Chapter Seven
Grady spentthe rest of the week on his patch of mountain high above the town where his cabin had burned down. He rented a small Bobcat for grading, digging, and backfilling. The first step was to level the ground and compact the soil so he could rebuild thefoundation.
This time, he would build a bigger cabin, one that would give him more space—three bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground floor and a loft with two sleeping areas uptop.
He would fell logs from his property as well as purchase them from his neighbors. Both the exterior walls and interior ones would be made of logs, and he would make the foundation from mortaredstone.
He spent two days grading and digging the trenches for the foundation, then returned totown.
Two days of fresh air and hard work had cleared his mind—especially since he’d left his phone turnedoff.
Silence was golden, especially when he was about to go to battle and possibly bed with Linx Colson. He needed the respite from all chatter andtalk.
He parked in the center of the town across from the square and founder’s statue—one of Linx’s ancestors—and checked his cellphone.
His sister, Cait, had called, saying she was en route to his parents’ cabin a few miles away on the other side of town. His mother and Jenna had called to check how he was doing, and the therapist who worked with him had left a message asking about the dog for the femaleveteran.
Linx said she had one. Should he go to her? Or find the dog at another rescue center? It depended on how many times Linx had texted him—how much she neededhim.
Licking his lips, he checked his text messages andgrinned.
She’d left him three in arow.
The first text said,Friday, two in the afternoon. Park under the large oak. Roomfive.
Since he hadn’t answered, she texted him a few hours later.Don’t tell me you have nosignal.
A day later, she got more demanding.Are you ignoring me? You want the dog ornot?
He shut off his phone. He’d be there, but she didn’t have toknow.
* * *
Friday afternoon,Linx checked her text messages before loading Sam into the tailgate area of her Dodge DurangoSUV.
Nothing fromGrady.
Did he or didn’t he want thisdog?
Oh, sure, he’d emailed Tami and had sent in his application. The therapist he worked with from the Veteran’s Administration was above board, and she was also a certified dog trainer for therapy and servicedogs.
The veteran who needed Sam had grown up with dogs when she was a child, but after her experience in Afghanistan, she became agoraphobic—afraid of leaving her house. She habitually needed to clear every room she entered, look in all the closets, under the bed and behind the drapes, and she would only sleep with furniture barred across herdoors.
Linx didn’t like it, but Tami convinced her to try it, at least this one time, and if it worked out, they could expand the network of forever homes for theirguests.
“Let’s hope he shows up,” Linx said to Sam as he jumped into the SUV. The dog gave her a doleful look, circled around the tailgate area three times, then lay down with his head on hispaws.
Poor thing was still reeling from being given up, and now, he was in for another change. But a German Shepherd pitbull would be hard to place, so this was his bestbet.
She got into the driver’s seat and bounced her Durango over the rutted country lane until it merged onto the asphaltroad.
She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted from Grady Hart—an apology would be nice, but probably notforthcoming.
Maybe it was an acknowledgment that he’d crossed paths with her before, instead of acting like she was a completestranger.
“He knows what he did to me,” she muttered as she sped down the hairpin turns of the mountainroad.
Their paths had more than crossed before, more like tangled in a mess of arms and legs crossed. She’d fought fires since she was sixteen, working her way up the ladder until she’d earned a spot to train forsmokejumping.
