Page 25 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

"Hale." His gaze holds mine across the distance.

"Pike." I step forward, my boots firm on the dry shavings.

"You're on medical detail." He speaks without hesitation. "The storm's going to knock out power on the upper line. If the clinic generator stutters, we lose the heated pads for Chief and the young dogs. I want the hypothermia kits and thermal wraps staged in the tack room. Human and canine."

"Medical detail is bench work until someone bleeds." My jaw tightens. Eleven years of rank hum in my blood, every instinct chafing against taking orders from a former NCO standing in cedar shavings. "The generator is where the line breaks. Put me on the diesel shed."

"You're not going on the shed." Jason's jaw sets. "You've got critical care experience, Major. You know triage."

"You're basically benching me. Put me to use." Anger rises in my tone, though I try not to let my irritation and frustration show.

He steps two paces closer, stopping three feet away. Cold air radiates from his coat into the space between us; beneath it, the steady heat of his presence.

"Six handlers, six dogs, and a storm closing in." Jason leans three inches closer, his words low. "Major, I need someone who can handle medical triage for the people and the animals, not someone who's going to argue with me. You're the only one here I trust when things go sideways." He turns before I can breathe, walking toward the heavy double doors to check the outer latches.

I stand frozen on the cedar shavings, Juno sitting silent at my side, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

He sees only the rank. He sees the flight nurse, missing the two hundred and fourteen names written in my notebook. Missing the nights over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean when I held flatlining strangers together in the dark while the cabin lights flickered.

Outside, the wind howls against the timber, and the whiteout closes over Angel's Peak.

EIGHT

Generator

JASON

The wind coming off Angel's Peak doesn't just howl—it batters the timber siding of the training barn until the studs groan in their footings. Through the high transom windows, the last amber light of dusk is gone, swallowed by a blinding wall of white powder driving horizontally across the lower paddock.

I check the iron deadbolt on the main double doors, the frozen steel biting straight through my leather work gloves.

"Fourteen below." My voice carries down the central aisle, loud enough to cut through the rattling tin roof. "And dropping two degrees an hour."

"My left knee said it was fifteen below an hour ago." Danny Montoya leans against the feed bin near the east aisle, his dark canvas coat dusted with snow. Buddy, his shepherd mix, sits flush against his thigh, his ears swiveling to catch the wind. "My knee is never wrong, Sarge."

"Nobody asked you, Montoya." Brody holds the timber frame steady from the west aisle ladder while Sarah reaches up to secure the heavy thermal canvas drapes over the outdoor run fencing. "And your knee predicted seventy degrees and sunshine on Tuesday."

"Tuesday was an anomaly." Danny grins, reaching down to scratch Buddy behind the ears. "The weather service doesn't have my metal plate."

"Your metal plate belongs in a scrap yard." Sarah's boots slip an inch on the icy concrete as she laces a canvas grommet to the timber post. "Brody, stop shaking the ladder before I drop this grommet tool on your head."

"I'm not shaking it." Brody grips the pine rungs tightly, his Golden Retriever, Babe, sitting patiently beside him. "The whole damn barn is shaking. Tank, tell her I'm solid."

Tank, Sarah's massive Mastiff mix, lets out a low chuff from the base of the run, resting his broad chin on Sarah's discarded wool gloves.

Across the central corridor, Nadia checks the heated water bowls for Zip, her Border Collie mix nudging her hip with a cold nose. Griff stands near the tack room door with Chief, the Lab mix resting his bandaged shoulder against Griff's leg while Griff double-checks the latches.

Maren stands at the stainless tack room bench, organizing the thermal wraps and hypothermia kits into color-coded stacks. Her dark hair is pinned back, her posture straight, her canvas coat open just enough to show the dark wool sweater beneath.

She works with the steady precision of a flight medic who has prepped litters in blacked-out cabins.

I step up to the tack bench and take the aluminum clipboard from my vest. The memory of seeing her phone screen last night—the sixty-day Mercy Flight offer sitting in her inbox—hangs between us like an iron barrier.

"Four hypothermia kits, six thermal drapes." My tone comes out flat, locked into operator distance. "Enough for the handlers and the runs."

"Five hypothermia kits." Maren doesn't look up from her stack, smoothing the vinyl edge of a foil wrap. "I pulled an extra out of my truck kit. In a whiteout, someone always gets wet."

My thumb brushes her knuckles as I reach for the grease pencil on the tray. A sharp spark of heat arcs between us in the freezing draft. I pull my hand back instantly, anchoring my grip on the aluminum edge.