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The dog placed his mouth gently on Logan’s hand. Not biting or clamping down. Just holding his hand.
Logan stared at the dog.
“If you’re having a nightmare,” Ernie continued, “he’ll place his paws on your shoulders and lick your face to wake you. If you need him to, he’ll crawl right up in your lap and just let you hold him for hours. Some of it’s trained and some just comes naturally to him. He’s really quite good at his job.”
Despite Logan’s dumbfounded expression, Ernie smiled down at the dog. “He’s got a natural aptitude for this work.”
“He’s fantastic,” Sam said, beaming at the dog. “Is he a rescue?”
Sam hadn’t batted an eye at Logan’s sour mood, and he wondered how many times he’d have to kick her before she’d give up and leave him alone. He couldn’t stomach much more of it, so he hoped she’d give up soon. It wasn’t in him to be cruel to her, but he needed her to stay away from him.
“Yup,” Ernie answered. “The organization works with shelters. The shelter calls if they think a dog will pass the screening. If they take them into the program, they train them and place them with someone needing their skills.”
While Sam and Ernie talked, Chad lifted the heavy bag up and Zach affixed the chain to the ceiling.
Ernie turned to Sam. “What’s for dinner? It smells fantastic.”
“Paella,” she said with a smile as the group walked upstairs, leaving Logan and the dog watching after them.
He looked at their retreating backs, then up at the heavy bag, and down at the dog.
Billy looked up at him with open, brown eyes. Logan grunted at him and picked up the gloves Ernie had left against the wall. Slipping them on, he chose a position that allowed him to watch the door and beat on the bag at the same time, and started up a rhythm, letting the steady sound of the punches roll over him.
Billy watched for a minute, then chose a spot in the corner and laid down. He rolled over on one hip, but his shoulders and head remained upright and alert.A sentry, Logan thought, and kept on pounding on the bag.
Chapter 19
“Billy!”
Sam watched with interest as Ernie called the dog the following morning. Ernie had slept on one couch while Chad and Zach had taken turns on the other, swapping out halfway through the night. Logan hadn’t come upstairs.
“I’m wondering if Billy can get Logan to come up,” Ernie said quietly to Sam. “Either way, the dog needs to go out to the bathroom and eat something.”
“Billy!” Ernie called out to the dog again. Chad came down from the third floor, where he’d been taking his turn in the shower. Zach was in the living room with the eggs, sausage, and toast Sam had made for him. She piled a plate up for Ernie and one for Chad, while trying not to look too expectantly at the stairs.
The sound of Logan’s voice came up the stairs, but it sounded like he was arguing with Billy, maybe trying to send him up alone. Would the dog dig in its heels and refuse to come up without his companion? Sam didn’t even know if it was possible to train a dog to do that, but it had seemed like Billy saw something in Logan—a need, maybe? He’d seemed to respond to it last night, and Sam held her breath as she listened to the one-sided argument with the dog coming from downstairs.
Apparently, Billy won out because Logan and the dog came up the stairs, heading toward the living room rather than the kitchen. Sam tried not to stare as Logan opened the sliding doors and let Billy outside to relieve himself, but she couldn’t help it.
She wanted to drink him in. To somehow assess how he was, if there were holes in his armor and how she might get through them. She wanted to see him back on the mend the way he had been only last week. Because right now, he seemed lost to her. So lost and far away, despite their proximity.
She knew he wasn’t here voluntarily. She knew he was doing all he could to keep the walls up between them. That he’d leave as soon as they stopped the threat to her. And the thought of that crushed her. She didn’t know how he could believe there was anything wrong with him, anything wrong with what he’d done.
When Logan shut the door after Billy came back in the house, Sam spun and turned back to the kitchen. She could hear his steps coming closer, so she put a plate of food together for him and poured a cup of coffee. He nodded and gave a small grunt when she passed them over to him. Nobody said much as Logan began shoveling food into his mouth and Ernie poured food into a bowl for Billy.
“Sam,” said Zach quietly, handing her his iPad. “It’s hit the newspapers.”
Sam took the tablet from him and swallowed hard when her eyes scanned the photos of her wounds on the screen in front of her. She had known they’d hit the internet. Had prepared herself for it. Or so she thought. It turned out, seeing them there on the screen was a lot harder to handle.
She hit the arrows for the slideshow and saw a picture of Eric Westbrook, of Logan in his uniform looking much younger than he did now. She scanned the article. This reporter interviewed several people who were coming out on Logan’s side and were irate about Westbrook’s treatment of a veteran, just as she’d hoped.
She wondered, though, if there were others who saw this as vigilante justice. Others who would have Logan see the inside of a jail cell before this was over.
Ernie and Chad kept talking while she read, but Sam slowly became aware that Logan sat frozen over his food, watching her intently. She locked the screen of the iPad and set it aside, then turned to pet Billy. Logan rose slowly and came toward her in the too-small kitchen. He reached around to the counter behind her and picked up the iPad, swiping the screen with his finger.
Sam stood stock still as he looked through the pictures and scanned the article. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and she raised her eyes to find his gaze angry and hard on her. She gasped and moved backward and then Zach was there, tugging her out from between the counter and Logan, placing his body between Logan and hers.
The growl from Logan’s chest was feral and dark, almost primal in its pain and anguish and Sam had no idea how to respond. She didn’t know if he was angry with her, angry with the reporter, or Westbrook, or simply all of it.
