Read the book: «Operation Hero's Watch»

Chapter 1

You’ve gotten soft.

Jace Cahill muttered it to himself, since he was alone in his misery. He’d gotten used to the dry and warm—okay, hot—climate of Southern California, and this blustery day in the northwest, driving rain down the back of his neck no matter which way he faced, was getting to him.

Of course, the fact that he’d traveled over a thousand miles by bus, hitchhiking and now walking might have something to do with it. He shifted the backpack that was getting heavier with every step. He was heading in the right direction, and he knew he was in Washington State, on the west side of Puget Sound, but that was about it. As another swirling gust sent a blast of rain into his face, he thought grimly that with his luck, he’d end up marching straight into Canada.

At least then somebody’d stop you and tell you where the hell you are.

And all this to keep a damned promise he’d made years—hell, a decade—ago. He’d done it without thought. Or at least without enough thought. Cory Grant had been his friend, and it was a promise he surely would never be called upon to keep.

And yet here he was—

He heard the sound of tires on wet asphalt. He turned, spotted an older, somewhat dinged-looking silver coupe approaching. He threw out his thumb, but without much hope, and kept walking as it passed him.

His head came up then, and he frowned. That was the strangest sound he’d ever heard a car make.

The car stopped. And then it began to back up. Straight, steady, not even a wobble. But as it got to a few feet away he heard that sound again. And he suddenly realized it wasn’t the car at all, but the dog inside he was hearing. A dog who was barking like crazy, loud, sharp and insistent.

The car came to a stop in front of him. He could see the dog now, through the back window. Dark fur, alert ears and uncanny eyes that were fixed on him. And the teeth. Yeah, the teeth. Although the tail was wagging slightly. It was a different color than his head and shoulders, a sort of reddish brown. But it definitely was wagging. That was good, wasn’t it? His spirits rose at the thought of getting out of the storm as much as giving his weary legs a rest.

The driver’s door opened, and the barking was instantly louder. A man got out, turned and looked at him over the top of the vehicle. He was tall, lean and looked solidly muscled, but it was the eyes that were the most intimidating. Those were a pair of eyes that had seen too much, and too much of it bad.

“You want a ride, get in,” the man said over the dog’s continuing vocalizing.

Jace hesitated. But then the dog upped the pitch a notch, and suddenly the man looked like nothing more than a harassed dog owner.

“Please,” he said with a roll of his eyes as water streamed down his face. “Get in so he’ll shut up.”

Jace wasn’t sure why the guy thought him getting in would quiet the animal, but the heartfelt plea changed the whole tenor of the thing, and his wariness faded. He reached for the passenger door handle.

The moment he pulled it open the dog went quiet.

“Thank God,” the driver muttered and got back in, more than a little wet himself now. When Jace closed his door, the sound of the rain was instantly muted, and with the cessation of the wind blowing it into every conceivable place Jace let out a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Thank you,” the man said drily, glancing toward the dog, who now had his head poked in between the front seats. “Happy now, mutt?”

The dog gave a wag of that plumed tail. He had on a collar, Jace noticed, with a blue tag shaped like a boat. The name Cutter was stamped on it, which made him wonder if he was named after the kind of boat. This guy didn’t look like an active service member, but he looked too young to be retired. Then again, those eyes...

“He do that often?” Jace asked. “Go ballistic on passing hitchhikers?”

“First time I know of. Buckle up.”

Jace did so. Then he twisted in the seat to really look at the dog. Who was staring at him. Not just looking, staring. The animal let out a low whine. He sounded, Jace thought, almost worried. And then the dog looked at the driver. Gave a short, sharp little bark. The man’s head snapped around to meet the dog’s gaze. Then he glanced at Jace, then shifted back to the dog. The dog had never looked away.

The man groaned audibly. “Really, dog?”

The dog moved then. Reached out with one leg to paw at Jace’s arm. But he kept looking at the man Jace presumed was his owner. If one ever really owned an animal like this.

“Great,” the man muttered. “You do realize I’m the only one around right now, right?”

Jace wondered what he was supposed to say to that, but then realized the man had been talking once more to the dog. The dog, who let out an odd little whuff of sound that sounded crazily like, “So?”

The man sighed. Pulled the car over to the side of the road, which made Jace even warier; given the lack of traffic, they could have sat there for an hour before another car came by.

Then he turned in the driver’s seat to hold out a hand to Jace. “Rafe Crawford. And this pain in the...neck is Cutter.”

“I gathered,” Jace said, shaking the offered hand, noting the strength that was obvious but not expressed with any declarative squeeze. This guy had nothing to prove. “The tag.”

“Yeah.”

He waited, and belatedly Jace realized what for. “Uh... Jace Cahill.”

The man named Rafe nodded. “So,” he said, sounding like a man resigned to an inevitability he wasn’t looking forward to, “are you heading to or from?”

“To or from...what?”

“Whatever your problem is.”

* * *

The first thing Cassidy Grant saw when she opened the door was the dog. He was a pretty thing, thick black fur over his head and shoulders changing to a reddish brown over his back and hindquarters. Thick, warm and rich looking. But she barely noticed that, for the animal was staring at her intently with dark, amber-flecked eyes. Not malevolently, just...staring. Sitting very politely, but staring.

“Hi, Cassie.”

The quiet words, in a low, rough-edged voice, snapped her gaze upward to the man who had stepped up to stand beside the dog. Her breath caught. Only then did she see how thoroughly she had convinced herself he wouldn’t show. And he didn’t look like the boy from down the street she remembered; his hair was just as dark but longer, his clothes a little ragged and his face unshaven. He was carrying a backpack that looked a bit worse for wear, as was the heavy jacket.

But she couldn’t mistake those vivid blue eyes, or that jaw, or that mouth. And even if she could, there was the little scar below his left eye. The scar she had given him the day he’d caught her jumping off the roof when she was eight. Nearly twenty years ago now.

“Jace.”

“Sorry it took me so long.”

She tried to shake off her shock. He seemed to notice—but then, hadn’t he always?—and frowned. “I...didn’t expect you at all.”

The frown deepened. “But you called.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I...gave that phone to my mom. She played me your message.”

His mom? Cassidy remembered the tiny, sweet woman from when they had lived down the street. Before they’d broken her foolish heart by moving away.

“How is your mom?” she asked, feeling suddenly derailed by the niceties of civility.

“Fine, now,” he said, and there was satisfaction in his tone.

Now? She hadn’t been? She was about to ask when the dog nudged her. “You brought your dog? He’s beautiful.”

“He’s not mine. He just... I’ll explain that later.” Then, like the Jace she remembered, he cut to the heart of it. “What’s wrong? You...weren’t real clear on the voice mail. And when I tried to call back—”

“I... My phone died.” Which was true. What she didn’t say—yet—was that she’d let it die, after turning off any locating function she could think of, because her mind was full of ideas about how the GPS and other things she didn’t even know about would lead right to her. Silly, but...

“What is it? Your message... You sounded scared.”

“I was.”

She saw him take in a deep breath before he asked for a third time, although softly now, “What’s wrong, Cassie?”

That did it. He was the only one she’d ever allowed the nickname. She’d liked when he’d used it, because it was something only between the two of them. Even her family didn’t use it. It was Jace’s alone, and that had made it, in her teenage brain, something...intimate. But now it smashed through her walls, and for a moment the fear surfaced.

Jace reacted instantly. He reached out to steady her. As he always had. Even the dog noticed; she heard the soft whine. And the animal was pressing against her knees. Between them she felt oddly steadied, as if an earthquake had stopped.

“I brought help,” Jace said.

“Is he a guard dog?”

“Do you need one?” His voice was suddenly sharper.

“I...feel like it.”

“Then you’ve got one. Three, actually.”

“Three?”

He looked behind him. And for the first time she realized the dog wasn’t his only company. A man came out of the trees on the north side of the house. A stranger. Tall, lean, dark haired and intimidating in a way she couldn’t quite put words to. He was walking past the older silver coupe parked in the driveway behind her own SUV. Walking with a very slight limp Cassidy didn’t think she’d even have noticed had she not been at the perfect angle.

“Jace, I don’t—”

“He works for a place that specializes in helping people with trouble. At least let’s talk, all right?”

It was ridiculous. True, she’d called on an impulse she’d regretted, but she had called him. And to her amazement, here he was. So now she was resisting even letting him in the door?

The dog whined again, and she looked down at him. Those dark, gold-flecked eyes were fastened on her. He nudged her, as if asking for attention. Automatically she reached down to pet him. The feel of the silky dark fur on his head was oddly soothing. He kept looking at her, as if trying to tell her it would be all right.

She nearly laughed at herself, putting human thoughts in a dog’s head. She’d known some clever dogs who had a knack for reading human emotion, but that was a bit much. Still, it steadied her to the point where she realized that she was leaving the person she’d called for help literally standing out in the cold.

“I’m sorry,” she said as the other man reached the porch, “come in. I’ll put coffee on—it’s cold out there.”

The moment they stepped inside and she got a closer look at the man who had been driving the car, she almost wished she hadn’t. Those eyes weren’t just intimidating, she guessed they could be terrifying.

“No one around,” the man said, “except a guy next house over, chasing a cat.”

“Mr. Snider,” Cassidy said, then processed the rest of what he’d said. That while she and Jace were talking, he’d been...what? Checking out the neighbors?

He works for a place that specializes in helping people with trouble.

She would not, she decided immediately, want to go up against this man. And the idea of having him on her side was admittedly heartening. But it was silly to think, for if he was a pro, then he was going to think just like the police—that either she was imagining things or the threat wasn’t real. Not that they’d said that, they’d been very polite, even gentle, but in truth she had nothing to give them in the way of proof.

She gestured them, including the dog, who seemed to understand, into the living room, then walked toward the kitchen. She wanted to run, but they could still see her and she didn’t want it to be quite that obvious that she was nervous, still wishing she’d never made that call. It was only that she’d decided Jace wouldn’t show up and then he had, she told herself. It was the unexpectedness of it.

When she came back with coffee, she was still edgy, but better. She took a seat on the couch, safely at the other end from Jace. The man Jace had introduced as Rafe sat in one of the armchairs, the dog sitting politely but alertly at his feet.

“He’s very well behaved,” she said, aware even as she said it that she was avoiding the reason for them being here.

“He’s got good company manners,” the man said. “You should have seen him at his owner’s—my boss—wedding, in his bow tie.”

She laughed, and suddenly the tension eased. She saw a glint in the man’s eyes that told her that had been the purpose. Perhaps he really did specialize in helping people, for despite his intimidating looks, he’d eased her strain.

“Cassie?” She looked back at Jace when he spoke, again using that name she’d only ever allowed him. “You really are scared. What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath. If he’d actually come in response to her panicked call, she had to at least explain, didn’t she?

Begin with what she thought they should know first.

“The police don’t think anything’s wrong. Because I have no proof.”

“Proof of...?” Rafe then, prompting when she didn’t go on.

Finally, she said it in a rush. “I have a stalker.”