Ultimate Courage (True Heroes #2)(4)
Elisa looked around the waiting room. A few people had entered, but the room seemed emptier somehow, without the girl and her dad. Boom, he’d called her. Had to be her nickname. Elisa could picture the girl kicking butt in a martial arts class. “Boom” was probably appropriate. Imagining what her father could do was something Elisa shied away from, but the thought was tantalizing more than frightening.
Elisa shifted her position in her seat, her hamstrings and backside aching from hours of driving. This time, it’d been too close. She’d driven up Interstate 95 for as long as she’d been able to manage it before stopping. This was about as far away from where she’d started as she could get and stay on the same continent.
Her foot hit something, and she looked down to see a stray glove on the floor, almost under the chair. She bent to pick it up and found a tag on the inside wrist of the glove.
Boom.
Hope’s Crossing Kennels.
Elisa rose and wondered if she could ask the nurse to return the glove to Boom and her father. After all, they’d be here a while.
But as she approached the desk, the nurse took the clipboard from her without looking at her. “Thank you, dear. They’ll be calling you any minute now to take you back. Have a seat.”
Before Elisa could say anything about the glove, the nurse had turned her attention to another person who’d just entered. Elisa jumped, then silently cursed herself. And there were two more people coming through the doors. The night was getting busier.
Heart pounding, Elisa returned to her seat and struggled to remain watchful without letting fear get the best of her. Hopefully, she’d either catch sight of Boom in the ER area or ask a nurse to find the girl and her father to return the glove.
She really wanted to manage to thank him if she saw him again.
Chapter Two
Some mornings were just a little more challenging than others.
It was a good thing getting to work didn’t involve traffic, driving, or more than a two-minute walk. Life had its simplicities that way, and Alex Rojas reminded himself that things could always be worse.
He could have to wear a tie to work, for example.
He hurried out the front door of his home, letting it slam shut behind him as he tugged the one clean polo he had left over his head. He jogged down the porch steps and across the yard to the side entrance to the main building of Hope’s Crossing Kennels. Living on the property was another thing to appreciate.
The dogs in residence came to their feet to greet him as he passed by each of their enclosures.
“Sorry, boys. I’ll be back for you in a minute.” His pace didn’t slow, and he let his momentum carry him right into the main building. He passed the common kitchen area and snagged an apple out of the basket on the counter, thankful for Sophie’s thoughtfulness. Sophie might be a childhood friend of Forte’s, but she’d adopted Rojas and David Cruz as big brothers without hesitation. It’d been awkward when they’d first arrived a few years ago, but Sophie hadn’t been deterred by the kind of walls he and Cruz had built around themselves. She walked right through them, over them, whatever.
When Brandon Forte had established Hope’s Crossing Kennels, he’d built it as a new proving ground. It was a place for men like Rojas to start over. The support people like Forte and Sophie provided just by being themselves…it was a good feeling to be surrounded by it.
“Rojas? I’m up at the front.” Forte’s voice echoed down the hallway, and Rojas headed for the main entryway. Forte, Cruz, and Rojas usually had breakfast together before dawn, but Rojas had missed the meal after staying up most of the night watching over Boom. His daughter was currently still tucked in and he was here, catching up with the day.
The waiting area was empty, but it’d be crawling with people and dogs within the next few minutes. Rojas surveyed the reception area and grabbed a broom from its hiding place behind the front desk. The place was clean, but this was a dog training and kennels facility. There was always random fur to be swept up. “Remind me again why you decided to offer obedience classes for troublesome twos and threes.”
They already had a steady class schedule for the general public, teaching basic and advanced obedience classes. Adding these troubleshooting classes for dogs, and their owners, who’d been through obedience and still hadn’t quite worked things out, took more energy out of every trainer at the kennels.
Forte pushed away from the reception desk. “Because we want the community to feel safer with us here, not afraid of our dogs or us. The more people who have classes with us, the better. It’s beneficial all around.”
Good point. A fair amount of PR could only be helpful. Rojas had endured his share of crap experiences when he’d been fresh back from deployment, before he and Boom had moved here. Times when he’d still been in culture shock from coming home and people made things worse by reacting out of fear. He still hated going off the property into busy places like grocery stores or malls; too much going on and too many triggers for his overreactive reflexes. But now, when he did go out, people recognized him. Some even had smiles for him, though mostly they welcomed Boom. And that was more important.
If the community was afraid of them and the dogs they trained, Boom wouldn’t have those positive experiences.
“Besides,” Forte continued, “anyone can go to a local pet store for basic obedience and puppy training classes. We’ve got the skill sets to handle the older two-year-olds, give or take a few months, and make behavioral corrections. Maybe prevent a few dogs with potential from landing in shelters.”