She scrolled through the details once more, daring the words to change and prove her interpretation incorrect. But one more reread, or one hundred more, wasn’t going to change the information housed in the email.
If this email was to be believed, the company she loved and believed in had turned to some dark and illegal practices.
* * *
“WELCOME BACK TO WHISPERWOOD, Alex. Quintessential small town Texas, from the tippy top of the big white gazebo smack in the middle of the town square, to the string of shops on Main Street.”
Donovan Colton glanced over at his companion as he passed the gazebo and turned from Maple onto Main, unsurprised when he didn’t receive a pithy response or even acknowledgment of his comment. As a matter of course, he’d have been more concerned if he had received a response.
His large black Lab possessed many talents, but a speaking voice wasn’t one of them.
What Alex—short for Alexander the Great—did have was a nose that could sniff out explosive materials and he knew exactly how to translate that knowledge back to Donovan so he could in turn secure help. The fact Alex had several hundred million scent receptors in his nose—and had been trained almost since birth to use them in support of police work—meant Donovan had a powerful partner in their work to capture the bad guys.
It also helped he got along far better with his canine partner than he ever would have with a real live human one.
Donovan had been an animal lover since he was small. His various chores around the Colton ranch never seemed like chores if an animal was involved. Whether it was horse duty, mucking stalls or collecting eggs from the coops, he hadn’t cared or seen any of it as work, so long as he got to spend time with the furry and the feathered Coltons who shared space on the large ranch that sprawled at the far west end of Whisperwood.
That love ran ever deeper to any number of mutts who had called the Colton ranch home.
Just like me, Donovan added to himself, the thought a familiar one.
Shaking it off, he focused on the gorgeous dog next to him. Donovan had loved each and every canine that had graced his life, but Alex was something extra special. Alex had been trained since puppyhood for life on a K-9 team; the two of them had bonded quickly, one an extension of the other. Alex looked to him for security, order, discipline and the clear role as alpha of their pack. In return, Donovan stroked, praised, and directed the animal into any number of search and rescue situations, confident his companion could handle the work.
And Alex always did.
From bombs to missing persons, Alex did his job with dedication, focus and—more often than not—a rapid wag of his tail.
Yep. Donovan would take a four-footed partner over one with two feet any day.
Not that he could technically complain about any of the fine men and women he’d worked with in the past, but something just fit with Alex. They had a bond and a way of working that was far easier than talking to someone.
Their trip to Whisperwood had been unusually quiet, he and Alex dispatched to an old warehouse site to confirm the Austin PD hadn’t missed any drugs on a raid the prior week. The cache they had discovered had been worth millions and Donovan’s captain wanted to ensure they hadn’t overlooked anything.
Donovan’s thorough site review hadn’t revealed any missed stashes but it was Alex’s attention to the crime scene that reinforced the fact the initial discovery team had found all there was to find. Donovan would bet his badge on it.
If Alex couldn’t find it, it’s because it didn’t exist.
What it also meant was that his trip to Whisperwood was over far earlier than Donovan had planned.
And disappearing back out of town—especially after greeting the local chief of police at the crime scene—wasn’t going to go down very well. If his mother knew he’d come through and hadn’t stopped by, no amount of excuses could save him.
“You’re just too damn good, Alex.”
The dog’s tongue lolled happily to the side while he maintained a steady view of the passing scenery outside the car. The use of his name had Alex’s ears perking but even the warm tone couldn’t distract the dog from the holiday wreaths hanging neatly from each lamppost in town.
Donovan took in the view, his memories of his hometown not too far off the mark of the real thing. The wreaths came out like clockwork the Monday before Thanksgiving, hanging until precisely the third day after the new year. A town committee changed out the ribbons on each wreath every week so they remained perfectly tied throughout the holiday. Red, green and gold, they alternated in a steady pattern, accompanied by bright, vibrant banners that wished people the happiness of the season.
His gaze drifted toward the corner store, an old memory pushing against his thoughts. A night, several Christmases past, when he’d had a sick little puppy and had flirted with a woman.
She’d been kind, he remembered, and pretty in a way that wasn’t flashy, but that intrigued all the same. There was something solid there. Lasting, even. Which was silly, since he hadn’t spent more than a half hour in her company before heading out on a call.
He’d thought to go in and ask about her a few times since, but training Alex had provided Donovan with a good excuse to stay out of his hometown; by the time he came back a year and a half later it had seemed lame—and far too late—to stop back in and ask about her.
But he did think of her every now and again. The slender form that filled out a pair of jeans with curves that had made his fingers itch and just enough skin showing at the top of her blouse to shift his thoughts in interesting, heated directions.
Dismissing the vague memory of pretty gray eyes and long, dark hair, he refocused on the pristine streets before him and the large ranch housed at the edge of town.
He needed to go see his mother. If he was lucky, his father would be out for the afternoon and he could avoid the lecture about coming to visit more often. He found it odd—funny, even—that it was his father who was more determined to deliver that particular guilt trip than his mother.
At the edge of the town square, Donovan looked at the large gazebo that dominated the space before putting on his blinker to head toward the Colton ranch. “Pretty as a picture.”
At his comment, Alex’s ears perked again and he turned from the view out the passenger window, his head tilted slightly toward Donovan.
“You don’t miss a trick, do you?”
Donovan took his role as alpha in their relationship seriously, and that meant avoiding tension, anger or panic when speaking and working with Alex. Donovan had always innately understood an animal’s poor acceptance of those emotions, but his K-9 training had reinforced it. He needed to stay calm and firm in the face of his furry partner, never allowing random, spiking emotions a place in their partnership.
Which meant the emotions that had the deepest of roots—established in the very foundation of his childhood—needed to be avoided at all costs. Especially if the prospect of visiting the Colton ranch was transmitted by his tone.
Extending a hand, he ruffled Alex’s head and ears, scratching the spot he knew was particularly sensitive. A low, happy groan echoed from his partner when Donovan kneaded the small area behind Alex’s ears, effectively erasing whatever tension he’d pushed into his police-issued SUV.
And on a resigned sigh, he made the turn that would carry him to the large ranch that sprawled for over a thousand acres deep in the heart of Texas Hill Country.
Home.
* * *
BELLAMY FOUGHT THE steady swirl of nerves that coated her stomach, bumping and diving like waves