David Cruz

**Age**:

**Occupation**: Military Dog Trainer at Hope's Crossing Kennels & Resident Tech/Security Guru

### Physical Appearance

Cruz is described as wiry and fit to the point of being shredded. He has dark hair, bronze skin, steel blue eyes, and a deep growl of a voice. His hands are large and his fingers callused. He radiates tension and awareness, and every line of his bearing shouts his military background. He wears a lot of fitted shirts, and his pants tend to show off his very attractive backside.

### Personality Traits

Cruz is a careful man, and highly organized. He has a suspicious streak that helps him pull apparent coincidences into a coherent narrative and lends itself well to his security duties, but that same tendency toward paranoia sometimes leads him to jump to conclusions. He is fiercely loyal to his closest friends, and they return the sentiment. He treats other people with general respect and courtesy, but his military training means he is entirely willing to act with decisive violence when the situation requires it. He struggles a bit with anger and impatience, but has largely conquered those demons of his youth. He has a strong protective streak, but is conscious of other people's need for personal agency. He is very gentle and careful with people who have recently experienced trauma. He loves dogs, and sometimes talks to them as people.

### Biography

Cruz's parents got divorced when he was a teenager. The split was hard on him, and he was angry all the time, especially after his mother left and his father remarried. Cruz and his step-mother never clicked, and his home quickly became filled with much younger half-siblings. Cruz didn't feel like he had a place at home anymore, so he joined the military straight out of high school and eventually became a para-rescue jumper with the Air Force. His combat experience scrubbed away a number of his previous filters, and the first time he came home he was rough around the edges and unable to compartmentalize or make himself comfortable for civilians to be around. He drank, smoked, cursed, and generally sought out any distraction that would take him out of his own head. His family not only didn't understand why he had changed, but made no effort to do so. The next time he returned home, his father took him aside and told him he wasn't comfortable leaving Cruz's younger siblings alone in his company. Cruz was deeply shamed by this, since he would never hurt a child, and ceased visiting his family. The wedge remains between them, and Cruz is fine leaving it there.

When Cruz retired from active service, he had no particular place he wanted to settle. His friend and fellow serviceman, Brandon Forte, solved that problem by inviting Cruz to come to Hope's Crossing, Pennsylvania, and work with him and Alex Rojas at the kennel Forte was creating. Cruz lives in a cabin on Hope's Crossing Kennels grounds and is considered to be the best military dog trainer on the East Coast.

In *Extreme Honor* he adopts the retired military dog, Atlas, and asks dog psychologist, Evelyn Jones, to move in with him after their working relationship becomes romantic. In *Ultimate Courage* he teaches their new Administrative Assistant, Elisa Hall, how to use proxy servers and how they differ from incognito windows so that she can better evade her ex-fiancee, Joseph Corbin Junior.

### Relationships

Cruz has a mother, father, step-mother, and several half-siblings that he doesn't talk to for one reason or another. He has a fairly wide network of primarily military friends, including Beckhorn, who is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and Calhoun, who died in combat via the deliberate negligence of his team. Chief among Cruz's friends are Forte, the owner of Hope's Crossing Kennels, and Rojas - both fellow dog enthusiast and ex-military. He is also friends with Sophie Kim, who does the kennel's accounts, and Elisa, who brings order out of filing chaos and mans the front desk. He loves Lyn, with whom he got together in *Extreme Honor*, and adopted Atlas after his handler Calhoun's death. He is basically an uncle to Rojas's young daughter, Serena Rojas.

### Trivia

Cruz...

* likes Philly Cheese Steaks with real Provolone, Cheese Whizz on fries, and Lyn's sound effects.
* dislikes coffee made from pod machines, because they don't make his java strong enough.
* is very organized with his files and uses the same color coding system as when he was in the military.
* prefers using a keyboard when operating a computer and avoids the mouse as much as possible.
* has extra steps built into the unlock function for his phone.

### Quotes

"How much a lady could fit into her mouth was always an interesting question. And he was definitely going to hell for that thought."