“Tank’s fault. He’s excited to see you again.” Dakota was going to reward Tank with a game of tug later. He was a hell of a wingman.
“Wait.” Rylee tapped a finger on his chest. “I’m placing you now. You were the lovely man who gave me your taxi and the flowers.”
“That was me,” Dakota confirmed.
“It was a bad day, and that gesture made all the difference. Thank you. But I don’t remember Tank being there.”
“That was the second time we almost met. Were you at the Children’s Hospital mud run?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. My father’s foster child is in and out of the hospital, and we think it would be an amazing thing for the kids to get a park. Were you running?”
“With Cerberus. Your dad and the child were in wheelchairs?”
“That’s right.” She tipped her head. “But there were thousands of people there.”
“Pompoms at the finish line. And your bright smile.” He said that without thinking. What a cheesy thing to say. “Something about you caught Tank’s attention. The pompoms, maybe? He wanted to join your family. But we were both covered in clay.”
“Oh!” She pulled the lanyard that attached her phone to its waterproof sleeve, then scrolled through her photo album. “Ta da!” She turned it around. “Is that you in the war paint?”
“Team colors.”
She’d taken a picture of him. He was in her photo album. He shouldn’t feel this satisfied with the most tenuous of connections. Yet there it was.
“You all looked like something out of, I don’t know, Braveheart. Which was perfect. The kids are surely in a battle, and it’s great to have warriors showing up for them. But you’re not Cerberus, right?” She raised a questioning brow toward Neesa.
“Secret Service,” Neesa said.
“Tank is training with them. They use a dog-to-dog mentorship model, so Tank was invited to run with the pack.” A grin pulled across Dakota’s face. “Tank decided to drag me along, quite literally.”
Rylee handed her phone to Neesa. “You can see he’s being modest. The group came thundering over that hill, first the Malinois, then the shepherds. Everyone looked like they were having a great time. There was one guy who came in just after, let me …” She pulled up another picture. “Look at this mastiff trotting along like he was Ferdinand the Bull. And his guy there looked like he wished they could run faster.”
“That’s Nutsbe Crushed, Panther Force.”
“Bilateral amputee,” Neesa said. “My goodness, he looks like he could be in the Paralympics.”
“He’s competing in Track and Field at the Invictus games this year,” Dakota said. He pointed at the picture of Nutsbe running near the crowd. “That’s his girlfriend, Olivia, standing next to you.”
“Invictus, that’s impressive.” Rylee accepted her phone back. “Henry, my foster nephew, was thrilled to cheer him on. Nutsbe you said?”
“Call sign from the Air Force,” Dakota said, reaching out to stop Tank from giving Rylee another nudge into him. “I don’t know his given name.”
“Ah, well, Nutsbe inspired Henry, and now Henry wants to start training to be a hero too.”
“A hero.” Dakota chuckled. “I’ll pass that along. It’ll make Nutsbe’s day.”
Jasper nodded toward Rylee’s hand. “What’s with the glove?”
“Rylee plucked it from the river.” Neesa gave a whole-body shiver. “Apparently, when it’s filled with water and floating fingers up, it looks like a cadaver hand.”
Jasper scowled. “And you reached in to grab it, thinking it was a dead body floating in the Potomac.”
Rylee grimaced.
“That could have been a life trauma. And you reached for it?” Jasper sound bewildered.
“Someone’s family needs to know what happened to their loved one,” Rylee said. “Closure.”
“Selfless.” Dakota bladed his hands on his hips. “Guts of steel. Not many people would have done it.”
