Page 99 of Shielding Instinct

“Shh,” Petra yanked his arm. Her eyes flashed up. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.

Before he could answer, her eyes were on the ground again. She was holding her breath.

He didn’t hear a damned thing. But after all the doors he’d breached in his career, his hearing was in pretty bad shape.

“There, that.” She looked up at him, and seeing his blank expression, turned to Cooper.

Cooper stood rigidly, posture thrust forward, ears rotating then stilling. He obviously heard something, too.

“Could Cooper find it for me?” she whispered.

Turning to look over his shoulder at Hawkeye, Cooper waited for a command.

“Cooper, find it,” Hawkeye said, wondering just what they were going to be chasing after.

When Cooper took off through the woods, Hawkeye and Petra raced to keep up.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Petra

When Cooper got his order to “find it,” things happened fast.

Hawkeye was crashing through the foliage, heading after his dog.

Petra didn’t know how these things worked, but she got the general impression that this was not it. She tried to recall what she’d learned about K9 searches. It seemed to her that the dogs would go out sniffing around as a K9 handler walked in the general direction.

If the dog found something, they’d hustle back to their person and signal them. Then they’d track to the spot.

But that was a scent, wasn’t it?

Was there a different technique if a dog was going after a sound?

To be fair, Hawkeye didn’t hear it.

And Petra wasn’t sure what it was she’d heard. Injured animal? Local bird?

She’d never heard that sound before. The cry was unmusical. It didn’t repeat in the same way any of the three times she heard it.

And there was that essence to it—that quality of “call to the universe.”

Melissa had done that yesterday when she’d stood on the rocks. She’d been holding hands with Terry one moment, a wave came and snatched him from her the next. She saw his head in the sea. Then he was gone. She was sure that gone meantgone.

And Melissa’s calling to his soul was what brought Petra to the scene.

That event reminded Petra of the time she was in Hawaii on a perfectly beautiful day. She was looking over the cliff. The Pacific was like a lapis lazuli below her. Gorgeous.

When the group was called over to eat, Petra turned and as she stepped forward, she knew something unexpected was happening, but didn’t have time for her brain to process. It felt like a water giant reached out its wave hand and tried to snatch her off the cliff. Her then-husband reached out and grabbed the camera strap that was around her neck, and that was enough of a counterbalance that Petra didn’t plunge backward over the cliff to her death.

So even though he was a shithead, he did ostensibly save her life. Yes, she was glad to be alive, but still, she wished that wasn’t part of their shared history.

She didn’t really want to remember that day.

Or her ex.

But after yesterday, it was inevitable.

Not every relationship was like her marriage. Sometimes people could be mutually respectful and caring.

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