Chapter Nineteen

The Captains rounded up the cattle in the south pasture in record time, leaving Zero at loose ends. The MacGregors really should have included a notice with his purchase about how boring it was to manage three cows and a bull.

Good news: losing Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann to Sheridan and Hunter hadn’t mattered at all, since the Captains could handle the ranch workload. Bad news: whenever Zero had downtime, he always took one step toward the barn before he realized Delilah wasn’t in it. There was no training session check-in for him to use as an excuse to see her.

For the best, he reminded himself. They’d never have worked out. Of course, he’d had a moment back at Miller’s, when he’d almost blurted out that he wanted her to come back to the ranch for him. Not the job.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. She had another life that didn’t include him. A doctorate waiting for her, which would open up doors for her, according to what he’d read online about why someone would get an art history doctorate. They’d never been serious, a factor he’d made sure to throw down in front of them as many times as it took to ensure they both remembered.

He was the one who’d forgotten. Not Delilah. He had nothing to offer her.

It didn’t matter. She was gone or would be soon. It was past time to move on. His new mantra.

As he turned to shut the gate behind the last cow, a breeze blew through the pasture, ruffling a carpet of yellow wildflowers in a corner the cattle had missed. Man, he loved this place. There was a quiet beauty he appreciated, plus he felt his grandpa’s spirit everywhere.

The Flying Pig was still a work in progress, and he still couldn’t quite think of himself as a rancher. He got a bit further every day by putting one foot in front of the other. Some days, he wished he could get a little more excited about it, like the way he’d gotten excited about seeing the dogs react to commands and the thrill of discovering how well Delilah had gotten Hunter acclimated to Elizabeth Swann.

Then there was next-level excitement, such as how enthusiastic he’d gotten about kissing Delilah and how much he yearned to be that alive again.

Being a rancher should make him feel like that. This was his dream. Or rather it was his grandpa’s dream, and that was practically the same thing.

He threw the Captains treats, some new special ones Sheridan had made after discovering Will Turner liked peanut butter. She and Hunter took to baking yesterday afternoon, elated with the idea of taking care of their dogs.

Their dogs. Who would have seen that coming?

When Zero got back to the main house after shutting up the cattle in their pen for the night, a silver hatchback sat in the circular drive. Delilah leaned up against the door. Clearly waiting for him.

Speaking of not seeing things coming…

She met his gaze, her expression unreadable. “Hi.”

“I, um…” he called, and his throat closed as he soaked in her beautiful face, completely unprepared for the gut shot at seeing her again. He almost choked on an unexpected, nervous laugh. “Hey.”

At least his voice still worked. This was the part where he should ask her how she was doing. Where she was staying. If she’d found her key fob or gotten a new one made. Whether she’d be working at Miller’s tomorrow because he might need a backup bag of grain feed, and he’d rather come in when she was there.

But he didn’t say any of that. Or the ten thousand other things on his mind, mostly because he shouldn’t be trying to prolong the misery of seeing her in bits and pieces like this.

He stuck his hands in his pocket. “What are you doing here?”

Like always, she didn’t flinch at his grumpiness. She gave him a tiny smile instead, which just made him wish for a real one. Also something he wouldn’t say out loud, not anymore.

“You must be Mr. Renshaw,” she said and held out her hand to shake as if meeting him for the first time. “I’m Delilah Kersey. I heard you had a job opening for a dog trainer, and I’m here to apply.”

Dumbfounded, he stared at her hand, then back up at her face until it finally dawned.

She was starting over from the beginning. It meant something momentous. He could feel it. His heart lightened all at once, and it was only then he realized how truly heavy it had been.

“You are?” Before he could remind himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t, he indulged himself and reached out to grasp her hand, fully expecting the contact to sing up his arm. He wasn’t disappointed. “What are your credentials?”

That teased out the real smile he’d been angling for as she registered he’d likewise elected to play along with this reintroduction. Why wouldn’t he? He still needed someone to finish training Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann to be emotional support dogs for his family. No reason not to hire her back. As his employee. Only.

Anything else would be too much to hope for. Which didn’t stop his greedy insides from begging him to use this handshake as an excuse to pull her closer.

He didn’t, releasing her before he could make a huge mistake.

Delilah leaned in like she missed the feel of his hand in hers as much as he did. “If I can be completely honest with you, I have a little bit of experience training dogs, but my last employer won’t act as a reference. I’m afraid I screwed up everything. So, if you hire me, it’ll have to be on a trial basis.”

“Hmm.” He crossed his arms, mostly to hide the fact he didn’t know what to do with them. “I’ve never hired anyone on a trial basis. Does that mean I’d be expected to monitor your training sessions, just to be sure you’re on track?”

She nodded fiercely. “Oh, definitely. Every day. I have a training schedule I can submit to you as well.”

That knocked him back a step as he internalized this wasn’t only the job application she’d presented it as. She was here to do things differently this time. “You have a training schedule, Ms. Kersey? This I have to see.”

“It’s on a spreadsheet.”

Her smile gained a hint of mischief, and everything inside woke up. What else could this rush in his heart be called but the opposite of asleep, which was how he’d felt ever since she’d left?

And here she was, back again. Doing things differently. Was this his chance to do things differently as well?

“What’s on this spreadsheet?” He schooled his expression in case an errant smile tried to leak through, which wouldn’t do at all. “An agenda? A calendar?”

“All of the above. But I feel compelled to inform you that I have a recurring item near the end of the day entitled ‘kiss my boss.’ This would be the right time to let me know if you disapprove of dating your employees.”

This was so much more than a reintroduction. She was asking if the door would be open to more than dog training. To starting back up where they’d left off. His heart insisted the answer was yes. But his brain refused to so easily jump back on the Delilah train, reminding him at the end of the day he still had no right to seek his own happily ever after when no one else he loved had gotten one. Why should he be allowed to?

“Delilah—”

She held up her hand. “I know.” Then she shut her eyes for a beat, and when she opened them, all of the pretense had dropped. “I owe you an apology first. I’m so, so sorry everything unfolded the way that it did. I’ve spent the last few days wishing I could just start all over again. Impossible, I know. But I had to try.”

“It was a good try,” he admitted gruffly, tightening the hard cross of his arms over his chest, which had started aching. “I wish you’d told me from the beginning what you had planned with the dogs’ training. I lost a lot of sleep over how that was going to play out.”

Delilah’s expression cratered, and her eyes filled, which thoroughly gutted him.

“I know,” she whispered. “You’d given me something special before I’d earned it. A chance to be a dog trainer. That’s why I’m here, hoping you’ll give me another chance, despite my lack of credentials to do the job I’m applying for. I’m willing to do what it takes this time. Submit schedules. Watch the clock. Anything that gets me closer to what makes me happy.”

“What would make you happy?” he asked, his voice thready and unstable as he asked the million-dollar question he shouldn’t be asking but couldn’t seem to stop himself. He was desperate all at once to hear the answer. Because he knew what she was going to say. Could read it in her gaze, feel it arcing through the space between them.

“You,” she said with a watery smile. “You, dogs, this ranch, a family. All of it. I want to see what normal looks like. We can wing it for a while longer, if that makes it easier. See how it goes. Put our relationship on a trial basis. Let me audition for the role of someone you could fall for.”

Too late.

He’d already fallen for her. That realization nearly blasted apart his reservations on its own because, of course, he wanted to give her another chance. There was no one else who could ever be right for that role other than Delilah Kersey.

“What if I don’t want to wing it?” he heard himself ask.

Zero’s heart turned over and started beating again, same as it always did, but it felt different. He felt different. Better. As if all that had been wrong in his world had suddenly righted itself.

Delilah’s expression faltered. “I know it’s too soon and you’re still focused on the ranch. Your family. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“You misunderstood.” Thoroughly unable to stay away from her now that his heart had started to hope, he reached out and snagged her hand, threading his fingers through hers, marveling at how she still affected him with just this little bit of contact. “I don’t want to wing it because we both deserve more. I want to give that to you, but I need you to want it, too.”

Her eyelids fluttered closed as she processed. “I do want that, but Zero—”

“Then you’re hired,” he told her succinctly. “But I have a very strict policy about dating my employees.”

Her brow furrowed. “What policy is that?”

“I only date the ones who call me Mr. Renshaw. Can you do that?”

A smile spread across her face, one with a side of wickedness and a hint of a smirk. Exactly the one he liked the best, because it meant she was about to give as good as she got.

“Constantly,” she affirmed and didn’t move a muscle as he closed the gap between them with a slow saunter meant to convey she should watch out. “In fact, I don’t see why I can’t start right now, Mr. Renshaw.”

She caressed every syllable with a tremor-inducing silk that instantly made him want to hear it again. Because this was what it felt like to be himself. Not the self he’d been before, but the man she’d always seen when she looked at him. The man he could only be with Delilah.

Thank goodness. He’d finally gotten his head out of his rear end long enough to figure out what he wanted.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” he murmured as he crowded into her space. “Just for the record, we should get a few other things straight as well.”

He didn’t hesitate, did not pass go. Just swept her up in his arms, then kissed her with every ounce of pent up everything. She responded instantly, throwing her arms around his neck and holding on.

His world had righted. Finally. All it had taken was a mountain of angst and a recognition that he couldn’t possibly stop what was happening between them. Nor did he want to. Rob would have understood, and Sheridan…she’d turned a corner, smiled a lot more. With Delilah back on the ranch, Will Turner would be fully trained as an emotional support dog.

They’d all get through this. Thanks to Delilah.

Nothing stood in his way except his own fears and he’d already tried letting Delilah go as a mechanism to deal with them. That hadn’t worked. The only thing that would? Exactly what he was doing now.

She kissed him back with so much intensity he felt his knees turn to jelly. He was here for it.

Eventually he came up for air, nuzzling her hair where it covered her ear. “Normal is overrated.”

She pulled back, shock zipping through her eyes that had indeed turned a greenish color when he kissed her. “What is this madness? Zero Renshaw is not interested in normal? Next you’ll be telling me you’ve tossed all your calendars in the garbage.”

He laughed, and it cleared out the cobwebs from his soul. This was what he’d needed. Not order or schedules, but the lovely brand of chaos that came wrapped up in Delilah Kersey.

“Maybe we have our own brand of normal. I’m looking forward to seeing what that looks like.” A shadow passed over her face that had him doing a double take. “What?”

“I’m not so good at normal,” she confessed with a tight-lipped frown. “And I do eventually have to go back to college. We both know it’s not going to take long to finish training Will Turner and then what? Winging it may not be your speed, but it’s mine, and I’m not sure where we’ll go from here. It’s a lot easier to sign up for no expectations and knowing you have none when our future isn’t so certain. We can joke about tossing calendars in the garbage, but that would give you hives.”

No, it would give him hives to lose this woman again. This was where he needed to put the stake in the ground. To earn his right to be happy. Otherwise, they’d be dancing around each other forever, neither of them willing to stick their neck out.

Because at the end of the day, she might have left, but he’d pushed her out the door.

“What if I offered you a more permanent position?” he asked as thrilling, half-formed plans spilled through his heart, gaining traction as he opened himself up to possibilities. “A long term one. As the lead dog trainer of the Flying Pig.”

A strange, baffled expression replaced the distraught one of a moment ago. “I’m almost out of dogs. Unless you’re talking about letting me buy you a couple more to herd the cattle, like I suggested.”

“No.” It was all so clear now. Why he’d never gotten as excited about the cattle as he did about seeing the Captains herd them. Why he constantly thought of the Flying Pig as his grandpa’s ranch, instead of his when he owned it and worked on it every day. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you training dogs. Emotional support dogs. New ones that we go find from…somewhere. That’s your talent, where you shine. You haven’t seen Will Turner with Sheridan yet. You’ll feel that connection in your bones, I swear, and you did that. That’s not something you learn. You were born to do this.”

The look on Delilah’s face—cautious hope and a dawning sense of awe—nearly gutted him.

“Are you being serious right now?” she breathed. “You’d consider letting me train emotional support dogs on the ranch? Other than Will Turner? Like as a job?”

He smiled as his heart thumped once and turned over to resettle in a new place, a better place as he embraced the truth. “Not considering it. I’m saying the Flying Pig isn’t a cattle ranch. It was never supposed to be. That was my grandpa’s dream. It’s time to talk about what I want. My dream.”

“What’s that?” she whispered as he pulled her closer, sinking his fingers into her hair.

“You,” he murmured. “The dogs, the ranch, our family, all of it. I want to see what chaos looks like, and I can’t think of anything closer to heaven than having a dozen dogs running around this place as we figure out how to build a business training them to help others heal.”

The way Delilah had helped him heal. Without even realizing it. He owed her so much. The least he could do was give her everything.

“Tell me more,” she pleaded as he laid his lips on hers, desperate to feel that connection with her that he’d been fighting for so long.

“We can use the ranch. The barn can hold a lot more dogs,” he said, his excitement mounting. “We can work together. Every day. On purpose. Helping dogs and people become their best selves. I’m going to ask Sheridan to work with us, to helm the business side.”

Sheridan’s degree in business administration couldn’t be a more perfect fit. And if she didn’t want to jump into this crazy idea, he’d find another way to make it work. But he had a feeling she’d be on board.

“Training emotional support dogs?” she repeated as if dazed. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

He could already see it in his mind’s eye. Though in his version, he did a lot of corralling Delilah into a dark corner for some very hands-on coffee breaks.

“Yes. For veterans and their families.” This was what his grandpa’s ranch should be used for. He knew it instantly, immediately. It was a fitting tribute to Rob’s memory, one Sheridan would appreciate. This felt more right than anything he’d ever done.

Other than giving himself permission to live again. To love.

“What about college?” she asked, throwing a damper on his euphoria.

“Delilah.” He pulled back and framed her face with his hands. “If art is what makes you happy, then you should finish your degree. I want to do this with you, but I can find another dog trainer. This is your choice.”

“My choice,” she repeated softly and blinked, gazing up at him. “This all just sounds so permanent.”

“Yeah.” That’s what he wanted. With Delilah. But she had to want it, too.

“But you and I, we’re still on a trial basis,” she pointed out, rightly so. “How do you know this is something I can do? We still need to have some check-ins and weekly follow-ups to make sure we’re on track.”

She meant their relationship. And dog training, too, probably. He could see the self-doubt in her gaze, feel her hesitation and probably a good bit of fear. Which he fully understood and sympathized with. She needed to hear him say what was in his heart.

“We’re on track,” he growled and kissed her again for good measure. “You get the role of someone I could fall for. Because I already have.”

Delilah had helped him become his best self, helped him heal. This was what peace felt like.

“That’s a relief,” she said with a wide, misty smile that eased the knot in his gut. “I was worried about beating out all of the competition.”

“There is no competition,” he murmured and tapped his heart. “Not in here. That’s all you. Delilah, I’m in love with you. I love you. It doesn’t get more permanent than that.”

And it bothered him not one bit he’d offered her everything with no guarantees it wouldn’t fall apart. That man who’d been afraid to live? He didn’t want to ever meet up with that guy again.

“I’ll be more careful with it this time,” she said softly and covered his hand with hers, right over his heart. “I’ll do my best to earn your trust every day this time. Because I love you, too.”

Therein lay the beauty of giving them a second chance—he didn’t have to go back to the shadows of life. Not with Delilah by his side. If he did it right, that’s where she’d stay forever.

He liked the sound of that.