"Well, well, well." Javi leans back in the red leather booth, arms spread wide like he's welcoming me to my own execution. "If it isn't Pine Valley's most wanted fugitive."
"The dog ran. I chased. End of story."
"That's not what I heard."
"What did you hear?"
"That you got your ass handed to you by a five-foot-nothing veterinarian while the soon to be retired highly trained military K9 sat there like a golden retriever at a petting zoo. The Air Force won’t let you adopt him if you can’t handle him."
Ranger, currently sprawled under the table with zero shame, doesn't even lift his head. Traitor.
"Flyboy." Maggie O'Rourke appears at the booth with a coffee pot already in hand, because she always knows. Red hair streaked with gray, apron permanently stained, and a smile that makes you feel like you're home even when you're two thousand miles from it. "Heard you had an exciting afternoon."
"Does everyone in this town have a police scanner tuned to my personal humiliation?"
"Don't need a scanner, sweetheart." She fills my mug without asking. "Jet saw Ranger tear past the Rusty Spur. Sophie watched you sprint after him from her bookstore window. And Mrs. Patterson called her sister, who called me, to say there was a 'very handsome young man looking very flustered' outside the vet clinic."
"Mrs. Patterson thinks I'm handsome?"
"Mrs. Patterson is eighty-three and has cataracts. Don't let it go to your head."
Javi snorts into his coffee.
Maggie's eyes drop to where Ranger is pretending to be invisible under the table. "And how's my favorite troublemaker? You give your daddy a heart attack today?"
"He's not my—" I stop, because arguing semantics with Maggie is like arguing with the weather. Ranger's officially retiring from the K9 unit next month, and the adoption paperwork is already filed, but until then he's still Air Force property. "He's fine. Just decided to conduct an unauthorized tour of downtown."
"Mmhm." Maggie's knowing look could cut glass. "Ended up at Dr. O'Connor's clinic, I hear."
"Coincidence."
"Right." She tucks the coffee pot under her arm. "The vet's a good one. Sharp. Doesn't take any nonsense."
"I didn't notice."
Javi's snort turns into a full laugh. Maggie just smiles—the kind of smile that says she's been watching soldiers fall for women in this town since before I was born and she's not fooled by any of my bullshit.
"Holler if you need anything, boys." She heads toward the counter, pausing to refill three other mugs on the way without anyone asking.
The woman's a mind reader. It's unsettling.
"So." Javi plants his elbows on the table, leaning forward with the gleeful malice of a best friend who's about to make my life miserable. "The vet."
"What about her?"
"She pretty?"
"Didn't notice."
"Liar."
"She had my dog in her face. There wasn't a lot of time for observation."
"But you noticed she was sharp. And doesn't take nonsense."
"Maggie said that, not me."
"You didn't disagree."
