Ben leaned close to Kate. “They did what she said. They sat down. How does she do that?”
Kate gave him a mysterious grin. “We call her ‘the puppy whisperer,’ although she seems to have a similar knack with animals of all kinds. You should see her farm. It’s practically a zoo out there. And the animals all come running to meet her when she walks outside.”
Ben’s eyes were as big as saucers as they turned back to Gran.
When playtime was over, the tired puppies gravitated to Nance and climbed over each other to reach her lap. They nestled against her as she sat cross-legged on the floor, petting them. Before long, her lap was full of sleepy pups. Two of them resisted the lure of nap time in Gran’s lap to continue exploring and they ended up on Kate’s lap, yawning.
As Ben stroked one of the puppies she held, he leaned close to ask, “Are you a puppy whisperer, too?”
She chuckled softly. “I guess so. It seems to run in the family. But Gran has a lot more experience at it that I have.”
After a few quiet moments, Ben helped put them in their basket and carry them back to the run where their mother was waiting.
“Where’s my dad?” Ben asked, looking around as they exited the kennel and crossed the old patio to the office again.
“I’m not sure.” She frowned as they passed through the kitchen-surgery and the empty reception room. “He stepped outside while we were in the puppy room. Let’s go find him.”
THEY FOUND NICK in the farthest exercise yard with a familiar-looking German shepherd, giving commands and waiting patiently as the dog complied. A teenage volunteer was hanging on the fence near the gate with a leash over his shoulder, watching the interplay.
Kate’s jaw dropped as she saw the dog sit, stay, come and retrieve. This was the same shepherd who growled and bared teeth at staff and became a Tasmanian devil when anyone tried to put a leash on him?
Nick seemed unaware of their presence as he worked with the dog, so they waited in silence for a while. The volunteer responded to Nick’s request and entered the yard to put something in his hand. The instant Nick turned to the shepherd, the dog’s nose was quivering. Seconds later, he was being rewarded with treats and pats on the head, the latter of which caused him to freeze for a moment, still wary after accepting Nick’s commands and the treats that meant a job well done.
Nick reached for the leash, and the shepherd allowed him to slip it over his head. There was some resistance when the volunteer tried to lead him back to the kennel, but after a few words from Nick, the shepherd grudgingly followed the volunteer. When Nick turned and spotted Ben and Kate, he headed toward them with a long, military stride that made it seem he could be wearing full dress blues.
“That was him, Goldie’s friend, wasn’t it?” Ben climbed onto the bottom rail of the fence to greet his dad, his face alight with discovery.
“Yeah, that was him,” Nick responded with a smile that made Kate’s stomach quiver. Then he stopped by the fence and looked to her. “It seems Goldie’s friend has had some major training. Maybe even military. Certainly knows verbal and silent commands.”
“And it seems you know how to give those commands,” she said, tilting her head, wishing she could see behind that handsome pair of eyes. “Those dogs you knew in Iraq, right? You were a handler?”
“Not really.” His smile faded. “I took over a few times when handlers got injured or rotated out. The guys attached to our unit taught us the basics, in case...” He halted and after a moment swallowed hard. She noticed, because she couldn’t take her gaze from that muscular neck. Every part of him seemed armored with muscle, impervious—except those eyes, which had darkened and were now avoiding hers.
“You know how to make dogs behave, don’t you, Dad?” Ben’s grin brought back some of the pleasure to Nick’s tight smile.
“Certain dogs.” Nick ruffled Ben’s hair with a big hand and then drew the boy against his side in a half hug. Kate’s stomach dropped. Her knees weren’t feeling any too steady, either.
“It may sound strange,” he continued to Kate, “but I think he’s depressed. It happens to military dogs that lose their handler. They droop physically...lose interest in training...forget how to play.”
“I’ve heard about that, but never treated it. I think you may be right.” Kate looked toward the kennel. “He seemed a lot more energetic just now, not to mention cooperative. Well, now that we know more about him, we can handle him better and start to rehab him. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even be able to find him a forever home.”
Ben looked up at her and seemed puzzled. “A forever home?”
“That’s what we call it when a dog finds people who will love it and make it a part of their family for the rest of its life. A forever home.”
There was a heartbeat’s pause.
“So...some homes aren’t forever?” Ben thought about that, and his eyes darkened as the sense of it hit home. “Some people get dogs and kids, then decide they don’t want them anymore and just...” He glanced up at his dad, then jumped down from the fence and headed for the sanctuary office.
Kate stared after him, speechless, unable to place what he’d said in any reasonable context. She would never have expected to hear such hurt from such a vibrant and seemingly well-adjusted child. Had she totally misread Ben’s relationship with his father? She looked at Nick, but he seemed just as devastated as she was by the emotion packed into Ben’s statement.
“What was that about?” she said, shifting directly in front of Nick.
“It’s not exactly a secret.” Nick’s tone flattened and expression hardened as he spoke. “Ben’s mother left us right after I returned from my last deployment. He had just turned four, and he took it hard. He doesn’t talk about it or about her. But sometimes it comes out...like...now.”
“So his mother is...”
“Not in the picture.” He produced a tight, humorless smile as he stepped to the side and swung over the fence to stand beside her. “It’s just him and me. And my mom. She’s a widow, and she moved in with us after Ben’s mother left. She’s great with him and does everything she can to fill the hole in his life.”
“And who fills the hole in your life?”
It was out before Kate could apply a filter—the thought went straight from her brain out her mouth. His eyes widened a couple of degrees, but otherwise he seemed surprisingly undisturbed by the question and the curiosity that prompted it.
“That wound healed pretty quick,” he said. “We were apart more than we were together, with deployments and all. It’s Ben I worry about. I have to work a lot and don’t get to spend the kind of time with him I’d like.”
“Understandable.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “But then, every parent I’ve ever talked to says the same thing. Time is the one thing there never seems to be enough of when it comes to kids.” She searched his now guarded expression. “If it helps—from an outsider’s point of view—Ben seems to worship you. He talks about you a lot and is very proud of how you help people and dogs.” Back on safer ground now, she smiled. “Fair warning—he wants a dog pretty badly.”
“Yeah, I got that. Seeing him with the golden at your office, then with the puppies—it wasn’t hard to figure out that a dog request is probably in the works.”
“When we were in the puppy room, he said he’d be happy with an older dog. And if I could offer a little advice, that might be a good option for a boy