Taking Heart

Baby Girl, you started this journey with me, and it's been such a blessing to watch you spread your wings and fly. Even through the stumbles, bumps, and bruises along the way, you make us so proud to be your parents. Let your beauty shine from within and don't let anything snuff out the light inside you.

S
ERGEANT
D
YLAN
G
RANGER
heard a series of loud
pops
as bullets hit the stone wall beside his head and rock dust crumbled into his face. He ducked farther behind the wall. Their position had been compromised again, and this time the entire unit was under attack by insurgents.

“We're not going to make it through this, Doc. We're taking too much fire,” Michaels yelled at him.

“We have to make it through this. I haven't lost a man yet.” Dylan ignored his partner, the junior medic of their unit, and checked the pulse of Sergeant Jefferies, the communications expert he was attending to. The soldier's blood was warm on Dylan's hands as he tried to stem the flow from the gunshot wound to Jefferies's abdomen. It was bad, but if he could get the bleeding to slow, he could save him. After seven years as a Special Forces medic, Dylan had seen more than his fair share of wounds.

“You hear me, Jefferies?” The soldier's eyes rolled back, but he tried to nod. Dylan could see the fear in his face, knew he was close to giving up.

The desert sun beat down on the three of them as bullets whizzed past, and Dylan looked back over his shoulder where the rest of the unit had managed to hunker down behind a secondary shelter. At least they were covered on all four sides. He, Michaels, and Jefferies were sitting ducks behind a solitary low wall. He had to get Jefferies to the shelter, where they would have cover and he could focus on stopping the bleeding.

He signaled to the rest of the unit for cover and noted their affirmation. “Come on, we're making a break for it,” he told Michaels. “You keep pressure on the wound and I'll carry him.”

Dylan slid his weapon over his shoulder and wrapped his arm under the soldier's armpits as they prepared to drag him to safety. They had to move
now
.

“Just leave me, Doc,” Jefferies muttered.

Dylan could see it in Michaels's eyes. He agreed and knew their best option was to leave the injured man behind.

Not on my watch.

“Shut up, Jefferies. You have two kids to get home to. Michaels here is going to hold the compress tight, but you need to help. Press on his hands.” Dylan nodded to Michaels, and they made a run for the building behind them.

The world exploded into broken rock and dust. Heat and fire surrounded them, swirling through the air. For a moment, Dylan wondered if he hadn't just found hell on earth. He lifted his head carefully, the entire world around him ringing, spinning, as he tried to regain his bearings. It took him too long to realize he was pinned to the ground under Jefferies's dead weight. The weight of a mangled corpse. Using his forearms, he dragged himself from beneath the fallen soldier and saw Michaels to his left, facedown. Dylan crawled to his side, tugging at him.

“Michaels!” He rolled him onto his back and saw the blood and dirt smeared over his face.

“My leg, Doc.” Dylan looked down and saw that the man was bleeding out. He wasn't going to make it. Another explosion rocked the earth beneath them. “Grenades.” Michaels's voice was barely a whisper. “Fall back while you can, Doc. Go!”

Dylan felt something hit the side of his helmet, and his vision blurred before going completely dark.

H
E REACHED FOR
his head and bolted upright, sweat pouring from his body, and woke from reliving the nightmare again. It had been a year since he'd left Afghanistan behind. A year since the attack on their base that had left most of his unit KIA. A year of this new kind of hell on earth.

Dylan looked at the clock and reached for the glass of water on his bedside table, hating the way his hands trembled. He balled them into fists, willing the tremors to stop, and clenched his jaw so hard he thought it would snap. He wanted the nightmares to end, wanted his life back, wanted control over this. But what the doctors diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, he called the end of his world.

He'd saved hundreds of men in his service, and now he couldn't function even one day without panic attacks, pills, and doctor's visits. Nothing remained of the man he'd once been—confident and capable. He looked up and saw his brother standing in the doorway of his room.

“You okay?”

Dylan hated being such a burden on Gage, but after returning home with a bullet wound in his head and burns that ran from his neck, over his right arm, and down his chest, he knew he would never have survived without him. His brother refused to give up on him, taking him in and putting his own life on hold to help him regain some semblance of a life.

“I'm good,” he lied, popping open the prescription bottle on the nightstand.

“You sure you want another one of those? I thought your doctor said to taper off.”

Dylan glared at his brother. The doctor had warned him about the risks of the medication they had him on, as well as taking more than they recommended. After becoming addicted to the painkillers early in his recovery, he had to be especially careful which medications and how much of each he was taking. He didn't want to go through that battle again, but right now it was the only thing keeping him from giving up entirely. He could understand the trap so many returning soldiers fell into, finding only pills and booze could help them escape the nightmare that lived inside them, haunting them even while they were awake. The pills let him fall into a dreamless sleep, where the faces of the men he hadn't saved didn't look at him with accusation in their eyes. The pills kept him from contemplating the other option to avoid their eyes, the loaded pistol hidden under his mattress.

“Dylan, you've tried everything else. Nothing is working. Can we please just call them up and see what they think?”

This discussion again? Dylan shook his head. He didn't want a therapy dog. If the medications and therapy he was already getting from three different doctors couldn't control his PTSD, how would a dog help? He didn't even like animals.

“No. We've already been over this. If I can't take care of myself, how am I going to take care of a dog?”

“What have you got left to lose?”

Technically, Gage was right. He had already lost everything he valued in life except his brother: his job, his independence, not to mention his sanity. He owed it to Gage to at least try to have some semblance of a normal life so his brother could find one for himself again.

“What if we go and it doesn't work?” Dylan asked, voicing the concern he didn't want to admit. It was really the crux of the matter. They'd already tried everything else with little to no success. If this didn't work, he would be forced to face that he was doomed to live in this hell forever, or until he ended it.

Gage raised both hands, palms out. “Then no harm, no foul, and I won't mention it again.”

Dylan untangled himself from the sheet and sat at the edge of the bed, his feet landing on the cold hardwood floor. He might as well get up since he wouldn't be able to sleep again tonight. “You know I can't afford it, and the military isn't running their PTSD-canine therapy program anymore.”

“I know.” Gage moved into the room and reached for Dylan's empty water glass. “But I've been looking around at private trainers and other foundations to help. Or I'll pay for it.”

“I can't keep surviving on your charity.”

“Hey, enough.” His voice was as unbending as his loyalty. “We're family. You took care of me for years when Mom got sick and Dad was drinking. You put me through college and got me to this point. Let me help you for a change, Dylan.”

Dylan ran a hand over several days' worth of beard growth. He knew his brother was afraid he'd given up on life. A part of him
had
. If this last-ditch effort was what he needed to do to assuage any misplaced guilt Gage had, he'd suck it up and prove to him that a dog wasn't going to fix what was messed up about him. He was broken in ways that couldn't be fixed.

“W
HAT
'
S THE MATTER
, Wall Street? Cat got your tongue?” Julia grinned at her sister's fiancé across the table.

Nathan had been living on Heart Fire Ranch with Julia's sister, Jessie, long enough to realize what life in the country was like. Sometimes it included the barn cats leaving half-eaten mice as a prize for those they adored. Granted, stepping on that “prize” in bare feet tended to put a damper on the rest of your day when it happened first thing in the morning. The prim and proper financial analyst still looked shocked.

Nathan shook his head, trying to keep a straight face as he reached for his coffee. “One day, I might actually get used to these things, but I will never enjoy them.”

Jessie winked at her sister. “Don't let him fool you. He's already found several perks to living out here.” She turned to Nathan. “Like the fact that you claim bad cell service when you want to ignore calls from clients. And what about your new addiction to fishing?”

“I see your point,” Nathan said, shrugging before winking at Jessie. “I can think of a few other perks, too.”

“And, that's my cue to leave,” Julia said, jumping up from behind the breakfast table. The Great Dane asleep at her feet opened an eye and looked up at her. “Come on, Tango, let's go.”

The dog immediately responded and moved toward the door as Julia put her mug into the dishwasher. As much as she enjoyed sharing breakfast at her sister's house, as they'd done almost daily since their parents' deaths a year ago, with Nathan there she felt a bit like a third wheel on days when her brother, Justin, and cousin, Bailey, didn't join them. She knew Jessie and Nathan were still finding their footing, and she wanted to give them the space they needed to get reacquainted after eight years apart. They didn't need a little sister tagging along.

“You coming back for lunch?” Jessie looked at Julia expectantly, and Julia could read the excitement in her sister's eyes. “We have our first group of kids coming in for a camp this week. Bailey's cleaning out the cabins for them today.”

As nice as it sounded to spend time with both of them, she'd made arrangements to see some dogs at the shelter later. “Normally, I'd be happy to let you use me as an indentured servant,” she teased. “But I can't today. Rain check?” The sound of Julia's ringtone had Tango's ears lifting as “Who Let the Dogs Out” rang through the kitchen.

“Ugh!” Jessie covered her ears. “Will you please change that? You have no idea how much I hate that song.”

Julia smiled at her sister. “Yes, I do, but it makes me laugh, so no.” She glanced at the screen, not recognizing the caller, and pressed the button. “Heart Fire Training, this is Julia.”

“Hi, my name is Gage Granger. We've spoken a bit by e-mail about a PTSD dog. I'm calling for my brother.”

“Yes, Mr. Granger. I remember.” Julia waved to her sister, motioning that she had to take the call, and headed outside with Tango following at her heels, as if understanding an unspoken command. She opened the door of her beat-up pickup and he jumped inside, sprawling across the bench seat with his head half hanging out the lowered window. As she turned on the truck, she listened to the man on the other end explain his brother's circumstances. The more he spoke, the more she realized this was going to be like many of the other severe PTSD cases she'd dealt with, and it was going to take intense training with both the dog and new handler. She felt the butterflies flutter to life in her stomach, realizing they would have to stay at her home in order for her to train them to work together. She hadn't had any unmarried men at her facility since—

Stop! This is not Evan, this is not the past.

“When would your brother be available to come to my facility?”

“To travel?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded surprised. “I don't know if that will be possible. Dylan doesn't . . . he isn't . . . ”

“Mr. Granger, I understand that travel could cause some anxiety for your brother, but because each person has different symptoms and varying degrees of PTSD, I need to meet him to be able to match him up. His dog has to be a partner who can work with your brother's specific needs in mind. Part of that is training the dog to relate to your brother and his triggers.”

“The dog's training is tailored to Dylan's needs?”

“Exactly, and I'll teach him to work with the dog. I really need him here in order to see which dog pairs up with his personality best. If you're with him a lot, it would be best if you come as well. Based on what you've told me, I have a few dogs that might work for your brother, but you'll need to plan on staying three to four weeks.”

“You have accommodations for both of us?”

Julia pulled into her driveway and ran her hand over the dog at her side, trying to ignore the nervous tremor she could hear in her voice and the shake of her hand. “You're both welcome to stay in my home. That way we can work with your brother and his animal consistently. But, if you prefer, my sister has cabins on her adjacent property as well.” She couldn't help but hope they would choose to stay at Heart Fire Ranch instead. “How soon can you get here?”

“We can get a flight out tomorrow. I'll make sure of it.” She didn't miss the desperation in his voice. In the past four years of focusing her training on dogs to serve people with PTSD, she'd met so many family members who wanted miracles the victim wasn't ready for. It was a recipe for disaster if everyone wasn't on board for the journey.

“Mr. Granger, as long as your brother wants this as much as you want it for him, you'll be pleased with the results. If not”—she took a deep breath, knowing that it wouldn't do any of them good to sugarcoat the truth—“you'll both be wasting your time and setting yourself up for disappointment.”

There was a pregnant pause from Gage. “Ms. Hart, you're our last hope.”