Page 5 of The Lovely and the Lost
A muscle in my jaw ticced. The boundaries of Cady’s property were clearly marked. So was the fact that trespassers were not welcome.Our territory. Not yours.I kept a check on the part of my brain that whispered those words, but I didn’t take Pad and head back to the house. Instead, the two of us went for a little walk. Being the human half of a SAR team required more than just training the dog and giving the appropriate commands. You had to be able to traverse all kinds of terrain. You had to know advanced first aid. You had to be able to navigate. You had to be able to strategize.
You had to have at least rudimentary tracking skills yourself.
It took me five or six minutes to find a sign that Pad hadn’t been hearing things. A broken twig, a quarter of a footprint, if that. The size and shape indicated the owner was male and walked lightly. Whoever our visitor was, he knew how to hide his tracks.
“You ready for some fun?” I asked the golden.
In answer, Pad got a good whiff of the intruder’s scent. The human body shed roughly forty thousand skin cells per minute. With a trail this fresh, those cells would be a beacon for the dog’s nose, leading us straight to the trespasser.
Pad looked up at me, waiting for the command. “Find him.”
Pad took off running. I gave her plenty of slack on the lead—thirty or forty feet—and jogged to keep up with her. She led me up and over rocks, twisting and turning deeper and deeper into the forest. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been on the trail when Pad stopped. She stood perfectly still for a moment, then took off running with joyful abandon.
Find. Play. Find. Play.
I could feel the energy thrumming through her as she took us down a hill and into a clearing. To my surprise, our quarry was sitting on a rock, waiting for us. The intruder was older than I’d expected, and his suntanned, weatherworn face registered exactly zero surprise when we came tearing through the clearing.
When Pad plopped down in front of him and started barking, the old man held out a worn piece of rope. Instantly, she latched her teeth around it. I waited for the man to say something to me, but he was too busy playing tug-of-war with my partner to do it.
He knows she’s a search and rescue dog,I thought.She found him. She barked to indicate her find. They’re playing.
Another part of my brain focused on his posture, his size, any hint of movement in my direction.
“Would I be right in assuming you belong to Cady Bennett?” The man’s gaze flicked up to meet mine. I focused on thinking in words, not feelings, not colors, notheat. I wondered if he was with the army, if he was here for Pad.
As long as I was wondering, I had everything under control.
“Cady Bennett,” I repeated, the feel of the name familiar in my mouth—another safeguard, another anchor. “She’s my mom.”
I’d never called Cady by anything but her first name. Even after she’d adopted me, I’d still referred to her as myfostermother. Something inside me wouldn’t let me do anything else, but here, now, with this man looking at me like he knew something I didn’t, the words slipped out.
I was Cady Bennett’s daughter, and every instinct I had was telling me two things. First, that she knew this man, and second, that she didn’t know he was here.
Our territory. Not yours.The muscles on the back of my neck tightened. I wasn’t conscious of taking a step toward him until he held up a hand—the gesture forstay.
“I’m not an animal,” I gritted out, my throat tightening around the words.
“No,” the man said gruffly. “You’re my granddaughter. And from the looks of that glare on your face, you are very much your mother’s daughter.”
“Ifeel this bodes well.”
Jude and I were sitting at the top of the stairs, listening as best we could to the conversation that was going on in the kitchen. Cady had gone ashen the moment she’d seen her father. I hadn’t wanted to leave her alone with the man, but the look on my foster mother’s face had promised retribution if I didn’t.
With most people, I wasn’t capable of backing down. But every pack had its alpha—and Cady was ours.
“You think everything bodes well,” I told Jude. “We didn’t even know that Cadyhada father. You really think she would have kept his existence a secret without a reason?”
Jude dismissed my objection with a wave of his hand. “He’s ourgrandfather, Kira. By definition, that entitles us to certain grandchildly privileges.”
Jude had a habit of making up words. Being Jude, he was also optimistic that each and every one would be added to the dictionary, if only he used them regularly enough.
“I have to say, sister mine,” Jude continued seriously, “I think this is shaping up to be the best summer of our lives.”
“You say that every summer.”
“And every summer,” Jude countered, “I am correct!”
The sound of the hushed conversation in the kitchen gave way to silence. I tensed, preparing myself for an explosion. With Cady, it was always calmest right before the storm.