How About No (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 3)

“Tell me his story,” Wade ordered.

I swallowed.

“The dog’s name is Capo. He’s seven years old. He retired from the military when he and his handler were in a Humvee that ran over a landmine. Capo was thrown free of the wreckage while the rest of his crew were caught in the flames or injured in the actual wreck.” I paused. “He lost his rear leg and was placed with an adoptive family once he recovered—at least physically. The adoptive family couldn’t get near him just like the vet couldn’t. The only person able to get close was a wounded veteran who worked in the vet hospital in Germany. They’d hoped that his temper would calm once he no longer required to be caged, but it hasn’t. I was brought in as a last resort before euthanasia.”

Wade growled in anger as Hoax blew out a surprised breath.

“You think it’s PTSD?” Hoax asked Wade and me.

“Could be,” I admitted. “I’ve had MWD—military working dogs—before, but none of them were anywhere near this severe.”

Hoax made a sound in his throat. Wade, on the other hand, went closer to the cage.

The dog’s growl came back, but this time it was a low one instead of the high-pitched intense ones that were coming out of him before.

Honestly, this one was almost way more menacing than the first.

At least to me. Wade didn’t seem to care.

He moved closer yet and pressed his palm flat against the cage, and the dog lunged at him.

I gasped and would’ve fallen straight on my ass if Hoax hadn’t caught me around the waist.

“Easy, darlin’,” he ordered. “It’s all right.”

I didn’t see how…but the dog wasn’t lunging and snarling anymore. He was sitting there staring at Wade’s hand—which was still exactly where it’d been moments before—like he’d like to have it for breakfast.

“He’s been fed,” I felt it prudent to point out. “I fed him a burger and some fries from my lunch on the way home from Oklahoma.”

Hoax snorted.

Wade looked over at me with laughter shining in those eyes that I loved.

“Duly noted,” he rumbled. “Hoax, grab the cage with me?”

Luckily the cage had handles on the outside so there wasn’t a need to grab the wire of the cage itself, reducing the possibility of Capo getting some little hors-d’oeuvres to hold him over until dinnertime.

Each man carried the cage on one side, and it took everything I had to ask Wade if he needed help.

He was limping badly—much worse than he had been three days ago—and that scared the crap out of me after hearing what I had heard from Bayou today.

Biting my lip, I closed the van door and reached into the driver’s side—which still stood wide open—to grab for my purse, keys, and phone.

Once I had them, I hurried and rushed in front of the two men, throwing Wade’s door wide open for them both to slip through.

Wade directed them to the living room, and it was then that I took in Wade’s house for the first time.

It was barren, almost as if he hadn’t planned to live there long.

As if he was always planning on coming back and didn’t want to put down roots in case he had to pack his shit and go.

I felt a wave of shame roll over me as I thought about how I’d done this to him—and myself.

God, sometimes I felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

But I’d always been one of those people that reacted first and thought about the repercussions later, and unfortunately, I couldn’t change that—it was too deeply ingrained in me.

“Put it down,” Wade ordered.

Hoax did, groaning slightly when he stood up.

“We’re just two peas in a pod, aren’t we?” Wade laughed. “You with your broken ribs and arm, me with my leg.”

Hoax grunted an affirmative and dropped down heavily on the couch only to lean forward and rip his leather jacket off. Or, at least, he tried to. The jacket got stuck on his cast and he was shaking it to get it off.

I laughed at his plight and moved forward, taking the cuff of the arm and tugged it gently free.

“Thanks,” he said as I righted the armholes and laid it gently on the side of the couch.

“Welcome,” I said as I joined him on the couch.

Then we both watched as Wade talked to the dog.

“How did he get in here?” Wade asked. “I’d like to take him out, but he doesn’t have a collar on.”

I sighed. “He was under sedation,” I murmured. “And they got him in there after the fact. I didn’t think about getting a collar on him, but they did give me the medication that they use to calm him down enough to take him outside and stuff. It’s right here.”

I pulled the bottle out of my purse and set it down on the card table that acted as a coffee table.