by Lori Wilde
“Bucking for white knight of the year?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have to open my door for me. I’ve been doing it all by my little ol’ self for years. And look, I have hands, not paws. Opposable thumbs make all kinds of things possible.”
He looked taken aback. “What?”
“You’re totally patronizing me.”
“By opening the door?”
Okay, she officially sounded insane. What was the matter with her?
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re insulted by the fact I held the door open for you?”
“I’m not helpless.”
“I never said you were. I was just taught it was good manners to hold a door open for a lady.”
“Yeah, in 1300 A.D.” She slid into the seat. Why was she picking a fight with him? Honestly, she loved having her door opened for her. It made her feel protected and safe and…She knew the world was not a safe place and it was stupid to let your guard down or believe that someone else would take care of you, have your back.
“You’re mad at me?”
“Not mad exactly.”
He slammed the door, glowered, and stalked around the front of the Jeep to get in behind the wheel. He started to put the key in the ignition, but stopped halfway there. “Oh, wait, maybe I’m patronizing you by assuming I should drive.” He held out the key to her. “You want to drive?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it. If I open the door for you, I’m being a chauvinistic lunkhead.”
“I never said that.”
His gaze tracked over her. “You implied it.”
She had no response for that. She had implied it.
“But you don’t think it’s chauvinistic for me to get behind the wheel without asking you if you’d like to drive.”
“That’s right.” She calmly snapped her seat belt in place, trying to pretend she didn’t notice how intimate it felt inside the front seat of the Jeep with him.
“Why? What’s the difference?”
“Because I don’t know how to drive.”
He whipped his head around to stare at her. “You don’t how to drive?”
“I’ve lived in Manhattan for almost half my life.”
“Why didn’t you learn before you went to New York?”
“Why do I have to justify this to you?”
“I’ve never known anyone over the age of sixteen who didn’t know how to drive.”
“Then you’ve just had your horizons broadened. News flash, there’s an entire world outside of Twilight.”
“It’s not the world I live in.”
“You’ve got that right,” she mumbled.
“What was that?” He cocked his head as if he were hard of hearing, but she knew he’d heard her. “You say something you want to say louder?”
“Oh, look.” She pointed out the window. “Cows.”
“Hey!”
“What?”
“We were having a discussion and you threw in the Herefords,” he said, not letting her get away with a thing. The Jeep bumped over train tracks as they turned off Highway 377 onto the Farm to Market Road that led to Cleburne.
“Herefords? Is that what they’re called? What makes them Herefords?”
“They’re red and white and have curly hair. You’re trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?” She peeked over at him. He was frowning, his hands clinging tight to the steering wheel perfectly at ten and two. That was Sam. Traditional, rooted. She remembered that he was a Taurus. It made sense if you believed in astrology, which she wasn’t sure she did, but in his case the Taurus characteristics seemed to apply—stable, conservative, reliable, home-loving.
“No it’s not working. Let’s hash this out.”
“Do we have to?”
“You brought it up.”
“And now I’m bringing it down.” She smiled, hoping he’d let it go.
“What’s wrong with the world I live in?” he persisted.
Emma sighed. How had she gotten sucked into this conversation? “You’re not letting this go, are you?”
“Bulldog, bone, me.” With each word he smacked his palm against the dashboard for emphasis.
“And that means…?”
“I’m not letting this go.”
Emma was slow to respond. She was busy staring at the way his jeans pulled across his muscular thighs. How dumb was this? Lusting after a man she was in the process of pissing off. “There’s nothing wrong with the world you live in. It’s all lollipops and rainbows and merry cherubs.”
“Excuse me?” he growled.
Speaking of dumb, it wasn’t particularly smart the way her body responded to his low, deep Texas drawl. Her nerve endings sensitized, as if he was slowly trailing calloused fingertips over her skin. All kinds of unwanted—okay, she did want them, but she shouldn’t—urges washed over her. She wished he would pull the car over on the side of the road with nothing around them but ranchland, kill the engine, pull her across the seat, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. She wanted to kiss him back so ferociously that he couldn’t breathe either.
“I lost my wife in a war. My six-year-old hasn’t spoken since his mother’s death. When I was sixteen, I was mauled by a mountain lion and scarred for life. You call those things lollipops and rainbows and merry cherubs?”
She felt ashamed of herself. Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut? What was it that made her say stupid things she didn’t even mean?
“Wait a minute.” Sam snapped his fingers. “I might be slow on the uptake, but I get what this is.”
“What what is?”
“Why you’re deliberately trying to pick a fight.”
“Who me? I’m too impetuous to do anything deliberately.”
“That’s what you’d like everyone to think, but it’s not true. You’re trying to get out of this dog herding thing so you don’t have to face your fears. Well, it’s not going to work.”
“You got me,” she said, letting him think that was the reason she was being so difficult. It was better than his learning the truth. That she was really stirring up an argument not because she was scared of dogs but because she was scared of her feelings for him.
“Time to start facing those fears,” he said, and turned off the main road.
Sam slowed as they drove over a cattle guard and on past through a wrought-iron gate proclaiming that this was the Triple C Ranch. Other vehicles were turning in as well and parking out in a field. Beyond the field a perimeter had been set up. There were small flocks of sheep housed inside numerous portable pens. The minute Patches smelled sheep, he started whining and pacing circles in the back of the Jeep.
Border collies were everywhere, a virtual sea of black and white.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Um…no.”
He reached across the seat to squeeze her shoulder. She looked into his soulful dark eyes and felt fear of a wholly different kind. The pulse at the hollow of her throat fluttered wildly and her hands trembled. She rolled them into fists, sank her nails into the flesh of her palms.
“You can do this. Remember, you went to Manhattan all by yourself when you were eighteen. That took an incredible amount of guts.”
“Yeah and look how well that turned out.”
“What do you mean? You made a home there for twelve years. You did great.”
“Little do you know I was hocking the last thing of value I owned in order to get the money to take an acting class from some guru, who was probably just a scam artist, in a desperate attempt to jumpstart my flagging career, and that was before the Scott Miller fiasco.”
“What did you pawn?”
“My mother’s star brooch.”
“Emma, no.”
“Yes.”
“But that meant so much to you. It was the only thing you had of your mother’s. It was a symbol of your dreams.”
She shrugged. “I told you I was rock bottom.”
“Well, to me, that just proved how damn courageous you really are.”
“I can’t…I don’t…”
“You can and you do,” he said firmly but gently. “Now come on. Let’s do this.”
She gulped, undid her seat belt, and hopped out of the Jeep before he could come around to her side and be chivalrous again. She met him at the back of the Jeep. He had a leash in his hand and he passed it to her. Then he took a thin wooden crook from the back.
“You look like Little Bo Peep.” She chuckled.
“Don’t laugh. You’ll be using it today.”
“I will?”
“Yep, but for now, you’re going to snap the leash clasp onto Patches’s collar,” Sam said.
“What if he snaps my neck?”
“He’s not going to hurt you. Just remember he is interested in one thing and one thing only. Those sheep. This is what he was born to do. He loves doing his job more than anything on earth.”
“So he’s an exemplary employee,” she said, trying to keep things light so she didn’t cringe at the sound of dogs barking.
“He is at that.” Sam smiled. “Once you have the leash on his collar, and he’s calm, I’ll open the door. He can’t get out until he’s calm.”
“And I’m supposed to be the one to calm him?”
“Yes.”
“How do I do that?” Nervously she nibbled her bottom lip.
He reached up to place his index finger to her lip. His skin tasted slightly salty. “By not exhibiting any anxiety. Stop biting your lip.”
“But I am anxious.”
“You can’t let Patches know it. Animals sense your emotional state. So take a deep breath.”
She did.
“Hold it. That’s good.”
Air buoyed her chest. She noticed Sam noticed.
“Now let it out slowly.”
She hissed out her breath.
“Now let yourself go loose. Shake your body all over, like you’re a dog shaking off water.”
She got into it. Jumping and shaking, flinging off the tension, wriggling her arms, shuffling her feet, rotating her neck like a boxer getting ready to climb into the ring. It felt like an acting exercise.
“That’s right. Shake it off.” He was so patient with her. “Don’t be fearful. But don’t be aggressive either. Be calm and assertive. Claim your space. You are the alpha dog.”
“You sound like the Dog Whisperer.”
“Hey, Cesar Millan is famous for a reason. He knows what he’s talking about.”
“Got it. Calm, assertive, claim my space.”
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Sam opened the back of the hatch of the Jeep. Patches looked ready to leap out. “He’s not calm enough yet.”
“What do I do?”
“Tell him to sit.”
“Sit,” Emma said.
Patches just looked at her.
“He’s not sitting.”
“Don’t complain like a big sister tattling on her little brother, take charge.”
“Is this your way of saying you have sibling issues with Jenny?”
“Stop avoiding the situation.”
“Okay, all right.” She drew in another deep breath. She was an actress. She could do this. “Sit,” she commanded.
Patches sat.
“Oh! Oh! He did it.”
Patches immediately hopped back up.
“He hopped back up. Why did he hop back up?”
“No high-pitched vocals with inflection. That gets him excited.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she whispered.
“Try it again.”
“Sit.”
Patches sat.
She leaned in and snapped the leash to his collar. “This is amazing,” she whispered to Sam.
“It’s not that impressive. Most dogs know how to sit. Just wait until you see him with the sheep.”
The event she’d been dreading suddenly didn’t seem so bad.
“Now tell him it’s okay to get down.”
“Get down,” she said.
Patches jumped from the Jeep to the dusty ground and then looked from Emma to Sam.
“He’s questioning your authority,” Sam said. “Tell him, ‘Watch me.’”
“Watch me,” she commanded.
Patches immediately swung his gaze to Emma.
“Praise him.”
“Good boy.”
“Now let’s head on over to the registration table. Don’t let him pull you. Normally he walks well on a leash, but he’s not used to you and he’ll probably try to take over. He just needs to know you’re in control. Keep your shoulders back and your head held high and your grip loose. If you pull on the leash, he’ll feel your tension and it will make him tense.”
“This dog thing is complicated.”
“Not really. You stay relaxed and in control, then he stays relaxed and in control.”
“That relaxed-and-in-control thing?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s the hard, complicated part. I’m more of a cat person.”
“Because cats couldn’t give a good damn whether you’re anxious or relaxed.”
“Exactly.”
“But dogs offer something cats cannot.”
“They fetch.”
“Yes, but that’s not what I was thinking about. They give unconditional love.”
“They’re dogs, they can’t feel love.”
“Clearly, you’ve never owned a dog.”
True enough. Throughout the exchange Patches had sat at their feet, the whole time his eyes trained on Sam’s face.
“We can argue about this later. Come on.” He put his hand to her back as if to guide her, but he didn’t touch her.
It didn’t matter. She could still feel the surge of sexual energy jumping from him to her and back again, an invisible force as solid as a steel band. All these years she’d tried to put him out of her mind. Tried to forget how much she’d loved him with the kind of passion known only to teenagers. But now, the feelings were back in a hot rush of memory, drowning her in wistful longing.
No, no. She would not, could not allow these emotions to gain a foothold. What was past was past. He had a life in Twilight and she did not. Her destiny lay elsewhere. And yet, no matter how much her mind argued, her body burned.
“This way.”
To Emma’s surprise, Patches followed at her side, but he kept looking up at her.
“He keeps looking up at me. Why does he keep looking up at me?”
“He’s trying to get a read on what you want him to do. Just proceed ahead. Don’t look at him, don’t tense up. Just walk with confidence.”
It was unnerving having a dog walking so close to her. A couple of times his tail brushed her leg, and that made her draw in a gulp of air. When another dog passed very close to them, she tensed and immediately felt the leash tighten.
“Easy, easy,” Sam soothed, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Remember, he feels everything you feel.”
Emma forced herself to relax, and the leash loosened.
“No fear,” he whispered. “That’s the key.”
He’d proven his point. After they checked in at the registration desk and got their entry number, they went to stand beside a white wooden perimeter fence where the other entrants were lined up. A lush green rolling pasture stretched out in front of them. A tight herd of eight black-faced sheep grazed in the middle of the field. The early October sun was moderate, the breeze cool. A good morning for herding sheep.
As the first Border collie and her handler took their places at the starting point, Sam explained what was going on, filling her in on the terminology and the commands the handler issued to his dog. He spoke with authority and confidence. Sam loved all animals, but she could tell he had a special affinity for dogs in general and Border collies in particular.
Emma had to admit that, in spite of her fears, she was enjoying being with him out here. She watched hi
m roll up the sleeves of his button-down, cowboy-style shirt to reveal muscular forearms sprinkled with dark brown hair and lean against the fence railing, his body nimble and marvelously sculpted. He turned his head to look over at her, his eyes welcoming, his smile gentle. A light breeze ruffled his hair, giving her a silvery glimpse of his scar. She caught the aroma of him, a sexy combination of male pheromones, sandal-wood soap, and spray starch.
He kept talking about the dogs and sheepherding, but she wasn’t listening to the words. She was hypnotized by the sound of his voice, helpless against the tide of desire his soft, deep rumble stirred inside her. He was earthy, uncomplicated, genuine—so different from the status-seeking, social-climbing men she’d dated in New York.
“We’re up next.”
“Huh?” Emma blinked and forced her attention back on the sheepherding exhibition.
“You’re going out there with us.”
“Me?” She slid a sidelong glance at Patches. “And him?”
“If you’re involved in the herding, he’ll see you as a handler.”
“Instead of a sheep.”
Sam grinned. “Exactly.”
“They’re going to allow me out there with you?”
“If this were the finals, no, but this is just a friendly exhibition. You’re fine.”
“Next at the post,” said the announcer over a bullhorn. “Dr. Sam Cheek, accompanied by Emma Parks and his dog, Patches.”
“Here, you take the crook.” He handed her his staff and pulled a slender whistle from his shirt pocket. “Follow me.”
He led her down the grassy slope to where a small wooden platform had been erected. Patches followed at his side. Sam waved for Emma to step up on the platform beside him. Patches scanned the sheep gathered in a clump about five hundred yards away from where they stood.
Sam blew into the whistle. Emma didn’t hear a sound, but Patches was off like a shot, running to the far left. “This is called the outrun,” he told her. “Patches is running out to the sheep to gather them prior to bringing them to us.”
When Patches had reached the maximum extent of his outrun, he approached the sheep to move them forward.
“His first contact with the sheep is called the lift,” Sam explained. “He’s going to start moving them to us. This is an important step because it gives the sheep their first impression of Patches.”