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  She looked back at Liam. “So...you’re taking that as proof?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, if you don’t know Cutter’s track record.”

  “What, he’s never wrong?”

  “Never has been. He can read people like no dog—or person—I’ve ever known. He knows if they’re on the side of the angels, so to speak. Just like he knows when somebody has a problem that’s Foxworthy.”

  She laughed at that; she couldn’t help it. “Foxworthy?”

  He grinned. That blessed, heart-jumping grin. “Even Quinn liked that one.”

  “And he takes the dog’s...word for it?”

  He shrugged. “Quinn has the final say, of course, on whether we take something on. But Cutter’s never brought us a case he’s said no to.” A grin flashed for a moment. She should be used to it by now, but it still sent that jolt through her again. “After he learned it was wiser to just go with it, that is.”

  She couldn’t quite picture the commanding, powerful Quinn Foxworth taking his lead from a dog. But, then, Cutter was obviously not an ordinary dog. Maybe not the alien in a dog suit Liam joked about, but hardly ordinary.

  But, then, neither was Liam Burnett.

  Chapter 12

  “So, are you and Ms. Connelly dating?”

  Liam froze as Dylan finished taking off his shoes and stepped out onto the mat.

  “What?”

  The boy shrugged. “Saw you two talking this morning. You seem pretty tight.”

  “I—” He stopped, fighting off all the images Dylan’s question had brought on. It was a moment before he could say firmly, “No. We’re not. We’re just friends. That’s why she recommended me for this.” He stepped onto the mat himself. Cutter had taken as his spot the corner between the mat and the wall. He often chose places like that, making Quinn joke that he was like a cop who couldn’t sit with his back to the door. Liam tried a joke himself. “That, and because she’s sure I won’t let any of you get hurt. Or she knows my first aid training will be up to it.”

  “Oh.” Dylan didn’t laugh but darted a glance at him. The boy made no comment on the cowboy boots he was pulling off. Points for you, Liam thought. “Wouldn’t blame you if it were true. She’s pretty hot, in a quiet sort of way.”

  “Mmm.” Liam made the sound because there was no way in hell he wanted to try and answer that in actual words. And because explaining to Ria about Cutter’s perfect track record with cases, he hadn’t been able to avoid thinking about his other perfect track record of bringing couples together. And no matter how thoroughly Liam convinced himself that was not happening, it was still getting on his nerves.

  “And she’s good with people,” Dylan said. “She cares.”

  Liam thought of the other day at the marina and her quiet respect for the loss of people she didn’t know anything about except that someone loved and missed them.

  “Yes. Yes, she does.”

  “She worries, too. About us, I mean. Her students.”

  “Yes,” he repeated. He thought about saying she was specifically concerned about Dylan himself but didn’t want the boy to suspect anything so he decided not to. “Speaking of worries, how’s your brother?”

  Dylan shrugged. “Okay.” Liam watched him steadily, and after a moment the boy lowered his gaze to his bare feet. He shifted them a couple of times before admitting, “Not really. He’s kind of acting out.”

  “More than cutting school?”

  A silent nod.

  “What does your father say?”

  Dylan sucked in an audible breath as he assumed the position they’d been practicing from. Liam couldn’t tell if he was prepping for the practice, or if it had been his question about their father.

  “He doesn’t pay much attention. He’s...been kind of out of it. Since Mom died.”

  “Understandable,” Liam said as he joined the boy.

  “Yeah.” Then Dylan added, “He’s moody, though. He doesn’t talk to us anymore. Well, he talks to me a little but not Kevin.”

  “He’s probably scared. Thinking of having to raise you on his own now.”

  Something flashed in Dylan’s eyes. “He doesn’t need to raise me, I’m old enough to be on my own. But Kevin isn’t. Can we get started?”

  Clearly he was impatient with talking. At least about this. Liam decided it was time to let the boy get some of his obvious nerves settled. Nothing like a good scrap to do that. He nodded and turned to face the boy.

  “Come at me.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your best shot.”

  “But I don’t know any of this stuff yet.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean just try to put me on the floor.”

  Dylan’s expression was wary. He glanced at Cutter. “I don’t want him going for my throat.”

  “He won’t. He gets this is different.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, man. It’s not every day I give a guy who’s pissed at the world the chance to take it out on me.”

  “I’m not pissed at the—”

  “The hell you’re not,” Liam said softly.

  He gestured with his hand, waggling his fingers toward himself, urging the boy on.

  Dylan charged.

  * * *

  Just because she didn’t have a class this hour didn’t mean she had to be here every time Dylan and Liam had a session, Ria told herself. And yet here she was, hiding once more—well, not really hiding, but trying to go unnoticed—on the upper-level gallery that had once been the hayloft of the big barn.

  She was here for Dylan, she told herself. And Emily, who was so worried about her friend. Observing, that was all. Not like she was even eavesdropping, because she couldn’t hear normal conversation from up here. She could tell Liam was getting more response out of Dylan Oakley than she or even Emily had been able to. But they weren’t much closer to finding out what was wrong.

  It’s only been four days, she reminded herself. Don’t expect miracles. And wouldn’t she and Emily both feel silly if they’d started all this and it turned out it really was all related to Dylan’s mother’s death last year? She’d been worried then, but his grief had seemed normal, and after about two months he’d seemed to level off. He would never be the same, she supposed, but he’d been doing all right, considering.

  Until this nose dive.

  But she was no expert. Maybe grief sometimes worked that way. Fading away only to come back with a vengeance.

  Liam would know. He hadn’t said anything, but she knew he did.

  So ask him.

  Sure, that would be a nice, casual topic of conversation. “So, Liam, who died and how did it affect you?”

  Or maybe it was someone else who knew the path of grief. Someone close to him. Girlfriend? Even a wife? He didn’t wear a ring, but that wasn’t proof. It rattled her that this hadn’t even occurred to her until now, to even wonder. How could she not realize that a guy like him—cute, funny, doing admirable work—likely had been grabbed up long ago?

  And what did it matter if he was? It made no difference—

  An explosion of movement snapped her wandering thoughts back to the scene below. A split second ago Liam had been standing casually on the mat, his posture relaxed and even a bit lazy, as if he had nothing to do but stand there and chat. And then Dylan rushed him, and he unwound from that laid-back stance and erupted into a sort of grace and power that stopped her breath.

  He strolls in all relaxed and leisurely, lolls around like he couldn’t move fast if he wanted to. Just when you start thinking he’s half-asleep, he explodes and takes you out before you can blink.

  Quinn’s words echoed in her head as she saw Liam put Dylan—with exquisite care, twisting so that the boy came down flat and on the mat—on th
e floor with what looked like merely a twist of his waist and a flick of his wrist.

  Dylan lay still for a long moment, maybe as startled as she. Only when the boy sat up did she breathe again. He was staring at Liam, who seemed to be watching how he would take it.

  Dylan scrambled to his feet. Even from here she heard his exclamation.

  “Damn, that was cool! Show me how to do that.”

  It was the most enthusiasm she’d seen from Dylan in weeks. And that alone made it all worth it.

  Even if she was thinking like a fool about a guy she barely knew anything about.

  So find out.

  That contrary voice in her head seemed to be chiming in a lot these days. Since about the time she’d seen Liam racing around the corner of the Foxworth building on Cutter’s heels. If you’d told her a week ago all it would take was seeing a nicely built guy with his shirt off to send her tumbling over an edge she’d avoided for a very long time now, she would have laughed.

  And yet here she was. And no amount of reassuring herself that he’d be gone once they found out what Dylan’s problem was and fixed it seemed to help.

  She looked over to where his dog was positioned sphinx-like, seemingly aware this had only been practice and so not moving to protect Liam as she imagined he would under real circumstances.

  Cutter was staring up at her, steadily, and she had the whimsical thought that he had somehow willed her to look at him. The intensity of the dog’s gaze was almost unsettling, yet at the same time reassuring. Understanding. Soothing. Or something.

  Deciding her silly thoughts were now completely out of control, she quietly got up, grabbed her lunch bag and left them to finish the session alone.

  * * *

  “Shakespeare, huh?”

  Liam watched Dylan pull the book for his next class out of his backpack. He’d walked along with the boy, Cutter at their heels, wanting to keep the conversation going. They’d had a good session. The boy was quick, stronger than he looked and coordinated. He could use some more muscle and to learn to draw in his movements a bit, but that would come with time.

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “I used to think it was pretty lame, but Ms. Connelly makes it fun. She gets the class to translate it into modern language, so we understand it better. Makes us do it like a movie script, with directions and all.”

  “Wow,” Liam said. “Shakespeare was a lot more boring when I was in school.”

  Dylan grinned. “She’s fun. Sometimes she’ll be writing our translations on the board and turn around and say ‘Why the heck would he do that?’ To get us thinking about motivation and stuff.”

  ...made everything come so alive kids ran to get to class not because they were late but because they loved it. That’s the kind of teacher I try to be.

  Her words ran through his mind. It seemed she had certainly succeeded. But then Ria Connelly seemed the sort to succeed at anything she truly put her mind to.

  “Told you.” Dylan was looking at him, grinning.

  “What?”

  “Every time I mention her, you get all dreamy-eyed. You’re crushing on her, aren’t you?”

  “I wasn’t thinking about her like that,” Liam insisted, glad he could say it honestly for once, because he’d just been wondering what it must have been like to be so sure about what you wanted to be from childhood. He’d been anything but certain, chafing at a small-town life that was as flat as the land around it, yet repelled by the big city. That was one of the reasons he was so happy here, where he’d found the perfect—in his view—combination of small town and endless things to do.

  “Coming in, Dylan?”

  Dylan whirled in surprise as Ria came up behind them but relaxed when he saw she was smiling. Liam wasn’t startled. He’d sensed her approach before she arrived. And so had Cutter, who had risen from his polite sit outside the door. Not surprising. You didn’t become a superior tracker without total awareness of your surroundings. And Cutter was indeed that, the only one of the Foxworth team who could beat him. But, then, Cutter had that canine nose.

  Not that Liam’s wasn’t functioning just fine. Because he’d known it was her without looking. He’d caught the light scent that reminded him of his mother’s roses, sweet, delicate and so light that as a child he’d been afraid he’d sniff it all away if he smelled it too often. Then later he’d been embarrassed to admit he liked it; it was such a girly thing.

  “And where did you go just now?”

  Ria’s voice cut into his memories and he snapped back to the present. Realized Dylan had gone ahead into the classroom. So much for the superior tracker, he thought wryly.

  “My mother’s rose garden, actually,” he said.

  It took her only a split second. She smiled as she lifted a hand to her throat. Where she’d put the scent?

  Need hit him like a blow harder than any Dylan had landed today. Need to breathe in more deeply, to get more of that fragrance. Need to touch that silken skin, as she was touching it. And yet he couldn’t seem to breathe at all, and he didn’t dare touch her. Not when simply thinking about it nearly sent him spiraling out of control.

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” she said quietly.

  He clamped down, grasped for control. Thought he had it. “Do. That garden was beautiful. And smelled as good.”

  He saw the faint rise of color in her cheeks. So much for control, he thought, wondering why the hell he’d said that.

  Because it’s true? that annoying voice in his head suggested.

  “Thank you.” She left it simply at that, sparing him any embarrassing explanation. “You made good progress with Dylan today.”

  Reality snapped at him again. And he suddenly wondered just how much she’d heard of their conversation. Ran back in his head what he’d said about her. Had she heard him denying he had a crush on her? That he’d been thinking about her in that way Dylan had accused him of? Should he hope that she had heard? Or that she hadn’t?

  “He’s opening up a little,” he said, ignoring his own ridiculously tangled thoughts. “Nothing that’s much of a clue yet, though. His family’s kind of messed up, but we expected that.”

  She nodded just as the chime to mark the half hour pealed out across the serene campus.

  “A lot nicer than those old fire-alarm-sounding bells at my high school,” Liam said.

  “Mine, too. They were quite rude.” She was grinning, and he found himself grinning back. “I’d better go. Hamlet awaits.”

  “So I heard. And that you make it fun.”

  She looked as pleased as she had with his rose compliment. Which told him she valued this one just as much. No surprise there. But again she left it at merely, “Thank you,” as she turned to walk back into her classroom. He turned to go, as well, but he couldn’t help hearing the remarks rising from the students, the loudest of which seemed voiced by the whole group.

  “Woo, Ms. Connelly’s got a boyfriend!”

  He kept going. He didn’t want to hear what she said to that.

  Chapter 13

  “She’s quite charming, your Emily,” Hayley said.

  The girl and her adoptive parents had left Foxworth just a few minutes ago; the Hardings had wanted to see Quinn again and meet Hayley.

  “She’s changed a lot,” Quinn said as he poured a cup of coffee in the kitchen. “She was so quiet, almost lost, and now...”

  “She’s a bright, stable, outgoing young woman. The kind of kid who gives you hope for the future. And you should be proud, since you were a big part of that.”

  Liam listened to the exchange but said nothing. He had been about to give Quinn an update when Emily arrived with her parents, a warm, lively couple who clearly couldn’t adore the girl more if she were their biological daughter. He’d shaken hands with them and noted they had b
oth bent to formally greet Cutter, which was how Foxworth tended to begin their assessment of people these days.

  He’d excused himself, as they talked about other things, to ask Ty to check into the problems Dylan’s younger brother was having at school. Kevin was a bit young to take to cutting school, but he was also far too young to have lost his mother.

  Liam had returned to the others just as the conversation landed on the case.

  “I can already see a difference,” Emily had been telling them happily. “Dylan’s enthused about something again.” She flashed a shy glance at Liam. “He talks about you a lot. I can tell he likes you.”

  “Now I just have to get to what’s eating at him.”

  “You will,” Emily had replied confidently.

  He hoped she was right.

  “They seem to get along really well,” Liam said now that they’d gone. “Better than most teenagers that age with their parents.”

  Quinn nodded and then gestured with the coffeepot, asking if Liam wanted his mug topped off. Liam shook his head no.

  “I think when you go through tragedy so young, it matures you early,” Hayley said. She didn’t look at her husband, but Liam knew he was in her mind when she said it. But, then, as far as he could tell, Quinn was always in her thoughts, as she was in Quinn’s. It was almost scary. Heck, it was scary. When you let someone in that deep, it just opened the door for pain.

  Hayley had a point. Liam had been twenty when he’d brought his own world down around him. He couldn’t imagine dealing with that kind of thing at the age Quinn had. Or Emily.

  “Is it going as well as Emily hopes?” Quinn asked.

  “He’s starting to talk to me,” Liam said, yanking his mind back once again. “But not about what’s wrong. Other than his little brother acting out.”

  “Not surprising,” Hayley said thoughtfully. “There were times I wanted to act out after my mother died, and I was a lot older than Emily. Or Dylan.”

  “Instead you got spirited off in the dead of night in a black helicopter,” Quinn joked.

  “And found my life,” Hayley said, giving him a look that made Liam faintly envious, for all that he didn’t want that kind of relationship in his life.