Chapter Twelve
Training schedule. The very thought gave Delilah hives. At least she’d talked Zero out of that idea. But what she’d traded it for…how was she going to get through a week of his shiver-inducing presence all day, every day?
Especially as he watched her train his dogs. Or not train them as the case may be. That picture would be done in heavy chalk with slashing, angry lines and a bold placard that read Train Wreck.
But she couldn’t back out now. The deal was done.
Zero was waiting for her in the barn the next morning, because of course he was.
“Early start?” she asked him with a tiny salute of her paper coffee cup, which she’d quickly switched to after that first morning incident with Will Turner. No reason to tempt fate with a ceramic mug, plus she almost always took her coffee on the go.
“I’ve been up for three hours,” he said with a slight frown that marred his pretty jawline, a shame. “Had to let the cattle into the pasture for the day and feed them. It took a while.”
“Sounds like some fun I’m not sorry I missed,” she commented lightly with a laugh before cluing in his tight jaw was directed at her.
“What? Are you ticked that you decided to run a cattle ranch and act as the president of your training session oversight committee? I’m fine with it if you want to get back to being a rancher and let me be the dog trainer. ”
After a pause in which he tried to stare her down and she didn’t let him, he finally sighed. “No. I’m not mad about that.”
“But about something,” she prompted. “Or is this your normal face and I should just get used to Grumpy Dwarf for the next week?”
Zero squeezed his eyes shut for a beat. When he opened them, some of his displeasure had drained. “You’re the only person on the planet who doesn’t seem bothered by my personality. What is that about?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You’re difficult and moody.” Grinning, she rolled her free hand in deference and bowed obsequiously with a side of sarcasm. “I shall endeavor to treat you as such from this day forward, Your Royal Grumpiness.”
“I wasn’t trying to say you should stop.”
That set her back. She caught his gaze, instantly sorry she hadn’t braced for it. Geez, the man’s eyes had depth. Couple that with his honorable streak and his huge heart for his family, and he was something else.
“How would you like me to treat you, Mr. Renshaw?” she murmured as the rest of the world vanished around her.
All she could see was him.
And that her question had rattled him.
“Why would you treat me like anything but your boss?” he rumbled.
Which was a perfectly legitimate answer. One she hated all at once. And judging by the way he’d said it, like it had been wrenched from his throat against his will, she wondered whether he might be asking himself the same question.
Dangerous ground. Especially given the way she thought about him sometimes, in ways she shouldn’t be for multiple reasons.
But telling herself he was off-limits hadn’t stopped her from developing the tiniest of crushes on him.
Who could blame her? He was gorgeous, well-built, broody, and capable of taking care of himself and everyone else in a twenty-mile radius.
Not that she needed taking care of. Nor would she have put that on her top ten of sexy qualities in a man, but here they were.
“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. Never one to shy away from tempting fate, she smiled. “If you think of an answer, you be sure to let me know.”
Ball was in his court. If he wanted to shift their relationship to something more personal, that was up to him.
He didn’t mistake her meaning and, to his credit, didn’t pretend like he had.
His eyes darkened, and suddenly, she wasn’t so sure she could handle another answer.
She was leaving as soon as her loan paperwork came through, and besides, he wasn’t going to be happy to find out she’d been training emotional support dogs, not ranch dogs.
That would kill every iota of the awareness simmering between them, which was so strong it nearly had teeth.
And she’d been banking on him never crossing that line. Men like him didn’t dabble with their employees. That’s the only reason she felt secure enough to flirt with him occasionally. The only reason she’d thrown the ball back in his court.
If he wanted to change their dynamic, he’d have to make the move. He wouldn’t, though. She had zero doubt.
Since she had an audience this morning, she decided Captain Barbossa would make the best candidate for a demonstration.
And she didn’t have any illusions every second of this week would be nothing but a demonstration of her skills, or she’d be out at the end of it.
The “show” Zero had demanded she produce in seven days would only be the final lynchpin of her success, not the deciding factor.
She lifted the bar on Barbossa’s stall, allowing him to step daintily into the center area of the barn where she did 90 percent of their sessions. “We always start with the basics each morning,” she explained. “Just to get the dog on familiar ground before I throw something new into the mix.”
“You work with each dog individually?” Zero asked with mild surprise.
She glanced at him as she showed Barbossa the command for sit. “Usually. The few times I’ve tried group sessions have ended with both of us in the pond.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that might be because you don’t have a schedule,” he suggested with more dry humor than she would have expected. “Maybe you might think about creating one? Or at least a list of milestones. That way we both know what you’re working toward.”
“Are you trying to make me vomit?” she countered lightly so he didn’t clue in she wasn’t exactly kidding.
That’s the kind of thing her father would have required.
He’d never met a regiment he didn’t like.
And the last thing she needed to be thinking about was how similar Zero and her father were, at least when it came to being demanding and dictatorial about things being done the way they thought it should be done.
There was no way she could get through the next week at this rate, especially if Zero intended to keep playing the part of Dr. Kersey.
“It’s just a suggestion,” he said, but she wasn’t fooled.
Time to nip this in the bud. She motioned him over with a wave, a mistake, because it looked like a hand signal. But it wasn’t a real one, and Captain Barbossa wanted the treat that came along with it, so he improvised by running around in circles, barking.
Great. That was exactly the kind of stuff she did not need Zero to witness. The dogs never acted up during their solo sessions, which meant the boss had changed the dynamic simply by being there. All the more reason to change things up. She had one week to save her job, after all.
“You’re so smart, you can do this with me,” she told Zero with a sunny smile and crooked her finger this time, a command no human could misinterpret.
His gaze was nothing short of wary. “What?”
“You heard me, Mr. Renshaw,” she said. “I work with Hunter all the time. No reason you can’t do the same. Instead of sitting over there like the lord of the manor, participate.”
“In the training session?”
She rolled her eyes. “Did English suddenly become your second language? Yes, the training session.”
As an added bonus, the more time he spent around the dogs, the better. They always misbehaved the most around him. What better way to get the dogs listening to Zero than to include him in their training?
She was sorry she’d only just now figured this out.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his uncertainty stiffening his posture abnormally.
“For one, you can stop acting like I’ve asked you to march up a set of steps to the guillotine,” she told him drily. “These are your dogs. You’re going to have to command them. Learn now. Come stand over here next to me and let me show you how to do that.”
Finally, he did as she said, drawing up to stand just behind her elbow.
That was when she realized her real mistake.
He was right there, close enough if she leaned back only the slightest bit, her arm would graze his torso.
And he smelled like citrus and something earthy, exactly the way a man should smell, though she’d never once thought she had an opinion on the matter, let alone such a strong one.
She was so aware of him she could hardly drag a full breath into her lungs. Ugh, whose brilliant idea was this again?
The commands for sit and stay came automatically enough that she managed to get through showing him those, which Captain Barbossa knew well enough to follow, albeit reluctantly.
She offered Zero the bag of treats, but when he lifted his brows in question, she stuck her own hand in the bag to pull one out so she could demonstrate.
Except he clued in a beat later, sticking his hand in the bag at the same time, and their fingers collided.
A shock zipped along the back of her hand as she met his gaze. He must have felt it, too, because he yanked his hand back, tucking it in his pocket faster than if he’d been burned.
Captain Barbossa, who was still short one treat, gave them both the evil eye.
“Sorry,” she murmured, totally caught up in the interesting dynamic of a take-charge guy like Zero being flustered by a simple accidental touch. “The bag’s not big enough for both of us. You go ahead.”
“No, you go ahead,” he said brusquely. “I’m here to watch anyway.”
“Except you’re not,” she reminded him and shook the bag for emphasis in the Captain’s direction. “He did what you told him to do. Now reward him. It’s very simple.”
“That’s how you train them? By giving them a reward every time they do what you tell them to?”