The Heart Beneath. Lindsay McKenna

signalled danger. Danger? What kind? And where was it coming from? She shifted her worried gaze to her five-year-old friend. Giving Dusty a soft smile, she whispered, “Wish I could understand dog language better. I gotta get going, Dust, but I just wanted to stop by one more time before I left to do my rounds of this place. You’ve seemed so upset. What is it, boy? What’s got you and everyone else spooked around here?”

      The evening coolness here in the desert always surprised Callie. Camp Reed, a hundred-thousand acre Marine Corps reservation, sat on some of the most expensive real estate in Southern California. It was literally a back door to the Los Angeles basin, about twenty miles to the west. And even though Camp Reed was arid desert, with cactus, and Joshua trees dotting its rocky hills and deep, narrow valleys of ocher-colored soil and sand, it still got cold at night. Because the reservation wasn’t right on the coast, it didn’t benefit from the warm, humid Pacific. Consequently, Camp Reed was either broiling hot, with temperatures soaring to over a hundred degrees in summer, or marine sentries found their teeth chattering as they walked their posts during winter. No snow fell, but it might as well as far as Callie was concerned.

      “Of course,” she told Dusty in a conspiratorial tone, “it is late December, and even here in good ole California, it gets close to freezing at night.” She smiled affectionately at her rescue partner and slowly rose to her full five-foot-five-inch height. Pulling her camouflage jacket more tightly around her thin frame, Callie stood on the concrete and looked around.

      The dogs were really upset. As she stood there, her hands deep in the pockets of her Marine Corps cammos jacket, the cap drawn down on her head and the bill low enough to stop the glare of the lights overhead from reaching her eyes, she wondered why they were so wound up.

      She’d just gotten back from Turkey a week ago. She and Dusty were still recovering from that grueling two weeks of climbing over rubble caused by a devastating earthquake in that country. Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she held up a doggy biscuit, one of Dusty’s favorite treats.

      “Hey…look what I got for you.” She leaned down and slipped it between the wires.

      Dusty quickly gobbled it up, licked his mouth with his large pink tongue and gave her a beseeching look for another one.

      Callie chuckled indulgently. “Don’t look at me like that. You talk with your eyes, guy.” And she grinned and tucked her hands back into her pockets. Looking to the right, she saw that Sergeant Irene Anson had desk duty. The sergeant was thirty years old, married, with a little girl. Callie doted on Annie, who, at age five, just loved to come out to the kennels and pet all her “doggies.” It was a time Callie always looked forward to, for she loved little kids. Irene’s husband, Brad, was a Recon Marine, one of the corps elite.

      Camp Reed had its own rescue dog unit, teams of which were utilized around the world in major catastrophes of any kind. Callie had been in many countries during her last two years with the rescue unit. When called to those countries for earthquake duty, it didn’t hurt that she knew Spanish, plus some Turkish and Greek. Callie had taken courses in those languages because many times, earthquakes occurred in countries where those languages were spoken, and she wanted to be able to converse not only with the local authorities, but with survivors they found in the rubble, as well. One of her least-favorite duties was going to South America for the many killer mudslides that occurred during the rainy season. It wasn’t something she looked forward to at all.

      Dusty whined, wanting another treat.

      “You are a glutton for more goodies,” she told the retriever wryly. “And it isn’t like this hasn’t been a great day for you. We went to the beach today and we played and celebrated New Year’s Eve early. You got to swim in the ocean, go after the sticks I threw, and roll in the sand while I roasted hot dogs over a fire. And then you came back and shook yourself, spraying water all over me and the food. That’s how you got your fair share of the hot dogs. You ain’t no dummy, are you, guy?” Callie laughed under her breath. It had been a good day, one they’d both needed. But she had no one to share this evening with, to welcome in the New Year. Even as Callie held her dog’s worshipful stare, loneliness ate at her.

      “Don’t go there,” she told herself in warning. “Don’t do this to yourself, Callie….”

      Dusty whined.

      “I know, I know,” she said aloud to the golden retriever. “Why do I do this to myself, Dusty? Why can’t I just be fine with how I look? You are. Of course, you’re drop-dead handsome. I mean, what lady dog wouldn’t do a double take, seeing you?” Her mouth curled, but with pain, not humor. Callie hurt inside. She was twenty-five years old and single, and she knew why.

      Dusty sat down and thumped his tail eagerly on his concrete slab. Callie had bought a flannel pillow filled with cedar shavings for him to lie on in the kennel. Concrete couldn’t be comfortable in her opinion. Dusty dearly loved his “blankie” and joyfully slept on it every chance he got. Now he tilted his head, his intelligent eyes shining with happiness that she was still there with him.

      “Why can’t I just be happy like you over the simple pleasures of life, like your blankie?” Callie asked. She moved back to the kennel, rested her shoulder against it and hung her head. Staring down at her booted feet, she sighed. “Why do I always have to torture myself, Dusty? So I’m plain looking. “Board ugly,” as I heard some jerk of a jarhead say a week ago. Dude, that hurts. You know?”

      Dusty whined.

      “Darn it all…” Callie whispered achingly. “I wish I wasn’t so softhearted, Dusty. I need a thicker skin. I wish I could let those words roll off me like water off a duck’s back, but I can’t….”

      Maybe if she let her short, sandy-blond hair grow out more it would make her look more feminine. Callie had thought of that often, but in her line of work, long hair was not at all practical. She’d be filthy dirty climbing up and over buildings that had been destroyed by a killer earthquake. Or it would rain or snow and she’d be sopping wet and muddy. No, long hair was out. Well, how about some makeup? She had a square face, with wide-set eyes, a nose that was too big and a mouth that was even bigger. She looked…well, plain. Maybe even ugly…No man even gazed at her with the look. Callie had wished all her life for a man to show her some interest. She saw other women marines getting that special attention, but she never did. Sighing, Callie knew she never would.

      Her hair was straight and hung limp as a dishrag around her face, even when she wasn’t climbing around on rubble all day in all sorts of weather. Setting it to make it look halfway decent or using hair spray was out of the question. Hers was a brutal outdoor job. With people trapped and dying, as often was the case in a disaster situation, it didn’t matter whether she wore makeup or if her hair looked feminine or not. No, the victims only wanted to know that Dusty had found them and that Callie was there to help them in any way she could, to escape and live to tell about it. To them, she was an angel of mercy.

      Callie smiled a little, remembering how one man had whispered that to her as the medics had extricated him from some rubble. He’d been trapped in there for five days, and Dusty had found him. More dead than alive, the old, silver-haired man had reached out with a shaking hand and fiercely gripped hers as they carried him by on a stretcher.

      “You’re an angel,” he’d rasped, tears streaming down his face. “An angel sent by God himself. Thank you…. You’ve got the face of an angel, and I’ll never forget you…not ever….” And he’d choked and sobbed as they’d carried him away to the ambulance.

      She wouldn’t ever forget his words, either. Callie liked the idea of looking like an angel. God didn’t make any ugly angels. Nope, not a chance. Smiling a little, she cast a glance at Dusty, who watched her every expression.

      “Do I look like an angel to you?”

      Dusty whined and thumped his tail heartily.

      “You’d say yes to anything, guy.” And Callie laughed. “No ugly angels in heaven, Dust.” She rolled her eyes and looked up at the low ceiling of the kennel complex, made from corrugated aluminum. “Maybe that’s when I’ll feel beautiful. When