the living room. A stocky young man with a buzz cut stuck his head around the corner of the door. “It’s me, Vince Calandruccio. Adam’s daddy.”
A moment later the largest black German shepherd Mac knew—and he knew plenty—stuck his head around the door as well.
Mac grinned and said, “Hey, Adam, how’s the arthritis?”
At a hand signal from Vince, Adam came forward, carefully sidestepping Kevlar, who stood quietly beside Kit. Mac dropped to one knee and began to ruffle the shepherd’s ears.
“Adam moves a whole lot better, Doc, since you put him on that new stuff. You should have seen him do the police obstacle course last Friday. Fast as he was when he was a pup, weren’t you, boy?”
Mac looked up and saw that Kit was getting only a few words of their conversation because Vince was behind her and Mac had bent his head over Adam. He stood, looked at Kit and spoke slowly. “Since Kevlar seems to be doing well, I’ll be on my way.”
“How would you know?” Kit said. “You’ve barely looked at him.”
“Hey, no, Doc,” Vince said. “Stay long enough to have a beer.”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Interrupt, hell. Me’n Kit been friends since police academy. She worked the Dog Squad for a while until they found out what a great sniper she was.”
“A sniper?” He turned to stare at her. “A police sniper?”
“First woman in the T.A.C.T. squad. First woman sniper,” Vince said proudly. “Best in the business. Take out a gnat’s eye at a thousand yards. You ever get into a hostage situation, Doc, you better pray they send our gal Kit out to save you.”
“Not any longer.” Kit sat in a wing chair beside the fireplace. Kevlar immediately jumped into her lap, turned in a circle and settled down. “Men are supposed to be better snipers than women because their pulse and heart rate are slower, but mine used to be so low that every time they took it they wondered if I was actually alive.”
She shrugged her shoulders as though it didn’t matter, but Mac could tell it mattered terribly. “I could probably train hard enough to get it down again, but my depth perception’s all screwed up.” She touched the scar that bisected her eyebrow. “Besides, who needs a sniper who can’t hear the order to fire?”
Mac had never registered that Kit’s sardonic look came from the thin scar that raised her left eyebrow slightly. “The scar is barely visible. Good stitching.”
“As good as yours?” She raised that eyebrow at him.
He lifted his shoulders. “Close.”
“So how ’bout that beer?” Vince headed for the kitchen with easy familiarity.
Adam followed his master with his eyes, but didn’t rise from his place beside the couch.
When Vince came back with the drink, Mac took the beer, which he really didn’t want, and sat opposite Kit so that she could see both his face and Vince’s. “Where is your daughter?” he asked.
“Upstairs doing homework.”
Vince stretched out his thick legs in front of him and leaned his head on the back of the sofa. “Doc, as long as you’re here, how about some advice.”
Mac nodded.
“See, you’re keeping Adam here going fine, but he’s seven years old now and close to retiring as a police dog. The canine unit likes younger dogs.” Vince reached down and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “He’ll be going home with me for good when he does. See, right now we either get dogs from Germany—that’s where Adam came from—or from a guy in Ohio who breeds German shepherds specifically for police departments.”
“I know that.”
“He assesses the pups and does basic training for the first two years, then if he thinks a dog’s a good candidate, he recommends we buy it. So far he’s been a hundred percent on the nose. We’re paying upward of ten thousand bucks a pup, then we have to complete the training and train the handlers ourselves.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” Mac said. “Isn’t that a bit steep even for a good shepherd?”
“Not for these guys,” Vince said. “The imported Belgian Malinois cost even more. Thing is, I think with the right female, I could breed some pretty good pups from old Adam here.”
“Possibly.”
“I got my eye on a great big old girl from outside Leipzig in what used to be East Germany—that’s where Adam came from. I’ve got permission to breed her to him if I can get her over here. I could undercut the guy from Ohio and still make one heck of a profit, even if I only sold one pup a litter to a police department and the rest for pets.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“Think Kit here could manage a kennel?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want to set up a kennel on some land I’ve got over in Hardeman County. If I can persuade Kit, we could go in together on the female and split the profits. I could keep working while she looked after the kennel.”
“It would certainly be worth investigating,” Mac said, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice. He wanted to keep Kit in his sight, not fifty miles away. “Since Kit will be working at Creature Comfort now, she should certainly be getting some excellent training.” He spoke to her. “Do you have any experience running a kennel?”
“Of course not. The whole idea is crazy, Vince. Where would Em go to school? What about Jimmy’s visitation rights? This house?” She turned to Mac. “Who said for sure I’ll be working for Creature Comfort? Did I miss something?”
“We talked it over at the staff meeting. Nancy put in a good word for you and they agreed to hire you part-time. It’s all settled. I thought we might discuss salary tonight.” He glanced at Vince. He liked Vince but he wished he’d take the hint and leave.
“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to go in with me. Maybe it’s too soon,” Vince said. “I’m still going to try to buy that female, though. I can raise a litter of puppies in my backyard, see how it goes. I’m glad you’re going to be getting out of the house more, Kit. When are you going to come down to the gym and start working out with the boys in blue again?”
“Don’t forget I’m not in blue any longer.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’ll always be one of us. You know that. Well, old Adam and me have to get home.”
Vince stood and Adam came to attention beside him, eyes on his face. Vince gave him a hand signal, and he fell in beside his master.
Kit walked into the front hall with Vince.
Vince hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. “Bye, sweet thing. Come on down and see us, y’ hear?”
Mac felt a jolt of adrenaline when Vince hugged Kit. Were they really just friends? He didn’t want there to be anything between them—between Kit and anybody.
As Kit stood in the door and waved goodbye to Vince and Adam, the telephone on the hall table rang. He could see the red light blinking, but Kit was facing away from it.
Instantly Kevlar jumped up and bumped her hand. She turned, saw the light and picked up the telephone. “Just a minute, whoever you are. This is the wrong phone. Hang on.” She said to Mac, “The phone I use is upstairs in my bedroom. Excuse me.”
He started to tell her goodbye, but she turned and took the steps two at a time before he could. Incredible legs. Great rear end too. He’d never much liked muscles in a woman, but the thought of those legs locked around him started a chain reaction that he’d prefer Kit not see when she came downstairs. He went back to the living room to wait for her.