Page 7 of Flashback

The problem was, would she blab it all or keep his past to herself?

“Emily, who did you find?” Gone was Kane’s usual brooding face. He flashed Allie a smile he must keep only for pretty women, because this was the first Dakota was seeing it.

He tried to keep his face down by petting the dog that came to check him out. But wait, she’d had a different dog last time. A golden retriever.

Emily said, “This is?—”

“Dakota?”

Shoot. She remembered all right. Dakota looked up from the dog licking his fingers.

Allie’s hazel eyes widened. “It is you.”

What did that mean?

“Wait. You guys know each other?” Emily asked.

“Met last year,” Dakota spat out quickly before Allie could say anything about the circumstances of that meeting. “How have you been?”

“Fine.” Given the look on her face, he wasn’t sure that was the truth. “What are you doing here?”

She thought he should still be in rehab or something? “I’m with Jude County Hotshots.” He looked back at the black Lab. “Where’s Dixie?”

“She—” Her voice caught. “Um, she was hit by a car.”

Dakota rubbed against the ache in his chest. Allie had loved that dog. And of course he had to bring up all that pain. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite reach. “You didn’t know.”

The Lab moved from Dakota to Kane, begging for more attention, by the looks of it, as it pawed Kane’s leg. The broody glare Kane typically wore was nowhere to be found. Huh.

“So, who is this?” Dakota asked her.

“This is Scout. We’re doing some training exercises so I can get back to my SAR work.”

Good. The tight muscles across his abdomen relaxed a bit. If she wasn’t here in an official capacity, she’d have to follow the evacuation orders and had no choice but to leave. As much as he might want to help her process more through the loss of Dixie and see how she wasreallydoing, she was the one person here who knew why he’d left Benson. And he didn’t need that spread around his new team.

It was hard to start a new life when the old one wasn’t too far behind, constantly haunting him and trying to trip him up. He wanted to be the man God wanted him to be, and that meant reinventing himself. Wasn’t that one of the verses they’d learned, something about forgetting the past and straining toward the goal?

So, time to sayadiosto Allie and her glaring ties to that past. No matter how alluring those eyes still were.

Dakota tried for a charming smile to soften the blow. “I’m sorry to cut your trip short, but you and Scout will have to leave. There’s a mandatory evacuation.”

Emily swung around and stared at him. “It’s not like Allie is some green tourist. She’ll be okay if she sticks close to us while we clear everyone else out. We might need a search and rescue team.”

Dakota pressed his lips together and stared at Emily instead of saying what he wanted to. “I’m sure she has better things todo. There’s got to be other places to train.” He tried to keep a pleasant expression and turned away.

“Actually, I’d rather stick around and help. Scout needs all the experience he can get.”

He winced and glanced over his shoulder to see her sharing a smile with Kane. That was the very last thing he needed. “Don’t you think it would be better to go somewhere safer?”

She glared at him. Probably knew he was trying to get rid of her—just not for the reasons she thought. “I’ll be f?—”

“Allie?” A woman in flannel ran up to them, stumbling, her face red and fear in her eyes. Emily caught her arms and held her steady. The woman gasped. “Did you see the boys?”

Boys? Who was this lady?

Allie shook her head. “I haven’t seen them.”

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