She pushed the door open and walked into the familiar diner. She’d started coming here in junior high with her best friend, Patsy, and Patsy’s family. Her parents wouldn’t deign to frequent a “dive” like this. Leann loved the place. If one of her children spilled a glass of water, a waitress handed over a towel and no white linens were ruined. Here, a person could joke with the folks at the next table because the tables were so close. The laughter was muted at the places her parents liked, and children were seen but not heard.
She shrugged out of her jacket, aware of the Glock 17 tucked in its holster, and looked down the aisle toward her favorite booth in the back.
William Benedict nodded at her and went back to his pancakes. If she’d just turned Peaches over to new owners, she’d be drowning her sorrows with chocolate. She supposed pancakes could do the trick, and Benedict did look a bit distressed.
“Coffee,” she called to Joe as he peeked his head around the door frame. He responded with, “You know where it is.”
She helped herself and headed for her favorite booth and the man who occupied it. “Mind if I join you?”
“Go ahead,” Benedict answered.
She settled in, added two packets of sugar to her coffee and studied the soldier across from her. He wasn’t lean like Gary. Benedict was more the compact but stocky type. He’d be fast and furious, she figured. Not like Gary, who’d be fast and fluid. Benedict had a regulation buzz cut and she wondered if Gary’s hair had stood up that straight. Now it was short, but not military short.
She shook her head, trying to dismiss the image of Gary. She wanted to talk to Benedict.
He apparently wanted to talk to her. “Will Goober be all right with Guzman? I mean, why were you there?”
Leann immediately flashed on Gary and Wilma from last night. Gary might not be the most polished handler, but he’d been out with his dog, trying his best. In her book, that took heart. She blew a mist of steam from the top of her coffee, took a sip, still too hot, and said, “Someone complained about barking. It’s nothing. Goober will be fine, but I really think it’s strange you took a chance driving all this way to drop off a dog with a complete stranger. What if Gary said no?”
“My orders were not to take no for an answer,” Benedict said, wiping a smudge of syrup from his shirt.
“Orders?”
“Guzman’s commanding officer is worried about him. He told me to take the dog, leave it in Gary’s truck if I had to, and retreat.”
Leann almost spit out the coffee she’d just inhaled. “Retreat? What?”
“Gary’s having a bit of trouble adjusting to civilian life. We all do. When Max told the commander how much time Gary was spending with Wilma, Commander thought another dog would be just the thing.”
“That’s pretty presumptuous,” Leann noted.
“You’re telling me. And, just how the commander knew I had a dog I didn’t want is pretty amazing, too.”
“How could you not want Goober?”
Benedict merely shrugged. “I’m never home.”
“Was Goober really your mother’s?”
“Nah, she was my sister’s, who really is pregnant with triplets. Her youngest boy, turns out, has asthma, so I took the dog to help them out. Which,” he added, “I have done.”
“Do you even know Gary?” Leann asked.
“No, we’ve had different deployments. I hear he’s a decent guy.”
Leann couldn’t respond to that. She knew a few decent men, worked with them. She didn’t want to continue that thread because one of those decent guys might get her promotion.
Benedict rolled his eyes. “I was going to put Goober up on Craigslist. Last time Goober had puppies, that’s what my sister did. But, I could never disobey an order from the commander.”
Leann thought back to Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast this morning and wondered what demons were chasing Gary that had his former commanding officer sending him dogs to take care of.
* * *
GARY REREAD CHAPTER FOUR AGAIN. It had a checklist for training an adult dog. Unfortunately, the author of How to Train Your Dog in Three Days hadn’t taken into account a dog that only understood German. So far today, Gary had requested that Wilma come a dozen times. Wilma ignored him a dozen times.
Instead, she ran back and forth across his aunt Bianca’s backyard, skidding up dirt and leaving a gift in the garden that Gary quickly cleaned up.
“Any progress?” Bianca called as she stepped onto the back porch.
“No.”
“It will happen.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I remember when your dad was about twelve, and he came home with some old mutt he’d found abandoned by the railroad tracks.”
Gary stopped. His aunt rarely mentioned his father. Sometimes he even forgot that his father was Aunt Bianca’s little brother. She seemed so much like everyone else, the good side, his mom’s side.
“The dog, oh, I don’t remember his name,” she continued, “but he’d obviously been on his own for a long time. He had no social graces.”
“Like Wilma?” Gary said, trying to bring the conversation back to now, these dogs, himself, not his dad.
“No, Wilma’s a good dog. She just misses her owner. Berto’s dog was missing half its fur and half an ear. It would run around in circles, jumping for hours.” Aunt Bianca laughed. “Drove our mother crazy. But, your father never gave up. By the time he got finished with that dog, you’d never have known he was a wild stray. Roberto was always trying to take care of animals and people.”
Gary almost pointed out how his father hadn’t taken much care of his own family. But, something in Aunt Bianca’s expression changed his mind, so instead he changed the subject and said, “Goober doesn’t act like Wilma.”
Aunt Bianca glanced over at Goober, who followed at Wilma’s heels, herding the other dog. “She’s older.”
He turned his attention back to Wilma, who’d given up trying to impress them with her running and turning skills and was now rolling on her back.
Gary patted his left leg and once again called for Wilma in German. The dog remained on its haunches. Goober, however, trotted obediently over and looked up at Gary.
“You so remind me of Berto,” Aunt Bianca said.
Gary felt a knot forming between his shoulder blades. He shook his head. “No, I’m not like him.”
“You are. More than any of the others—”
“Aunt Bianca, I’m not like him.”
“Anna’s about to graduate college. Hector’s finishing his doctorate. You and Oscar are here. It’s time to think about the past, about your father. I’ve never believed he just walked away. He came here all those years ago, and it was like he was on a mission. There was something going on. I just wish I knew what happened.”
The knot tightened and so did his stomach. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Aunt Bianca stopped rustling the fur on top of Goober’s head. “That’s the problem. We didn’t talk about it enough. Your mother and I were so careful not to upset you kids. We should have questioned things more when your father disappeared.”
Gary froze.
“Do you remember that your father was last seen here in Sarasota Falls?” Aunt Bianca queried.
Gary