Primal Force (2 page)

“You called at the ass crack of dawn for a reason, Yard?”

“I need to know that you're taking this PTSD dog idea seriously.”

The hair on Law's neck rose as his fist tightened around the phone. “You found out something.”

“I don't have the full intel yet. These days snail mail is safer than the Internet. By the time you've done your ten-day training, I'll have it.”

“Right.” Law punched the
END
button and lobbed his phone onto the mattress. If Yard knew him, he knew her, too. She wouldn't have called unless she already had something. He didn't need to ask how she'd gotten the information. Yardley Summers had connections that would make a CIA spook jealous.

Staring off into space, Law flexed his hands to pump off a little of his anger as a familiar resentment swelled in him. He hated asking for help. Even from Yardley. Had never in his life asked for it, or accepted it. Even now he hadn't reached out to members of his former unit because instinct or stubbornness—or paranoia—told him not to.

But his life had turned to shit after the explosion in Afghanistan four years earlier. He needed answers, about what had happened to him, and to his military police K-9 partner, Scud.

During his last tour of active military police duty he'd been paired with an Alpha-male Belgian Malinois named Scud who could control crowds, take down a sniper, and locate IEDs all in the same day.

Scud was loyal but he wasn't always friendly. Most handlers wouldn't take him on. Yet Law had seen in the tough loner a reflection of himself. They weren't buddies, yet they became a team, moving and working as one, anticipating the needs of the other in daily life-and-death situations.

Law rubbed hard at one of the scars hidden beneath the bush of beard along his left jaw. The explosion he never saw coming had strafed his body and shredded his left leg, and killed Scud outright. He knew what to counsel himself.
It wasn't my fault.
But the thing about that was, if it wasn't his fault, whose was it?

Pain squeezed Law's heart but he fought the emotion. If tortured, he would have lied about his feelings for Scud with his final breath. Never again would he allow himself to be that vulnerable.

His guilt over Scud had strengthened during the last year. Before that, he'd been too busy trying to heal and restore what was left of his mangled body. It wasn't until nine months ago, as he was trying to reclaim his life as a state trooper, that symptoms of PTSD kicked in hard, taking a turn at wrecking his psyche. Was his subconscious, finally, trying to tease out the answers to what had happened that day? Or was he now just a messed-up loser who needed a dog to keep him from freaking out in public?

“Screw it.” He could handle this on his own. Alone.

He stood up. And hit the floor with a thud.

“Shit!” It had been a long time since he'd forgotten to compensate the distribution of his body weight for one leg. The delusion of having two legs must have been the leftover result of his running dream.

He swung out a hand for his prosthesis lying on a nearby chair. It was out of reach. Before he could scoot closer, Samantha moved quickly to pick up the artificial leg with her mouth. She brought it over and placed it gently in his lap without being asked.

“Good dog, Sam—dog.” He felt silly calling her by that long-ass Samantha name.

Law hoisted himself back up on the mattress and reached for the pouch of doggy treats WWP had given him to reward his companion for her work. Half a service dog's daily food supply was handed out in the form of rewards. He held out a few small nuggets, which she gobbled up. He dug into the bag again, figuring he owed her.

“So here's the deal. I'm calling you Sam until I turn you back in. You good with that, Sam?”

She gazed up at him with calm adoration and tongue-lolling satisfaction.

Crap.
Sam even had a nice smile.

Okay, so the dog was getting to him. She was more than a pampered pet. She was everything the WWP promised: attentive, smart, intuitive, and helpful. The perfect service companion … for someone else. He didn't deserve this dog's help or loyalty. He'd lost that right when Scud died. He couldn't be responsible for another companion's life. Ever again.

Law turned to inspect his injured limb to make certain his fall hadn't caused any damage. Some pain, more or less, was always with him. There were better things to think about. For instance, the attractive dog trainer Jori—something. He hadn't caught her full name.

His K-9 instructor side appreciated watching her technique while working with the dogs. The purely male part of him enjoyed watching the way her pants pulled tight across the very nice curves of her butt and how her tee pulled taut against the swell of her breasts as she worked. She was the kind of woman who didn't need to show skin to be sexy. It was in the way she handled herself. The subtle huskiness of her voice was sexy as hell, too. Her straightforward manner kept the other four vets smiling and at ease as she helped them understand the capabilities of their specially trained new service dogs. Except him.
Him
, she ignored.

Law smiled to himself. She must have read something predatory in his expression that first day. He couldn't argue with her judgment. Jori gave him an itch.

Maybe it was the long honey-brown braid she wore, twitching down her back as she moved. Made him want to wrap that braid around his forearm and haul her in by it. Each time she touched his hand to loosen his grip on the leash or to adjust his position with his dog, he fought the urge to reach out and touch back. And then go on touching and holding, wanting to kiss and caress her until he had persuaded her to be naked under him.

Law pushed an impatient hand through longish thick black hair. He probably shouldn't be thinking dirty thoughts about his instructor. Jori didn't look like an easy lay. He didn't have time for anything else.

He knew what women said about him:
Good in bed but impossible to love.

True enough. He was insensitive, untrustworthy, possessed of a quick temper, and selfish. He'd enjoy the company of any willing woman. But he never let it get personal, or stand in his way. In that, he was his father's son.

“Nothing short of all fucked up,” he muttered to himself.

He picked up the liner to sheathe his stump, rolled and smoothed it on, then picked up his prosthesis. Now,
this
baby was worth being excited about. This techno wonder was going to get his trooper job back. Without that concrete measure of his worth as a man, his struggle to get better was worthless.

Three months ago, he'd succeeded in getting his old prosthetic leg swapped out for one with sophisticated military-grade microprocessor-controlled devices. With gyroscopes, accelerators, hydraulics, and sensory points to turn muscle contractions into device response, the new leg gave him great stability and mobility. With it he could walk, climb stairs, even run without thinking about it—as long as he remembered to strap it on.

He stood up, this time with the expected results. As close to good-as-new as he was going to get.

If he hurried he could get in some gym time before he left for Richmond, Virginia, the nearest airport to where Yardley lived. The best cure for a PTSD episode was to push himself, hard, until his heart was pumping like a jackhammer and his muscles trembled with fatigue. Only at the peak of exhaustion did his mind sometimes shut down long enough to give him peace.

Unless … he could convince Jori to do the dirty with him before he left. In and out? A one-off in their lives?

He shook his head at his unruly thoughts.
Bad, Law. Phooey, Law. She's not for you.

*   *   *

Samantha watched with concerned eyes as her Alpha dressed himself. She knew he was Alpha because of the tone of his voice and the strong virile scent that labeled him the dominant partner.

She smelled others things on him as well, like anger, fear, and anxiety. She didn't like those smells. They made her uncomfortable, much like the veterinarian's office. The cloying odors of injury, sickness, and fear from other animals could not be scrubbed away by antiseptics. Those smells were worse than the shots she occasionally received.

As the Alpha passed her, Samantha pushed her nose forward and sniffed his pant leg.

“Don't.”

She drew back. His tone was harsh. As if she'd done something wrong. Didn't he know? She was trained to pay attention, and to find ways to make the fear and anxiety stop when those pheromones emanated from him. She had done that this morning, even if he didn't seem to understand at the time why she had woken him. That was okay. He would learn. He was her chosen Alpha.

Three days ago five men and their family members had come to WWP. Each brought a reek of smell fragments from his daily life. Some were familiar, others the unique combination of their own bodies, homes, and habits. One man was ill. Two had had coffee and cigarettes for breakfast. She even knew by their shared smells which humans belonged to the same pack.

But one man's scent was different. His odor was a cocktail of emotional markers that included anger, pain, and sadness. And more. He smelled alone. There were no other human scents on him. No animal scents, either.

Most of the people Samantha had encountered in the twenty-five months of her life carried the scents of their companions, human and/or pet. This Alpha smelled of isolation. That was not good for a pack animal.

The only time Samantha had felt this way was when, as a puppy, she'd been abandoned at a shelter. All the smells were strange. None of her litter or her mother. She was fed and watered, but otherwise left alone in a cage that prevented her from running or playing with the other dogs. Until Alpha Kelli found and brought her to WWP.

She loved being in the WWP pack. There were lots of dogs to play with, and human Alphas to love and teach and protect her. Even when she moved from Alpha to Alpha for training, she was always treated as part of the pack.

But now things were different.

She had felt the excitement in the WWP pack the day the strangers came. She sensed that things were about to change, yet again. One of the strangers would take her home.

Yet no one handed her off. They simply dropped her leash and let her roam among the strangers, sniffing out a need. Her choice. It was not hard.

The sad man needed her to be his pack. She'd picked that up the first day. No Alpha, even the strongest, was healthy when he was without his pack.

The Alpha dropped his wallet and cursed.

Samantha hurried over and scooped it up in her mouth before he could bend down for it. He looked surprised then frowned. She felt confused by his frown. Then proud when he took the wallet from her.

He nodded at her but did not offer the affection of his hand or a treat. “
Gute Hund.
”

She licked his hand to show that she didn't mind that he didn't know how to behave. He would learn.

She did not always understand his words, but she would learn.

When he sat to tie his shoe, she moved close and weighed her big head on his thigh. She watched him, her eyebrows twitching up and down as if she could signal to him that he was not alone anymore. She would help with the sadness, and calm his worries. She was now his pack.

 

CHAPTER TWO

Jori Garrison wasn't having a great morning. She'd been awakened by yet another phone call from the person she'd been dodging all week. Then she'd discovered she didn't have food for Argyle. So here she was, not even showered, looking for cat food on the shelves of a nearby convenience store.

She had just located the single box when she noticed someone passing the end of the aisle. Her stomach did a jump of recognition as she came to her feet slowly, so as not to draw his attention. She needn't have bothered. He was headed straight for the back of the store with a determined stride.

Though she had had only the briefest glimpse, there was no mistaking those broad shoulders stretching the limits of his olive-drab T-shirt. Or the Native American tribal tattoo riding the heavy biceps of his left arm.
Lauray Battise.

For three days she'd been working with him and the other four veterans who had come to receive a service dog from Warriors Wolf Pack. Despite all her efforts to dismiss her feelings, heat simmered beneath her skin whenever he was around. She literally had the hots for the man. Too bad he wasn't even remotely likable.

Jori clutched the cat food box to her chest as her gaze followed him. He might be rude and standoffish, but he certainly was nice to look at. He had been exercising, hard. Dark circles of sweat made his tee cling to his back, revealing the taut contours of muscles beneath. Everything about him radiated strength, determination, a force to be reckoned with. That solid muscular physique was a testament to months of hard unrelenting therapy.

If he'd been wearing long pants, she doubted casual observers would have known he had a disability. Instead, he wore basketball shorts that revealed the prosthesis where his left leg should be. She liked that he wasn't self-conscious about that. She, on the other hand, was uncomfortably aware of him.

As he stopped to fill a cup with hot coffee from an urn, she noticed how his dark hair stuck out from under his ball cap at weird angles. His thick black beard was in serious need of pruning, too. No need to wonder if there was a woman in his life. No one who cared for him would have let him go out looking like that. Not that his relationships with women were any of her business. Or ever would be. But she couldn't help admiring the solid definition of the man, or wondering if every part of him was as impressively large.

That's just prison talking.

It's what her second cell mate Ethylene would say whenever conversation at the women's correctional center rolled around to talk of men and sex. Which it had at some point each day.