Operation Alpha. Justine Davis

teacher? Had Emily brought her because she was the one with the problem Foxworth could fix?

      He found he liked that idea even less. Which in turn unsettled him even more. She was a complete stranger; why would it bother him to think she had a problem that would need Foxworth? He was always glad to help people in trouble, he loved what they did, but this was a different sort of feeling, and he didn’t like it.

      He caught himself looking in the mirror again. His mirror gazing was usually limited to making sure nothing was grossly wrong, like dirt on his nose or pizza sauce on his cheek. Yet he stood there wondering how he had appeared to her, all grubby and sweaty from playing with Cutter.

      All right, that’s it. Now you’ve gone over the edge. Get the heck out of here.

      As he donned clean clothes from his locker on the back wall of the bathroom, he pondered. Maybe he should just go about his business. Maybe Quinn wouldn’t need or want him on this one, he reasoned. Emily was special to his boss, being the first case and all. He’d probably want to handle whatever this was himself.

      Besides, Liam had other things to do. Some stuff to send to Ty. He and the tech guy at Foxworth headquarters in St. Louis had been working on improving the in-house tracking system, installed on all the Foxworth vehicles. And he hadn’t been to the shooting range in a while; he needed to do that, too. He’d never had to actually use the handgun Quinn insisted he be proficient with, but it had been close a couple of times and he wanted to be sure he was up to speed. Even though he was much more at home with rifles, he’d turned out to be a decent shot with the Colt. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need to practice. And he’d promised Rafe he’d do an electronics check on the backup generator while Rafe was off in Alaska on that sabotage case. So he could do that, and then he could...he could...

      His list of reasons to avoid joining the group on the patio sputtered to a halt. He was trying to decide where to start when a low woof outside the bathroom door startled him. He hastily yanked on his boots—custom-made back home, his one splurge when he’d accepted the job here—and opened the door. Cutter stood there, waiting.

      “What’s up, hound?”

      The dog turned and trotted a few steps toward the patio, stopped and looked back over his shoulder. The customary “follow me” canine body language. Cutter’s vocabulary was much larger than most dogs, and given that Liam’s folks raised them he had some basis for that observation. But this one was pretty standard to most dogs. What wasn’t standard was how impossibly inventive the animal was when it came to getting his point across.

      And how impossibly stubborn he was when it came to getting people to do what he wanted.

      “Boss didn’t ask for me,” Liam pointed out, even though he knew resisting was useless if the dog’s mind was set. And the look Cutter gave him then was the canine equivalent of “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”

      Maybe Quinn had sent the dog for him, to hurry him up, Liam thought.

      He had a sudden vision of taking this guy home to meet his parents’ rather rambunctious pack of mostly tracking hounds and hunting dogs. Cutter would have them organized and herding longhorns, whether they were bred for it or not.

      The image gave him the laugh he needed and, feeling silly over his uncharacteristic burst of self-contemplation, he followed Cutter who, as he’d expected, headed straight for the patio where the others were gathered.

      * * *

      Ria Connelly was glad she had a glass of Hayley Foxworth’s delicious lemonade—no powdered mix here—to focus on when the Foxworths’ dog came back. Because he had with him the other Foxworth...agent? Operative? Whatever they called themselves. The one she’d met outside. Liam. Who had obviously been playing with said dog quite cheerfully. Part of his job? Maybe, but judging by the way he’d been laughing as they came around the building, it was a part he enjoyed.

      Of course, Cutter was a very beautiful dog, with a lot of personality. She’d seen that even in the short time she’d been here. She liked the way his head and shoulders were black but the color shifted to a reddish brown over the rest of his body, liked the thick, soft fur and most of all the amber-flecked dark eyes, so wise and knowing.

      And she wasn’t usually fanciful about dogs, but this one seemed different to her. If he was a person she would have said he had an old soul. So maybe that applied to dogs, too.

      As for his ball-throwing partner...

      She told herself it wasn’t that delightful grin or hair in that style she liked—short but a bit longer on top, where it looked like you could muss it any which way and it would still look intentional...

      And thoughts of messing with his hair led down roads she had no business going. He didn’t look that much older than some of her students. But, then, that was often said about her, too.

      Besides, it wasn’t that at all. It was simply that she liked that he’d been so happy over a simple thing like playing with a dog. Her world seemed to be overflowing with teenage angst these days, and seeing somebody so pleased with such a simple thing was like an antidote. And it had nothing to do with the leanly muscled body or the chest—and abs—that had been on display before he’d pulled his shirt back on. Hastily enough that she found the seeming self-consciousness rather charming until she remembered this was, after all, his place of work.

      When Quinn gestured to him to take a seat, he headed for one of the empty ones near his boss. The dog got in his way, though, and they seemed to try to dodge each other for a moment before he finally ended up sitting down in the chair closest to her. He gave the dog a look she couldn’t define, except to say it was as wary as if the animal had suddenly morphed into a wolf.

      “Cutter seems to think we’ll need you for this,” Hayley said, sounding amused, although Ria wasn’t certain about what. She had only just met Quinn’s wife, a pretty woman with lovely green eyes, but she already liked her.

      “Does he now,” Liam said with an expressively wry quirk of his mouth. Ria wondered where he was from, what place had put that slight drawl in his voice. “And just what is ‘this’?” Liam asked, shifting his gaze from the dog to Hayley.

      “We’re about to find out,” Quinn said equably. He looked at their two visitors. “Which of you has the problem?”

      “Neither of us, really,” Emily said with a glance at Ria.

      Ria smiled. “I’m just the wheelman, as it were. But I understand her concern.”

      She also had her doubts that this vague, nebulous job was something an operation the apparent size of Foxworth would take on. This building of theirs was expansive and well equipped, including a small kitchen and bath, a living area with fireplace that could be in any nice home and even a bedroom in the back corner. She also thought she’d caught a glimpse of a helicopter in that warehouse-looking building at the other end of the gravel parking area. Foxworth was much bigger than she’d expected.

      Emily’s explanation played back in her head. They used insurance money to start it, Mr. Foxworth and his sister. Their parents were killed by terrorists.

      So he understood loss. But even that seemed on a much grander scale. And yet...

      He never belittled me or the smallness of my request. He understood how important my mother’s locket was to me, how it was the only thing I wanted in life, to have it back, because it was the only thing I had left of hers. And he found it. He turned the thieves over to the police but only after he got the locket back.

      Emily’s heartfelt retelling of her story had been the final factor in Ria’s decision to at least give this a try. And that’s what she should be focused on—Emily’s worries, not the distraction of the sandy-haired guy with the quirky grin sitting too close to her.

      “Emily?” Ria liked how Quinn said it. He was a big, powerful-looking guy, but he wasn’t afraid to be kind or gentle.

      “I think,” Emily began, hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I think a friend of mine