Free Extreme Honor by Piper J. Drake

iced breakfast rolls over to Lyn before offering it to Sophie, too. They smelled heavenly and Lyn immediately bit deep into golden, pillowy goodness. When blueberries burst across her tongue, complemented by the vanilla lemon icing, Lyn closed her eyes to focus every fiber of her being on enjoying the flavors.
    Alex chuckled. “Pretty sure Lyn’s going to be your friend forever if you keep bringing baked goods on your visits while she’s here. And you know who Lyn is because as soon as you noticed we had a guest you followed Brandon around until he told you. Not sure any other introductions are needed.”
    Lyn finished chewing and swallowed, coming up for air before taking another bite of happiness. They all accepted the other woman with an easy air of long acquaintance. She was like a little sister, running around bugging her big brothers for attention. Brandon glanced at Sophie as she reached over him for salt and quickly stuffed his own breakfast roll in his mouth.
    Well, mostly big brothers. There was something else going on there but it wasn’t Lyn’s thing to get into the middle of those situations.
    “Lyn, it’s a pleasure to officially meet you.” Sophie extended her hand across the table. “I’m Sophie and I do the accounting for the kennels.”
    “She also keeps giving us all reason to keep up our cardio, otherwise her baking would make us fat.” Despite his commentary, Alex helped himself to another sweet roll.
    Lyn quickly wiped her hands on her napkin and reached out her right hand to accept the handshake. “You made these? They’re incredible.”
    “It’s a hobby.” Sophie’s slender hand caught hers in a firm grip.
    Nice. Lyn hated limp handshakes.
    Sophie gave her a friendly smile. The sort of open, genuine smile Lyn couldn’t help but return. “I was going to do a little shopping in New Hope today. Why don’t you join me?”
    “Oh.” Lyn glanced at David. “I don’t want to miss any work with Atlas.”
    “Today’s his rest day. No plans besides easy exercise time and relaxing with him.” David didn’t look up from his plate. “You can always spend time with him after you get back.”
    The week had been interesting, learning how to take Atlas through the various specialized training. They’d only covered agility and scent training this week, with one session on bite work. David had asked a friend from the local police force to come and wear the big protective suit when they’d done the bite work.
    It’d been frightening and fascinating to see Atlas spring into action. She’d worked with K9s in the past but Atlas, as an Air Force military working dog, was on a different level. His aggression was higher if at all possible, and his speed was heart stopping. Plus, there’d been a distinct difference between biting to apprehend the way K9s did and biting to kill the way a military working dog needed to.
    “Can we speak privately for a minute?” She put her fork and knife on her plate. “So we’re on the same page about Atlas.”
    David didn’t respond but pushed his chair back and rose.
    In minutes, they were down the hall in his office. She still couldn’t stop blushing when she looked at the door. Eavesdropping hadn’t been the greatest moment of her life.
    “Is this because of yesterday’s bite work session?” She wasn’t going to waste time circling the question.
    David met her gaze directly. “What is this? And why do you think it is?”
    “I was surprised by the directive to bite to kill.” She’d been transparent about it because it seemed to be the way they worked best together. “I’ve appreciated the way we’ve been able to work together up to yesterday but it seemed like yesterday’s session broke something.”
    Silence. Then David sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. The gesture only made her want to run her own fingers through.
    “It was a reminder about how different civilian dog behavior is from what we need Atlas to be for military