Page 7 of Every Little Kiss
Nicole gave Liv’s packet one last glance, then picked it up and held it out to her. “That is theonlything missing on your résumé that would make you my top choice.”
Liv looked at the résumé. To most, it would be a series of hire and end dates with a collection of skills and hundred-dollar words. To Liv, she knew that between all the recent employers and references was a complicated story of love, sacrifice, frustration, and loss. But it was the blank part on the last page that had her straightening her shoulders. Because that was the part of the story she had yet to write.
And it was up to her how it would play out.
“I see your concern,” Liv said, taking back her application. “What you need, then, is for me to bring this back to you with more extracurricular activities and community connections. When do you need that by?”
Nicole lifted an impressed brow. “I need to bring my final decision to the board the first week of August, and I’d like a week or so to weigh my options.”
“It will be on your desk by the end of next week.”
She would make sure of it.
Commit today, forget tomorrow.
It was the one rule Ford Jamison swore by. A balancing act that had pulled him through some of the worst shit-shows of his life. First in the army, then as one of the top K-9 trackers for Washoe County Search and Rescue out of Reno. He was Washoe-SAR’s Hail Mary call, their great white hope, the one guy who could turn a worst-case scenario into a rescue. And he had—a dozen times over.
He celebrated the successes as much as he mourned the losses, but he never let either of them detract from the next search. Until he’d made one bad call—and forgetting became impossible.
Which was how he found himself eighty miles from home in the small mountain town of Sequoia Lake participating in a training exchange program with the local team, Sequoia Elite Mountain Rescue.
Participating?Ford snorted as he turned his car down a pine tree–lined road, because that made it sound voluntary. When in reality there had been nothing voluntary about it. Pissed that he’d skipped out on his type-one certification, his boss in Reno had sentenced him to desk duty in the same small town he’d been trying to avoid when he’d missed his certification.
He either needed to find some closure and get his head back in the game or risk losing a career he loved. Which was a hell of a lot better than risking lives.
Something he’d promised himself he’d never do again. So he didn’t even roll his eyes when he pulled up on a residential search in progress that a Boy Scout could handle.
The call had gone out over the wire as a missing female—LuLu, a five-year-old with golden hair, last seen wearing pink bows and a tutu, was suspected to have wandered off from her front yard earlier that morning—but Ford knew the moment he rolled up on the scene that he should just keep on driving.
Because on the porch, dressed in curlers and a fuzzy robe, was the grieving mother clutching a stuffed toy in one hand—and a pink leash in the other. Making Ford wonder just how many legs this LuLu walked on.
And if theFINDMYBABYflyer with the picture of a prissy purse-dog in bows nailed to a nearby tree wasn’t enough to let him know this was his “Welcome to the Department” party, then his boss of less than a week smiling like a smug prick certainly was.
Harris Donovan stood on the porch waving him over, a familiar shit-eating grin on his face.
Ford and Harris went way back. All the way to Ford’s first day at the police academy when Harris, a senior, thought it would be funny to screw with the new kid’s GPS. It had taken Ford two months of changing out brake pads to afford the GPS handset—and six hours to complete a sixty-minute hike.
Ford failed his first in-the-field assignment, and the two had a come-to-Jesus meeting—Harris telling Ford he needed to lighten up, and Ford introducing Harris to his right hook. They were both sentenced to twenty hours of volunteer time picking up trash on one of the trails they’d trained on, and they were serving their time when they came across an injured father with his son.
Harris’s confident charm allowed him to connect immediately with the kid and earn the father’s trust—a necessary skill for any first responder. While Ford’s relentless nature and attention to detail turned what could have been a holiday tragedy into a family reunion that made national news. That’s when Ford switched his focus from SWAT to search and rescue.
He wasn’t interested in a reunion with his own father, not anymore. But bringing other families together always took him one step closer to filling that empty hole deep in his chest. Until Ford had been forced to make an impossible call—and he still wasn’t sure if he’d made the right one.
“You stay here while I see what’s going on,” Ford told his copilot and partner, who sat in the passenger seat, his eyes on Ford.
Bullseye was stubby, tubby, and sixty pounds of wrinkles, with ears that hung to the ground. He was part shepherd, part sloth, but all bloodhound when it came to tracking. He also objected to being sidelined—something Ford could relate to.
“Sorry, man, but we both know what happened the last time you ran across a stuffed animal you justhadto smell.”
Ford had ended up playing doctor to the pretty nurse he’d set out to avoid—and missed the morning debriefing. Which was probably why he’d been the only person called out to today’s search.
Not that he was complaining when the alternative was sharing coffee with a woman he had no business sharing anything with. Unless it was the truth.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
Bullseye gave Ford a convincing look that he was all business. Too bad his body vibrated with excitement the second he saw the old lady waving that doll.
The dog could pick up a week-old scent in the middle of a bacon factory and not lose focus. But put him in front of something fuzzy that looked as if it needed to be rescued and added to his ever-growing flock of stolen goods, and Bullseye went nuts. Because he didn’t work for treats or dog toys like normal dogs. Nope, that dog was a klepto and would climb the Himalayas if he knew that at the top he’d get his reward—a fuzzy trophy in need of saving.
