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 feed the cattle and let them into the pasture for the day. 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?”

“Yes?” The question was so absurd, she’d answered it with one of her own unintentionally. “Not only is it a reward for doing the right thing, it also teaches them to trust you. That you always make good on your promises. Your relationship with your dogs going forward is going to matter, especially if you want them to make an impact on your ranch business.”

She could tell this was all new information based on the set line of his jaw, or maybe he didn’t quite get the point. Fine, he could learn it for himself over the next week.

Meanwhile, Captain Barbossa was about to come out of his skin over the lack of a treat in his mouth. She threw him one, which he nearly swallowed whole, and then she turned back to the other person in the room who needed to be trained.

“Don’t believe me?” she challenged and crossed her arms. “Try it your way. Tell Captain Barbossa to do something. Anything. And let’s see which one of our methods works better.”

“That’s an unfair test.”

He crossed his arms in kind, but she doubted he’d done it to avoid another accidental meetup of their fingers the way she had.

It confused her when those moments cropped up. Not because she didn’t know what they signified, but because she couldn’t figure out why a cowboy-in-the-making had struck her fancy so hard. Other than the obvious reasons, of course. But really, he wasn’t her type at all. There was no reason her heart should get flutters when he stared at her like…well, the way he was looking at her now.

She had his full attention. Like there wasn’t anything in the world more interesting than her.

“Unfair? How so?” she shot back. “Because you already know that it won’t work? Huh, I wonder why? Maybe because I’m the one in this situation who knows what I’m doing?”

That piqued him plenty, if she had her guess. Which had been exactly her intent.

Scowling, he stepped around her and planted his feet in front of Captain Barbossa, who definitely didn’t have the same reaction to Zero’s full attention as Delilah did. The dog glared at his owner, probably because Zero had a similar expression on his face.

“Sit,” Zero commanded the dog, who looked like he might be laughing a little.

The dog did not sit. Shocking. Delilah bit back a smile at the disaster in the making but kept her mouth shut.

Zero set his jaw and pointed to the ground. “I said sit, Captain Barbossa.”

“Oh, man,” she crooned sarcastically. “I can’t believe the name check didn’t work.”

“This is ridiculous.” Zero dragged a hand through his thick brown hair, disturbing it further into a mess ripe for a woman to rearrange.

She clenched her fists at her sides, determined not to stretch even one finger in his direction, no matter how strong the siren call was. “Maybe you should try yelling at him. That works with people, right?”

Zero shifted his glare in her direction. “Are you having fun?”

Yeah, actually. She was. More than a bit unsettled by the realization, she forced a frown and tapped her chin. “Hmm, let’s see. My moody and difficult boss has thoroughly interrupted my training session, the dog being trained is confused and a bit frustrated, and the boss has messy hair. What’s not to like?”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” He patted it with the flat of his hand as if that might imprint the issue on his flesh.

Caught out by her big mouth, she bit her lip before she blurted out something inadvisable, namely the reason she’d noticed—because she wanted to run her fingers through it. “You look like you just came from a cow pasture.”

The look he shot her could have stripped the hide off one of his cows with no effort. “Since that’s accurate, I guess I get a pass.”

That’s why this was fun. When she poked at him, he got so animated. Normally, he walked around like he had a responsibility stick up his butt, and as far as she knew, he went to bed with his rule book to keep him warm.

This version of Zero worked way better for her.

Which wasn’t the goal at all and she should reel it back before something really bad happened…like giving into all the sparks shooting through the air between them. She’d get so caught up she’d blurt out the real reason Captain Barbossa wasn’t doing what Zero said—because he wanted to be a lap dog like the others while his boy fed him enough treats to sink a barge.

Then she’d be out well before the end of the week.

“Fair enough,” she said and waved off the hair issue. “But you don’t get a pass on how you work with Captain Barbossa. He’s used to getting treats, and that’s all he’s going to respond to.”

Zero, who’d obviously grown self-conscious about his hair, ran his hand over it again. “So what are you saying? I have to carry around a bunch of dog food in my pocket to get him to help herd cattle into the right pasture?”

“Yep,” she responded instantly, despite having no clue if that would actually work or not. It was worth a try, just to see how that played out, which come to think of it, probably should have been her plan all along. “There’s no difference in the psychology. You want him to do something, tell him to do it, and then give him a reward. Simple.”

All at once, Zero’s attention lasered in on her again. She swallowed as he contemplated her, his expression unreadable but very, very focused. And maybe darkening by the second.

“Does that work on humans, too?” he asked, and something happened, something intangible she couldn’t put her finger on, but it felt precarious, as if she’d climbed up to the highest peak of the roof and peeked over the edge to discover how very far away the ground was.

“I’m sure it does,” she got out and resisted the urge to back up. “Maybe you could experiment with Tag?”

Zero cocked his head, the only movement he’d made, but it felt like he’d crowded her, taking up all her personal space. “I’m more interested in experimenting with you. For example, if I tell you to stop thinking of me as your boss and then reward you, would that work?”

Um…her brain literally shuddered to halt as she searched his face, desperate to put some context around the lightning-fast shift in subjects. Especially this one. He remained maddeningly indecipherable. She licked her lips.

Say something. “It might depend on the reward. I’m not a fan of dog treats.”

Zero laughed, and the sound curled up inside her. Greedily, she soaked it up, hoarding the warmth for herself, thrilled she’d elicited such a delicious response from him.

“We’ll see what we can come up with,” he murmured, and then he did move, shrinking the void until they were no more than a hair apart.

“You, um, can’t stand there,” she said hoarsely as she scrambled to remember English. He smelled so good she wanted to bury her nose in his shirt, a reaction she actually had to fight to resist.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t think when you do.” Oh, goody. Nothing like cluing in a man that he had you dazzled.

He tipped her chin up with his thumb, elongating the moment until it became so suspended in time her lungs forgot to function.

“I’d apologize, but I did it on purpose,” he said so silkily it took her a moment to realize he hadn’t been about to kiss her. “It’s not so fun when someone pushes your buttons, is it?”

Her smile seemed to confuse him. Good. Zero Renshaw wanted to play, did he? He’d poked the wrong dog trainer. Erm, art history doctoral candidate. And this one would give as good as she got for the next six days.