“Matthew,” said my father when he walked out of the jail. Dad had a wan smile on his face, but the stress lines around his eyes told the story. I had just put him through hell. I mentally kicked myself. My dad didn’t deserve this.

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Let’s get something to eat.”

Dad said little on the way to the restaurant. He drove us to the brew restaurant in the center of Boise, but when I ordered a beer, dad shook his head. “Don’t you think you did enough of that last night.”

Well. Fuck.

We ordered our food, and when the waitress walked away, my father drew in a deep breath.

“Son, I’ve been talking with your mother.”

“Stepmother,” I said flatly.

“She’s been your mother for two-thirds of your life. She deserves more than that from you.”

“She probably does. But I also don’t deserve to be treated like some damaged thing that’s screwing up her perfect life.”

“You’re out of line.”

“Am I?” I asked belligerently.

“Yes. You don’t know what she went through when her father got back from Vietnam. But it’s hard on her seeing her stepson going through what happened to her father.”

“Sorry,” I said, feeling chastised. I didn’t know this about my stepmother’s childhood, and I felt bad for her, but in my mind that still didn’t justify her wanting me out of the house.

“You’ve been saying that a lot. But there comes a time when you stop doing things you are sorry for.”

I clenched my jaw. Dad didn’t understand. No one did. When those things happened, like what did last night, I couldn’t stop. The bouncer had threatened me by cutting off my escape route. Rationally, I knew I shouldn’t have acted so extremely.

“Dr. Thorne told me about the service dogs. I think you should consider the program.”

“Really? A dog?”

“Not just any dog. Specially trained.”

“It’s a dog. What can a dog do for me?”

“Apparently, more than you can for yourself. Look, no one wants to see you go to jail, Matthew. And everyone has been extremely understanding, but you can’t keep going on like this. You should at least give the program a shot, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

“No.”

“For God’s sake, why?”

My hands curled into fists on the table.

“Because that would mean I won’t ever get better. I won’t ever be the man I was. Having a dog like that announces that I’m broken. Forever.”

“God damn it, Matthew. Don’t think that I’m not grateful that you are alive, because I am, extremely grateful. But we can’t keep going through this crap and denying the fact that you may never get better. We’ve got to figure out a way to work with what we have now, and this service dog program sounds like it might be that way.”

I blinked. I’d never considered my situation from this perspective.

The damned thing about my father was that he always made sense. I couldn’t work up a good snit about this because I knew he had my best interests at heart.

But it felt like shit acknowledging what I suspected. That I might always be the crazy Marine that went off the rails when someone did something that startled me. That I might always have the dreams that shattered my nights. What did I have to lose?

I glanced at my father whose expression was a plea, a call for reason, and a prayer to ease the pains of his heart.

“I’ll do it.”

* * *

Parker lay at the side of my chair, while Max, the owner of Canine Solutions, gave me his exit interview.

“Well, that’s it,” said Max, dropping his pen on the desk. “You’ve performed well, excellent, in fact. What are you going to do now?”

“Now that I’m free to move about the cabin, Parker and I are taking a trip.”

“You know, you could stay here. I’m getting old, and I need someone to take over for me, maybe buy the place so I can retire. And I’ve seen no one who was such a natural with dogs, except for me. You earned that dog trainer’s certificate. I didn’t hand it to you to have something to hang on your wall.”

“Your evil plans aside, there’s something I’ve got to do first.”

“That woman in the picture. You mean to find her.” Max rolled his eyes at my verbal clumsiness.

“I should never have shown you that, but, yeah.”

“What if you don’t?”

“Then I will have tried.”

“And what are you going to do if you do find her?”

“Thank her for saving my life.”

“Are you sure? Is that all?”

I thought about it myself. What was I going to do after I thanked the woman? Drive off into the sunset?

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

“Okay. But my offer remains open until I find another sucker to buy this place.”

“You won’t sell,” I scoffed.

“Busted,” sighed Max.

“But, I’ll think about it.” I stood and then looked at Max. “You are giving me a ride to the airport, right?”

* * *

“Is there something else I can do for you, sugar?” drawled the librarian as I settled at the microfiche.

“No, thanks. You covered it pretty well. I’ll just start with last year’s and work my way through.”

“Let me know if you have any questions. Oh, and your dog?”

“He’s a service dog. He’ll stay right with me until I move or tell him to.”

She glanced with curiosity at Parker.

“He’s a pretty dog. I like German Shepherds. Can I pet him?”

“Sure. He loves that.”

The red-head bent her knees and Parker looked at her with his big brown eyes as she rubbed him behind the ears.

“What does he help you with? Is he a seizure dog?”

“Something like that,” I replied, as I loaded the first microfiche into the reader. I stared at the reader willing the girl to walk away. I didn’t want to discuss my condition with a stranger. Parker’s service vest was enough of an explanation.

The young girl shrugged her shoulders and walked to her desk at the far end of the room. I had already looked through a bunch of high school yearbooks but didn’t find the blonde woman in my photograph. My next try was the local newspaper, though that was a long shot.

Russellville was much different from what I expected. Boise was a town of similar size, the layout was straight lines on a flat plain. But Russellville was pure sprawl, settled in between and around elevations that couldn’t boast to be mountains. But I’d gotten lost on the way to the library and found myself in a subdivision that featured twisted roads that climbed and dropped like a rollercoaster ride. Parker enjoyed it thoroughly with his head hanging out the window of the rental car. I nearly panicked and had to remind myself that I was trained as a tracker. Once I had calmed myself, I found the way out of the subdivision, but after that, I turned on the map program on my phone to find the library.

Now I was here and shooting blanks. I grumbled as image after image zoomed by on the microfiche. I targeted the community pages. A beauty like the blonde woman would have maybe been a cheerleader or something, but I came up with goose eggs there. The shadows from the skylights grew long, and Parker looked at me hopefully.

“Okay, buddy, we’ll go. You need a walk.”

I was about to turn off the machine when a picture caught my eye. It wasn’t a news or sports story but an ad. Staring at me was the blonde woman, crouched to wrap her arms around a hound dog. An older woman stood behind her. Above them were the words “Harris’ Animal Heaven,” and below the woman were the words “Your precious pal’s second home.”

My throat grew dry. There she was. That face. And by divine providence, there was even an address and phone number. Hurriedly, I printed off the page, shoving a quarter into the slot by the machine, and waited nervously as it popped out of the bottom tray.

I held the picture and stared at it, not believing I had actually found her. Parker whined, reminding me that a bathroom break was becoming critical.

“Sorry, sorry,” I muttered as I pulled out the spool and put it back in its archival box.

“Just leave it,” said the librarian from across the room. I realized she was watching me intently.

“Thanks,” I said, as I took Parker’s leash in hand. “Let’s go, buddy,” I said as we made a dash for the door. There was a small patch of grass outside the building, and Parker didn’t even wait to sniff it properly to let go.

Parker waved his tail happily when he finished.

“You done?” I asked wryly.

Parker pulled ahead, now sniffing and checking out the territory. I let him explore while I pondered what to do.

I’d found her. I’d actually found her. She even had a name, a last name at least. What was my next move? Pop up at the woman’s business and say, “I’ve never met you, but thanks for saving my life?”

“Man up,” I scolded myself. “It’s just a chick.”

“Parker?” I said to my dog. “Ready to go for a ride?”

The shepherd loved rides and perked his eyes when he heard the word.

“Then let’s go.”

This time I set the map app to the address and followed it. As we got further away from the town and deeper in the backcountry of Arkansas, I grew concerned. I wondered if I had missed a turn, but the app displayed my route as on course. When it announced a turn to the right onto a gravel road, I grew even more worried. The level dirt road cut right through a stand of trees and but had bumps.

The trees broke, revealing a white farmhouse to the left of me and a long tan building to the right of it. Curiously, a sheriff’s cruiser sat before the house, and a sheriff stood over the older woman sitting in a rocker in the ad making casual conversation with her.

I was still unsure what to do, but I hadn’t come all this way just to back down. I parked my SUV by the kennel and grabbed Parker’s leash.

“Come on, Parker, let’s make friends.”

The man and the woman watched me with caution as I climbed out of the vehicle. The woman’s face broke out into a grin when she saw Parker.

“You brought a friend,” she said enthusiastically.

“This is Parker.”

“And you are?”

“Matthew Rees.”

“Come over here, Matthew Rees,” said the woman motioning for me to come forward.

The cop’s eyes followed me as I climbed the stairs and then took off my sunglasses.

“Wouldn’t you like some ice tea?” she said. “Randy, please get Mr. Rees some ice tea.”

“You don’t have to go to the trouble.”

“No trouble,” she drawled. “I’m Susan Harris, owner of this kennel. You sound like a Yankee,” she said simply.

“I’m from Idaho.”

“Same thing,” she said. Not really, I thought, but her welcoming manner made me feel good.

“And what are you doing here, Mr. Rees?” said the sheriff. His voice was rough as if he resented my presence.

I looked at my hands. Suddenly, speech escaped me, and I couldn’t find a coherent thing to say.

“Are you looking to board your dog?” said Susan.

“No—I mean, yes,” I responded, grateful the woman provided me with an excuse to be here.

“Well, my granddaughter’s taking a walk in the woods probably taking a ride.”

“A rider?”

“Yep, she’s a daddy’s girl in every shape and form. Anyway, you can wait until she returns, or come back in the morning and she’ll show you around.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait. What’s your granddaughter’s name?”

“Meleyna,” growled the sheriff.

“Oh, Randy is Meleyna’s best friend. Stopped by to say hello. Don’t you have to be getting on the road?” she said, looking up at Randy.

“I can wait a few minutes. I’m hoping she’ll go to a Tourist’s game with me.”

“Oh, there she is now.”

I looked toward the trail where Susan glanced, and my breath caught in my throat. The picture didn’t do her justice at all. Yes. There were the same liquid brown eyes and long blonde hair. But she was a little taller than I expected, with a slender build, and curves in all the right places. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful. She wore an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a plain, scoop-neck t-shirt and a pair of dirty, worn jeans, but anyone could see that she had a gorgeous figure underneath those clothes. She walked down the gravel trail with a natural stride that was at once strong, feminine, and graceful. A true tomboy but a sexy one at that.

My kind of girl and for that, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.