As she headed down the road and around the corner, a vehicle came ripping up behind her. Instinctively she jumped off to the side, pulling Danny’s stroller with her. Only the truck took a left turn away from her. She stood here, her hand against her chest, taking long and slow breaths. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she was a wreck. She had to get a grip before somebody decided she was an unfit mother.
And, of course, that went right back to George. Maybe he was doing this on purpose, just to make her seem neurotic and paranoid. She wouldn’t put it past him. He was one of those people who liked to gaslight others into thinking what they thought they saw—and what he said and did—wasn’t actually what happened. Many a time he’d done that to her, until she finally figured out that he was doing it as a joke.
But it was a mean joke, and one she didn’t appreciate. He got pissy whenever she accused him of it thereafter. She hadn’t seen any of his callous behavior before they were married, and she wondered why he had even married her. She had sincerely thought that she had loved him at the time but had never really been sure if he loved her. Maybe it was just a stage of life, and he’d figured he was supposed to be married. She didn’t know. For all she knew it was a ten-dollar bet with a buddy.
At that, her bitterness took an even deeper dive. She desperately needed to shrug off the attitude, and, as she walked down the sidewalk, she deliberately looked around to find things that made her happy, something to smile about. She pointed out a butterfly on a large hedge on the left, making Danny laugh with joy. And then a songbird trilled in the tree as they went underneath. She smiled at that.
Plenty of good things were in this life, so many wonderful things, like her son, but now her life was overshadowed by that fear that comes with having something so precious. Fear that you could lose it. She hadn’t experienced that until the fender bender.
She’d been completely oblivious to George, who existed out in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t know why he would even want a child now. Not when he’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t ready to be a father. But he had changed his mind recently apparently, and that just scared the crap out of her.
As she headed toward the shopping mall, her phone rang. She pulled it from her purse, only to realize that it was yet another Unknown Caller. No one was ever there, just noise in the background. Finally she decided to test it. “George, stop that,” she said. “It’s getting tiresome.” She heard a harsh gasp on the other end that, unfortunately, did sound like George.
She quickly hung up the phone and shoved it in her pocket, then stared down at her shaking hands. If it was George, what the hell would she do? And why hadn’t she already done something about it?
“What will you do now?” his grandmother asked Greyson the next morning. “How are you supposed to find a dog that may or may not have run away—or may or may not have been kidnapped?”
He chuckled. “Well, I’ll go back to the place where the dog went missing from and see if I can track her,” he said.
Both his grandparents just stared at him. “That was weeks ago,” they said.
He nodded. “It was, and I know the weather has been varied since then, but I’ll do my best.”
The two looked at each other and then back at him. His grandfather shrugged and said, “I’d offer to come with you, but I’d probably be more in the way than anything.”
“You have Leo to look after today,” Greyson said.
At that, his grandfather beamed. “Yep. I’ll go show him the walkways today,” he said. “Maybe I’ll take a mug full of coffee along too.” He looked over at his wife, and she immediately poured him a big silver mug full.
Putting the lid on, she handed it to him. “You go do that,” she said. “I’ll go into town and get some shopping done. Oh, and I’m meeting the girls for lunch today too.”
Rising to leave, his grandfather nodded and said, “Have fun, dear.” As he headed for the door, Leo, who had been under the kitchen table, hopped up and raced to the door with him. Grandpa quickly snapped on a leash, and the two of them went out the door, happy to be together, heading outside.
Greyson sat here with his coffee and watched his grandfather meander down the pathway. “Is it okay that Leo is here?” he asked his grandmother.
“Yes! It’s a really good idea,” she said warmly. “I’ve been trying to get your grandfather to get a dog all these months, but, for some reason, he’s been holding off. Something about Leo caught his attention, and that’s good because it took the decision-making away from him.”
“How is his health?”
“It’ll be much better now that he has Leo to fuss over,” she said with a laugh. She looked over at him. “Do you want some breakfast before you leave?”
He shook his head. “My stomach is still working on that wonderful dinner you made last night,” he declared.
She flushed with pleasure. “You’re still such a flirt.”
“I am not,” he said, laughing.
She smiled at him. “Well, in that case, I’ll go get ready.” And, with that, she disappeared from the kitchen and headed upstairs.
It was strange to be here, yet, at the same time, it felt completely normal, as if time hadn’t passed at all, and he was right back to where he’d been years ago. His father—their son—had died, along with his mother, just as Greyson was entering the navy. It had been tough on them all, but he at least had had his new career to bury himself into. They’d had each other, and that was all, but it was something.
Now the family was just the three of them. Greyson knew that they were hoping he’d get married someday and would have a family, but that wasn’t exactly on the top of his list at the moment.
He got out a notepad and jotted down ideas of where to check for Kona and what to do. The rescue center had surely opened a police file on the missing dog. If not, surely someone reported the car accident, or at least somebody should have, so he would contact the local police department, see just what they had for a file, if a file existed at all. A War Dog like that shouldn’t just disappear. He had a photograph of her in the file that he’d brought with him, and he’d photographed that so he had it on his phone too.
He brought up the photo, so the dog’s face filled the screen, and he set it as his backdrop. When his grandmother came in, she saw the picture on his phone.
“Oh my,” she said, “that’s a handsome-looking animal.”
“That’s Kona, the one I’m looking for,” he said.
“And that’s a very Hawaiian name,” she said. “Did you consider that?”
He looked at her and paused. “You know what? I didn’t,” he said. “I wonder if it was a deliberate misdirection, or maybe her handler was Hawaiian too.”
He quickly brought up his phone and sent Badger a text, asking him about the origin of the K9’s name and if maybe Kona’s previous trainers and handlers had been Hawaiian. It just seemed like an unlikely coincidence that a dog accidently shipped to Hawaii happened to have a Hawaiian name.
Badger replied almost immediately that they would check on it. Greyson liked that about that team. They understood communication and how important it was to have it happen as fast as possible. Nobody on a mission should be delayed too long by waiting on somebody getting information back to them.