Page 57 of Through the Fire
“Welcome to my hell,” Kit said. “Seriously, though, it makes sense that tracking is easy for her. This is what she’s been bred to do.” She met Sam’s gaze steadily. “You’re doing a really good thing, you know. There aren’t a lot of homes for a bored, untrained bloodhound, and there aren’t a lot of people patient enough to turn her into a well-behaved tracking dog. This will save her life.”
He flushed a dark red, focusing on the top of Fifi’s head. Kit gave his shoulder a pat, and he stiffened under the quick touch. Dropping her hand, she turned toward the twins—only to find they’d climbed halfway up a pine tree.
“Let’s go get Pop Tarts,” she called. “Be careful coming down. If either of you get broken, Jules will probably make me buy you, and, no offense, but I’d rather not take you home with me. I have a hard enough time keeping just me and Justice alive.” Despite her joking tone, she watched them carefully as they quickly shimmied down the tree, jumping the last few feet. Her stomach didn’t unknot until all four of their boots were back on the snowy ground. “How Jules doesn’t have ulcers, I don’t know,” she muttered, following behind them as they ran toward the tower.
“She p-probably d-does,” Sam said quietly, falling in next to her while holding Fifi’s lead.
“She’s a braver woman than I am, taking on four kids.” She kept her gaze on the twins, making sure they didn’t climb any more trees or hurl themselves off a cliff or something equally disastrous. Although she was curious as to what had happened to their parents and why Jules had ended up with custody, she didn’t feel like it was her place to ask. If Sam wanted to tell her, he would. “You guys are lucky to have her.”
“We kn-now.”
As they stepped out of the trees, the base of the tower came into view, and disappointment swept over Kit. There was a squad car parked next to her SUV, and Theo was talking with Wes. She made an irritated sound in her throat.
Sam gave her a sideways glance. “D-did you j-j-just growl?”
“Yes. Sorry.” She kept her voice low as they approached the men. “It’d just be nice to have one day—an afternoon even—away from work.”
Sam was eyeing her strangely, and the corner of his mouth twitched up ever so slightly.
“What?” she demanded a little more harshly than she meant to, but she was annoyed. It seemed as if Theo didn’t even trust her to keep three kids alive for an afternoon.
Surprisingly, Sam’s tiny smile grew. “N-nothing. J-just that you’re usually so c-c-calm. It’s f-funny to see you all ruffled.”
Although she tried to shoot him an annoyed stare, she couldn’t hold it. He was normally so serious, and his small grin transformed his whole face. It made her want to squeeze his cheeks like a doting grandma. “Ha ha,” she said flatly, having trouble keeping herself from truly laughing. “At least I don’t basically live with him.”
Sam shrugged. “I d-don’t m-m-mind.” His voice lowered to a mutter, so low that Kit barely caught the words. “B-b-better than liv-v-ving w-with Elena.”
“Amen,” she grumbled, making him give a short, surprised crack of laughter that caught Theo’s attention. He stared at Sam in surprise while Wes gave Kit a sweet smile that she returned. Sam led Fifi over to the rear hatch of Kit’s SUV, and Theo shifted his focus to Kit. She figured she might as well find out what the situation was. “What’s on fire now?”
Theo gave an amused huff. “At this moment, nothing that we know of, but considering the way things have been going around here, I doubt that’ll last long.”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “So, if there’s no emergency, why are you here?”
Before he could answer, the sound of a vehicle engine caught her attention. As they watched silently, an SUV came around the final curve of the narrow road leading to the tower. Kit recognized it as Jules’s even before she saw her in the driver’s seat with Elena sitting next to her.
Still confused as to why everyone was descending on Wes’s tower, Kit stayed silent as Jules pulled up behind Kit’s SUV. Dee rushed out of the back seat and bounced over to them.
“Hi, Theo! What are you doing here?”
Kit coughed to cover her laugh. “I asked, but he won’t tell me. Maybe you’ll have better luck getting an answer.” She noticed that Wes had retreated and was leaning his back against the tower, and she wished she could join him. All she’d wanted was to spend her day—afternoon—off training dogs and eating Pop Tarts with Wes, but that didn’t look like it was going to happen.
“Where’s Sam?” Jules asked, sounding harried and even more Southern than usual. Theo started toward her.
“Right here, J-Ju,” Sam said, straightening from where he’d been bent over under the hatch door fussing with Fifi. “Wh-what’s the m-m-m-m…wrong?” As Kit watched, his gaze snapped to the twins and then Dee, as if checking on each sibling.
“Nothing.” Jules leaned back against her car as Theo reached her side. “Sorry, Sam. Sorry, everyone. I didn’t mean to scare y’all. Elena and I were talking, and then I started worrying, and no one was answering my texts, and I just needed to see with my own eyes that y’all were okay so I could stop imagining all sorts of terrible scenarios.”
“The cell phone reception up here is almost nonexistent,” Wes offered, drawing everyone’s attention. “The closest place to call or text is the bat cave.” He gestured to the rocky slopes on their right.
“Bat cave?” Kit repeated. “As in full of bats or full of Batman?”
“Full of bats.” His face lit up. “I’ll show you sometime. We can hike there.”
“Okay.” Her insides warmed at the thought of another date with Wes.
“Elena was worried about Sam being alone with Kit,” Dee said in her clear, childish voice.
Kit looked at Elena, keeping her face carefully blank, and saw the other woman’s eyes widen as she made anxious patting motions with her hands. “Just because of everything happening… I mean, Jules and I were really shaken up by what happened at the viner…” Elena trailed off for a second time as her eyes grew shiny with tears. “Then there was the house fire and that poor woman who was burned, so Theo was going to check on you and the kids, but he wasn’t texting back either.” She blinked rapidly, managing to hold the tears back, although her lashes grew wet and spiky. “We were worried.”
