“About ten seconds after I found out Gloria moved out. Don’t tell me you’re not ready to hang it up.”
“It’s all I’ve got. The Guard and my business.”
Aldo snorted. “You’ve got your family and you could have Harper, too, if you wanted. Come home to that sweet face every day and find out what trouble she got herself into? There’s something to look forward to.”
“She is trouble. I’m concerned about releasing her into the wild.”
“She needs you.”
“She needs her fucking parents, but they’re dead. She’s got no family, just scars from all those years in foster care.”
Aldo swore quietly. “And you’d do anything to make it better, but you just don’t know how to help.”
“Exactly.” Luke sighed. Of course Aldo got it. “Fact is, I just don’t have room in my life for her.”
“You’ve got the room, you’re just too chickenshit to make it.”
Luke bristled. While Aldo, his family, and everyone else were more than happy to shove their noses into his business, none of them knew what it was like to have everything and then lose it all. He knew. And had barely survived. There were no second chances.
***
The physicals were fine, the briefings tedious. But they made it home in decent time with a clearer picture of what they’d be doing in Afghanistan. Usually, Luke felt the buzz, a hum of excitement about the next mission, a new project. But this time he just feltoff.
He had things to do — around the house, at the office. But he was tired. He was used to running on little sleep and too much caffeine or pure adrenaline. But the late nights with Harper under him, over him, wrapped around him, had taken a toll.
Luke wasn’t the napping type. Maybe he just needed to relax with the TV for an hour, and then he could get back to his paperwork and packing.
He woke up an hour later with something warm and heavy in his lap.
A large, gray dog rested its head and a beefy paw on Luke’s leg.
“Harper!”
She appeared in the doorway in seconds, which meant she had been hovering nearby.
“Before you get mad —”
“Harper, why is there a fucking dog in my lap?”
“We don’t have to keep her. She just needs a nice place to stay.”
“Harper, why is there a fucking dog in my lap?”
The dog grumbled in its sleep and stretched.
“What the hell kind of dog is this?”
“She’s some kind of pit-bull-lab-something. She was a neglect case and just because she has this skin condition and needs heart meds, the shelter was going to put her down.”
“That still doesn’t answer why there’s a dog. In my lap.” His voice was loud enough to wake the beast this time. A bloodshot eye opened lazily and stared at him.
“I stopped at the grocery store and this woman was walking out of the pet store with her. Her name’s Lola, by the way.”
“The woman?”
“No! The dog.”
Hearing her name, the dog turned her massive head towards Harper. Her tail thumped twice.
