I shrugged. “He doesn’t fake it. When he wants out, he says so.”
Emily grinned, not unkindly. “You realize the same could be said about most convicted felons.”
“That’s probably true.” I found my hand at my throat, thumb hooked through the dog tags. I’d meant to keepthe gesture hidden, but the cold metal drew my fingers back over and over, like a worry stone too valuable to leave home. I rolled the tags in my fist and caught her watching.
“You military?” she asked, and for a second it was just a question, not a probe.
I considered lying. Then I considered the absurdity—she’d check the records anyway, or more likely, ask around the local VA, where my face had already been passed through a few gossip circuits. I let out a slow breath, the cold burning my nostrils.
“My father was. Deployed three times before I finished high school. These were his.” I let the chain slip out, the tags catching a shaft of sickly sunlight and spinning a strobe onto the gravel.
Emily looked at them as if they were artifacts. “Army?”
I nodded. “He died in Syria. Two years ago this month.”
She didn’t gasp, didn’t do the cloying ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ script. Her eyes just narrowed a little, like she was shifting mental gears, recalibrating the narrative. “And you?”
I smiled, though it probably looked more like a flinch. “High school dropout. I do spreadsheets. Easier to handle.”
Her gaze softened, which was somehow worse than if she’d recoiled. “You seem like you know what you’re doing with animals. Or is that a front for my benefit?”
“It’s not a front.” I glanced at Sergeant, who had finally crept back in our direction, flanks quivering. “Some things, you learn quick.”
Emily crouched, balancing her clipboard on one knee, and tapped the yard with her knuckles. “He won’t come if you don’t get down here.”
I looked at my boots, then at her, then let myself fold into a squat. My left knee sang with the old meniscus injury, but I ignored it. Sergeant inched closer, low to the ground, then froze just out of reach. The muscles in his jaw fluttered with tension.
Emily nudged my arm. “Try your hand under, not over. Less threatening.”
I did. My fingers hovered palm-up, shaking slightly. “Why’s he so jumpy?”
“He was abandoned in a dogfighting bust,” she said, quietly enough that the breeze almost stole it. “Spent six weeks in a backyard crate. Some of the scars are physical, but most of it’s muscle memory. He’s terrified of men in particular.”
Sergeant’s nose bumped my knuckle, quick and suspicious, then darted back. I exhaled slowly.
“Is that why you took this job?” I said, voice low, “Or is it just a place to kill time between rescue missions?”
Emily’s lips twitched, uncertain. “My parents had a ranch outside Belen. When I was a kid, I’d sneak strays into the barn and try to rehab them. I got good at patching things up, at least until they caught on.” She paused, her hand still and open on the gravel, not reaching for Sergeant, just offering. “It’s stupid, I know.”
“Doesn’t sound stupid,” I said, and the words hung there, heavier than I meant.
Sergeant made a decision then. He slunk the last yard and pressed his head into the cradle of my palm, the whole body vibrating. I scratched behind his ear, feeling the hot, rapid pulse. He stilled, just for a breath, and I realized my own heart was beating hard enough to ring the dog tags against my sternum.
Emily smiled at that, genuine this time. “He’s picking up on you. Dogs always know the real from the fake.”
I grinned back, not trusting my voice.
After a few minutes, she stood, brushed the dirt off her jeans, and wrote something quick on the clipboard. “The club. You don’t mind that people know?”
I shrugged. “They’d have to be blind not to. Ma needed protection. She still does. You take what you can get.”
She nodded. “My mom drank herself to death by thirty-nine. My dad ran off before then. If I’d had someone who wore a jacket with my name on it, maybe things would’ve gone differently.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I let the silence breathe. Sergeant nudged closer, settling his weight into my thigh like he’d found safe harbor, at least for the length of a visit.
The sun shifted, lighting up the chain-link in a shimmer that made everything look almost clean, as if the world could be made new for just a second.
Emily closed the file, squared her shoulders, and said, “You can take him for a test drive, see if it works.”
