Read Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) for Free Online Page B

depend on that mutant lap dog. How much bourbon have you had this morning, sweetheart?” he asked the dog, who leaned again against his leg, her giant brown eyes looking up beseechingly. “I guess I’ll have to scratch those sails which seem to pass for ears on you, girl.” He bent down to rub the dog’s golden head.
    Pam asked, “Can we expect some police protection out here in the wilds?”
    He looked up and cocked an eyebrow at the bony woman’s demure pose. “Since you’re the only female I know that I could drop off in a battle zone and pick up a week later looking like you had just visited a spa…no. Ms. Brennan,” he said, looking intently at Rhi, “it was a pleasure. Don’t let Pam eat you out of house and home.” He stood up and began the process of putting his cold weather gear on again.
    Rhi stood to walk him to the door and, standing stiffly, she opened it. Ellie rushed out to jump in the bed of a police pickup in the driveway, eliciting a hissing sound out of the cat carrier in the bed. Rhi made a move to retrieve the dog but Nicholas breezed past her. “I think I can get my own dog if you don’t mind.”
    “We wouldn’t want those delicate southern tootsies out in this cold, now would we?” he answered, reaching in the truck to grasp the dog’s collar. “Come on old girl, we can maybe go out for a cocktail later,” he whispered loudly to the dog as he led her back up the steps. The two women stood on the deck and watched as he got into his vehicle and started it up.
    Inexplicably the hair on Ellie Mae’s neck rose and a low growl rumbled in her throat as Nicholas steered down the freshly broken path with his truck. Rhi was shocked at the sound coming out of the dog, who was looking into the woods off to the side of the house. Unsettled, Rhi clutched the dog’s large leather collar and made soothing noises.
    Pam looked at Rhi with disgust. “You mean to tell me with us good-looking women here in this godforsaken forest, he asked out the dog?”
    Bursting out laughing, both women turned toward the warmth of the house, Ellie Mae’s discomfort momentarily forgotten. Ellie was very protective of her mistress, but to Rhi’s recollection had never growled that way in her life.
    “What do you think of Nicholas? Look at the testosterone oozing out of his body. I wonder if he thinks he has too much—because I could volunteer to lick it off.” Pam grinned salaciously.
    Rhi shrugged. He might be a good one for Pam, she thought as she eyed her friend.
    “Don’t look at me that way, I was kidding. He’s too pretty for me. I like a man with some mileage on him,” Pam said. “If you didn’t make men feel like they had opened up an industrial sized freezer when you first meet them, you might find something besides that dog to keep you warm.”
    “You should go out with him,” Rhi said.
    “He’s too young for me.”
    Rhi laughed. “I’m pretty sure he is about ten years older than you.”
    “I figure mentally all men are fifteen to twenty years younger mind wise than their bodies are. So he’s just past puberty.”
    “So you need a fifty-year-old man.”
    Now it was Pam’s turn to laugh. “Lord no. I’d kill the poor guy, being at my sexual peak and all.”
    Suddenly Ellie Mae jerked herself free of Rhi’s restraining hand to bound, yelping loudly, into the grove of pines near the deck. The baying of the dog rose to a fevered pitch as Rhi and Pam ran to look where the dog was frantically sniffing. Ellie May looked up at her mistress pleadingly and whined.
    “Oh no you don’t, I’m not chasing you to the Sangre De Cristos today,” Rhi said through gritted teeth as she felt the tops of her moccasins overflow with snow. She grabbed the dog’s collar again tightly. Bloodhounds were notorious for getting on a scent and following it to the end. Ellie Mae was an obedient dog and usually stayed close to her mistress. But the huge dog loved the thrill of the hunt and was desperately in