Page 1 of Keeping Guard
Chapter One
“He’s a stray someone tied to our gate a few nights ago.”
Noah Alba, Double D—or sometimes just DD—to his SEAL teammates, stared at the fifty pounds of wiggling animal. “Are you sure it’s actually a dog?”
The thing looked more like something put together all wrong. Wiry fur stuck up and out at odd angles and had to be about a dozen different colors. There was more fur on his furiously wagging tail than on its body. The oddest parts of the animal were the two different colored eyes, one blue and one brown. There was intelligence in those odd eyes, though, an alertness that Noah liked.
His friend and former teammate laughed. “Actually, no.”
A year ago, Jack Daniels—Whiskey to the team—and his dog had come home to Asheville, North Carolina. When he learned that his arm and shoulder were permanently damaged, he’d started Operation K-9 Brothers to train therapy dogs to be companions to their military brothers and sisters who were suffering from PTSD.
Noah was both proud and impressed with what his friend had accomplished, but the last thing he wanted was to be around people and dogs. Former teammate included. The only reason he didn’t do a vanishing act was because his commander had ordered him here. If he left, he’d be AWOL. He’d fucked up his life enough without getting charged with a serious crime.
“He’s yours to work with while you’re here,” Jack said.
“Oh, hell no.” The last dog he’d been around was dead because of him.
Jack put his hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Yes, and that’s an order, DD.”
Noah pressed his lips together to keep from telling him what he could do with his order and the dog. What had his commander been thinking by sending him here, and not only that, but also ordering him to report directly to Whiskey? Hell, Jack wasn’t even in the navy anymore.
“You’ll work with me every day on training him while you’re here. You also need to give him a name.”
The ever-simmering rage inside him burned hotter. “You’re making a mistake trusting me with a dog.”
“I disagree.”
Noah slipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans, his fingers wrapping around the pair of dice he always carried. They’d belonged to his father, a reminder of everything he refused to be. All he had to do to remind himself that he was not his father was to touch the pair of dice. Throughout his life, he’d touched them thousands of times, and it always worked, always led him to find the calm in his soul that made him not his father. To be the kind of man his mother would have been proud of.
For the first time since he was a boy, his rage didn’t go from boiling over back to simmering when he touched them. “I need to go somewhere for a while.”
“Take the dog with you.”
Noah hated the knowing look in Jack’s eyes, like his friend knew he was losing it and understood. Maybe he did. Jack had appeared three nights ago at their home base in Virginia Beach, announcing that he was taking Noah home with him. Noah had told him to go to hell.
“You have two choices,” Jack had answered. “Come with me or tell our commander you refused to obey an order. Makes no never mind to me which you pick.”
Noah knew his friend and teammate was there to save him, and that made him antsy. He didn’t want to need saving, had never expected to be the one his SEAL brothers had to worry about. He had his shit together. Nothing could be as bad as what his boy-self had survived, right? Or so he’d thought until his mistake caused the team’s dog and their translator to be blown up.
Noah took the dog with him...as far as his temporary apartment. The ants weren’t just crawling under his skin, they were biting. He couldn’t be near a dog right now. Every time he looked at the thing, he saw his team’s dog.
After giving the dog time to do his business, Noah took him inside. “Here’s the thing, dog. I don’t own this place, so don’t chew on the furniture or pee on the floor.” Unable to think of anything else the dog needed to know, he left the creature to his own devices.
He ended up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, his rental car pointed in the direction of the waterfall Jack had taken him to yesterday. After hiking down to the bottom of the falls, Jack had said, “This is a good place to come when you feel like you’re about to lose your shit.” He’d glanced around. “If you let it, you can find a few moments of peace here.”
“Speaking from experience?” Noah had asked.
“I’ve spent quiet time here, especially after I first came home.” He smiled. “Before I met Nichole.”
That was another thing. Jack had gone and fallen in love. Noah never thought he’d see Whiskey look at a woman with sappy eyes. Nichole was great, and she’d even seemed disappointed when Noah said he was going to find an apartment to rent while he was here.
He didn’t think Jack was happy about that, either—he’d prefer to have him where he could keep an eye on him. Understandable, since Noah had been falling down drunk when Jack arrived to collect him.
After Noah swore there’d be no repeat performance—all the booze he’d poured down his throat hadn’t wiped his memory clean, anyway—Jack helped him find a lease-by-the-month place. He’d moved in right away, grateful that he hadn’t had to sit around with Jack and Nichole last night and pretend he was enjoying himself.
If Noah had to be around people twenty-four-seven, he was going to climb out of his skin.
Peyton Sutton wasn’t supposed to hear her fiancé telling his best man that he was only marrying her because her father had promised him a share of her family’s brewery. The share that was supposed to be hers.
