Brantley had no idea what he was talking about, but it didn’t actually matter who this Madison was. The simple fact that Reese had asked her to marry him was what he was hung up on. Not necessarily because Reese had had a near-miss with getting hitched, but more so that he’d been nearly engaged to a woman. Key word being woman. Brantley was used to competing for what he wanted, but when it came down to it, there was no competing in that arena.
And that fucking bothered him.
“And what? You panicked and asked her to marry you?”
Reese shrugged one shoulder. “Basically. Yeah.”
Wow.
Just wow.
“Brantley?”
He continued to stare at the table. “What?”
“Say somethin’.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Are you pissed?”
“No.” That much was true. He wasn’t angry, he was confused. Worried, maybe. He’d go so far as to say he was hurt, even. Although the last one made no sense at all. It wasn’t like they’d shared all their deepest, darkest secrets with one another. Hell, there were some big ones neither of them had revealed yet.
But for some reason, this particular secret felt … enormous.
“She’s in the past,” Reese stated. “I haven’t talked to her since that day. The day she broke things off.”
He glanced back at Reese. “Did you love her?”
“I thought I did. At the time.”
Brantley nodded, but he looked away again.
How had he not known this? What else didn’t he know about Reese?
More importantly, what other things in Reese’s past would he have to compete with?
Chapter Two
Several hours later, after a tense flight home, after they’d picked up Tesha from JJ’s and returned to the house, Reese was doing his best to give Brantley some space. Not because he wanted to but because he could tell Brantley preferred it.
Ever since Reese had revealed that he’d been almost engaged, Brantley had been acting strange. And while he said he wasn’t pissed, Reese wasn’t sure he believed him. He’d seen Brantley angry before and the man didn’t resort to violence. He was far too controlled for that. No, Brantley leaned more toward passive-aggressive, shutting down completely, closing himself off, pushing everyone away. Anything to avoid confrontation.
Which was exactly what he was doing now.
And Reese was letting him.
Because he preferred not to sit on his thumbs and wait for Brantley to come around, after a quick trip to the grocery store, Reese had made a call to Magnus Storme, the man they’d hired to handle Tesha’s training, hoping Magnus could squeeze an extra session into his busy schedule, grateful when the trainer had agreed.
The owner of Camp K-9, a highly sought-after dog daycare and search-and-rescue training facility just a few miles down the road, was well regarded by his clients and came highly recommended. Kennedy, Tesha’s veterinarian, had recommended Magnus to Brantley. In turn, Brantley’d done his research and decided to check him out prior to mentioning him to Reese. By the time Reese was officially introduced, Brantley had deemed the man capable and deserving of their business.
And by business, Reese was referring to his desire to train Tesha to assist with their cases. More along the lines of search and rescue—assisting with finding missing people—but also patrol training, which consisted of obedience, agility, tracking, and the like. And they were starting from the beginning with basic training and whatnot.
Now, as Reese waited for Magnus to arrive, he tossed the ball for Tesha, sat patiently on the step while she scampered across the brittle, dry grass, retrieved it, and returned. She was getting better, no longer wandering off aimlessly unless she’d already dropped the ball at Reese’s feet, but they still had a long way to go.
“Tesha, here,” he commanded, watching his four-legged friend as she trotted his way.
She came to a stop directly in front of him, plopping her butt on the ground and staring up at him with such hope in her eyes. Yeah, there was no doubt about it, when it came to this dog, he was a goner.
It’d only been a few weeks since, during a witness interview down in Houston, he’d found Tesha malnourished and chained to a stake with no water and no shelter in sight. Because her video-game-playing, chain-smoking, whiskey-chugging owners felt it was okay to ignore her, Reese had decided she deserved better.
Perhaps his actions had been technically illegal, but Reese hadn’t lost a minute of sleep since he’d personally relocated her, carrying her right out of that backyard and putting her into their SUV. He could still remember the fury he’d felt that day, seeing her helpless and neglected. It had filled him with a pain he hadn’t experienced before, and he couldn’t, in good conscience, walk away from her.
So here she was. And under the close eye of the town veterinarian, he was happy to say Tesha had put on a solid ten pounds and sported a happy-go-lucky grin more often than not.
Reese found himself smiling. “I take it you were good for JJ while we were gone?”
Tesha’s head cocked to the side, and Reese would’ve sworn she was smiling back at him.
“Maybe not too good.” He reached down to scratch her head.
Tesha’s tongue lolled out of her mouth and her eyes closed, making him laugh.
“Well, look at you.”
Reese glanced over to see Magnus strolling toward them, his full attention on Tesha. She spared Magnus a brief look only to have her interest piqued. She barked once, stood momentarily, then sat directly in front of Reese, facing away from him this time, her tail thumping with barely restrained anticipation.
Magnus laughed as he neared. “Hello, Tesha.”
Reese could admit he’d been skeptical upon first meeting Magnus when Brantley had dragged him over to the dog day camp to introduce them. It didn’t have anything to do with the camp itself, which he learned was well maintained and well staffed. The five-acre facility held a single-story house, where Magnus lived, a decent-sized metal barn behind it, which was the main office, training room, and luxury kennels, as well as several outbuildings, a few penned-in areas, and a large swimming pool specifically for the dogs.
That didn’t include the three hundred acres of rocky terrain the facility sat on that Magnus utilized for training search-and-rescue dogs.
Reese thought back to his first introduction to the twenty-four-year-old Magnus, which had been shortly after they’d happened upon a young woman—clearly rocking her going-out clothes from the previous night out—slipping out of Magnus’s house and right into the backseat of an Uber as they were pulling in. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it except it wasn’t a drop-in type of meeting. Magnus had been expecting them, yet his flavor of the night had been lingering upon their arrival.
Turned out, if it hadn’t been for the woman doing the walk of shame, Reese would’ve been highly impressed. He’d given Magnus the benefit of the doubt, and after a solid hour of Magnus working with Tesha, Reese’s pessimism had been quashed. More so when Magnus had informed him that Tesha wouldn’t be the only one undergoing training. Evidently, Reese and Brantley would learn just as much as Tesha, and they had been for the past few weeks.
The good news was, Tesha had taken to Magnus, something Reese had been worried about in the beginning. She still rarely left Reese’s side when they were together, but she didn’t cower or quiver when Magnus was around. In fact, he’d go so far as to say Tesha liked the man. Then again, it was easy to like Magnus. He was just … likable.