exclusive, except Adam here doesn’t really know the meaning of the word. So Cameron broke in one night and tried to convince him she was his one and only. With handcuffs. Adam walked away from her after that. Actually, he ran away like a little girl, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“She had a fucking taser,” Adam said tightly. “You always leave that part out.”
“No, we understand,” Dell said, nodding. “She’s terrifying. All five feet two inches of her. It’s been six months,” he said. “And he still twitches at the sight of a stacked blonde. It’s probably plenty safe enough for you to stay there. Plus you can handle yourself.”
“Hey, I could have handled myself just fine without the taser,” Adam said. “And you’re an asshole. Come on, Lilah, let’s look at your Jeep.”
With one last indecipherable look at Brady, Lilah and her dog left with Adam.
Five minutes later when Dell had finished fielding a phone call from a worried pet owner, he accompanied Brady outside to get his duffel bag from his truck before showing him the loft. It ran the entire length of the upper floor of the center. The slanted ceiling gave the wide open space a warm feel, certainly warmer than anywhere Brady had stayed in recent memory. Hell, any place that didn’t have dirt floors would be a step up from where he’d stayed in recent memory.
“The heater doesn’t work for shit up here,” Dell said, nodding to the stack of wood beside a large fireplace. “Takes that in the winter to heat the place.”
Which wouldn’t be Brady’s problem. By winter, he’d be in some third-world country dreaming about being cold enough to need a fireplace. He walked to the far wall, which was nearly all windows. He looked out into the meadow behind the center, rich and lush with growth.
“This was my favorite part of the place when I lived here,” Dell said.
“Did you get chased out of here by a crazy ex, too?”
“No.” Dell grinned. “I bought a house in town last year. Probably I shouldn’t bait Adam like that but Christ, he’s so easy.”
“What happened to him? I don’t remember him being so… ”
“Surly? Rude? Pissy? He forgot to take his Midol.” But Dell’s smile faded and he lifted a shoulder. “He had a rescue go bad.”
“Bad?”
“Shit intel, lost half his crew, and he blames himself. Which is stupid because it wasn’t his fault, but you try telling him that. He likes guilt. Anyway, after he got out of the Guards, he started working with the rescue dogs, training and breeding. He’s still not quite back on the people train.”
“PTSD?”
“Oh yeah,” Dell said. “But don’t let him hear you say that.”
“And you help by, what, poking at him?”
“It’s my brotherly duty.”
Brady opened one of the windowpanes, and seeing there was no screen, he gave in and pulled his camera from his bag, snapping a few shots right then and there. His usual subject of choice was faces, but this land drew him.
It always had.
Off to the side, Adam and Lilah came into view. Adam had an arm slung around Lilah’s shoulders, and though he wasn’t smiling, she was. And laughing, too, her smile open and easy and unguarded as she set the rescue dog down, probably for a pit stop.
Brady snapped a few shots of them before turning away for reasons he didn’t understand, or care to.
Dell was watching him. “You and Adam are a lot alike these days.”
“I’m not suffering from anything.”
“Except an inability to connect.”
Brady snorted. “Look at you, not letting your psych degree go to waste.”
Dell smiled. “It was only my minor.”
Brady turned back to the window.
“We’re updating the center’s website, which has really taken off. Appointments, self-help with animals, training- it’s all going on there. Adam took pictures of our clients, both the owners and the animals. People love to see themselves on the site. Or they would, except Adam has this tendency to cut heads off. Think you could do better?”
Brady sighed. “Dell-”
“I just thought while you’re here… ”
Fuck. “Yeah. I can take pictures that include heads.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
There were framed pictures on the windowsill. Adam in full search-and-rescue gear surrounded by four beautiful golden retrievers, all wearing red rescue totes. Lilah and a guy he didn’t recognize, both seated on a tailgate of a truck mugging for the camera. Dell on a horse. “You’re happy here,” Brady said.
“Very. Maybe you’ll feel the same.”
Brady shook his head. “Why does it matter so much to you?”
“Sol gave us this land. All of us. But Adam and I have gotten all the benefits.”
“You guys built this place. It’s yours.”
“You know, once we meant something to each other.”
Surprised by the vehemence in Dell’s voice, Brady looked at him. “Yes.”
At that, Del seemed to relax marginally. “We came from nothing-less than nothing-the three of us. And we forged a family. Your family, you stubborn ass, whether you like it or not.”
Brady’s eyes locked on the last picture. A lone man, head shaved, built like a tree trunk, staring into the camera with fierce intensity, and just looking at him made Brady’s chest ache like hell. Sol. “I know,” he said very quietly.
Besides him, Dell let out a breath. “I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to kick your ass to remind you.”
Brady let out a rare smile. Because it was true that Dell had kicked Brady’s ass, exactly once. Of course Brady had been drunk as a skunk at the time and already down for the count. They’d been teenagers, and once Sol had gotten hold of them, they’d all been down for the count because Sol had made them drink the rest of the stolen vodka, watching in stoic silence as each of them had puked up their guts. Probably not a condoned method of parenting, but it’d worked.
Brady had never overindulged again.
“I could have taken you even without the vodka,” Dell said, reading Brady’s mind.
“Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.”
They both laughed softly, the tension gone. “When the Bell came into our possession,” Dell said, “I knew we had you.”
Brady blew out a breath. What the hell. No use denying that. He was here in the States with nowhere else pressing to be, and it was a sweet old chopper. “Yeah.”
“You going to stick, then?”
Chances were he’d stick all right. He’d stick out like a sore thumb. But he was used to that. And what the hell. He watched as below Lilah carefully picked back up her precious bundle, loving him up as she did so.
He wouldn’t mind being loved up by those arms, that was for damn sure. “For a month,” he heard himself say. “Just a month.”
Five
L ilah took Toby back to the kennels. Actually, she had no idea what the dog’s name was since he hadn’t come with a collar, but he was an adorable mass of tangled fluff and looked like a Toby to her. He was also in desperate need of a bath, but getting him cleaned up turned out to be tricky since he told her he was
