Chapter 6

  Rather than choosing to sit inside as they had for breakfast, Amber invited her mom to join Evan, Bear and her on the front porch for coffee…and conversation. She had a couple of reasons for doing that: to ensure her mom didn’t remain by herself, and because she knew her mother would refill their coffee cups often if they needed it.

  Plus, the idea of being alone in Evan’s company, in essence, some more…well, she liked that but at the same time didn’t. At least they’d be talking about dog training, and she’d appreciate her mother’s company.

  She was happy but unsurprised when Evan offered to bring the folding garden chairs onto the porch from the garage behind the house. She was equally happy but unsurprised when her mother accepted her invitation, made a fresh pot of coffee and joined them. Lola came outside, too, and laid down near her, as if reminding Amber of her presence since she’d worked with another dog that morning.

  “So,” Sonya said after filling their mugs with hot coffee, “tell me about your demonstration.”

  They’d mentioned it at breakfast, and in a way Amber was surprised her mom hadn’t been more insistent about coming to watch. But Amber had wanted this to be one-on-one since she figured she would learn more that way, so had gently turned down her mother’s suggestion but promised she could do it another time.

  Besides, she knew her mother had often observed her dad’s training sessions and it might be painful for her to watch.

  “Well, it’s no surprise, but your daughter did a good job of telling Bear what to do.” Evan, who’d been sitting tall on the tightly woven green webbing on his chair, bent to pat the dog beside him on the head. Amber grinned in pride as Evan described in detail her short but fun episode working with Bear.

  “So you train dogs mostly with verbal commands?” Sonya asked when he was done.

  “And hand signals, too, with praise and toys as a reward. And gentle pushes or pulls when needed.” He paused, and Amber saw him look straight into her mother’s face for a moment. “I know there are a lot of training methods, some that aren’t as kind but can still get results. I was in the military and had to get used to taking orders from superior officers, but there were some I liked better than others, so that helped in my dog-training choices.”

  “Really?” Amber threw wryness into her question. “I’d have thought someone like you, who gives dogs lots of orders, wouldn’t have minded taking them himself.”

  His gaze moved to her, and this time he didn’t immediately look away. “The officers whose orders I liked best seemed to care, to empathize with those reporting to them, even if they gave those orders as curtly as everyone else. That’s what I did when I started working with dogs—and I found some instructors for K-9 officers did the same. So that’s what I do—without the curtness unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Maybe for the same reasons…it’s the kind of training my husband preferred, too.” Sonya seemed to find something highly interesting in her coffee cup as she stared into it, and Amber couldn’t help herself. She put down her cup and hugged her mother. The tears in her eyes mirrored her mom’s, and even Lola sensed their sorrow and came closer to snuggle with them.

  “From all I’ve heard about him,” Evan said softly from behind her, “Corbin sounds like he was one really good, caring trainer.”

  Giving her mother another squeeze, Amber turned and looked at Evan. “Yes, he was.” But she couldn’t help wondering what her dad had said, what he’d done, to apparently upset one of his human students enough to get him killed—if that was what had happened. Or why he’d been targeted by a robber. They weren’t particularly wealthy.

  Or—

  Maybe one of these days Amber would try again to confront Kara Province and demand more information.

  She’d met the students before who were coming this afternoon. They were local, and she had encouraged them to continue meeting here to practice their training exercises as a group without a teacher. They all seemed nice. She doubted they were among the cops’ suspects, but she couldn’t just assume they all were innocent.

  She wouldn’t let her mom go out alone with any of them, in case someone held a hidden grudge…

  She felt, rather than saw, her mother move behind her and turned. Sonya was standing now, holding her coffee cup firmly.

  “Corbin was an amazing man,” she said. “I just wish he had written a book on his life. Or at least on his methods of dog training. That would have helped us a lot right now.”

  “I wish he had, too, Mom.” Amber touched her arm once more, then turned to Evan. “Maybe you and I can interview some of his returning students this afternoon. We can ask how your methods are like his, and how they’re different.”

  And maybe she could look over the contents of her dad’s computer again. She’d done so before, almost as soon as she had come home. She had hoped that somehow there would be information on it, maybe an accusation, to help her figure out who’d killed her father.

  Not if it had been a random robbery, of course. And she hadn’t found anything helpful. Her moist eyes now were nothing like the tears she had shed then.

  “Sounds like a good idea.” Evan watched her with a sympathetic look, not quite into her face, but he had to see the sorrow she projected from inside. “I’ve never considered writing a book about dog training, but I like the concept, particularly comparing and contrasting how Corbin did it with my methods, if we can figure that out.”

  “Let’s give it a try soon,” Amber said. She liked that this man, this dog trainer who was taking over her father’s position, was willing to give Corbin Belott credit for being a good teacher, whether or not his way of doing it was the same.

  Her dad had built up a wonderful reputation. Amber felt sure that Evan, too, was good at what he did, and she hoped this afternoon’s exercise would help to start getting word out about the new, upcoming classes.

  Chance K-9 Ranch should have a wonderful future. And she’d work hard to achieve that.

  Whatever the reason for her dad’s death, he deserved that kind of legacy.

  *

  Okay, it was nearly time. Evan knew he needed to get his act together.

  He would do it.

  At the moment, he remained inside his house with Bear, but the students were due to arrive in ten minutes and he wanted to be outside waiting.

  Even though they would be a group of four, not just the one-on-one students he preferred, he could, and would, handle it. He had to, both to keep his job…and to impress his boss.

  He had eaten a quick pastrami sandwich for lunch. Once he’d left Amber and Sonya that morning, using his necessary shopping expedition as an excuse, he had closed Bear in the house and driven downtown to the grocery store he’d noticed and stocked up on easy-to-prepare foods, like sandwich fixings and precut salad as well as breakfast items. He also remembered to buy hotcake mix and syrup. He’d promised to make breakfast sometime for the two women who had been so kind to him so far.

  He had managed to act friendly to the store clerks, even answering the cashier’s question about why he happened to be in town. He didn’t get the woman’s name or look at her much, but she clearly knew the Belotts and understood they had been seeking someone to take up where Corbin had left off.

  “That’s me,” he’d said cheerily as he’d picked up his bags and hurried out of there.

  Corbin
had definitely been well-known around here, even though he hadn’t lived in the area very long. Evan recognized that he had major shoes to fill—and, hopefully, surpass.

  He wondered what kind of reaction he’d have gotten if he had asked the cashier her idea of how Corbin had died…but he knew better than being that pushy. Any questions probably wouldn’t yield answers, and, if the wrong person heard, it could even result in danger to him and, worse, to Amber and Sonya.

  He’d do all he could to figure it out, but subtly.

  But for now… “Bear, come.” He opened the front door and, standing on the front stoop, snapped an ordinary woven leash onto Bear’s ordinary woven collar. Bear would therefore know he could just act like a regular dog around the others, without his special K-9 vest or other training equipment.

  He would still be well behaved, of course. That was Bear.

  Walking briskly along the narrow walkway, Evan headed toward the main house with Bear at his side. This time Orrin didn’t pop out to say hello. But as Evan reached the home where Amber and Sonya lived, their door opened and both came outside.

  Sonya held a leash similar to Bear’s, with Lola at its end.

  “Hi, Evan. Is it okay for me to stand outside the fence with Lola to watch you?” she called. “I won’t get too close.” She hadn’t changed from her casual clothes, but her reddish hair looked more formal in the upswept bun on top of her head.

  Though she hadn’t watched him work with her daughter—because it could be more emotional?—this was fine. “Sure,” he said.

  “Great!” Amber smiled down from the porch. She’d changed into a long blue shirt over beige cargo pants, apparently wanting to dress up a little more for the class.

  She looked good. More than good, probably no matter what she wore.

  Or didn’t wear.

  “Let’s go wait for them,” he said hurriedly, forcing his thoughts back to reality. He glanced toward the fenced lawn area. The shepherd pups weren’t enclosed there. “Glad you left the young guys inside. Watching this might only confuse them.”