Page 95 of Shielding Instinct

“Not quite. I unlocked the brake and started wheeling him toward his wife. Then these two security guards show up. ‘Tom, there you are. We found you!’ They made it sound like Tom was a naughty child who had run away.”

“That’s nuts. Why would—ah, for liability. They didn’t announce it over the loudspeaker so that it was only their people looking. Acting counter to that gentleman’s best interest,” Petra’s scowl never left her face. “And if some rando in camo shows up with Tom and returns him to his wife, the family could make a stink. Rightly so, I think.”

“Rando in camo.’” Hawkeye pronounced the words slowly with a bemused smile. “Is that how you think of me?”

“Until I got to know you better, yes. I don’t usually let randos hang out on my bed with camo or without.”

“Noted.” Hawkeye stopped and grinned at her. They held the gaze for a long, comfortable moment.

When Petra started to look self-conscious, she started walking again. “You let them off the hook?”

“I made a bit of noise because I wanted people to know a civilian found him, not an airport worker. I didn’t want to aid and abet their subterfuge. I thought the whole thing was poorly handled. Like you said, they handled it for corporate liability, not for that passenger’s safety. Now, I make it a mission to make sure people know that if they have someone they care about in the airport and rely on airport transportation, a wheelchair or cart, they should have a tracker tucked onto a piece of clothing that they wouldn’t take off.”

“They could have gotten right over to him, and no one needed to suffer. His poor wife.”

“My thoughts. Yeah, that kind of sits in my chest sometimes.” Hawkeye took a couple of steps. “I have a question for you since we’re out wandering through the woods.”

“Following a well-worn path,” Petra countered. “There’s a stove pipe. I think we’re—”

Her sentence was cut off when a Rottweiler charged forward.

His energy was coming for Cooper.

While he was doing a lot of barking, he headed toward them at an angle. Hawkeye read that as just wanting to warn Cooper and the strangers off.

“No one mentioned a dog up here,” Petra said, moving closer to a tree.

“Problematic,” Hawkeye said under his breath.

Even more problematic was that Cooper was out in front of them and lunged forward, his lips pulled back, growling deep in his chest in full grizzly posture.

The dynamic had suddenly changed.

Cooper was the aggressor, going after the other dog.

Hawkeye and Cooper trained for situations like this, but this had escalated too fast to get the right commands out—the Rotti jumped out of nowhere with no warning.

Hawkeye moved his attention momentarily toward Petra to make sure she wasn’t going to run in for a rescue. He’d seen crazier things happen.

And now he got it.

While the Rotti had been doing a territorial charge at an angle as a warning, he had been angled toward Petra.

Andthatwas not allowed.

As long as the Rotti wasn’t backing away, Cooper would defend Petra.

Crouched and foaming at the mouth, scruff raised, focus unswerving, dog fights were dangerous as hell.

Especially with two alpha dogs, each protecting something important to them.

The shrill of a hurricane whistle split the air, and both dogs drew attention toward Petra.

Hawkeye crouched, ready to leap between her and either dog if they decided to charge the noise.

The sound was enough of a break for Cooper to see that Petra was safe and for Hawkeye to catch his attention and get him back to his side.

The Rotti had shied back into the bushes where he watched.

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