Page 48 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

"It smells like heaven in here." Maren kicks the door shut with her heel. "Danny's mother sent provisions. Beef tamales, still warm."

"Provisions belong on the table." I take the warm container from her hands. Cold radiates off the canvas of her coat. I reach behind her shoulders, work the heavy fabric down her arms, and hang it on the wooden peg next to mine.

Two coats on one wall. I look at them side by side before turning back to her.

She unwinds the blue scarf, folds it in half, and drapes it over the coat peg.

"Told you I'd make the rain check." She pulls out her chair. "Feed me. I've been driving on bad coffee since noon."

I ladle stew into both bowls, fill two tumblers with cold well water, and sit opposite her. Steam rises between us in a pale cloud, smelling of braised beef, carrots, and the coarse black pepper Mabel dumps into every batch.

We eat in silence for the first five minutes. Maren eats with the clean focus of someone used to cold rations between emergency calls. When her bowl is empty, I stand and give her two more scoops without asking.

"Rank has privileges." I point my spoon at her bowl.

"Retired rank." She takes the spoon and starts in on the second helping. "Mrs. Montoya showed me Danny's high school graduation photo today. Skinny kid with braces and a football jersey. She spent four hours in the hospital family room knitting this scarf for me because her fingers needed work so she wouldn't start screaming in the hallway."

"How's Danny doing?" I pick up the pitcher and refill her glass.

"Right femur is clean." She sets her glass down. "The surgeon put an intramedullary rod down the shaft and locked it with two screws. Danny sat up in bed demanding to sign release papers by two o'clock. When I got ready to leave, his mother stood up, walked around the IV pole, and hugged me. She kept saying thank you for bringing her boy home."

"That's a good thing."

"It felt strange." Her fingers tighten around the handle of her fork. "My job downrange was keeping them breathing until the ramp dropped at Landstuhl. Passing litters to strangers in scrubs, then turning right back around for the next bird. None of them ever woke up on my watch. I never met a family or found out if any of them made it home." She sets her fork down on the rim of the bowl. The metal clicks against the ceramic. "Today was the first time I ever got to see an ending." She looks down at the table.

"How did that sit?"

"It broke me, if I'm being honest." A short breath leaves her, half a laugh. "I walked out of his room and sat on the concrete floor in the stairwell. Fell apart right there on the bottom step. If Juno hadn't pressed her chest into my ribs, I'd still be sitting there."

I look at her across the room. Her blue eyes are clear, but the skin around them looks bruised with exhaustion.

"Juno knows her job." I reach across the wood and touch the back of her hand.

"She does." Maren pushes her bowl back an inch. Her mouth opens, throat working once, her eyes fixing on my face with an intensity that raises the hair on my arms.

She has something on the tip of her tongue. Something heavy that she carried up the road from town.

I wait. The clock in the corner ticks against the pine log wall. The stove iron pops as the fire settles.

She looks at my mouth, looks at my eyes, and the walls go back up behind her expression. She swallows hard, reaches for her glass of water, and takes a slow drink.

Whatever she brought up the mountain, she isn't ready to share it.

"I talked to—" The words tangle before Cole's name can slip out. A quick cough resets my voice. "Wyatt checked Chief's stitches at the clinic before feed detail. Clean closure. He'll pull them Thursday."

"Chief's a tough dog." Her voice drops back into its even rhythm. "The laceration was clean. He won't have a limp."

"The rest of the class headed down to town at five." I break a tamale in half. "Sarah took them to the PickAxe to celebrate Danny's surgery. Brody tried to bet Nadia twenty bucks that his Jeep handles the switchbacks better than your 4Runner."

"Brody's an idiot." A real laugh breaks through her guard. "My Toyota has locking differentials. His Jeep would end up in a snowbank before the third turn."

When the bowls are cleared, Maren carries them to the zinc washbasin by the counter. She scrapes the scraps into a pan for Barnaby, runs hot water from the kettle, and scrubs both dishes with quick strokes.

"You don't have to do dishes on your rain check." I lean against the table.

"I like having work for my hands." She dries the bowls with a clean towel. "Stops me from overthinking."

She drapes the towel over the drying rack, turns, and walks across the pine boards toward me.