Her fingers slid away from his arm, and she picked up her water. “If that’s the case, why don’t you let him sleep with you? Why can’t he live with you if he’s that well-trained?”
“Well, let me put it this way. This—” Geo pointed to his scar “—is me and Bosch in a nutshell.”
“What, him biting you?”
“Yep,” he said, infusing that one word with as much pride as he could muster.
She studied him, her brow wrinkling. “I don’t get it. Explain why that’s a good thing.”
Her adorable confusion made him grin, even as he said, “Because that night, I was stupid, and Bosch let me know it. He reminded me that this isn’t a game.”
Pulling one knee up on the couch, Lani turned to face him. “This I gotta hear.”
“Okay. So it was early in our partnership, and we’d been training in the mountains east of San Diego, balls to the wall, lots of detection and bite work. Bosch had performed well, and I was feeling bulletproof, as if our success was all because of me instead of the fantastic decoys we’d been working with.”
She held up a hand to stop him. “Decoys are the ones who wear the bite suits?”
“Yeah, or just a bite sleeve.” He pantomimed sliding something over his forearm. “A good decoy is the difference between making or breaking a military working dog, and that night we’d had some of the best. They got Bosch in the zone.”
She nodded, and Geo sucked in a deep breath. “So after the evolution, Bosch and I were still really hyped. I decided to take him on an off-leash run along the fence line in the team compound before bedding him down for the night. Great idea, right?”
“Sure.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Until he caught a scent—the guy who’d been our decoy.”
She gasped. “Oh, shit!”
“Right. Dude’d had the same idea as me, a short run to bleed off some adrenaline. Of course, Bosch didn’t know we weren’t still training, that the guy wasn’t wearing a bite suit and wasn’t ready for him. All he knew was that he smelled the same ‘enemy’ he’d been ordered all night to attack, and boom, time to get it on.”
“Fuck, what happened?”
“I managed to yell out a warning, and you should’ve seen that guy scale the fence. He was like a goddamned lizard running up a wall.”
“So Bosch didn’t get him?”
“Nope, just missed him.” Geo shuddered at the memory of Bosch’s lunge, how he’d missed the guy’s bare legs by mere inches. “And then, because he was pissed on top of being totally amped, he whirled around, leapt, and tore my T-shirt off.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, although her eyes were huge.
“I kicked him away, and just like he’d been trained, he went for my arm. Clamped down on that sucker.” He held up his forearm again. “The doc who stitched me up said it was the worst dog bite he’d ever seen.”
As her eyes fell to his scar, she gulped, her cheeks a tad bit pale.
“Got my ass handed to me by the decoy when he came down off that fence, too,” Geo said ruefully. “I was so damn green back then. I should’ve kept him leashed at all times until we both had more training, until I could read his moods better. Running with him loose so early on in our partnership was totally irresponsible, and I paid for it, but at least it was me and not anyone else.”
Letting go of her death grip on her water bottle, Lani set it down on her coffee table before collapsing back against the cushions with a breathless, “Wow.”
“My point is this. He wasn’t raised to be a pet. It’s not the heartwarming story of an abandoned shelter dog who became a Navy SEAL. He’s a highly trained weapon in my arsenal, and while I love him, I’m not going to forget that fact again. Blurring those boundaries—confusing him—by letting him sleep on my bed or hang out with us in the team room while we watch a movie is not gonna happen. Shit, he’d probably go after one of the guys for his beef jerky.”
As if on cue, her tummy gave a giant rumble. “God, I probably would, too. I’m so hungry right now.”
She sounded so serious, so deadpan, that Geo choked on a laugh. “Yeah?”
“Oh, I’d totally pile-drive a Navy SEAL to get his snack,” she assured him. “Got any beef jerky? You’d better run.”
That set him off completely, and when he’d wheezed to a stop, he gasped, “The visual on that is priceless, Lani. Priceless.”
“Glad I could amuse you,” she said drily, eyes twinkling. “And on that note, let’s go finish making our dinner.”
Getting to her feet, she held her hand out to pull him to his and lead him to the kitchen. Once there, she put him to work mincing garlic for the butter sauce while she set the table. The smell of baking bread absolutely made his mouth water, and when she finally pulled the perfect, golden brown rolls from the oven, the sense of ridiculous pride Geo felt over them tugged his lips into a smile.
As if reading his mind, she glanced at him. “You did most of the work. You want to do the honors?”
He nodded, and stepped to the counter to dip a spoon into the garlic butter mixture on the stove and drizzle it all over the top of the steaming hot bread. He touched her arm when she reached for the pan again.
“Go sit at the table,” he urged as he leapt to pull a chair out for her. “I’ll bring it.”
When she was seated, Geo slowly, carefully, lifted the parchment paper from the pan and arranged the rolls on a large platter. He set it proudly down in front of her, next to the bowl of spinach salad and the carafe of bacon dressing she’d made.
Lastly, he grabbed his beer and slid into the second chair. Holding her eyes with his, he tilted the tip of the bottle toward her. “To new friends.”
Smiling, she clinked her glass with his. “And badass dogs.”
Geo couldn’t remember the last time a meal tasted so delicious. He stuffed himself to the gills, finally leaning back in his chair to hide a satisfied belch behind his hand.
Forking up the last bite of her spinach salad, Lani groaned. “I’m so full. I need to get out and move.”
He couldn’t resist. “I thought you didn’t like to exercise. Ow!”
She glared at him as she kicked his shin again. “You’re not supposed to make fun of me.” She surged to her feet in mock outrage and started clearing the table. As she bent over him to pick up his plate, he found himself reaching up to brush the backs of his fingers down her smooth cheek.