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As the stress left her system, she petted the Malinois, her fingers dancing over the work vest. He was the dog she’d wanted to love on at the airport. And now she was getting her wish.
While the Malinois she knew from the Norfolk military base were all war dogs—eat the bad guy dogs, dangerous dogs—this one was gallant. “Look, you brought me my pants and both my shoes. And one sock.” Somehow, he’d picked them up, followed her all the way out here, and then gave her a place to rest and a feeling of safety in a strange city.
He was a protector dog. And if Mary was right, he belonged to Tool Guy.
“There you are, Max.”
She knew that voice.
Mary turned her head and watched Tool Guy striding up the sidewalk toward them.
It made complete sense that this dog was his dog. The one that had sent the bolt cutters up to her, the thing that had potentially saved those lives. The man who had called instructions to her. The one who had caught the tiny hands of the dangling babies and looked her in the eyes with such intensity as she climbed down the rope tethered to him, praying that it didn’t melt, or fray, or burn, and drop them to the cement below. It was magic rope, and he had been a magic helper with his warm brown eyes focused hard on her. Ready, she knew, to do whatever was necessary to help her while his own situation was just as life-threatening.
He was the very essence of gallantry.
“Max, you found her, good job, mate.” He circled into the street, crouching in front of Mary. “You had me worried. I’m glad Max found you.”
Mary was caught up in a whirlwind of sensation. Something she couldn’t label or define. The best she could do was give it a phrase: Thank goodness you’re here.
“Holy shit, woman, I have never seen anything that crazy brave in all my life. And my life is chock filled with crazy events.”
When Tool Guy called her ‘woman,’ Mary felt it in every cell of her body. It made her tingle as she morphed into an Amazonian warrior, a woman full of strength and potential.
He gestured toward her feet resting in the flow of the rain gutter. “Can I look?” The kindness and warmth in his eyes dumbfounded Mary. No one had ever looked at her that way before.
Suddenly, Mary wasn’t sure that she wasn’t hallucinating this demi-god. Shoulders. Mmm, thighs. The size of his boots. Yeah. It was a lot for one man. This glory should be distributed between two, maybe three guys, even out the improbable a bit and make the vision less overwhelming.
Add in an Australian accent—what red-blooded American girl didn’t get a little nutso over an Australian accent.
Back at the hotel, when Mary described this hallucination, Deidre wouldn’t believe a word of it. Mary thought about pulling out her phone and taking a surreptitious photo as proof, but then, her phone was in her pants, and her pants were under the dog. And the dog was kind of holding her up. So this might just go down in their shared friendship as “Do you remember when you told me about the archangel that tried to get you to put your pants on?” And they’d laugh and laugh.
Mary lifted her leg and placed her ankle in his hand. Oh, boy. This was the kind of thing that she had nightmares about, showing up in class naked. Only in this case, she was in her panties in the city, feeling tingly while this drool-worthy man was gently looking at the bottom of her feet.
Was this whole thing a weird dream seeded when Mrs. V. had looked deeply into her eyes and said, “You’re lonely”?
Mary might have sucked in some noxious, hallucinatory chemicals up there. She reached down and pinched the side of her thigh hard enough to wince.
And that drew his attention. “Does it hurt there?”
His hand soothed over the spot.
Hurt? She shook her head. No, that actually felt really nice.
The dog was still behind her, providing a backrest, but he’d angled his head to drape over her shoulder, and his tongue hung long as he sent out a soulful whine.
“I know Max. I know. I’ve got her.” He told his pup, then looked at her. The look of hard focus he’d had as she inched down the wall was gone, replaced by warm concern. “My doggo is worried about you.” He put his hand to his chest. “My name is Halo,”
Of course, it was.
Some kind of angel that dropped down from Heaven.
This had to be some weird dream. Any minute now, the morning alarm was going to go off, and she would tell Deidre this story over coffee.
“Halo,” he repeated, then pointed to his dog. “Max,” he said.
“So I shouldn’t call you Tool Guy?” As she said it aloud, she thought he would have no clue what that meant, but he responded with a grin and, “I’m assuming your name isn’t warrior goddess.”
That actually drew a chuckle from deep in the pit of her abdomen.
