Chapter Thirteen

“Are you whistling?”

Caught out, Zero spun to face Tag, then turned halfway back to the feed trough where he was spreading out the grain he’d just poured. “Maybe. It’s not a crime.”

Moving in beside him, Tag hefted the second bag of grain into his arms, then dumped it into the bin. “I’d ask if you got lucky last night, but we both know that’s not even a remote possibility. A shame, by the way.”

“Since when do you pay attention to my love life?” he grumbled instead of arguing either point. Though he probably should put up a token protest, not that it would do any good.

“Since always? Long enough to know that you never leave the ranch and women never come here.”

It gratified him that Tag didn’t think of Delilah as a woman, mostly because it meant the man didn’t have designs on her, even though it didn’t matter in the long run. Zero had no claim on her, which was the real shame, but that didn’t change facts.

“If you got a woman of your own, you could stop stalking me,” he suggested with saccharine sweetness. “Barbara Jean’s sister moved back to town. Saw her the other day at Miller’s. You could do worse.”

Tag ducked his head, a red flush creeping up the back of his neck. “I already got my eye on someone else.”

The newsflash stopped Zero in his tracks. “Yeah? Who?”

“Not worth mentioning yet.” The man’s steadfast refusal to look at him meant something, but danged if Zero knew what. Was Tag lying about there being someone else? Why would he do that?

For the first time since inheriting the ranch, Zero really looked at his old friend. Their dynamic had changed—by necessity. It felt wrong all at once, but how could he relax enough to change it? Tag was his employee. Same as Delilah.

He needed them both to be doing what he paid them to do, and he didn’t really have the luxury of indulging in selfish desires to simply feel human again, with a human need for companionship.

“Keep your secrets,” he told Tag, since he had no right to weasel a name out of him, like he would have in the old days.

Maybe one day he’d get the ranch where it needed to be, and then he could think about shifting their dynamic back to best friends. If it wasn’t too late.

With the cattle fed, Zero could focus on the highlight of the day—Delilah’s training session. Not that he’d fully admitted to himself how much he was looking forward to it. It was a means to an end that didn’t suck, which was an easier way to frame all of his interactions with the dog trainer.

Except when he strolled into the barn to wait for her, she was already there.

Thrown off his stride, he skidded to a halt, drinking her in as unobtrusively as possible. Dang, how was it legal for someone to look so good in the morning? As always, Delilah had this bohemian flair to her taste that favored long skirts and flowy tops, which suited her personality and gave her this willowy, romantic vibe that apparently worked for him a lot more than he’d have guessed.

“Well, well,” he said and crossed his arms over the ache in his chest that had sprung up out of nowhere. What was that about? “Fancy meeting you here. I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least.”

“Surprise,” she said, her fingers splaying wide as if she’d just jumped out of a big cake, a smirk blooming in her expression, which clued him in he needed to watch his step today.

He’d upset the apple cart yesterday, that was for sure.

Stop thinking of me as your boss.

The comment hung between them, taking on a life of its own he hadn’t considered. Or anticipated.

He never should have started that game, but she’d been standing there so smug and self-righteous about showing him up he pulled on the only thread he could grasp that had “guaranteed win” written all over it.

The almost-kiss felt like just punishment for the payback. After all, he’d had to sleep on the memory of it. And his bed had been cold and lonely indeed as he replayed that moment over and over again. Worth it, though, to see the look on her face when she realized he had her number.

“Consider me surprised,” he said, wondering how carefully he’d have to pick his way through their session today. The space between them felt littered with land mines, something he could have smelled a mile away in his prime.

At this stage of his life, he suspected his skills had grown rusty. Explosions were imminent. All he could do at this point was hang on. After all, he’d started it.

“I thought we’d work with Captain Jack Sparrow today,” she said brightly as she cut across the barn to the dog’s stall, then let him into the main area.

Her tone told him she’d put a lot of thought into the choice, but why? What difference did it make? “Sure.”

The undercurrents sharpened as Delilah motioned Zero over. “You’re the star of the show today, Mr. Renshaw. Let me fill you in on—”

“Stop calling me that,” he growled.

“Mr. Renshaw?” Mild amusement sprang into her expression. “Okay. What would you like me to call you?”

Anything but that, especially the way she said it, with subtle emphasis on the mister that made it sound sinful and not the slightest bit accidental. “Zero. It’s what everyone calls me.”

She gave him a look. “Yeah, but it’s a weird name. It also doesn’t fit you.”

What? He kept the shock off his face as he contemplated her. “It does so. It fits me to a T.”

“Since I’m an avid student of how well your T’s fit…” Her gaze dropped to his shirt, taking a full unapologetic tour of the outline of his shoulders, which did uncomfortable things to his temperature. “I’m here to tell you that Zero is not in the same ballpark. Maybe not even the same state. What’s your real name?”

He snorted. “I’m not falling for that trick. The second I tell you, you’ll use it against me.”

Hand to her chest in mock dismay, Delilah glared at him. “I am offended that you believe I’d make fun of the name your mother gave you. I’ve lived with Sampson jokes my whole life, so I get it.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not a credential that earns you a way into the circle of trust,” he advised her, making a mental note to hide his wallet before she snuck into his room to peek at his driver’s license. “Besides, my real name doesn’t fit me, either.”

“Ah.” She bounced into his space, poking him in the chest triumphantly. “You said either. You admit Zero is all wrong.”

Crushing her hand to his torso with his, he held it in place so she couldn’t escape. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t balk. Of course not. Because she’d never been afraid of him, bothered by him, or put off. If any woman in existence could be considered his match, it was Delilah Kersey.

That’s the only reason he felt this reckless desire to push the boundaries with her. And not just because he’d vowed to ruin her chances of successfully fulfilling his criteria by the end of the week.

“Poor choice of words,” he countered smoothly. “Tell me again why we’re arguing about this? Why can’t you just do as I say?”

Her grin was nothing short of wicked. “Because you got all huffy over me calling you Mr. Renshaw, like you have it in your head that I think of you as some old man, when nothing could be further from the truth.”

Oh, that was not even close to why it bothered him. “You certainly don’t intend it as a means of respect.”

“Don’t I?” Her brows lifted, drawing attention to her amazing eyes.

He let himself drown in them for a minute, suddenly very aware of how close she was. And that they were essentially holding hands in the absolute best way possible. Worst way. The worst. The heat of her palm burned his flesh through the cotton between them.

“What do you think of me as?” he murmured. “If not an old man.”

Her gaze took inventory of his face, stealing all of his breath as he waited to hear her say she didn’t think of him at all. Or as her boss—which was what she should say.

But that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“Jury is still out,” she mused with a maddening lack of inflection. “But there’s no one on the planet who could be in your company for more than five minutes and still think you should be likened to absolute zero. You’re closer to Mount Vesuvius than the arctic.”

“Interesting,” he returned with a heavy dose of sarcasm designed to convey he meant the exact opposite of the word. “That you’re the only person on the planet with this opinion. Pray tell how you arrived at this conclusion.”

“I watch you with your family.” Her eyes softened so fast he had no time to throw up a guard against the way it affected him. He stared at her as something he couldn’t name rippled through the atmosphere. “You love them so much. Hunter adores you, trusts you. A lot of kids in his position would curl up and refuse to engage, but you’ve been so patient with him that he can’t help but respond. It’s really touching.”

“Well.” His throat seized up and cut off whatever else he’d been about to say.

“Not to mention the fact that you’re building this ranch strictly to take care of Hunter, Sheridan, and Tag,” she continued, as if determined to get him completely speechless. “When you could be doing anything else. Instead, here you are, day in and day out, doing the hard work because there’s no one else to do it. Stop me when I get to the part where I’m supposed to think of you as cold and emotionless.”

There was no scenario where this would end any other way.

His mouth crashed down on hers, shutting her up the old fashioned way. There was nothing gentle about it, but she met him halfway, raking him over hot coals as the kiss heated up. What started as a need to be that man she saw became something else as the endless void inside him filled with Delilah.

This woman had power. It called to him even as it warned him of imminent disaster. He was helpless to stop drinking her in.

She saw him. Saw through him, inside to the parts no one had ever touched. She made him feel like glass, like he could hide nothing and might shatter at any moment. It was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

Her fingers spread along the back of his neck, urging him closer. Not that he needed an invitation. Nothing could tear him away from this fountain of pure bliss as he indulged himself for the first time in ages, taking what he wanted, giving back tenfold.

Zero heard a growl and then a sharp bark, but it wasn’t until Delilah broke off the kiss he realized Captain Jack Sparrow had wiggled between them. The moment fragmented into a million unrecoverable pieces, and unwelcome reason returned.

Cold rushed into the spot where Delilah had been when she stepped back with a laugh.

“I guess the Captain has spoken.”

“That dog is the devil,” he muttered and shoved his hands in his pocket before he reached for her again. “He was right to interrupt, though. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“For once, we agree.”

Stung for reasons he couldn’t fathom—since he’d been the one to say it first—he searched her face for some clue as to why she thought it was a bad idea to get involved. Probably it would be best to just ask, if he really wanted to know, but he couldn’t pull at that thread right now, regardless of her answer.

She’d be out of his life in a week anyway, and besides, they’d never work with her allergy to schedules. It would be ridiculous.

“My fault,” he allowed. “I’m probably not on your agenda for the day.”

“Yeah, I can say for sure that I have no appointments on my calendar titled kissing my boss,” she said with a tight-lipped nod. “Though I am strongly considering penciling you in for this afternoon. You know, if I had a calendar.”

“I’ll buy you one.”

Stupid. Why had he said that? Now he just sounded like an overeager teenager. What he should be saying was more along the lines of “It shouldn’t have happened and won’t happen again.”

But as her kiss-roughened lips lifted up in a smile, he couldn’t make that promise, not even to himself. He wanted to fall into this place with her where he could kiss her whenever he wanted and not feel enormous guilt about taking some happiness for himself.

“Maybe we skip calendars and just wing it,” she suggested with a wink.

Something that felt an awful lot like relief flooded his chest. Along with a good dose of that guilt he couldn’t avoid. No matter how much he wished he could.

His Delilah-starved insides strained against the notion of not having a neat box to frame what had just materialized between them, but winging it felt like a really good cop-out to the other part of him who knew he shouldn’t be letting himself indulge in her. If he didn’t plan to kiss her again, and it just happened, then he couldn’t really blame himself, could he?

“I can get on board with that,” he told her, which did nothing to fix the self-condemnation burning a hole in his stomach.

“What was that blasphemy you just uttered?” she asked and threw up both hands in mock dismay. “Did I just hear the master of the spreadsheet say he was okay with not having a set plan for the next time he drags me into a spontaneous kiss?”

Self-conscious about the entire conversation, he ran a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t say I dragged you.”

“Oh, sorry. My bad. Poor choice of words. You annihilated me. Seduced me into oblivion.” She started ticking the points off on her fingers. “Slayed me with a thousand sharp swords. It was a massacre.”

“Uh, that all sounds bad?”

He shouldn’t be asking for qualification. What he should be doing was leaving. Right now. He’d already made everything a mess, especially his self-control, which he’d managed to get back in check and didn’t relish testing a second time.

She slanted him a look. “I’m talking about my ability to resist you. Which vanished about the time you leaned in.”

How she managed to make him feel like a million dollars and alternately like he’d done something very, very wrong escaped him. This wasn’t one of those times when he could afford to pretend none of this was happening. “So it wasn’t horrible. Just bad timing?”

Delilah laughed, but the sound had an edge he didn’t particularly like.

“Such bad timing. Especially considering you’ve threatened to fire me if I don’t get the dogs trained. Next thing I know, you’re distracting me to no end by hauling out your best A-game. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to sabotage me into losing.”

“Why would I do something like that?” he growled, bothered she’d think he’d do something reprehensible like that—never mind he’d vowed to disrupt her training sessions enough to ruin her chances.

Not like this, though. He didn’t think so, anyway. Dang it, now she had him questioning his motives, and that did not fly.

She shrugged. “Because you can’t stand the thought of me winning? Then you don’t get to dictate everything, and that gives you hives.”

That did sound like him, not that he’d admit anything to her at the moment. How did she understand what made him tick so well? He might have her number, but she had his, too. She probably wouldn’t believe him if he told her that he’d kissed her because he couldn’t stand to be in his skin a moment longer without knowing what it felt like. Not because he’d been trying to unbalance her.

Though that should have been his agenda. Instead, she’d unbalanced him, no doubt.

She already had so much of the upper hand, he might as well declare her the winner right here and now of whatever stupid game they were playing.

“We should forget any of this happened,” he told her grudgingly, mystified why that sounded like the worst idea ever.

“I’m pretty sure that’s impossible,” she said cheerfully. “But going back to the boss-employee excuse seems like it might be for the best.”

“Excuse?” he repeated instead of nodding his agreement, like he should have.

“There’s no HR department around here,” she explained. “Who’s really going to care if we’re dating? No one. Except us, apparently. As excuses go, it’s a pretty flimsy one, but it’s been working thus far, so why fix what’s not broken?”

He scowled, thoroughly confused as to why he felt like he should be protesting when in reality she’d handed him the perfect way to reform the boundaries between them. “Fine. We’ll go with that.”

It wasn’t fine. But what choice did he have?

Later that night, while lying in his cold, lonely bed, it finally occurred to him why he had the strongest urge to smash all of their boundaries into oblivion. He’d turned some kind of corner, one that had him testing out in his head whether he could take a chance on something. On Delilah. Whether that would be so bad at the end of the day, especially if they stuck to winging it, as suggested. No expectations, no harm, no foul.

What was the worst thing that could happen if they did try for something approaching a normal relationship? One with a few caveats so he had an out if need be. Better question—would she want to?

There was only one way to find out.