Chapter Seven

The fence in the east pasture might well be the death of him.

Zero had successfully led campaigns against enemy insurgents in some of the worst geographies in the world. He’d carried umpteen pounds of gear through the Afghanistan desert while the heat tried its best to roast him and his platoon alive. He’d survived the loss of more than he thought he could bear some days…surely he could best a fence.

But despite two days of trying to beat the thing into submission, it was clear he and Tag would need a miracle or a better YouTube video or a good scorched-earth campaign that would make all of this go away as it went up in flames.

“It shouldn’t be so hard to get a piece of wood that fits this,” Tag grunted as he levered the split-wood length away from the opening for the eighth time and dropped it to the ground.

“Yeah. You’ve mentioned that a time or two,” he reminded him. “Too bad complaining about it doesn’t magically make it fit.”

“Only the grace of God seems like a solution at this point,” his friend agreed with a grimace. “What if we knock it all down and string barbed wire instead?”

Zero scowled. “With what money? Barbed wire isn’t free, and all of my capital is earmarked for livestock.”

Sliding to the ground, Tag wiped off his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. “Tell me again why you didn’t like my suggestion to turn the Pig into a pumpkin farm?”

“Pumpkins, Ryland? Really?” he shot back with far less sarcasm than the comment deserved. “Which part of me says pumpkin farmer?”

“The part that has mercy for your oldest friend.”

Yeah, no. “You’re a paid employee at the moment, friend.”

Which came across crappy, no two ways about it, but Tag took it on the chin with a nod, obviously used to Zero’s tendency to get grumpy when off his stride. Which was always, lately.

Zero scrubbed at his face. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. We’re partners, and I need you, so ignore the part where I acted like a jerk.”

“Been doin’ that most of my life, so no biggie.” Tag snorted with a grain of mirth. “I got nowhere else I’d rather be. This is my land, too. Not in the ownership sense, but I grew up here, don’t forget.”

No reminders were required that he’d inherited Tag along with the ranch. Zero’s grandparents had unofficially adopted Tag, whose old man had been a drunk and mean with it. Most days he’d never bothered to realize his son hadn’t come home, and eventually it was just understood Tag lived at the Flying Pig.

Grandpa had gone out of his way to specify, but Zero hadn’t needed it spelled out in the will to know Tag had become his responsibility, same as the dogs and the house and everything else. Tag’s paycheck could never be described as large, but he stayed in the bunkhouse for free and raided the kitchen at the main house at his leisure, so it was a pretty good deal for both of them.

“You’d think someone who grew up here might know how to fix a fence, then,” Zero said, only half joking. “Not much point in checking out MacGregor’s livestock if we don’t have a pasture to put them in after purchasing.”

“Eh. Them cows can’t step this high anyway.” Tag nodded to the section of the fence missing the top rail, which had broken during a spring storm a few months ago. “But you need to keep other stuff out, like humans. Maybe we buy one length of barbed wire and wrap it around these two posts, then call it a day. It doesn’t have to match.”

The idea had a lot of merit. Zero tamped back his tendency to do things right, according to the book, and visualized the patch job Tag had just described. It wouldn’t be pretty, but at this point, he needed something functional. And to stop beating his head against this project.

“Done.” He dusted his hands off. “Can you handle that? I need to stop by and see Delilah’s progress.”

Her smile popped into his mind’s eye without too much prompting. What was with the sudden hitch in his lungs? The heat was getting to him.

Tag waggled his brows and shifted his hat back on his head. “Sure wish I had a pretty dog trainer I needed to check on.”

“Shut up. It’s not like that.”

Wasn’t it, though? He’d been pointedly ignoring the barn and who it contained since he’d run into her earlier, a feat and a half, since the red siding stood out against the backdrop of sky and green pastures like a giant stop sign. His thoughts had wandered away from the job of measuring the wood several times, which in retrospect might have caused some of the problems.

Not that he’d admit that to Tag. Or himself.

“Sure it’s not.” Tag heaved himself to his feet, resetting his hat again, a motion he made a hundred times a day that sometimes became his own kind of language. “We don’t even have any of the livestock yet. You could have told her to start next week.”

Yeah, well, no, he couldn’t have. She represented forward progress. Hope. Both things in short supply, plus she’d been pretty clear she needed to start right away. Not that it was his problem, but how was he supposed to ignore someone who needed his help?

“Maybe mind your own business,” he suggested with saccharine sweetness.

Instead of continuing to rib him, Tag clapped him on the shoulder, his expression serious. “It’s cool, man. I know you want to honor your grandpa by getting the Pig operational. It’s why I’m here standing next to you. He was a great man, and this place is going to run like clockwork under your command. I can’t do what you do. I’m a worker, not a leader.”

Humbled all at once, he clapped Tag back on the shoulder, his throat too dry to allow him to speak.

What would he say anyway?

He left Tag to the barbed-wire assignment and strode across the field to the barn, trying not to make a big deal out of the way his pulse picked up the closer he got. What was with his stupid reaction to Delilah? Not even the woman herself, but the thought of her. He’d just seen her a couple of hours ago. Was he fifteen again, for crying out loud?

But the moment he cleared the wide entrance on the south side and saw Delilah standing there with the broadest smile on her face, he couldn’t call it anything other than what it was—trouble.

She slammed through his senses with a physical force like he’d hit a brick wall. Sure, she was attractive, but it was more than that. There was something about her, something he couldn’t have named or predicted, but he could no sooner pretend it didn’t exist than he could fly.

“Hey, you,” she called and held up her hands as if he’d sprouted a badge and a uniform, sirens blaring as he told her she was under arrest. “Before you get crossways with me again, Hunter is here with permission.”

Hunter? A quick glance around answered that question as Zero noted the boy hulking over in the corner. Out of the way, but still in the barn. Where the dogs were. Again. “Okay. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

How could he, when his vision had been filled with Delilah and he hadn’t even noticed this kid? See: trouble. The kind he didn’t have time for.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask for a progress report, Captain Barbossa charged between his legs from behind, nearly knocking him sideways. The little menace yipped a hundred times in a row as he leaped up on Delilah, nosing around her pocket.

“Down, Captain Jack Sparrow,” she commanded and then repeated herself to no avail. The dog ignored her, same as he always had with Zero.

“You know that one’s Barbossa, right?” he called, mystified how she’d gotten this far without being able to tell the two Australian Shepherds apart. That niggle in his gut vibrated again, but he squashed it. “Not that it matters. He’s not going to listen to you regardless.”

Lips pursed, Delilah eyed him and then the dog. “Really? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.” He crossed his arms and leaned on one of the posts that held the stall door hinge. “I guess I don’t have to ask how it’s going then.”

The sentence practically pained him to say, not to mention the reality of the sentiment, which meant he couldn’t check off dogs trained on his mental to-do list.

Grudgingly, he allowed it was early in the process. What had he expected, that she’d get the job done in a couple of days? That would have been nice. But then she’d be gone, and he was strangely glad she hadn’t turned into a miracle worker-slash-dog savant.

“I swear I had them straight a few minutes ago,” she insisted.

A little line appeared between Delilah’s brows, and he tried hard not to notice how cute she was when she got frustrated.

That was the last thing he should be thinking about. Nor should he be the slightest bit glad to have evidence that the training sessions might be less effective than he’d hoped. He needed to focus on the issues here, get everything back on track, and ensure he got what he was paying for.

“Barbossa has the white spot on his head.”

“Oh.” She absorbed that for a moment. “That might explain a few things.”

“It explains nothing. The only explanation for the Captains is that they’re both possessed by the devil.”

“They’re sweet dogs,” she countered, hands on her hips as she blinked rapidly and jerked her eyes toward Hunter in a very obvious reference to the kid. As if to indicate Zero should watch what he said around him. “Hunter and I were just about to take Elizabeth Swann for a walk, but Captain Barbossa got loose from his stall, so we were working on that problem first.”

So the session had descended into chaos quickly. No different than when he’d tried to tame the crew. But there was still a twinge of disappointment Delilah hadn’t taken a masterful command of the situation. Zero needed something to go well. Desperately.

Hunter nodded, visibly brightening, something Zero hadn’t seen in a while. It was the boy’s Christmas face, like he’d just come downstairs to see the tree all lit up and a dozen presents underneath.

“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.