She shook her head. Tucker now flashed that wicked grin of his at her, and she said, “Well, considering you’re injured, it’s probably safe tonight.” She reached up and kissed him ever-so-gently on the cheek. “Now go to bed,” she said firmly, and she stepped inside her room and pushed the door slightly closed but didn’t shut it fully.
He looked down at Bernie. “I guess that’s us being told, huh?”
Bernie barked once, and Tucker led the way back to the bedroom, where he stretched out fully on the bed. With a nice happy sigh, Bernie laid down on the fluffy rug beside his bed. He smiled and said, “Have a good night, sweetie. Your life’s changed for the better.”
And he closed his eyes. He didn’t even attempt to get changed or undress. Although he knew that some of his clothing had blood on it, most of it had dried, and he didn’t even have a change of clothes anyway. He would return to the hotel, gather his things, and check out.
Soon enough they would be on their way to a Saint Pete’s hotel for the rehearsal. He knew that his sister was likely to let him off the hook for the rehearsal because of his injury. But was it fair to do that? On the other hand, why did he need to rehearse walking Molly down the aisle? Rodney would certainly give Tucker a pass, especially understanding that Tucker’s injury was probably involved with Rodney’s arson case. The bride and groom had enough problems right now without things going any crazier in the wrong direction. It was a matter of making the wedding weekend happen in a commonsense way.
He closed his eyes, only to have them open a few seconds later. But, when he checked his watch, he noted it was now two o’clock in the morning, and he’d been asleep for hours.
He frowned, looked down at the dog. She was lying there with her eyes open, her ears alert. “Yeah, you hear it too, don’t you? But what are we hearing?”
He slowly stood and walked to the window. His room faced the street, and he couldn’t see anything. Of course, at that hour of the morning, what was he expecting? He moved down the stairs with the dog carefully at his side and walked around the lower portion of the house, wondering what he had heard. As he got to the back door, she whined. He opened the door and let her out. She immediately bounded into the backyard, growling. As soon as she growled, he stepped behind cover, trying to see what she saw. Nobody was in the backyard, but that didn’t mean that someone hadn’t been there a few moments ago. She sniffed and walked around with her head down. “What are you smelling, little one?”
In the distance, he heard trees rustle and footsteps, but the sounds were now faint. “You chase somebody away, did you?”
But was it in this backyard, or was it in somebody else’s?
All the yards were fairly small and piled in on top of each other, so he couldn’t be sure which yard the person had been in. Considering their intruder took off rapidly, Tucker was pretty damn sure whoever it was, was up to no good. When Bernie returned, he sat outside with her for a good ten minutes, but it was calm and quiet. Finally he stood, walked back inside with Bernie, reset the alarms, and said, “Come on, girl. Let’s go get some more sleep.”
As he went upstairs, he saw Addie standing at the landing, her robe clutched around her chest and neck, as she stared at him. “What did you hear?” she asked him.
“I’m not sure, but Bernie didn’t growl until we got outside. If somebody was there, Bernie chased them away. I can’t be sure the intruder was in your yard, as they are all so close.”
She nodded slowly. “I heard you go downstairs,” she said. “Then I couldn’t sleep, wondering what was wrong.”
“Nothing necessarily is wrong,” he said. “I did reset the alarm, so go back to bed.”
She smiled and said, “I’ll try to do that.”
As she disappeared into her room and left the door open just a hair, he wondered if Bernie had gone into her room during the night. Or was she content to stay with him?
As he walked back to his room, he watched as Bernie looked at him, then looked at the door to the master, walked inside to check it out, and then came back to him.
“Good girl,” he said. He suspected it would be quite hard if he took Bernie away from Addie. She’s the only one who seemed to have cared about the War Dog. And Addie also still felt horribly guilty about her family’s treatment of Bernie.
As he lay here quietly in the bed, he thought about all the things that had gone wrong… and right, wondering why, right now, this would come into his life. A woman he cared about. It was just such crappy timing. On the other hand, it was what it was. As always, he played the cards he’d been dealt, and, with that, he closed his eyes, dropped a hand to Bernie’s head, patted her gently for a few moments, and fell asleep.
Chapter 9
Addie woke up, got dressed right away, then she headed downstairs. She thought for sure she’d be the first up. Instead the kitchen’s back door was open, and, as she stepped through, she saw Bernie in the yard, while Tucker sat on the deck. He looked up guiltily, a coffee mug in his hand, and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I put on a pot of coffee.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m just surprised that you’re up so early. I thought you’d stay in bed for sure.”
“No need,” he said. “I woke up feeling great, so I decided to get up as usual. Besides, Bernie here needed to go out.”
She nodded. “Did you leave any coffee?”
“I think there’s a cup for you,” he said.
“If not, I’ll put more on,” she murmured, as she headed inside to the coffeepot. She pulled a cup down and poured herself a cup to take out on the deck. She greeted Bernie, who’d come racing over from the backyard, and Addie spent a few moments just cuddling her. “Don’t you look so much better, girl? I sure hated to see you in that pound. A beautiful girl like you does not deserve to be caged.”
“I don’t think any animal does,” he said. “Never been a big fan of zoos either.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m of two minds over them because it’s so nice to see the animals we don’t always have a chance to see in any other environment. But I think caging them, even at the zoos, is cruel to the animals themselves, so what are you supposed to do?”
“We do the best we can,” he said. “That’s all we can do.”
She looked up, smiled, and said, “You sure your head is doing better today?”
“It’s doing much better,” he said. “I’m pretty hardheaded as it is.”
She smiled at that and nodded. “I’ve noticed.”
He grinned.
“Plans for today?”
“I was wondering about going back to the job site, but I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m ready—as ready as I can be—for the rehearsal later today and the wedding tomorrow. So whatever I want to do today, I need to get it tied up.”
“And what does that mean for you?”
“It means I need to check out of the hotel,” he said. “We’ll be in Saint Pete’s later today, and we’ll stay at the hotel there tonight.”