Chapter Eleven #2
“I’m heading down to the south pasture,” Tag threw out off-handedly as if he’d likewise figured out standing around staring at the cattle, waiting for one to fall in a hole or something, didn’t make a lot of sense.
“Thought I saw evidence of a rattlesnake yesterday, and it needs to be cleared out before we can put the cattle in there.”
Zero nodded again, his mind already scouting around for an obvious task he could shift his attention to. But his brain did the thing where it immediately insisted on thinking about Delilah when given the slightest opening.
Well, maybe there was no harm in it, especially given that the cattle had arrived and the dogs’ training progress did fall into the category of something worthy of his attention.
Before he could remind himself that he’d imposed a Delilah moratorium, he hustled down to the barn, running plausible reasons through his head for why he’d shown up to check on her for what felt like the umpteenth day in a row.
It had started to wear a little thin to keep telling her that she needed to be making progress when clearly, she’d already worked a significant amount of magic on the beasts.
But when he got to the barn, the scene inside drained all the practiced lines from his head.
Hunter sat on the floor of the barn, all four dogs ringing him, Elizabeth Swann half in his lap in what amounted to a blissful swoon as the kid scratched her belly. He was laughing. Which counted as a miracle in his book all day long.
“What is this?”
He hadn’t meant for everyone inside to jump half a foot like the Ghost of Christmas Past had just made an appearance in East Texas. But he’d obviously startled the humans and dogs alike.
Guilt flashed across Delilah’s expression, but she hid it behind a wide smile. “A break. We’ve been working on making sure Hunter kicks his fear of dogs to the curb. He’s doing great, don’t you think?”
Zero shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling like he’d interrupted something and wasn’t particularly welcome. “Yeah, it’s great. Definitely one of the things I’d hoped would come out of these dog training sessions. The cattle are here. I came to remind you that we talked about a demonstration.”
“We did.” She arched a brow at him as if he needed the reminder of something. “If you recall, I told you that wouldn’t be possible for at least a few days while I get the dogs acclimated to a new training program.”
The Captains had taken an interest in his presence, their heads swiveling to watch him warily.
The interloper in his own barn. What, were they afraid he’d ruin their good time by barking out orders?
Maybe they should be afraid after being mostly responsible for his wet meetup with the pond yesterday.
Maybe everyone around here could benefit from his attention going forward.
“Can we set a day? On the calendar,” he stressed. “So I have it in my head what we’re working toward. You could share your training schedule with me, too, if you don’t mind. Use the printer in the office at the house if you need to.”
With a laugh, she waved that away with a flick of her hand. “I’m more of a Wing It girl. Why squeeze the process into something so defined?”
“Because that’s how you get things done,” he informed her, a layer of frost creeping into the sentence as he struggled to explain something that should be fairly obvious.
“Lists and schedules are the tools of people who achieve their goals. Winging it gets you home from the grocery store without all of the ingredients to make an entire cake.”
Hands on her hips, she stared right back at him. “You don’t have to say ‘winging it’ with verbal air quotes that make it sound ridiculous. I’ve made it home from the grocery store lots of times with all the ingredients for cake. One box of Betty Crocker cake mix isn’t hard to get into a buggy.”
“You’re missing my point. How can you achieve anything if it’s not ordered, with structure and a plan?” That’s how he’d led his unit. That’s how he’d stayed alive through multiple deployments. It should be how a rational person trained dogs, too, especially when someone else was paying them.
“And you’re missing mine. There’s more than one way to make a cake.” Delilah glanced at the boy, who was avidly listening to the conversation.
Point taken. Helping Hunter with his fear of dogs wasn’t part of the original ask, but she’d delivered on that without specific instructions. So they could split the difference.
“Sounds like I need to see this cake-making ability of yours myself,” he told her in his no-arguments voice that always worked with new recruits. “I’ll start attending your training sessions. Then you don’t have to tell me the plan. I can witness it for myself.”
Bonus—then he didn’t have to make up excuses to see her. As spur-of-the-moment ideas went, he liked this one a whole lot.
“You want to watch?”
Her tone colored the phrase, making it sound vaguely dirty. Not a thread he had the luxury of pulling at the moment. “Watch. Evaluate. Same thing.”
Guide, if needed. After all, a self-confessed wing-it girl might run into multiple pitfalls, like the sugar incident. Probably he should have inserted himself into her world much sooner.
“You don’t trust me,” she said, her arms crossed, a knowing glint in her gaze. “You want to prance around the barn and tell me what to do.”
There went that annoying twitch at his lips he had to fight before it turned into a smile. How did she do that? “There probably won’t be a lot of, uh, prancing.”
“Shame. It might get you further.” She jerked her chin in his general direction. “What are we talking? One week?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to negotiate that down to three days, then he nearly bit it off to keep from blurting out such a stupid thing.
One week in Delilah’s company as he got to witness her train the group of menaces.
One whole week where he had a front-row seat for her smile and no need to make up excuses to get there.
An entire week to sate himself with the feel of her hand on his arm and the flutter in his chest when she flirted with him.
Because after that, regardless of what happened, she had to go. He couldn’t keep her around much longer than that, or something bad might happen, like giving in to the swirling awareness between them.
“One week,” he agreed with a nod. “Demonstration at the end.”
“We’ve already established that you won’t be prancing, but you can’t dictate my training methods, either.” She met his gaze head-on. “If you’re causing problems, I get to kick you out. You don’t get to argue. Deal?”
“Deal.” When she stuck her hand out, he didn’t grasp it. “This is it. No more chances. No more sugar incidents or accidental meetups with the pond. The dogs will satisfy my criteria at the end of this week.”
Something flashed through her expression that he couldn’t name. “Or what?”
Or what, indeed. He’d given her so much leeway, and while she’d made progress, it wasn’t enough. He had to stop being so halfhearted about one of the critical pieces of this ranch becoming operational.
“I find someone else to train the dogs.”
There. Stake in the ground. Back to business, like it should be. That way, he could spend the week in her company knowing the end loomed closer each day. Either way, she’d be gone in a week, because if she did train the dogs, her job would be done. There would be no reason for her to stay.
“And if the demonstration goes well, no more oversight committee,” she countered, and when he raised his brows in question, she continued. “You don’t get to prance around during the sessions any longer. I work on my own after that.”
The ground got a little unsteady as he soaked in the fact that she expected to continue past the end of the week. “But the dogs will be trained then. What more will there be to do?”
Her laugh hit him like a shot in the gut.
“A demonstration isn’t an indication they’re done.
Just that they can perform on command. It might take six months to get the dogs up to speed on how to operate inside a working ranch.
It might take you six months to get the ranch going.
All I’m aiming for here is showing you that I’m still the right person for this job. ”
Zero swallowed. Good thing he’d already inserted himself in the process. This way, he could make sure she failed before the end of the week.
“I’ll take that deal, then.” He did reach out to shake her hand then, knowing he’d struck a devil’s bargain. How had he gotten to the place where he hoped to halt her forward progress so he could have an excuse to get her off his property and out of his head?