Chapter Two

Of all the things Zero thought he’d be doing today, interviewing a far-too-attractive dog trainer he’d stumbled over at Dairy Queen was not it. Of course, the side trip to Kilgore that Tag had insisted on hadn’t made the list, either, so his schedule had already veered off-road and hit a metric ton of potholes.

Why not add more chaos?

He glanced in the rearview mirror to see the little silver hatchback keeping pace with his truck. At least he hadn’t lost her along all these winding backroads, a tick mark in the positive column. How many more would she have to earn before hiring her felt like a good idea? Question of the hour.

There was something about her. Delilah. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he’d kept himself alive in hostile territory by never doubting his gut—and she’d tripped some landmines in his.

Possibly because she was so pretty. But he didn’t think that was the reason.

Tag made a noise as he tapped at his phone. “Huh. Her dad is pretty famous.”

Glancing over at his friend in the passenger seat of the truck, Zero lifted his brows. “She was telling the truth?”

Not that he’d asked Tag to check up on her. He’d done that all on his own. But that didn’t mean Zero wasn’t interested in the answer.

“Seems like. The Kersey Method is listed on all these dog training sites as the one they use, just like she said.”

Interesting. There’d been a high probability Delilah had oversold her credentials, which he’d hoped would be the case, so he could explain away the weird niggle she’d set off in his gut the second she’d flounced into his conversation without an invite.

Since that wasn’t the case, something else had to be to blame. Looked like he’d have to interview her after all in order to find out what.

Of course, he’d never expected her to take him up on his suggestion to come to the ranch. That had been an out, designed to save them both the trouble. Joke was on him.

As Zero turned down the tiny lane toward the ranch, the stone wall edging the Flying Pig came into view, nearly swallowed by the dense overgrowth that had taken over the property during the years his grandfather’s health had started to decline. Clearing it out sat on a long list of things to do, things he hadn’t tackled yet, because he spent half of his time cleaning up messes the blasted dogs made.

Delilah rolled to a stop beside the truck and jumped out of her car, her gaze darting everywhere at once as she checked out the ranch. It wasn’t much. Yet. But he was working on it.

Okay, a pretty pond dominated the property, reflecting a million beams of light from the sun, which he liked looking at in the morning. A giant red barn edged a couple of large pastures bisected by barbed wire. It could be called picturesque by someone with more poetry in their soul than him. The sprawling Victorian-style house sat to the left, painted in proper gingerbread style, bright white with light blue trim, with an endless wraparound porch that looked wrong without his grandma in a rocker holding court front and center.

“This place is beautiful,” she murmured as they crossed the large front yard gracing the front of the house, her long skirt nearly touching the ground. “I have to tell you honestly that I didn’t know what to expect from a ranch called the Flying Pig.”

Well, she wouldn’t be able to wear long skirts like the one she had on currently, that was for sure. Though he liked it on her. More than he should.

“My grandpa always said this place would be a working ranch when pigs fly. The name stuck.”

Tag strolled by on his way to the bunkhouse where he’d lived as long as Zero could remember, since they were kids shoving each other into the pond and trailing water all over Grandma’s wood floors.

“Zero’s going to get it up and running, though,” Tag called with a tug on his cowboy hat in the direction of the man in question. “Then he’ll have to change the name.”

“That’s why the training emergency?” she asked with lifted brows in a way that didn’t come across as a question. “You’re too busy fighting your grandfather’s curse to deal with dogs?”

He blinked, waiting for the punchline to her joke, and the longer she let the pause draw out, the more he wanted to laugh to dispel the tension. But her point wasn’t funny all at once.

“Yeah,” he affirmed gruffly, impressed she’d both realized the psychology he battled every day and had gotten him to admit it. “Not that I’m saying I believe in woo-woo nonsense. But there’s something larger at play than just a guy who inherited a ranch.”

“Tell me.”

A lock of hair blew across her cheek, and he had the strongest urge to feather a thumb over it to brush it back. That was going to be a problem.

“Who’s interviewing who here?” he shot back.

Instead of being properly cowed, she smiled, and that did not make it better. “It’s okay, we can get to it later, once you trust me more. Though I do think you’d want to be super nice to the one candidate you have, instead of biting my head off when I hit a sensitive subject.”

Well, that was a fair point. And he didn’t like she’d clued in on the dynamics of his personality so fast. Delilah Kersey might well be the most intuitive woman he’d ever met, which should decrease her attractiveness. That didn’t happen.

“You’re here to show me your skills. That’s it. If I hire you, we’re not going to be friends who confide in each other.” She could play armchair therapist with someone else, on her own time. After losing Rob, he’d done enough chatting with professionals, thank you.

“Touché.”

She didn’t look away from his biting glare, another point in her favor. He’d been known to make recruits fresh from boot camp cry, a necessary evil when they came to him full of optimism and hyped-up notions about the reality of going into battle on behalf of those who couldn’t fight for themselves. The dog trainer might well be stepping into another kind of battle if he hired her. Her ability to handle him might be what landed her the job.

Of course, he didn’t normally put civilians through this kind of ringer. But that niggle in his stomach hadn’t lessened any, an internal warning system he respected. So he’d cop to being a little harder on her than maybe he’d be with someone else.

Especially someone he wasn’t attracted to. Because that needed to go away fast. He had no time and no right to think about the potential with any woman. Making her hate him seemed the most expedient route.

Or he could just not hire her.

“So,” she said brightly, following him into the house. “When does the audition begin?”

Zero jerked a thumb at the formal living room with the overstuffed couch so old it could have arrived in Texas via wagon train. His sister, Sheridan, loved antique furniture and made faces anytime he so much as thought about calling Goodwill to come take away the monstrosities.

“We can sit in here,” he told the woman standing in the foyer, who wasn’t even trying to hide her curiosity about him.

The way she looked at him threw him for a loop, as if he fascinated her. She made no bones about it, no apologies.

He had a feeling everything she did rode on the surface of her life, cresting waves and occasionally tumbling to the ocean floor in a whirl of energy as the water crashed over her. Looked like she always came up for air before she drowned, though.

Delilah climbed onto the couch, which was really the only way to actually sit on the thing, so he let her get comfortable before picking his own interview pose: leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He didn’t sit in this room under any circumstances. The fumes wafting from the furniture reminded him of moldy cheese and old wax.

Plus if he sat, that would give Delilah the idea this interview might go on a while and that was not the case. The shorter, the better.

“I’m trying to get this ranch operational,” he told her. “While balancing some…family issues.”

That’s when he realized she’d be here, day in and day out, and keeping her in the dark about the nightmare his life had turned into wouldn’t fly. She had to understand a few things about why he needed a drastic reduction in the chaos he dealt with on a daily basis.

Plus, she’d already proven herself to be a lot more in tune with undercurrents than he’d expected, as well as someone who didn’t hesitate to pry into things that were none of her business. The faster he headed that off, the better.

“My sister was supposed to be doing this with me,” he admitted, and saying it out loud stabbed at his heart. “She hasn’t been herself lately, so I’m pretty much on my own.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said with genuine concern. “I hope she feels better soon.”

“Doubtful. She has a bad case of being a widow,” he told her bluntly, mindful that Delilah needed to understand the lay of the land from the very beginning. “That’s not likely to change.”

Her expression softened, which somehow made her face more arresting. “Um, no. I can’t imagine that it would be easy to get over such a thing, so I totally understand the circumstances.”

The dog trainer had a compassionate streak. Noted.

“You don’t,” he corrected her, “understand the circumstances. Her husband, Rob, wasn’t just my brother-in-law, he was also my brother-in-arms. My teammate.”

And so much more. A friend. The man he’d trusted with his sister, with his own life. And vice versa, to a fault. Because at the end of the day, he hadn’t protected Rob and he’d died under Zero’s command. This mess left behind? Zero’s fault. One hundred percent.

“So you’re both grieving,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Just as he was about to tell her that was beside the point, a commotion wrapped up inside of a catastrophe barreled into the room in a tangle of fur, paws, and the stench of wet dog.

Fantastic. The dogs had been banished from the house, but that never seemed to stop them from sniffing out a method to come inside anyway. Inside had far more pickings in the meal department, a lot more to destroy, and many more ways to grate on Zero’s nerves.

But honestly, what better introduction to the job could there be?

“Delilah Kersey, meet your audition,” Zero said with a hand wave toward the dogs in question. “The German Shepard is Will Turner, and the Labrador is Elizabeth Swann. My nephew named them after characters from Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Delilah made a sound halfway between a coo and a happy sigh Zero felt in his gut. There was literally no reason he should have a reaction to her at all, let alone one that put such a hum in places that should never hum.

That ship seemed to have sailed, though. He couldn’t will away the feeling he got when he looked at her that there was more to Delilah than met the eye. And he wanted to investigate that in the worst way.

“These are the dogs you need trained?” Delilah asked Zero with a smile as she knelt in front of the menagerie still rolling all over each other, her hands by her side. “Their names are Will and Elizabeth?”

“No.” He briefly returned her smile, painfully aware his smiles came across as both strange and kind of chilly. “Not unless you want to get on Hunter’s bad side. Their names are Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann. You have to say the whole thing.”

“Oh, of course. My apologies.” Delilah inclined her head, her expression serious, which Zero grudgingly appreciated.

The dogs figured out they had an audience other than Zero and stopped wrestling each other, Elizabeth Swann charging at Delilah to stick her nose in places it didn’t belong. The trainer didn’t seem to mind, though, and no doubt she’d been the subject of overenthusiastic dog greetings before.

Delilah extended a hand to Will Turner, who was eyeing her as if he couldn’t decide whether to eat her or pee on her. This should be interesting.

The dog trainer had correctly guessed the German Shepherd’s approval mattered the most, but she stopped short of trying to pet him, which would have been a rookie mistake. The dog hated it when anyone did something that wasn’t his idea.

“Will you introduce me to him?” she asked Zero. “That will help him understand I’m on the approved list of people he can trust.”

“I thought I just did,” he said drily. “Is there a more formal dog introduction protocol I’m not aware of?”

She laughed, and he made a mental note to never tell jokes in her presence again. Except he wanted to hear that sound again, maybe in a completely different scenario where there were no dogs present and he didn’t have to make Delilah hate him.

“You touch him on the head. Exactly,” she encouraged as Zero laid a palm flat on the dog’s head. “Just like that. Now tell him, ‘Good boy.’ He likes to know that he’s pleased you.”

This was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever done, and that included a slew of hazing rituals during boot camp, back when he’d been a dumb kid who still had a glorified idea of what it meant to be a soldier. Will Turner couldn’t care less if Zero approved of Delilah. Nor would the dog get any kind of special communication through the tips of his fingertips, as if he could somehow push the idea this woman was okay into the dog’s head via direct contact. Dog telepathy. Did that even exist?

Delilah raised her brows at him, then did it again higher, eyes wide, with a tiny head jerk toward the dog.

Geez. Okay, fine. “Good boy.”

Miraculously, Will Turner sat back on his haunches, his tongue lolling out. Elizabeth Swann hadn’t moved from her graceless sprawl on the floor, but her tail thumped once, which seemed like a seal of approval.

Zero rolled his eyes. “I guess he got the message.”

Delilah just grinned up at him from her crouch on the floor, clearly enjoying being right, and then stretched her fingers farther into Will Turner’s space, still not touching him, but getting close enough that he could have taken her hand off with one bite if he’d chosen to. This could go south fast. Zero braced for it, in case he had to snatch her out of harm’s way.

The dog eyed her with a lot less ferocity than he did most people. And then, he stuck his nose into her hand, sniffing her with unspoken acceptance.

Zero blinked. Next, wine would start pouring from the kitchen faucet. Of all things. If he hadn’t seen that for himself, he’d never have believed it.

Delilah let the dog sniff for as long as he wanted, then when he stopped, she patted him on the head. Will Turner plopped to the floor next to Elizabeth Swann, rolling over to give her access to his belly.

“How did you do that?” Zero asked in spite of himself.

Because it was a great trick. The dogs were both still and not tearing up anything. Huge win. As long as you didn’t count the water all over the floor that was even now seeping into the threadbare floral carpet. At least wet dog stench would improve the smell of the rug.

She glanced up at him from her crouch on the floor as she indulged Will Turner in a good scratch. “Which part? Each is its own technique, totally dependent on the temperament of the dog. Will Turner has the typical wariness of new situations that is bred into German Shepherds. They’re very intelligent and watchful dogs, which is why they are so often employed by police forces and used as guard dogs. So I built on all of that to help him understand I’m not a threat. Eventually, he may come to like me, but that will take time.”

So maybe she hadn’t guessed Will Turner’s approval mattered most. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

As interviews went, this one had taken a twist. But most of his adult life had been spent making snap decisions under duress, usually with many dozen lives at stake. Hiring a dog trainer didn’t seem to be following any different of a pattern.

“The job is yours,” he told her. “If you want it.”

Delilah smiled and backed away from Will Turner with a healthy amount of distance, which the dog probably understood and respected. “Of course I want it. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann aren’t the only dogs around here,” he told her bluntly. “This was just the opening shot. Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa round out the crew, and they’re ten times worse.”

“Are you trying to talk me into the job or out of it?” she asked with another one of those laughs he shouldn’t enjoy so much but couldn’t remember why.

Maybe he should be trying to talk her out of it. If he hired her, he’d be her boss. Sheridan had been very clear with him that she had no mental energy to do much of anything, so that left Zero holding this particular bag. Not that he had any problem with taking it on. This was his family, too.

But he’d never been the boss of a civilian woman before. That didn’t seem like a great idea. For many reasons. The last thing he needed was a complication like being attracted to an employee in the first place, let alone one who should be solely focusing on fixing these dogs while he worked on fixing the ranch, along with the mess of his family.

Feeling the weight of everything all at once, he broke one of his cardinal rules and sank into the uncomfortable chair at a right angle to the couch while the dogs trotted out of the room as if they moved at such a glacial pace all the time, when in fact they did not. “Tell me straight. Can you train these dogs to herd cows and maybe watch for predators? They’re not too far gone?”

Delilah finally climbed off the floor and followed him to perch on the edge of the overstuffed couch, her curious expression trained on him. “They’re definitely not the worst-case scenario if that’s what you mean. They’re sweet dogs at heart, and that’s all you need to start with.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

She didn’t flinch at his tone, which earned her more of his grudging respect. And something else he didn’t want to name, but he couldn’t deny how freeing it was to know he could act as grumpy as he felt like around Delilah and it wouldn’t faze her. After tiptoeing around Sheridan for weeks and weeks, he needed that in his life more than he would have said.

Especially since she’d tripped his internal sensors. He couldn’t let her pull something over on him, which meant he’d have to be extra hard on her. Looked like it would be more difficult than he’d thought to make her hate him.

“If that’s all you need done, yeah. I can.”

“What does that mean? Are you accusing me of having a secret agenda?”

“No, of course not.” Her brows came together as she contemplated him. “It’s just not that hard of a request. You keep acting like you’re asking for me to move a mountain with a measuring cup.”

He eyed the brunette who hadn’t run screaming for the hills yet, wondering what would throw her off her stride. “You’ve only seen half of what you have to work with. The dogs live up to their piratey names, trust me. I’m not optimistic about your chances, honestly.”

Her head tipped, that ever-present smile dimming not at all. “It’s interesting that you’ve offered me the job, then.”

Foot, meet mouth.

“Oh, that’s not a dig at your skills,” he corrected hastily. “Not even the best dog trainer in existence would have much of a shot with the zoo we have here at the Flying Pig.”

“Well, my dad isn’t interviewing for this position,” she said brightly, but he’d been studying her smile long enough to know that hers had grown brittle. “So you get me instead. Will that do? As a bonus, I’m a lot cheaper.”

Undercurrents churned through the atmosphere, and he had the feeling he’d stepped in something better left alone for many reasons, but mainly because the subject felt like it came with baggage. He had plenty enough of his own.

That didn’t stop him from wishing he could dive into her, just a little. Get to know her over a cup of coffee. It wasn’t a crime to be interested in an attractive woman. At another time, another place in his life, maybe he’d have asked her out, if they’d met under completely different circumstances. Today he needed her to train a pack of unruly dogs.

“Here’s what I’m looking for,” he told her. “Get those dogs to mind commands and quit tipping over trash cans, and I’ll pay for that alone. Hunter’s afraid of them, and I’m hoping that if they’re civilized, he’ll stop cowering when they come in the room. Once we’ve cleared those hurdles, I need them to earn their keep around here. This place will be a cattle ranch soon with every living creature playing a part. What do you say?”

Immediately, Delilah stuck out her hand to seal the deal. No hesitation. And he’d been as transparent with her as he dared. She didn’t have to know Hunter might be rivaling his mom in the grief department. She didn’t have to know Zero held himself personally responsible for ensuring they both got better. That he’d carry Sheridan and Hunter across the finish line on his back if he had to.

Rob’s death was his fault. He’d put the remnants of his family back together if he had to crawl through broken glass to do it. Unfortunately, he had a feeling he’d be on his knees in dog poop first.

“If you’re sure.” Zero clasped her hand in his, fully intending to shake it.

What happened was something else. A shimmer of awareness. Sparks. The very best kind. A moment coated in sepia, like an old movie with that quality that told you it was something rare.

Zero didn’t do moments. Moments led to expectations and disappointment—on both sides. He let go of her hand.

“I’m sure,” she told him, her voice low and throaty. As if she’d been likewise affected by something that shouldn’t have happened.

It would have been far better not to know a thing about Delilah’s inner thoughts, particularly in relation to him. “When can you start?”

“You mentioned something about room and board you planned to throw in to sweeten the pot? Is that still on the table?”

He nearly groaned. There was indeed supposed to be room and board available as part of the compensation package, designed to attract as many candidates as possible, given the remote location of the Flying Pig in east Texas. He just hadn’t envisioned a pretty brunette living in the spare room. Or seeing her at breakfast each morning.

But what would he have her do, drive ninety minutes each way between the ranch and Dallas on a daily basis?

“Yeah. The room is still part of the deal,” he told her gruffly, praying he hadn’t made a huge mistake.

If she fixed the dogs, it would be worth it to be able to hear her through the walls they’d share, since the extra room lay on his side of the staircase.

“Then is tomorrow too soon?” she asked. “Given what I’ve got to work with, the sooner the better, right?”

She was teasing him. He could see it in the crinkle at the corners of her eyes. When was the last time a woman had been so easy in his company? Never. “That’s fine. Wait until you see what a menace Captain Jack Sparrow is. When he and Captain Barbossa get together, it’s chaos.”

She waved that off. “Chaos is a specialty of mine. I’m not worried. All dogs are working dogs at the end of the day. I’ll be here to help them understand that it’s a job and they have to do it well on a consistent basis.”

They’d just see about that, wouldn’t they? Along with how well he could ignore the fact he wanted to touch her hand again, just to see if the contact sparkled the same way a second time. And a third.

He had a very bad feeling he would be thinking about exactly that all night long as he stared at the thin bedroom wall separating him from Delilah.