A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as that same quiet pride washed through him.
He paused again. Rowan was watching him properly now, listening with an intensity that made Marcus feel both seen and unsteady.
‘The one in the city?’ Rowan asked.
Marcus nodded. ‘Yes. I had a loyal customer base. Regular dogs. Owners who trusted me. It felt like I’d finally built something that was mine.’ He swallowed. ‘So when I got the call about the accident, it was devastating.’
He gave another small laugh, but this one sounded thinner.
‘It sounds daft because it was only bricks and glass, wasn’t it? No one died. No one was hurt. But I remember standing across the road in my slippers and coat, looking at the front of my shop folded in on itself, and thinking... that’s my life in there.’
For a moment, Rowan said nothing.
Then his hand came to rest briefly on Marcus’s shoulder.
‘People say no one was hurt as if that means nothing was lost.’
He dropped his hand sooner than Marcus wanted, but the weight of it lingered long after it had gone.
Marcus looked at him. How could one sentence make such an impact? How could so few words carry so much understanding?
‘I understand that kind of loss,’ Rowan said quietly. ‘Not the same kind. But I understand it.’
Marcus barely dared to breathe.
This was the most Rowan had offered him so far, and Marcus was suddenly terrified that one wrong word, one wrong expression, would send him retreating behind that wall again.
Rowan looked down at Atlas. ‘Leaving the force felt like losing a life I’d built too. I’d been in the job since leaving school. I loved it. Lived and breathed it.’ His jaw tightened slightly. ‘I started on the beat, but I always felt pulled towards the dog unit.’
Marcus stayed silent.
‘I trained to become a dog handler. Atlas was my third police dog partner.’ Rowan’s gaze softened as it settled on the German Shepherd. ‘But he was the first I trained from a young dog. We worked well together. Really well. Well enough that we wererecommended for specialist work with the Ministry of Defence Police.’
Marcus’s mouth parted before he could stop it.
‘Wow.’
For the briefest moment, pride flickered across Rowan’s face.
Then it vanished.
It was as if someone had closed a door behind his eyes.
‘That was our last placement,’ Rowan said.
Marcus waited, but nothing else came.
The sharing was over.
Subconsciously, they had come to a standstill outside Ruff to Regal. The little side entrance was quiet, the gate closed, the sign hanging still in the warm afternoon air.
For a few seconds, Marcus and Rowan stood in silence, looking at each other. Not awkwardly this time. Not quite comfortably either. But something had shifted between them. Something small and fragile, like the first thread pulled through a needle.
Atlas moved first.
He stepped towards the side gate and paused, his snout lifting as he sniffed the air.
‘Well, look at that,’ Rowan said, surprise softening his voice.
