Operation Unleashed. Justine Davis

that boy and the world,” she said softly.

      Quinn let out a compressed breath. “I knew it had been too quiet these last couple of weeks.”

      When the boy looked up at them, his expression wary, they stopped a few feet away. Cutter looked at them, his tail wagging in greeting. He made a quiet little whuffing sound, but never moved away from the boy.

      Quinn held back slightly, letting Hayley take the lead with the child.

      “Hi,” she said softly. “That’s Cutter, if you were wondering what his name is.”

      The boy clung to the dog. “Cutter?”

      That earned him another swipe of the tongue that made him smile despite his wariness.

      “What kind of dog is he? I like how he’s black in front and brown in back.”

      “We’re not sure, exactly. He looks like a sheepdog that comes from Europe.”

      “Oh.”

      “Are you here by yourself?” Hayley asked.

      The boy’s expression went back to wary. His gaze flicked to Quinn, then back to Hayley. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

      “That’s a good plan.” Quinn spoke for the first time, gently. “But Cutter’s already introduced himself.”

      “My mom says sometimes bad people use dogs or cats to try and trick kids.”

      Hayley smiled. “Good for your mom. She’s right, and I’m glad she warned you about that. So why don’t you take us to her? Then we can talk to her and not be strangers anymore. And she can decide if it’s okay for you to get to know Cutter.”

      The boy sighed. “She’ll say no. She’s mad again.”

      “At you?” Quinn asked.

      “Sort of. And at my dad.”

      Hayley glanced at Quinn. He nodded; the boy seemed to talk more easily to her, understandably. “What did your dad do?”

      “He said something bad about my father.”

      Uh-oh, Quinn thought. Already into a domestic situation. Divorce, stepfather, that could get ugly. Except the boy had called him his dad. Did you do that with a step-father you didn’t like? Then again, the kid was very young. Maybe he was just calling him what he was told to call him.

      “Your dad and your father don’t get along?” Hayley asked, using the boy’s terms.

      “He’s really my uncle. My father’s dead.”

      Hayley blinked again.

      “Who’s your uncle?” Quinn asked, starting to feel as if he’d stumbled into some kind of comedy skit. But the boy’s expression wasn’t the least bit amused.

      “My dad.”

      Quinn wasn’t much good at guessing ages on kids this young, but he put this one at somewhere in the six to eight range. Six in size, but older in the sadness in his eyes. A kid that young shouldn’t be able to look like that. Younger even than the ten he had been when his parents had been killed. But at least this one still had his mother. And...whoever the father figure in his life really was.

      “It’s my fault,” the boy said in a tiny voice.

      Hayley moved then, closer. He knew this woman, knew she wouldn’t be able to just leave a child who sounded so miserable. He wasn’t sure he could walk away himself. Hayley teased him—lovingly—about being a protector to the core. Maybe she was right.

      Hayley crouched in front of the boy on the swing. She didn’t say any of the things most would, like “I’m sure it’s not,” or “You must have misunderstood.” Instead, she simply asked, “Why is it your fault?”

      The boy dug the toe of one sneaker deeper into the mud beneath the swing. “It just is. If I went away, then they’d be happy.”

      Hayley went very still. Quinn understood. No child should feel that way, but to hear it from one this young was unsettling.

      “I’m sure they would miss you terribly,” Hayley said softly.

      The boy stayed silent then, as if he’d suddenly remembered he was still talking to strangers. Or as if he didn’t believe a word of it.

      And Quinn suddenly realized Cutter was staring at him. That intense, unsettling gaze was unwavering, and by now Quinn knew all too well what it meant.

      Fix it.

      He no longer bothered rationalizing it, not even to himself. He’d simply had to accept, by virtue of an undeniable amount of empirical evidence, that the dog knew what he was doing and somehow communicated it to anyone who would pay attention. And he seemed to instinctively know who would get the message, just as he always seemed to know who was in trouble and needed his help.

      The problem was Quinn’s, not Cutter’s. How was he going to explain to a dog that absent genuine abuse, Foxworth never interfered in marital or parent-child situations? But family matter or not, when a boy this young talked about going away, it deserved some intervention. Just not the full force of the Foxworth organization.

      On that thought, the dog let out a small sound, a soft but emphatic woof. Then he turned his attention back to the boy. Quinn felt decidedly shrugged off. Cutter had directed “Fix it,” and fix it he meant.

      “You know,” Hayley was saying to the still silent boy, “Cutter’s pretty smart. He’s not a Bloodhound, but I’ll bet he could find your house without you even telling him where it is.”

      Damn, she was good, Quinn thought. She had the boy’s attention now, and she’d managed to focus it on an idea most kids his age would find irresistible. She’d be a great mom.

      For an instant his stomach went into free fall. They weren’t even married yet and he was thinking about kids? When not so long ago he would have sworn that would never happen, that he would never, ever bring kids into a world so screwed up by the people supposedly running it? But a baby, with Hayley? Their child?

      Right, he muttered inwardly. Just dealing with this kid’s got you going sideways. You’d be great with one of your own.

      “Could he?” the boy asked, stroking the dog’s head. “Really?”

      “Shall we see?”

      She glanced at Quinn. He gave her a half shrug. He’d been working with the dog on commands, if you could call it working when the animal seemed to learn everything on the first try. Once he’d come to trust the dog, once they had all accepted him as part of the team, he’d realized it would be best if everybody knew and used the same commands. He’d thought about using a different language, as military and police K-9s did to insure the dog obeyed only their orders, but since Cutter tended to completely ignore anyone he didn’t know and trust telling him what to do, it seemed unnecessary.

      “We can try,” Quinn said. “Just remember Foxworth doesn’t do domestic.”

      Hayley flashed him the smile that never failed to send a shiver down his spine. “It’s not me, it’s him you have to convince,” she said, nodding toward Cutter. She didn’t add, “And good luck with that,” but it was in her tone anyway.

      “Great,” he muttered. He’d never met a more stubborn creature than that dog, and that included himself and even Rafe. “Let’s go, then.”

      The boy looked at him somewhat warily. Quinn softened his voice. “Shall we see if he can do it?”

      The boy still didn’t speak, but slid off the swing.

      “Cutter,” Quinn said in an entirely different tone, one of command. The dog’s head snapped around, those intense eyes fastened on him. Quinn pointed at the boy.

      “Backtrack,” he ordered.

      The dog glanced from Quinn