Page 60 of Rescued By the Dog Trainer

You can run fifty miles into the timber, but you can't outrun the hands that kept your blood inside your skin.

Dawn glints through the frosted glass above the bench, lighting the snow outside.

Maren descends the timber ramp toward the lower fence. Her chin stays tucked into her scarf, vapor trailing behind her shoulder.

She pauses at the south paddock gate and glances once over her shoulder toward the window.

Her face stays clean of tears. Her right hand lifts into the freezing mountain wind, palm flat toward the glass with fingers closed tight, holding the steady signal against her chest.

The first command I taught her.

Steady.

The signal strikes my ribs like hot iron. I stare down into the oats before turning away from the glass to drive the bolt home on the stall.

The latch clangs into place, cold and final.

Headlights sweep across the lower pine stands along the driveway.

Brody Gavin's Jeep rattles over the cattle guard at the perimeter, pulling into the turnout by the lower shed, followed by Griff's beat-up Chevy. The cab doors slam shut in the crisp morning air.

Griff steps down into the snow with his left forearm wrapped clean in a white elastic bandage beneath his work jacket. He lifts his good right hand in greeting toward the barn. Brody steps down from the Jeep, his wool collar turned against the wind, calling back to Sarah as she climbs down from the passenger side.

Morning muster has arrived.

Eight o'clock in the high country waits for no man's ghosts.

I wipe my palms on the rag, hook Barnaby's lead to the brass ring on his collar, and pull my leather gloves from my hip pocket.

"Heel."

Barnaby locks into place beside my knee.

I pull the heavy timber door open to the wind, step out onto the packed snow, and run the drills.

Fifty yards away at the paddock fence, Maren clips the heavy training lead to Juno's collar. Juno leans her sixty pounds against Maren's braced leg, ears forward, body rigid against the sub-zero chill.

Neither of them looks toward the barn.

The wind sweeps down off the ridge, bitter and clean, carrying the scent of split tamarack and frozen stone.

It steadies me anyway. And that's the thing that cuts deepest of all.

SEVENTEEN

What the Dog Knows

MAREN

The latch clangs shut behind me, iron biting into iron in the freezing wind.

Sub-zero gusts sweep down off the timber ridge, cutting straight through canvas and wool. My right knee burns, scar tissue locking against bone under the patella. I keep my chin tucked into my scarf, planting each boot into packed snow with deliberate intent.

No limping. No dragging the heel. A field officer walks off the deck without crutches, even when the deck is covered in ice.

Fifty yards away at the south paddock gate, Juno waits. Her black muzzle lifts into the wind, amber eyes tracking my boots across the yard. Nose going a mile a minute, tracking scents. The moment my hand touches the wire mesh, her flank hits the gate with a heavy thud, whining low in her throat.

"Steady." The word scrapes from my chest, barely louder than the gale whistling through the timber.