Page 10 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

Jason sees the strain on my lead, then walks over, his boots crunching in the slush.

"She doesn't hear you." His voice cuts through the wind.

"She's ignoring me."

"She's mirroring you." Jason steps into her line of sight, blocking her view of the fence. "You're trying to outrank her, Major. You're using your officer voice to build a wall between you. She knows the wall is hollow."

"I'm giving a command."

"There's a difference between giving a command and being obeyed." He steps closer, his broad frame blocking the freezing wind. "Right now, you're trying to tell her what to do, but she doesn't respect your voice. A command without respect is just noise. In my barn, and outside of it, you don't demand respect or trust. You earn the right to have it."

"Is that what you do?" I look directly at him, holding my ground. "Earn it?"

"With my dogs? Absolutely." His gaze locks onto mine and holds. "With people? The rules don't change. If you want a dog to trust you with her life, you show up completely. You don't stand half in and half out, already looking for the exit. Juno knows you aren't committed, Major. And until you show up for her, she's going to keep scanning."

Before I can answer, Griff's dog Chief makes a sharp yelp from the paddock rail.

It's a sound I know all too well—the clean snag of skin on cold metal. Chief stands shying away from the fence, a small patch of red beginning to show on his black shoulder. The others stop, looking around. Brody Gavin steps back a foot. Danny Montoya looks at the blood and hesitates, his shoulders tense.

My training takes over before my brain can construct the thought.

"Griff, hold his head." My voice is quiet, dropping into the steady rhythm of a checklist. "Tuck his muzzle under your arm so he doesn't try to lick. Jason, do you have a first-aid kit?"

Jason is already moving. He reaches into his vest, pulling a green nylon pouch from his pocket and laying it open on the snow.

I drop to my knees in the wet slush. The cold goes straight through my canvas pants, but I don't feel it. I pull my gloves off with my teeth, throwing them into the snow. The tear is deep—a two-inch split in the thick skin of his shoulder where a loose wire barb snagged his coat. It's bleeding heavily, but the muscle beneath is intact.

"A field kit in your vest?" I reach into the pouch, grabbing the irrigation bottle and a sterile pad. "A regular Boy Scout."

"The mountain doesn't give second chances." He locks his hands on Chief's collar, bracing the dog against his knees. "Flush the grit."

I flush the laceration with a steady stream of water, washing away the grit, ice crystals, and matted hair from the raw edges. I press the gauze firmly against the margins to clear the blood and inspect the depth of the tear.

Clean margins. No vascular damage.

"I have a suture kit." I reach into my coat pocket, pulling out a sterile packet—eleven years of flight nursing refusing to let me walk empty-handed. "I'll put four stitches in to close the gap and keep the slush out before we move him."

"Look who's talking." His slate-grey gaze tracks the packet in my fingers before meeting mine. "You never left the flight line. Do it."

My movements are automatic. These are hands that have worked in the dark at thirty thousand feet while the cabin pitched around me. The wind off the peak is howling, but the sound doesn't reach me. The cold is gone, drowned out by the quiet focus of the needle.

Jason drops into the slush beside me, his broad frame blocking the biting wind. He reaches in to part the thick fur, his calloused fingers pressing the skin taut on either side of the laceration to give my needle a clean target.

His shoulder presses flush against mine with every breath, radiating heat straight through our coats. His knuckles brush against my fingers as I work, sending a shock of warmth through the numbness of my hands. Rank vanishes in the slush. There is only his steady grip holding the skin, the rhythm of my needle, and his gravel-rough breath warming the side of my neck.

I finish the fourth stitch, cutting the thread with the sterile scissors from his kit. The knots sit flat, a line of four black throws against the skin.

"Clean work." A calm voice comes from the paddock gate.

A man stands by the rail, a green wool scarf tucked into his collar, the grey-muzzled German shepherd sitting at his side. He walks over, his boots crunching in the slush, and kneels beside Chief. He inspects the skin near my sutures, checking the tension of the knots.

"Clean enough for a surgical bay." He steps back, extending a hand to me. "Wyatt Calhoun. I run the vet clinic and oversee the program's medical side. Better work than the valley vet would have done. We're glad to have you, Major."

"Hale." I rise, my knees wet, my fingers stiff with the cold as I shake his hand. "But Maren is fine."

He nods once, a silent acknowledgment of professional respect, and helps Griff lead Chief toward the warm clinic runs in the main lodge. The others follow them, Danny still breathing in counted paces, Sarah keeping her shoulder close to his.

Jason remains by the paddock rail, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His gaze stays anchored on me as I gather the bloody gauze and suture wrappers from the slush.