Caleb just stood there, looking at her with an odd, bemused expression on his face.
Maya plunked herself down on the side of the truck bed. “Are you coming?”
“You’re welcome in the cab too,” Aidan assured him.
“No.” He shook his head just a little and climbed up after Maya. “Back here is fine.”
“All right. Let’s get going.” Aidan climbed into the cab.
Maya looked at Caleb, who’d sat down on the side of the truck opposite hers. “Everything okay?”
“You reminded me so much, just now, of how you were in high school.” He looked away for a minute and tugged the brim of his cowboy hat down a little lower. “I still think you’re beautiful.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know how to answer. Didn’t know what to do with his words or the way they washed like warm sunlight over her skin. He was the beautiful one, and maybe it was that, or the reverent way he’d treated the mountain lion the other night, or the fact that he was finally willing to work with her, but all of her old feelings for him seemed to be waking up and emerging from wherever she’d stashed them all these years.
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have said it.”
“It’s very kind of you.” She sounded oddly formal, but she was rusty at this and he was looking at her all heavy-lidded and handsome, the way he used to, when they’d loved each other. Maybe it was shallow, and it was certainly foolish, but she wanted him to notice her, to see her as attractive.
But that’s all this could be. A temporary attraction. She was only in Shelter Creek for a few more weeks. And when she left this time, she wanted it to be on a positive note. No heartache. No tears. “I’m glad we can work together.” She could feel the distance her neutral words created and a part of her wanted to bridge it again immediately. But she couldn’t. She had a life to go back to, work to do. She had to stay strong. She’d ignored her feelings for Caleb for over a decade now. She could keep it up for a couple weeks.
And after that? Well, then she’d be in Colorado, too busy to think of him much.
It was better this way. Caleb was heartache and trouble. She was smart enough not to need to be taught that same lesson twice.
Caleb reached for Einstein, giving the big dog a few pets as Aidan started the truck, bouncing them along a rutted road. Maya searched for a new topic. “What do you think of all this?” She waved her hand to encompass the pastures around them. The air up here, so far from any big city, was clean and full of the scents of summer—hay and sage and dry earth.
“I like it. How could I not? Aidan has a great piece of property.”
“And some good ideas?” She couldn’t help but gloat a little.
“Yes.” He winked. “Especially if your grant is going to pay for them.” He looked ahead, his expression eager. “I sure am curious about these dogs.”
“You always used to have sheepdogs around the ranch, way back when.”
“Yeah, we did. But when the last one passed on, my dad decided he didn’t want another dog. Said it was like losing another family member and he didn’t want to go through that again.”
His words hit her in the stomach and it must have shown on her face, because his eyes went wide.
“I’m sorry. Dumb thing to say. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No.” She reached for Einstein, rubbing the dog’s ears for comfort. “It is what it is. What happened that night—it’s like when you drop a rock in a lake and all those ripples go out from that one event. Your dad giving up on dogs and the ranch. Your parents’ divorce. Probably even you joining the Marines.”
“You can’t blame yourself for all of that.” Caleb pulled off his hat and twisted it in his hands. The sun caught on his dark hair, decorating it with flecks of light. “Maybe my parents would have divorced anyway. Maybe I’d still have wanted to enlist.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t sure she believed him, and busied herself folding and unfolding Einstein’s ears. All this old hurt was one good reason she needed to keep her distance from him. It would always be there, waiting to trip them up.
“I understand, more than you realize.”
She looked at him, surprised.
Caleb pressed his lips together, like he was trying to decide what to say. When he spoke again his voice was a little hoarse. “In Afghanistan, I was on guard duty one night. And I heard this noise and I looked up, and someone was running toward me, out of the darkness. I called out, but he didn’t answer. I couldn’t see his features, but I could tell that he had this vest on, and all I could think was suicide bomber. So I shot him. He died there in the dirt, right in front of me.”
Maya’s heart hurt, as if it had suddenly grown too large for her chest. “Oh no. Caleb, how horrible.” She couldn’t imagine having to make a decision to kill. Her instinct was to take him in her arms, to hold him, but she couldn’t do that. They couldn’t be like that. So she waited.
“When I got to him, I saw that he was just a kid, barely a teenager, and the vest, that damn vest, was a fishing vest. I still don’t know where he got it, or why he was wearing it. Just this old fishing vest with every pocket empty.” He ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “Who wears a fishing vest in Afghanistan? They don’t even have any water.” He looked down at the floor of the truck, swallowing hard.
Einstein, sensing his distress, laid his big head in Caleb’s lap. Caleb pet the dog’s ears absentmindedly.
“I had no idea,” Maya finally said when she got her voice under control. “Does anyone know? Does Jace know?”
He shook his head. “How do you bring it up? I mean, even right now, it’s random. By the way, Maya, I killed an innocent kid.”
She understood that dilemma all too well. “Did you ever find out who he was? Why he was running at you like that?”
“It turned out he was the son of one of our interpreters. Coming to tell us his father had been taken by the Taliban.” He cleared his throat and when he met her eyes, his face was stark with pain. “So I know what it’s like to live with your kind of regret.”
Maya couldn’t keep her distance any longer. She reached across the truck, took Caleb’s cold hands and wrapped them in her own, wishing he’d told her about this somewhere else. Somewhere other than on a short ride in the back of a truck. This was no place for tears, or for the outpouring of sympathy that he deserved.
And then it struck her that, consciously or not, he’d picked this spot for a reason. Because he didn’t want all of that emotion. He didn’t want her pity. He just wanted her to know.
So she’d respect that, even while her soul ached for what he’d been living with, all by himself. “Thank you for telling me.” She resisted the urge to wipe the single tear she saw on his cheek.
They’d reached the steepest hill yet and Aidan downshifted so suddenly that they both crashed down into the truck bed. It was the comic relief they needed.
“Ouch.” Caleb rubbed an elbow, then pushed himself back so he was leaning against the cab.
Maya grabbed for Einstein’s harness, but missed. The dog wasn’t in any danger, but she wasn’t sure how he’d handle the jolting, sloping truck with just three legs. She shouldn’t have worried. The good boy sat calmly while he slowly slid downhill toward the closed tailgate. With his ear flopped over, he looked surprised, mildly alarmed, but still somehow dignified.
Maya realized she was laughing through tears. Caleb’s story was so tragic, and Einstein was so ridiculously cute.
She scooted back to join Caleb and he put an arm around her, his strength keeping her steady as they rocked up the last part of the rutted slope. The old truck managed the climb, and they evened out on a flat hilltop covered in sun-bleached grass. They were at the top of the ranch, the top of the world, with grassy hills and wooded ravines rolling out in every direction.
Maya allowed herself a few more moments to savor t
he feeling of Caleb holding her. Then she slid out from under his arm and perched on the side of the truck again. Leaning on him was too comfortable, and too comforting. She couldn’t let herself get used to that.
But she wasn’t ready to drop the subject he’d broached. Maybe that boy’s death caused the pain Caleb had been trying to drink away. He seemed so much healthier now, a completely different man than the one she’d found passed out on his porch a few weeks ago. But she didn’t want him to fall back into that pit. “Caleb, you couldn’t have known about that boy. Anyone would have panicked, seeing him dressed like that, running toward your camp in the middle of the night.”
“My buddies all said the same thing.” He moved to sit opposite her again. “But I go over those moments in my mind, wondering if I could have done something different. Wishing I’d taken one more second to observe and think before I reacted.”
She offered him the only wisdom she had. “You have to accept that you did the best you could in that moment.” Easier said than done, of course. How many times had she questioned her reactions behind the wheel the night Julie died?
The truck stopped with a jolt and Aidan hopped out, tugging the brim of his baseball cap down as he came around to open the tailgate. “Did you all survive back there? It’s kind of a rough road.”
“Yeah, it was rough, for sure.” Caleb’s eyes met hers and he smiled bleakly at the double meaning.
Maya reached for Caleb’s free hand and clasped it in both of hers, hoping to reassure. The gratitude in his dark gaze, told her she’d succeeded. “It was bumpy but we’re tough,” she told Aidan. “We’re hanging in there.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CALEB DIDN’T WANT to let go of Maya’s hand. Her warm skin and small fingers were the comfort he needed. He knew just how well she understood what he’d told her. How she was one of the few who could truly understand what that kind of mistake felt like.
But there was no time to savor this moment. Aidan opened the tailgate and Maya scooted out of the truck, and then turned around to help Einstein. With the big dog sprawled in her arms, she glanced at him with a small smile, like she was trying to reassure him.
He tried to smile back but it came out kind of creaky. Probably looked weird. Because as soon as her hand was gone from his, he wondered if he’d said way too much. She didn’t need his confessions. She had enough to live with, without carrying his burdens too.
But still, it felt good to finally tell someone. As if, by sharing his horrible secret, he’d made it just a fraction lighter and a bit more bearable.
Though if he was being honest, it was more than that. He was falling for her, and any contact, any time with her, was shelter from the storms inside.
Ever since their adventure trapping the mountain lion a few nights ago, he’d been thinking hard, hoping he’d find some way to convince her to stick around Shelter Creek and give him a chance that he absolutely didn’t deserve. He hadn’t had any brilliant ideas yet, but he knew that before he asked her to consider him as anything more than a client, and maybe an old friend, he owed her the truth about his own mistakes. And the memories that haunted his sleep.
Well, now she knew, and if by some miracle she decided to give them a chance, she’d go in with full knowledge that she’d be getting the raw end of the deal.
Though he was stupid to think confessing his past to her would change anything. She’d made it clear, when he’d blurted out that compliment, that she did not want to go down that road with him. He didn’t blame her, really, considering where it had left them last time.
But still, they were good together. Two serious people who made each other laugh, who understood each other. Everything was more intense and vivid when he was with her, but somehow also so comfortable. And maybe he was reading her all wrong, but it seemed like maybe she felt the same things.
Caleb realized Aidan was waiting for him and jumped down from the truck. The rancher shaded his eyes to look out over the ridge. “Let’s meet the dogs,” he said. “Though Einstein may have to stay here. Herding dogs are likely to attack strange dogs who come near their sheep.”
Maya tied Einstein’s leash to the bumper, where he’d have the truck’s shadow to shade him. “Stay here, good boy,” she told him, giving his soft ears a caress. “We won’t be gone long.”
Einstein whined, and even his floppy ear rose up straight in a plea to go with them.
“He’s a great dog,” Caleb said. “He’s got character.”
Maya leaned down as if she was listening to something the dog said. Then she straightened. “Einstein says thank you. He thinks you have character too.”
It wasn’t a gushing assessment, and it apparently came from the dog and not her, but he’d take it.
They followed Aidan through the grass. The trail was narrow here, so Maya slowed, letting Caleb go in front of her.
They were near the sheep, and the closest animals shifted nervously, still grazing but walking a few steps away. Suddenly two brown-and-black heads popped up from the middle of the flock.
The sudden motion surprised him and inspired a laugh from Maya. “They’re like doggy periscopes,” she explained when Caleb glanced back at her.
The dogs’ narrow faces and long necks peeping over the dusty backs of the sheep were comical. But when they stepped out of the flock, they were all business. Tan fur bristled, floppy ears perked up and keen dark eyes zeroed in on them. The dogs walked toward them with wary steps when Aidan called out their names.
They were handsome. Like Labs on steroids: big, broad-chested, long-necked, thick-furred. They were domestic dogs, to be sure, but there was a wariness and a wildness about them too.
Caleb realized his mouth was slightly open. He wanted dogs like this on his ranch. They were just so cool.
“So, like I mentioned earlier, these guys are short-coated Anatolian shepherds,” Aidan explained. “I was worried rough-coated dogs would be too hot up here in summer. But if you’re near the coast, rough coats might be better in all that fog. It’s something to consider if you choose this breed.”
“Which is which?” Maya asked.
“Thor has the darker face,” Aidan explained. “Thor, come!”
The bigger of the two dogs broke into a trot, and Caleb held out his hand. Thor slowed as he got within a couple of feet of Caleb, stretching his nose to snuff the outstretched knuckles. His lighter-colored buddy followed suit.
“That must be Odin.” Maya held out her hand and Odin gave her a passing nuzzle. Then both dogs went to Aidan, snuffling him, tails wagging with dignified affection. The rancher ran his hands over them, checking for injuries or ticks, said a few kind words to each and then pointed to the sheep. The two dogs trotted back to their flock. “They’re looking good but I’ll have the vet out soon to make sure they’re healthy.”
“So, they just live out here?” Caleb watched as the dogs circled the sheep and then disappeared into the moving mass of grazing animals.
“Yup. They’re basically a part of the flock. They consider the sheep their pack and they’ll do anything to protect them. They’ve got a massive bark, so usually that’s enough to scare predators away. I hear them bark a lot. Which is something to consider.”
“It won’t bother me if I know they’re barking to keep my sheep alive,” Caleb said. It would be incredible having dogs like this to help out. It would bring peace of mind, for sure.
“Exactly.” Aidan nodded. “I figure it’s a small price to pay. But if you have neighbors...”
“No neighbors,” Caleb told him. “My place is a few miles from town.”
“Well, they’re a great breed for this work. Loyal, not aggressive with people, but plenty willing to fend off anything that bothers the flock.”
“Do you bring them food?” Caleb asked.
“Twice a day. I just keep their food and bowls in a container in t
he truck. I usually bring the sheep down the hill at night, so I’ll feed the dogs then.”
“How do you train them?” Maya asked.
“A lot of it is just instinct. They don’t need a ton of training.” Aidan motioned to the flock. “You want them to bond with the sheep. Not with you. So they sleep in the barn, with the sheep, from the very beginning.”
Caleb had so many questions, he didn’t know where to start. “What about if you did have to take them to the vet or something? Wouldn’t they be upset to leave their flock?”
“When I come out here, I bring a leash and I take them on walks away from the flock and away from each other, so they’ll at least be somewhat used to some separation.”
“I don’t know if I could do it,” Maya said. “I’d want to play with them. Especially when they were puppies.”
Aidan looked a little grim. “Maybe it’s different when you need them so badly. I’d lost enough livestock by the time I got these two that it was pretty easy to keep in mind what they were here for.”
Caleb knew they had to let Aidan get back to work soon, but he was still trying to understand how this all worked. “So, you raise them with the sheep, but how do they know what to do out here?”
“As long as they’re bonded with the livestock, they’ll bark like crazy if anything comes to bother them.”
“It’s that simple?” Caleb looked at Aidan in disbelief. Nothing was that simple.
“Yup.” Aidan gave an offhand shrug. “Unless you get a dud.”
“A dud?” Maya looked at Aidan. “How do you know it’s a dud?”
“Once in a while a dog won’t have the protective instinct. Then you’ll need to rehome them as a companion animal.”
Caleb watched Odin emerge from between a couple of sheep, sniffing at them as if to make sure they were all right. One of the sheep lifted its nose from the grass and nuzzled him back.
“He looks pretty happy,” Maya said as Odin flopped down in the grass next to his sheep-buddy. She sat down in the grass too, breaking off a blade to fidget with. “And I don’t blame them for liking it out here. It’s a great place to be.”
Reunited with the Cowboy Page 18
