Part 3
Leah turned fully toward him. For three years she had lived with pages that ended in blank spaces and people who were sorry they couldn’t tell her more.
Cole kept his attention on her, though he spoke loudly enough for the nearby buyers to hear.
“We had to fight our way onto that ridge. By the time we got down, smoke was blowing through the landing area. We couldn’t see where he’d fallen.”
His jaw moved once before he continued.
“We found him because we heard Ranger.”
Leah looked at the dog. One ear stood high; the damaged one angled toward Cole’s voice.
“He’d been hit in the shoulder. His ear was torn. He could barely put weight where he needed it, but he was still covering your dad.”
Cole rested his hand on a barrier post, then took it away.
“Three men tried to come around that position after Andrew went down. Ranger stopped all three. He held them off alone for forty-five minutes.”
Somebody behind Leah exhaled sharply.
Cole gave her time to absorb the number. She looked down at the toe of her sneaker, at the yellow line she had crossed, and then back at Ranger.
Forty-five minutes.
Her father’s dog had waited in the dark while she was home sleeping, not yet aware there was anything to wait for.
Cole finally turned to Voss.
“And you’re buying him to watch freight?”
The logistics director’s expression tightened.
“You know how auctions work, Cole. If you want him, there’s a perfectly simple way to do it.”
“Eleven thousand,” Cole told Dempsey.
Leah’s head came up.
For a moment, she thought she had misunderstood. Then Dempsey reached for his hammer, and she understood too well. Cole respected her father. He knew what Ranger had done. None of that meant he was going to let a teenager take a dangerous dog home.
Voss looked around at the men watching him.
“Twelve-five.”
“Fifteen.”
That bid came from a heavyset man standing beside the wall. One trouser leg stopped above a prosthesis. He lifted his paddle and held it where Dempsey could see it.
A buyer near the front leaned forward.
“Eighteen thousand.”
Cole didn’t look away from Voss.
“Twenty-two.”
The room waited.
Voss gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“For that dog?”
Dempsey said nothing.
“You’re welcome to him.” Voss snatched his catalog from the chair where he had left it. “I’m not paying for a roomful of men to feel better about themselves.”
He headed for the exit. The door opened, admitting a gust of cold air, and shut behind him.
Cole turned back to the auction table.
“Finish it, Wade.”
Dempsey looked over the buyers once more. No paddle rose.
“Twenty-two thousand. Last call.”
The hammer came down.
“Sold.”
Leah covered her mouth.
Ranger was safe from Voss. She knew she ought to be grateful for that. Instead, a sob escaped between her fingers, and she couldn’t stop the next one.
Cole moved as if to put a hand on her shoulder. He stopped short, awkwardly, and let his arm fall.
“Leah.”
She shook her head, trying to compose herself before she embarrassed them both further.
“Give me a second.”
She heard the scratch of a pen.
Cole had taken a checkbook from inside his coat. He braced it against the auction table, wrote, and tore out the check. When he held it toward her, she didn’t reach for it.
She could read the amount from where she stood.
Twenty-two thousand dollars, payable to the company conducting the sale. In the memo space he had written: Drew’s partner.
“I can’t take that.”
“You need it for the paperwork.”
Leah stared at him.
“He’s yours,” Cole said. “The bill’s mine.”
She looked from the check to Ranger, who was still watching her from the platform.
“I’ve got twenty-six hundred. A little more than that, actually. I can give you all of it, but the rest would take me—”
Cole shook his head.
“Baghdad, 2008. The vehicle I was in caught fire. Your father came back for me.”
He glanced at the check rather than at her.
“He dragged me out while people were shooting at him. There wasn’t a good reason for him to survive it.”
Leah could hear her father’s voice describing bad meals, lost gloves, nothing that would keep a fourteen-year-old awake.
Cole held the check a little closer.
“I’ve had a long time to think about owing him.”
Her fingers closed around the paper.
He released it carefully, making sure she had it before he let go.
“Now get your dog.”
Dempsey stepped out from behind the table and picked up Leah’s folder where it had fallen. He brushed grit from its edge and handed it to her without comment.
She laid Cole’s check beside the transfer packet. Her own cashier’s check was still inside the folder, behind the admission papers.
Dempsey pulled the buyer information sheet toward her and indicated the places she needed to complete. She had to print her address twice because her first attempt trembled off the line. He waited, then turned the page so she could sign the release acknowledging the behavioral warnings.
The completed receipt bore her name.
Dempsey made a notation beside Cole’s payment, fastened the papers together, and looked toward the handlers.
“We’re transferring him to Ms. Mercer. Bring him down slowly.”
Neither man seemed eager to be first.
The one holding the left pole adjusted his stance. His partner lowered the other pole enough to give Ranger room to stand. The dog rose without being pulled.
Leah stepped away from the table.
Ranger followed her with his eyes as the handlers guided him down the ramp. He moved stiffly, taking care with one shoulder. The leather muzzle made a faint creak with each breath.
At the bottom, the lead handler stopped him.
“We’ll get a transport crate around here,” the man said. “You can’t ride with him loose.”
Leah nodded toward the poles.
“Take those off.”
The handler looked at Cole, then back at her.
“You’ve seen what happens when he loads up. If this changes, you won’t have time to get clear.”
Ranger stood a few feet away. Leah could see a fleck of gray beginning beneath his chin.
“Let him come to me.”
She hadn’t borrowed her father’s voice this time.
“Miss, I’m not trying to make this harder. I’m telling you what he can do.”
Cole stepped beside her. Anger showed briefly in the set of his mouth, but when he addressed the men, his voice stayed level.
“Give him the room. Release the poles.”
The handlers exchanged a look. One lowered his grip while the other reached for the fastening. They worked carefully, keeping their bodies out of Ranger’s path.
The clasps opened. Both poles came away, and one struck the concrete with a metallic clatter…
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