Owen turned the truck around, started toward the road. “I’m going to get a dog.”
“Dogs are good.” Liam nodded wisely. “You can play with them, and you have to feed
them and teach them to sit. They keep bad guys away. A bad guy came in our house, but
the dogs were just puppies.”
Owen debated a response. He wasn’t sure how much the boys knew about Sam
Freemont. “You have good dogs.”
“They’re bigger now, but they’re still puppies. But they’ll keep bad guys away when
they grow up. The bad guy came in and scared my mom.”
“I know. But she’s okay, and the bad guy’s in jail.”
“Beckett came and stopped him. And you and Ryder came, too.”
“That’s right.” If Liam needed to talk about it, Owen concluded, it worried at the kid.
“You don’t have to worry, Liam. We’ve got your back.”
“’Cause Beckett and Mom are getting married.”
“Because of that, yeah, and just because.”
“If the bad guy tries to come back, and Beckett’s not there, Harry and I will fight him,
and Murphy’ll call nine-one-one, then Beckett. We talked about it. We practiced.”
“That’s smart.”
The Last Boyfriend
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http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Felicidade_
A_very_happy_boy.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=722564
The very idea of your child being forced to deal with a scary and strenuous emergency situation is probably downright repellent, but as a parent, one of your most important jobs is making sure that they’re properly equipped to handle anything life throws their way. Even though she may not ever have to put the knowledge to use, simply knowing that your child is prepared to handle an emergency can give you immeasurable peace of mind.
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Owen relayed the conversation to Beckett.
“Bite him in the dumb ass. Kid’s got a way. Clare and I talked to them after it happened.
Played it down, but played it straight. Still, they heard stuff at school. So Harry called a
powwow, and they came to me about it.”
“Keep the women out of it?”
Beckett glanced toward the stairs. “Maybe that’s not politically correct, or even correct,
but it feels right in this case. They need to know we’re covered, and that I trust them to
help take care of their mom.”
The Last Boyfriend