I have a program to consult on, a book to research, and a family to testify against.I don't have room for a man who trains dogs like he's punishing himself and looks at me like I'm something dangerous.
Even if dangerous is exactly what he feels like.
Even if I haven't felt this kind of pull toward another person in years, and the reckless, hungry part of me that I keep locked down tight is already wondering what his hands would feel like on my skin.
I roll onto my side and bury my face in Scout's neck.
Tomorrow.Seven a.m.Professional.Focused.
I can absolutely do that.
CHAPTERTHREE
STEPHEN
She's early.
Six forty-seven a.m.and Lydia Brooke's mud-caked Subaru is already parked at my gate, Scout sitting in the passenger seat like a copilot who's done this a thousand times.I watch from the supply shed where I've been since five, reorganizing scent kits I already organized last night because I couldn't sleep.
I read her entire book between midnight and three a.m.
Cover to cover.Every chapter, every case study, every footnote.And somewhere around page one-forty, when she described rebuilding a shattered Belgian Tervuren who'd been electrocuted during a failed training protocol at a law enforcement academy, I set the book down on my chest and stared at the ceiling and thought: She's right.
Not about everything.Her timeline expectations are too generous for operational dogs who need to deploy under real-world pressure.But the core of it.The foundational principle that you can't train trust through force and expect it to hold when the stakes are life and death.
She's right, and I've known it for longer than I want to admit.
I grab the training vests and walk out to meet her.The morning air bites, September in Montana already carrying the edge of what's coming.Frost on the grass.Breath visible.The kind of cold that clears your head whether you want it cleared or not.
Lydia climbs out of her car wearing layers today.A thermal under a flannel that's too big for her, sleeves rolled past her wrists.Leggings.Same trail boots.Her hair's in a braid instead of a ponytail, pulled over one shoulder, and the early light turns it the color of dark honey.
Scout drops out of the passenger side and does her perimeter sweep.Same as yesterday.Quiet, thorough, calm.The dog operates like she's got a map of the world in her head and she's just confirming it hasn't changed overnight.
"You read it," Lydia says instead of hello.
"What makes you say that?"
"You're not scowling at me."
I almost smile.I catch it before it fully forms, but she sees it anyway.Something sparks in those amber eyes.Warm.Pleased.And entirely too observant for my peace of mind.
"I've got questions," I say.
"Good.That's better than objections."
I hand her a training vest and we walk toward the kennels.Side by side now, not me trailing behind her like yesterday.Scout ranges ahead, nose working the dew-soaked grass, checking every scent post with the casual thoroughness of a dog who trusts her environment.
"Chapter seven," I say."You talk about threshold mapping.Building a profile of each dog's individual stress responses so you can train below their threshold and gradually expand it."
"Right."
"That takes time I don't have.I've got contract deadlines.Agencies waiting for dogs.If I slow the program down to map every dog's individual stress ceiling, I'll lose contracts."
Lydia stops walking.Turns to face me.The morning sun catches the line of her jaw, the curve of her neck, the freckles scattered across her collarbone above the open top button of her flannel.
"How many dogs have you washed out of your program?"she asks.
The question lands in a place I don't like."Three."
