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  Books. Change. Lives.

  Copyright © 2020 by Tracy Mort Hopkins

  Cover and internal design © 2020 by Sourcebooks

  Cover design by Dawn Adams/Sourcebooks

  Cover image of cowboy © Rob Lang Photography

  Cover images © Getty Images

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Big Chance Cowboy

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Back Cover

  For Homer, the best boy dog we ever had.

  Prologue

  Early last summer

  “This is gonna have to be good enough,” Marcus Talbott said as he gently slid his 1980 Camaro into the shade between a dumpster and an ancient tree out behind the Big Chance Dairy Queen.

  “Are we…hiding?” Jake Williams looked around at the nearly deserted parking lot.

  “Of course not. We’re just making sure my baby doesn’t get scratched by any tumbleweeds rolling down Main Street.”

  “They don’t have…um…rolling woods…” Jake rubbed the still-pink scar that peeked from beneath his short hair as he searched for the right words. “I mean…damn.”

  “Tumbleweeds,” Marcus supplied. “I don’t know if they have ’em here or not. I’m just messin’ with you. I wanted to park in the shade so we don’t bake when we get back in.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “It’s…June. It’s…Texas.”

  “I know. These seats are genuine Detroit pleather. They’re not built to withstand this kind of abuse. I’m gonna protect ’em as much as I can.” He gestured to the side. “Be careful when you open the door, you don’t hit that tree.”

  It took Jake a few moments to unfold his long legs from the front seat and bring himself to his full height, and it took Marcus even longer to unkink his rebuilt spine and convince his legs to support him for the fifty-foot walk around to the front of the restaurant.

  A huge, undulating part of him wanted to stay in the car and just drive the last fifteen minutes to their destination, but Marcus knew if he didn’t walk around now and get some stretching in, he’d look like an invalid when they got to Adam’s.

  “You coming?” Jake was already at the side of the building by the time Marcus convinced his right leg to move in the right direction.

  “Hold your horses, Slick,” Marcus said. “They won’t run out of ice cream.”

  Just as Marcus was used to helping Jake find the words that had been shaken out of his brain by that bomb blast in Afghanistan last year, Jake was used to seeing Marcus force himself to unwind from the twisted wreck his body had become after being blown to high heaven.

  Adam, the friend they’d followed into a hellhole nest of insurgents, the soldier in charge of clearing the room and keeping them safe, didn’t need to see the effects of the improvised explosive device his dog had missed. What Adam needed to see was how well Marcus and Jake were recovering from a bloody accident.

  And they were recovering. Would Jake ever see the inside of a Humvee again? No freaking way. His wires were too scrambled from his traumatic brain injury. He got confused easily and had trouble finding his way around, but he was steadier by the day, and his language skills were coming back. Marcus, however, had every intention of returning to his unit, to redeploy as soon as his docs cleared him.

  In the meantime, he’d finish rehabbing himself in the lush paradise of Big Chance, Texas. Starting with a foot-long chili dog and a Butterfinger Blizzard. Once he had something in his stomach, he could take his next dose of Percocet and start to feel more human.

  He followed Jake into the semi-air-conditioned restaurant, and they studied the menu board while they waited for the teenager behind the counter to look up from his cell phone. The front door chimed as someone else came in.

  The kid continued to ignore his customers.

  “What kind of bull hockey is this?” A thin, gravelly voice rose behind Marcus. “This ain’t no way to run a food joint. We oughta grab one of them ice cream cakes and run.”

  “And you think I’ll bail you out after Sheriff Chance comes to arrest you?”

  Marcus turned to see a woman with hair as multicolored as the tattoos that covered her arms smiling as the older man scowled. A smattering of piercings—ears, eyebrow, nose—accentuated her fine features, and the oversize Big Chance Feed and Seed T-shirt didn’t disguise some appealing curves. She shot Marcus a glance, and her shining blue eyes widened as she took him in, lingering over his shoulders and chest.

  He tried not to flex, but was glad that he’d kept up with all that strength training as part of his back rehab.

  “Kids these days don’t respect their elders,” the older man grumbled to Marcus.

  “Well, then you shouldn’t share your ice-cream heist plans out loud,” Marcus said, smiling at the woman. “Sets a bad example.”

  She twisted an earring and blushed, looking away. “What are you going to get, Granddad?”

 
“Heartburn, probably,” he answered as another voice interrupted, impatient and nasal.

  “Can I help you?” The teenager stood behind the counter with his hands on his hips as though he’d been waiting ages for someone to come in for food.

  * * *

  When it was her turn to order, Emma Collins-Stern couldn’t focus on the menu to save her life. Between Granddad grumbling and the cute guy, there wasn’t much room for food on her mental horizon. Who was he? She was pretty sure she’d never seen him, or his friend, in town before.

  “Come on, girl. Tell ’em what you want,” Granddad urged. “I’m not getting any younger here.”

  “I’ll have the same thing,” she told the kid at the register, figuring she could eat just about anything at the moment.

  The two men, who’d taken seats at a booth by the front door, were a study in contrasts. The one who’d spoken to Granddad—the hot one—was about her age, she thought—close to thirty. He was Black, his thick hair tightly twisted into coils that would someday become dreadlocks.

  His friend was White, younger and thinner, and seemed fragile, though both men had seemingly effortless perfect posture—a military bearing. Her guy—her guy, sheesh—was almost solicitous of the thin man, standing back and holding his drink while he waited for him to choose a side. Were they a couple?

  That would be disappointing. Wait. Where did that come from? You see a good-looking guy in a Dairy Queen and fall in love in ten seconds? Well, she’d fallen for Todd in Dairy Queen, hadn’t she? And Todd had been gone for a long time. Maybe—

  “Emma.” Granddad’s impatient voice cut through her reverie. She refocused to see the cashier scratching his chin in puzzlement.

  “Oh for Chrissakes,” Granddad muttered. “I told him I’d have whatever you’re getting. You told him you’d have what I’m having. One of us needs to pick something.”

  “Oh. Umm… I’ll have a cheeseburger and onion rings. And a Coke. And a butterscotch sundae.”

  “You’re buying,” Granddad said.

  “I kinda figured,” she told him. She always bought—especially since she’d taken over Granddad’s day-to-day finances a few years ago. Once it became clear he wasn’t going to remember whether he’d paid the electric bill once, twice, or not at all, he’d given her his checkbook for good.

  “I want hot fudge instead of butterscotch,” he told the cashier, who nodded.

  Emma fished her debit card from her pocket, but the teenager waved it away, saying, “That guy paid for your lunch.”

  “Oh.” So maybe they weren’t a couple. She turned, expecting to see him looking at her with some sort of expectant leer. Instead, he was scooting over to permit Granddad to sit next to him.

  Well, heck. Any guy who could welcome her cranky, absentminded grandfather into his world was okay with her. Emma loved Granddad, owed him everything, and was determined to take care of him for the rest of his life, but whew. Dementia was exhausting.

  As she filled her drink cup and got one ready for Granddad, it occurred to her that this was the first time since Todd died that she’d come into Dairy Queen and not felt the weight of her failures. Certainly it couldn’t be all due to having a cute guy flirt with her, but something suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was time to move on.

  She approached the table, prepared to sit next to the thinner guy, since Granddad was buddied up to her guy, holding him hostage with some sort of long, complicated story. Her guy was listening and fumbling with something in his lap.

  “Thanks for buying our lunch,” she said.

  He looked up with a welcoming smile and said, “Hey, join us?” indicating the empty spot next to his friend with a flourish.

  She was about to sit when an amber prescription bottle fell from her guy’s pocket and rolled to a stop next to her foot.

  She picked it up, unable to avoid reading the label. It was one she’d seen before, many times. Acetaminophen and oxycodone. Generic Percocet. A warning screamed inside her head.

  “No thanks. We need to get our food to go.”

  Chapter 1

  Late summer

  “Where are we going?” Granddad asked Emma for the fourth time in five minutes.

  Emma rolled her eyes at the heat waves rising from the asphalt ahead of them. “We’re going to the ranch.”

  “Why would we want to go there?”

  “Damned if I know,” she muttered, twisting an earring with the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel of her dusty Honda. She had a sock drawer she could be organizing. Instead, she was running blindfolded into a herd of cats—clueless about how she was supposed to help and about to trip over a few tails.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’ve got to go to a board of directors meeting,” she said louder.

  “Huh?”

  “Board of—”

  “I know what you said. What are you directing?” he asked.

  “I’m not directing anything. Adam is. Remember? He’s starting a group to rehabilitate rescued dogs.”

  “Why would he want to do that? You and your brother sure have some goofy ideas.”

  “You might be right,” she said half-sincerely. She did believe it was a great idea for her brother to work with dogs. It was a less great idea to think she had any business sitting on the board of directors of a nonprofit organization. She knew exactly bupkes about how charity groups were supposed to work, and between her job and caring for Granddad, she was hardly in a position to provide life support to the barely breathing Big Chance Dog Rescue.

  “What’s Adam gonna do with a bunch of dogs nobody else wants?” Granddad asked.

  Emma eased the death grip she had on her earring and transferred her hand back to the steering wheel. “Assistance dogs. You know, service animals.”

  “Like Seeing Eye dogs?”

  “Yes. Except not so much for the visually impaired.”

  “Why you can’t just say ‘blind’ is beyond me,” Granddad grumbled. “Gotta use four words when one would do. And trying to rehabilitate an old dog is too complicated. Seems like it’d be easier to get Labs or shepherds from breeders than to fix some rejected mutt.” Granddad was qualified to suggest the best dogs as he’d spent most of his life training police dogs. But there was more to Adam’s project than training dogs.

  “The end result isn’t the whole point. The dogs are going to people who think they’re rejects. He’s going to help other veterans who are having trouble since getting out of the military. If they can work with a dog who was once abandoned and considered useless, they can form a team and be better together.”

  Granddad snorted. “Pass the Kleenex and cue the shivering mutt. You sound like a damned late-night TV commercial.”

  Emma grinned. That was the response she’d expected. Not an ounce of sentimentality in his body—at least none he’d admit to. Except she remembered all the times he’d listened to her pour out her teenaged heartbreak over what this girl said or what that boy did, wiped her tears, then offered to feed the offender to the dogs, even though it might give them indigestion. He cared; he just didn’t say it in so many words.

  “That’s like your brother, charging off to save the world without asking for help from someone who knows what they’re talking about,” Granddad complained. “I don’t remember being consulted about this.”

  Emma smiled. Granddad might complain and grumble the whole time, but his gruff exterior hid a generous heart, which was what had made Archelaus Collins the best K-9 breeder-trainer in Texas, back in the day. Law enforcement entities from all over the state—even out of state—came to him for dogs, and there were rumors that he’d done secret training with the military.

  “I’m sure your help would be appreciated. Adam’s been really busy getting things off the ground.” And he’s talked to you about it a dozen times; you just don’t remember.
br />   Granddad’s memory was getting worse by the day, and he was confused by the simplest things, causing him immense frustration. The doctor had suggested Emma and Adam might want to start looking for long-term care, but Emma was determined to keep him living with her for as long as possible. It was the right thing to do, especially after she’d screwed up so much in her life, but the time was fast approaching, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.

  Granddad was following the conversation for the time being and asked, “What’s your job gonna be?”

  “I’m not sure yet.” There wasn’t much she had time for, between her regular job and looking after Granddad. Adam had asked her to participate, though, and she couldn’t say no, especially since he’d helped her stay afloat when Todd was still alive and they were drowning in debt. If only Adam’s money had been enough. Except it wasn’t the money. If Emma had been enough…

  She shook her head. Today was about the future, doing better—being better—and anything she could do to help Adam get his dream off the ground.

  “You gonna bring a dog home tonight?” Granddad asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not? You’re the one who knows the most about training dogs to behave and do tricks. Adam can get ’em to behave and find bombs and bad guys, but you’re better at the fancy stuff. When you show Adam’s friends what you can teach a dog, they’ll all be eating out of your hand.”

  Emma’s heart stuttered at the thought of bringing home a dog to train—she still wasn’t ready to be responsible for a dog again—and at the thought of doing anything in front of Adam’s friends—one friend in particular. “I don’t think we can handle a dog right now, Granddad. It takes a lot of time to housebreak a new dog.”

  “So?”

  “So, I work at the Feed and Seed almost constantly. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog to stay caged up all the time.”

  “Hogwash. You might be too busy, but I’ve got nothing to do but take it outside and let it back in.”

  He was right. Even if he wasn’t available to take a dog out regularly, she worked about ten feet from her own front door, so she could do it. It was more about her heart not being ready for a dog. Not just yet. To end the argument, she said, “We’ll have to find the right dog. Be patient.”