Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Mr. Lennox?”
I looked up to find a woman dressed in scrubs, with blonde hair pulled into a tight pony-tail on the top of her head, staring at me expectantly.
I offered her my hand, which she took and leg go almost as if she was scared to touch me.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m here to pick up my dog.”
She frowned. “Which dog?”
“My German Shepherd. He’s been here for a while. I left him with your dad, actually. Gertie.”
Her face completely closed down.
“You can’t have him,” she said plainly.
I tilted my head. “What do you mean I can’t have him?”
“He’s been here for four years,” she replied. “He’s my dog now.”
The bones in my jaw started to creak.
“I paid for four and a half years of boarding before I left. That’s over ten grand. I know that it’s been four years. I didn’t have any choice about going away, unfortunately. Civil said he’d take care of him for me. He wasn’t boarded. He was taken to his home. And he also took care of my horses at my friend’s place.”
She sniffed at me. “I know. I was the one taking care of him.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I appreciate everything that you did, but now that I’m back, I’d like to take him home.”
I could see by the stubborn set of her jaw that she wasn’t going to give him to me.
“No.”
My stomach started to tighten as anger started to swirl through my veins.
“How about you bring Gertie out here, and we see who exactly he wants to go to?” I semi-snapped.
I knew who Gertie would choose.
The dog was barking up a storm now, and I could tell that if he were let out, he wouldn’t want anything to do with the woman.
I didn’t care who she was, or what she’d done for me the last four years. I’d paid her father, and in turn, the vet. I had a fucking contract in my back pocket. Which I gave her next.
She took it with a look of disgust on her face.
“What is this supposed to be?”
A guarantee that this very thing wouldn’t happen.
“A contract between this clinic and me,” I explained. “That they would watch my dog for four years, while I was in prison, and that when I got out, he’d be given back to me.”
“We don’t do this,” she snapped.
I laughed. “Your father did it. And it was signed by both him and me. Him for his business, Civil Veterinary, and me, the dog’s owner. Trust me when I say, you won’t win this one.”
She hissed out a breath.
“How about you let him choose,” she snapped.
I laughed.
“There’s loyalty, and then there’s destiny, ma’am. Gertie was mine from when he was a year old, until we both retired from the Marines together when he was five years old,” I informed her. “We saved each others’ lives countless times, and I’ve never spent a day away from him, intentionally, since he was given to me.”
She pursed her lips.
“I’ve fed him for the last four years. He’s slept in my house,” she countered back. “I’ve cared for him, and ownership is nine tenths of the law.”
I laughed at her.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, ownership ain’t shit,” I countered. “You can refuse to give him to me now, but I can guarantee that the first chance he gets, he’ll leave your house and come straight to mine now that he knows I’m back.”
She looked at me like she didn’t believe me.
“He’s a dog. He won’t know better,” she informed me.
“You hear him goin’ crazy?” I asked.
We both did.
The moment that he’d heard my voice, he’d started going fucking nuts. Scratching, throwing himself against the wall. Anything that would help him get out there, he’d do, until he was back with me.
That was the kind of friendship we had.
I’d pulled him out of a pile of rubble when a building had collapsed on him. He’d saved me from taking a sniper’s bullet to the eye.
And those were only two examples of the many times we’d been there for each other.
Time and distance were nothing compared to the bond we shared.
I didn’t care if it’d been eight years.
You didn’t forget a bond like that.
“Go get him,” I ordered her.
She shook her head. “I’m not giving him back to a criminal. You can call your lawyer…”
But she forgot about her staff who were in the same building as her, and when they heard the commotion, they came out of the very door that Gertie was practically tearing down, just to see what was wrong.
The moment he was set free, he vaulted over the counter and sped toward me like a speeding bullet.
Gertie was a huge German Shepherd. He was nearly a hundred and twenty pounds, and he was also the size of a small Great Dane.
The moment he got to me, he launched himself at me, and I could do nothing but catch him and wrap my arms around him like he was a person.