Chapter Seven #2
“Elizabeth Swann is going to be my friend,” the kid told him proudly.
Well, well. Maybe taking a tiny step back might not be so out of line. “Is that right?”
Zero took in the scene, putting aside his own prejudices about what he thought should be happening here, in favor of what was actually happening.
Namely that Hunter had willingly sought out the dog trainer two days in a row, allowing himself to be in close quarters with the unruly dogs.
That alone could be counted as progress.
Good progress. More than anyone else had made in months.
Maybe Delilah had been working on easing Hunter’s fear of the dogs instead of training them. That had been one of the hopes for this project. Zero had assumed it would come about naturally—if the dogs behaved, then Hunter wouldn’t be afraid of them.
And possibly she might be working on both.
She had just said they intended to take the dog for a walk, a feat he’d have scoffed at two days ago.
Her exaggerated eye-roll in Hunter’s direction made a lot more sense in that case.
She’d been warning him off from saying negative things about the dogs, which, he had to admit, he did do all the time.
Zero held up his hands in semi-surrender, mostly because he still didn’t have any idea what to make of the goings-on in the barn, other than the fact he might be in the way.
“If you’re in the middle of a session, I don’t want to interrupt.
I hoped to see some improvement, and it looks like I have, so I’ll leave you to it. ”
Delilah shot him a grateful smile, one he carried with him the rest of the day as he and Tag took a field trip to the MacGregors’ ranch down the road to scope out the livestock.
Several thousand dollars later, Zero became the proud owner of three cows and a steer, the optimal number for a beginner to start with, or so he’d been advised.
The MacGregors even offered to deliver them later that week, a huge savings, since he didn’t have a trailer yet and would have had to rent one.
When he got back to the house, Sheridan called out a greeting from the kitchen, and when he strode in that direction to say hello, he found his sister at the sink, peeling vegetables.
For a brief moment, everything in his life fell into place, and it was only as the tightness in his chest eased that he realized how long it had been there. Since Rob died.
“Nice to see you,” he murmured to Sheridan as he patted her shoulder in passing on his way to the refrigerator.
“You mean, nice that I’m not curled up in a ball or nice that you’re getting dinner out of the deal?” she said with a laugh that warmed the loosened place in his chest. “Pot roast, by the way. Hope you’re hungry. I may have peeled about twice as many carrots as I needed.”
“Starving,” he assured her. “Carrots are good for you. Hunter could stand to eat some more vegetables anyway.”
Sheridan made a face. “He gets his sincere loathing for them from me.”
Had he wandered into an alternate universe where Sheridan’s pallor didn’t make him want to check her pulse and she felt like making both jokes and dinner at the same time? He was scared to move all at once, in case this new reality evaporated.
But he smelled like cattle, something he had a feeling he’d be forced to get used to soon, but it didn’t have to be today, and neither did he wish to force everyone else to get used to it, either.
After a quick shower, he toweled off and wrapped it around his waist. A second later, the door to the bathroom opened and Delilah walked in.
She squeaked, her palms flying to her eyes to cover them. “Oh my gosh, I had no idea you were in here. I mean, I assumed it would be locked but obviously it’s… Sorry! I should have said that first. Wow, I’m really bad at this.”
Was she just going to stand there? The moments ticked by, making him painfully aware he wore nothing but a towel, his chest bare and nothing between them but air.
“Delilah.”
Her hands were still over her eyes, pressed hard as if her eyeballs might fall out unless she held them in. “Yeah?”
“Can you come back in like five minutes?”
“Oh! Yes, of course.”
She backpedaled so fast she nearly tripped on the transition between the tile in the bathroom and the hardwoods that covered the floor in the hall. One groping hand shot out to finger the doorframe until she latched onto the handle, pulling it shut with her on the other side.
More amused than he should be, Zero finished up and exited the bathroom via the door to his room, aware in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. Sure he’d spent a lot of time in various states of undress while in the service; it was a fact of life. The modest need not apply.
It was totally different to be caught half dressed by a woman he could envision kissing someday.
Which marked the first time he’d admitted that to himself.
Of course that led to envisioning that scene unfolding in an entirely different way.
A way that couldn’t happen, but telling himself that didn’t make the scene in his head go away.
After sliding his legs into a fresh pair of jeans, he threw on a blue button-down shirt that could probably use a good meet-up with a hot iron—but wouldn’t get one unless a full-time maid dropped out of the sky.
He strode into the hall and stopped short. Delilah still stood there in exactly the same pose. Tongue in cheek, he crossed his arms and contemplated her, not the slightest bit ashamed at taking this rare opportunity to study her without her knowledge.
Dang, her hair was pretty. A glossy brown that hung down her back with a slight wave to it that made a man’s fingers itch to slide through it.
There was nothing special about the Bohemian-style purple dress with the long, swishy skirt she wore, not that he could point to anyway, which made it hard to explain why she looked so spectacular in it.
She hadn’t been wearing that outfit earlier. She’d changed. For dinner? Because she hoped to impress someone? He cursed the lurch in his stomach that dared hope his name might have come up in relation to that.
“You can look now,” he told her, his voice deep with color that shouldn’t be there.
But he’d sharply miscalculated what he’d see when she dropped her hands from her face. She was flushed. As if maybe she might still be thinking about what she saw earlier in a not-so-innocent way.
And now they were both thinking about it in a non-innocent way. Had she pictured something else, too, a scenario where he’d backed her against the door—on his side of it—and kiss her the way he’d imagined?
“I guess we need to set some ground rules,” he said instead of the wholly inappropriate comment on the tip of his tongue. “Since we’re sharing a bathroom.”
She held up a finger. “Rule number one. If you’re in it, lock the door.”
Point to Ms. Kersey, not that he was in any kind of magnanimous mood, but he couldn’t fault her for that one. “Yeah, I’m not used to doing that. It won’t happen again.”
Her smile appeared in the world’s worst case of bad timing. Apparently his insides weren’t quite settled from earlier after all, judging how they lit up from nothing more than the radiance on her face.
Yep. Trouble.
Delilah held up two fingers. “Rule number two. If the door is locked, don’t come in.”
For who knew what reason, that pulled a laugh out of him, which got her giggling, too, a sound that settled across his skin like it had always been there and needed no help to act like it was at home.
When was the last time he’d laughed with a woman? Way too long. He had little patience for things like compliments and pretty words, usually opting to be himself, which rarely ended well. Obviously this one hadn’t gotten the memo he was gruff and unapproachable.
What was he supposed to do with her?
Certainly not the only thing on his mind at the moment— whether she’d smile like that if he told her he wanted to kiss her.
And that was enough to get him moving. Away from her.