I studied the rusty metal trap that, had it caught me at the right angle, would have ruined my entire fucking night.
“Your leg,” Chance said as he came up from my side. His eyes glowed in anger.
“I’m fine. It’ll heal,”I reassured. Though it hurt like hell, it was a relatively minor injury compared to what could’ve occurred. The wound would heal within the next day or two. My stomach twisted with renewed guilt as I thought about the fact that this trap could’ve caught Chance instead of me.
“You didn’t encounter any traps, did you?”I had to ask to verify.
He wagged his massive head back and forth, eyes still glittering with malice as he peered at my wound. My brother moved closer, sniffing at my injury.
“We should—”
“It’s fine,”I growled, unintentionally taking my anger and guilt out on my brother. “It’s barely a scratch,” I said more calmly, but my chest burned with fire at the thought that whoever this Dr. Pines was and whatever he was up to was so close to my mate.
“Let’s go. We have enough for now,”I ordered.“I need to warn my mate to steer clear of this.”Whatever the fuck this was, I knew I didn’t want Reese anywhere near it.
* * *
Reese
“I’m coming, Henry,” I shouted as I passed through the front door of my rented home. I nearly tripped over the tennis shoes I used for walking Henry by the front door.
“I’m sorry, buddy.”
Henry whined as I lowered myself to a kneeling position in front of his cage.
“Please don’t be angry with me.” I opened the cage door. “Mama had to stay at work late, and then I had to drop off some papers to my friend, Ms. Savannah.”
Henry stepped out of his cage, moving as awkwardly as I sometimes do on rainy days. He gave me those sad, puppy-dog eyes before I nudged his nose with my own and rubbed behind his ears. He purred like a cat instead of an almost eighty-pound Doberman pinscher. I smoothed my hand over his head and back, feeling the soft, short hairs of his coat.
“Are you in pain?”
He whimpered and licked the side of my face.
“Okay.” I stood and headed for the kitchen. “Let me grab your meds and dinner.”
I poured his dry dog food into the larger metal bowls before pouring two containers of unsweetened applesauce into the smaller one. I stirred in one of the anti-inflammatory pills to help with his pain. Henry’s paws padded against the floor as he came up behind me, going for the applesauce first, per usual.
He ate the entire contents of the bowl as I watched before moving on to the dry dog food.
“You finish up while I go change,” I instructed. “Then we’ll go for our walk.”
Satisfied that he’d swallowed his medication, I went down the hall to my bedroom to change from my work scrubs into a pair of joggers and a long-sleeve T-shirt. When I got back to the kitchen, Henry had eaten half of his meal and lapped up his water.
“Ready to go?” I rubbed his belly.
He made a gesture with his head as if he were nodding yes, and I laughed. We were out of the door fifteen minutes after I first arrived home. It was a little after seven, and there was still plenty of daylight left for our usual hour-long walk.
While I steered Henry toward the trail that made a four-mile loop around the community where I lived, I pulled out my phone. Without thinking about why I pulled up my contact list and scrolled down to Chael’s number. My thumb hovered over the call button.
I didn’t press it, though the urge to do so was there. I didn’t have anything new to tell him about the case in the week since we had lunch. I’d been to Creekview a few times since that meeting to volunteer, but I hadn’t heard anything else to feed to Chael. However, I had run into Dr. Pines a few more times.
I caught him watching me on a couple of occasions, glaring. Once, I swore he was about to confront me about seeing me coming out of his office, but he said nothing.
“What do you think?” I asked Henry.
He looked back at me over his shoulder as if asking what in the world I was talking about.
“I know.” I groaned. “It’s not like I have anything new to tell him.” I paused and stopped just short of admitting out loud that I only wanted to hear his voice. It made no sense, but I found comfort in Chael’s deep, husky baritone. A sigh burst through my lips.
