Tucker Read online

  Most of the time Bernie was fine; she just needed a lot of extra care and was extremely high maintenance. Mom and Dad had hoped that Bernie would find a boyfriend who’d marry her, but she seemed to burn through them pretty fast.

  Addie herself thought that the boyfriends only took so long to figure out just how high maintenance Bernie was before they took a walk. And they never came back. Addie couldn’t blame any of them, but, at the same time, she knew her sister did have good points—some … okay, a few—but it was damn hard to see them sometimes, like right now.

  Addie was still so damn angry about the dog. She had yet to even see the bite and had no idea what her sister had done to deserve it, but Addie knew her sister had done something to provoke the dog. So far, all Addie’s efforts to save the dog had failed because her sister refused to do anything other than order that it be put down. Bernie had clearly lied and had said that the dog bit her several times. Then changed it to one bite but kept it bandaged. Addie just didn’t know why her sister hated the dog so much.

  Except for the fact that her sister didn’t like anybody who didn’t like her, and there was no doubt that the dog didn’t like her sister.

  To that end, Addie had argued against her parents leaving the dog with her sister because obviously it was a situation that would not go well. But her parents’ need to get away from her sister had driven away any concern about whether the dog would be in danger or whether her sister would be in danger. Her sister, was not in danger, but her sister had become a danger to the dog. Addie took another long slow deep breath and opened her car door, as one of the neighbors called out.

  “How’s your sister doing?” she asked.

  “She’s doing fine,” she said. “Why?”

  “Oh, well, she had that terrible dog bite. I’m so glad that dog’s being put down.”

  “Well, the dog didn’t bite her,” she said. “Bernie just made it up.”

  The neighbor looked at her, shocked.

  Addie shook her head, hopped into the driver’s side, and pulled out. She didn’t even know what the matter was with her. Well, yes, she did. The dog needed Addie to step up. She had bonded with the dog. Her sister had not. It was what it was. Addie had given up trying to defend her sister a long time ago. It burned her constantly to think that that dog was being put down because of her sister’s temper tantrum, her selfish wants. It was a good dog. It was a War Dog, and why the hell did nobody care? Somebody out there must care.

  On that note, she headed back to the pound, where she spent so much of her time, trying to find ways to save the animal. She’d even contemplated breaking it out, wondering if she knew anybody who could help her. But figured that, as soon as she did that, her sister would blame her too. And, of course, Addie wasn’t the liar her sister was, and would probably ’fess up almost immediately, if somebody asked her if she had stolen the dog from the pound.

  She’d also have to find a place to keep the dog, since her place was small, and the Malinois was huge. She had zero fear of Bernie—the dog. But Bernie, her sister? Addie shook her head. She figured that her sister’s actions had caused this whole scenario.

  Didn’t matter how much one loved the dog, it was still a dog, it was still an animal, and so many had no respect for her as such. Her sister wasn’t a dog lover; she was only interested in getting love for herself, and nothing else mattered. To think that the dog and her sister shared the same name just blew Addie away. But it’s also how the poor dog had ended up here.

  Addie blamed her parents for that too because they weren’t prepared to spend the time to help the dog adapt. They thought that her sister, would look after it, and that would free up the parents to leave for all their trips. What a joke. As Addie pulled into the pound, she saw several other vehicles here. She hopped out and walked into the front area.

  The receptionist looked up at her, shook her head, and asked, “Still no good news?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “Can I see her?”

  She hesitated and then nodded. “Somebody else is in there too,” she said.

  At that, Addie stared at her. “Are they putting her down now? You said that she still had a couple days.”

  “Somebody else is here looking to positively ID her as one of the War Dogs,” she said in a low voice. “The boss isn’t very happy about it.”

  At that, Addie’s eyebrows lifted because anything the boss wasn’t happy about was good news as far as Addie was concerned. She motioned at the door. “Buzz me through, will ya?” Addie had gotten to know the receptionist, Wendy, fairly well this last week or two.

  Wendy asked, “How’s your sister doing?”

  “I don’t even think she got bit,” she said with a wave of her hand.

  “Well, there had to be a doctor’s report.”

  Addie nodded. “Supposedly. I know,” she said, “but she sure as hell won’t show me the wound.”

  “Weird,” she said.

  At that, Addie didn’t even bother answering. Her mind was too busy trying to figure out how her sister had gotten a doctor’s report written. Addie didn’t even know if her sister had a regular doctor who she saw. Maybe Bernie went to an ER somewhere. That nagged away at Addie because none of it made any sense to her.

  As she walked to the back all alone, she approached the cage to see a man sitting in the far corner with Bernie herself stretched all the way out, so that her paw rested in the man’s hand. She stopped in surprise. “Hello,” she said gently.

  The man slowly turned to look at her. He smiled and said, “Hello.”

  She said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bernie here quite so happy.”

  “Bernie and I’ve been getting to know each other,” he said quietly.

  She nodded and said, “This was my family’s dog.” At that, his smile fell away, and she understood. “It was my sister who got bit,” she said in apology.

  “Ah,” he said. “How badly hurt is she?”

  She hesitated, that old loyalty raising its head. “She’s not badly hurt,” she said with a shrug.

  “Which is unusual then that the dog is being put down for something that isn’t very bad,” he said. “Normally you get several strikes before you get to that stage, and it has to be a bad bite or attack.”

  “I know,” she said. “Apparently, and I wasn’t there at the time, my sister said she’d bitten her several times but refused to let anybody know.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I don’t know. She says it’s too painful to touch the bandage.”

  “What’s your sister’s name?”

  She hesitated and then said, “Bernie.”

  He looked at her and looked at the dog, and she nodded. “Yeah, they have the same name. And that’s how she convinced my parents to get her the dog.”

  “Well, dogs like this War Dog, they’re still working animals. She was eased into retirement, but she still wouldn’t have bitten anybody.”

  “Well, it’s still an animal,” she said, feeling slightly defensive.

  “Absolutely,” he said, “and, as such, she deserves respect and a second chance.”

  “Well, you won’t get an argument out of me,” she said. She crouched in front of the gate, only to realize it wasn’t locked. She pushed it open slightly and asked, “Can I come in?”

  “Do you know her well?”

  “I’ve come many times,” she said. “The dog was given to my sister essentially, but Bernie and I have a strong bond. I really miss her.”

  As she stepped in, Bernie’s tail wagged madly. Addie smiled, crouched in front of her, and said, “Hey, girl.”

  And Bernie immediately bounced to her feet and gave her a huge welcome.

  “That’s good to see,” he said. “I was worried after all the reports I’d heard that she had bitten somebody.”

  “I’m not worried about getting bit,” she said. “It’s the euthanasia that’s supposed to happen on Friday that worries me.”

  “I know,” he admit
ted. “I was hoping to find a way to stop it.”

  “You and me both,” she said. The dog licked her face and then calmed down slightly, and Addie looked at the man. I didn’t introduce myself,” she said. “I’m Addie.”

  He reached out a hand and shook hers. “And I’m Tucker,” he said. “I came on behalf of the War Dog Division to see what’s going on here.”

  She brightened. “Oh, I’m really glad to hear that,” she cried out. “Can you rescue her?”

  “Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. It seems the dog is being railroaded, and nobody appears to care that she’s a War Dog. At the moment it’s likely she’ll be put down before I have a chance to make a case for her.”

  “That’s something I was trying to avoid.” She frowned. “And I don’t know what kind of pull my sister had to make this all happen, but I hate it,” she murmured, burrowing her face in Bernie’s ruff. “Because this dog deserves better.”

  “But when we’re up against the court cases, it’s a hard thing to do,” he murmured. “They get on this pathway, and to get a stay of an order is much harder.”

  “And yet this dog didn’t deserve any of it,” she said.

  “Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t, but I’m glad to hear that you think she doesn’t.”

  “No way,” she said. “It’s just so damn sad.”

  “It is at that,” he said, “but we’re not out of hope, as it hasn’t happened yet.”

  She looked at him with a smile on her face. “If you need any help, count me in.”

  He looked at her a moment and then nodded. “Any idea what we can do?”

  “No, I was hoping you did.” Her hopes fell, as she realized he didn’t know how to save Bernie either. “If you don’t have any legal pull from the War Dog Division or the government,” she said, “then I don’t think anybody can do anything about her.” She looked around and said honestly, “Sometimes I think, each time I’m here, that I should just steal her and run.”

  “If that was the answer,” he said, “I’d do it too.”

  She nodded and frowned. “But we’d be seen,” she said. “I don’t know how many cameras they have on this place, but there’s no way to do it without being seen.”

  “I hear you,” he said quietly, gently stroking the dog’s ears, as she stretched out on her side, her legs kicked out in front of her and her head on his thigh.

  “She accepted you so fast,” she murmured, studying him.

  His smile was deep, gentle. “She knows I’m no threat. I’m still trying to figure out your sister’s motivations,” he said, “because that might be the easiest way to get this fixed.”

  “I think it’s probably too far gone for that,” she said. “And then my sister …” Addie stopped.

  “Your sister what?”

  She winced. “I …” Then she stopped again.

  “You know I’ll hear it all anyway, so it’s probably easier if I hear it from you.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no easy about it,” she said. “I don’t know quite what happened, but my sister and this dog did not get along right from the beginning. Bernie—the dog—didn’t like Bernie, my sister, at all.”

  “Well, I happen to trust this dog’s instincts more than I do people’s,” he said. “So what’s wrong with your sister?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “So much,” she said, “but one of the biggest issues is she’s just very selfish and very self-centered. And I know that’s a terrible thing to say about my own sister, but it just seems like everything she’s ever done was more about her. She’s very high maintenance.”

  “A lot of women are,” he said. “That doesn’t make them bad people.”

  “No.” Addie blew out a long hard sigh. “And I sound like I’m a jealous sister, and that’s not what I mean at all,” she said. And, of course, he didn’t understand. Why would he? Besides, he was male, and she gave a bitter laugh, as he had yet to even meet her sister. Bernie was a stunner. Men fell for her all the time. It just blew Addie away that they could bypass all her personality issues and become enamored with what they thought they saw instead of what was really there.

  “Do you think she held it against her that the dog didn’t like her?”

  “I know so, and she got to really hate her because everybody else loved her.”

  “So this was personal?”

  “How can it be personal?” she asked in wonderment. “It’s a dog.”

  “Was it a competition though?”

  She stared at him, her brows crinkled. “Maybe,” she said, “I guess if you want to look at it that way.”

  “Well, how else do you look at it?” he asked curiously.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems a strange thing to say.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but it seems like we have a bite, supposedly a second and third bite, the injury bad enough that we have a doctor’s report somewhere that we have to deal with. And because the owners themselves surrendered the dog and said that she’s too dangerous for them to handle and that they want to put her down, there’s nothing to stop this.”

  “Which is why I’ve been fighting so hard. My parents aren’t even in town.”

  “And where are they?”

  She winced because, of course, this would make her parents look stupid too. “They went on holiday.”

  He stared at her.

  “I know,” she said. “They don’t handle this kind of stress very well.”

  “They applied for and adopted, after quite a process, a War Dog. This War Dog.”

  “I know,” she said, “and, when it got here, they thought it would be a solution, but instead it became a problem.”

  “Did they get along with the dog?”

  “Yes, actually they did. My dad likes her.”

  “And yet he was okay for her to be put down?”

  “I don’t think that was it as much as the fact that, once my sister got badly hurt, they were horrified and immediately wanted to be clear of the problem. And my dad is a strong proponent of animals, but only if they’re kept properly. And, in this case, he believes that the War Dog was defective from the beginning, and it was a bad deal, so they needed to just get rid of it.”

  “Defective?” he asked in an ominous tone.

  She shrugged. “I think he thought that it was injured in some way, and that’s why it was being retired, and nobody told them the full facts, and they ended up with a dog that has a screw loose.”

  “Right,” he said. He looked down at Bernie. “Does she look like she has a screw loose?”

  “I never thought that,” she said quietly.

  “It’s too bad you couldn’t have looked after the dog,” he said, eyeing her.

  “Wouldn’t that have been nice,” she said, “but I wasn’t given that option.”

  “And why is that?”

  She shook her head.

  “Wouldn’t you have been a better answer than killing her?”

  “No, because in my parents’ world, they probably thought that I would just get bit too.”

  “I wonder though,” he said. “It’s possible, but, as I don’t know what set it off in the first place, I don’t know how to explain whether it would happen again or not.”

  “I don’t think it would happen again,” she said. “By the time my parents went for a holiday, my sister thoroughly hated the dog, and the poor thing’s life was not great. I didn’t know who I was supposed to complain to. I kept interfering, but I don’t live at home, and my parents just had enough, and they left Bernie with Bernie. I don’t know what happened after that.”

  “So there was a bad situation, which they couldn’t handle, and they just walked?” he asked incredulously.

  She looked at him, and then, not knowing what else to do, she answered with the truth. “Yes.”

  Chapter 2

  “I get that this probably makes my parents not seem very responsible,” Addie said hesitantly, feeling disloyal again.
<
br />   “It sounds like a recipe for disaster,” he said shortly. “They brought an animal into this scenario, and they could easily have contacted the War Dog Division and returned her.”

  She thought about that and then said, “And I don’t know why they didn’t do that.”

  “Well, if they didn’t have the guts to deal with your sister, they probably didn’t want to admit that it was a mistake.”

  “Maybe,” she said, hating to frame her parents in this exact way. “They’re not bad people. They’re just … ineffective?” she said unhappily.

  “Does that make it any better?”

  “No,” she said, “but the problem is, I don’t know how to help the dog now. I didn’t know how to help her back then either,” she said, throwing out her hands. “I’ve hardly even slept since this happened. All my sister wants is for the dog to be dead, and it makes her happy every time I get upset about it.”

  “Because she wants to see you suffer?”

  “Maybe,” she said quietly, “that would be in line with my sister.”

  “She sounds like a psychopath,” he said in a short answer.

  “Well, I hope not,” she said, “because we do share blood, and I’d hate to think I was the same.”

  “I don’t think sharing blood has anything to do with it,” he said. “Sometimes people like that just don’t care about anything but what they want, and they thrive on other people’s wounds.”

  “Doesn’t make her sound very nice at all,” she said, hating the entire conversation. She stood and said, “Look. I don’t want to talk about my family like this.”

  “No, you don’t have to,” he said, “but, if you’ve got anything inside you that wants to see this situation rectified,” he said, “you need to help me get her out of here.”

  “And I said I would, but I was hoping you had a methodology that would work legally.”