Page 49 of Operation K-9 Brothers

Mark watched him walk away.“He seems nice.What do they train these dogs for?”

“To assist people with disabilities, stuff like picking up things a person might have dropped and opening doors.They’re different from therapy dogs that are trained to give emotional support.”

“I never thought about those being two different things.Pretty cool that dogs can do stuff like that, though.”

“Yeah, it is.”And calming a man down after a nightmare was high on Jack’s list of pretty cool.

After dropping Mark off at Nichole’s, Jack went home, showered, dressed, and then loaded Dakota in his truck.He stopped at a deli and bought two ham and cheese on sourdough sandwiches, two bags of chips, and two bottles of water.But the clincher—at least he hoped—were the two dark chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting.Leaving there, he headed for the River Arts District.

The thing was, he couldn’t get Nichole out of his head.He wanted her under him, over him, wrapped around him, but the most surprising, he wanted her next to him.That last not having a thing to do with sex.He wanted her in his life.

Since leaving on his last deployment, up to the first night he’d spent with Nichole, he’d been sex deprived.That had been a record for him, but he’d let the woman who’d taken one look at his arm and freaked out freak him out.

Why he’d even decided to track down his middle-of-the-night caller was a mystery, one he had no interest in solving.He wasn’t a man to question a gift, and so far, Nichole was turning out to be the best gift he’d ever received.

Today he’d offer her decadent cupcakes.Maybe someday he’d offer her his heart.

Maybe.