by Ali Parker
Instead of commenting, though, I just finished up my lunch, listening to Brea and Tanner chat about where the best places for duck hunting would be at this time of year. I was surprised at how much Brea seemed to know about the sport. I wouldn’t have pegged her for that type of girl. Especially not with all of her dog training attitudes. I would have pictured her as one of those animal rights activists, the ones who were all vegan and thought that all sorts of hunting should be outlawed.
Of course, I already knew that she wasn’t vegan. But she was starting to prove to me that there was a lot more to her than I really knew.
I supposed it was a good thing I had the chance to learn a little more about her this coming weekend. I was already looking forward to it.
16
Brea
On Saturday, I made a point to show up early at Luke’s house, ready to take Duck on a real hunting trip. Oh well, I wasn’t really early. Just early for me. On time, for a change. The truth was, I’d been worried that if I were even a minute late, the boys would think I wasn’t coming and take off without me. Tanner and I had a pretty thorough discussion of where our best options would be for this time of the year, but even though I had a vague idea of what the plan was, they might change something without telling me and I’d never find them.
That seemed like a suitably dick-ish thing to do, and I wouldn’t put it past Luke. Even though the other day, he’d actually seemed like he was kind of happy to hear me agree that I wanted to join them on this trip.
It had surprised me, if I was being honest. I hadn’t thought Luke would want anything to do with me. Not like that. And when he’d initially agreed that I could come, I thought it was only because my participation had been Tanner’s idea, or because it made logical sense for me to come along to supervise Duck.
But he’d genuinely not seemed to mind me tagging along.
“Tanner’s not here yet,” Luke said, speaking around a yawn when he answered the door. He ran a hand back through his hair, and I couldn’t help but notice the way his shirt rode up. Luke gave me a knowing look as he resumed his normal position. “Do you want some coffee?”
“That would be great,” I said appreciatively. It was something that I had foregone in my haste to get here on time. Now, it turned out that I hadn’t needed to worry so much. But it was infinitely nicer to sit in the kitchen with Luke having coffee than it was to grab coffee from my local shop and drink it on the drive over, so I suppose there was that.
Besides, I could use all the coffee I could get today. I hadn’t slept that well the night before because I’d been so worried about oversleeping my alarm.
I don’t know why I was so worried about all of this. Why I was trying to make a good impression on the boys. Why I was so adamant about going along to help out with Duck. The pup was doing fine during our lessons, and I doubted she was going to cause too much trouble today. But then again, you never knew.
In actual fact, it had nothing to do with Duck at all, and everything to do with Luke.
Even though I knew I shouldn’t be thinking back to the other night, I couldn’t seem to help it. It had been entirely unprofessional, and I knew it. What’s more, I still hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Dad about why he was suddenly feeling so protective of me. He was feeling better, or so he said, and he had looked better when I had swung over there the previous afternoon. But I still wasn’t sure I was ready to have that conversation with him.
Part of me knew that I was just worried he might have a reason to warn me away from Luke. Maybe he knew something about him I didn’t. Something more than being demanding of his staff.
I tried to forget about that tangled mess of feelings for now, though. It was surprisingly easy to do, given how tired I was. It was going to be a long enough day without my mental state making it feel longer than it had to be.
“I told you to be here earlier than we were planning on going,” Luke admitted, as he poured me a mug of coffee. “I expected you were going to be later than you were.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I’m not even offended,” I said.
“How do you know so much about hunting around here anyway?” Luke asked, sounding curious. “The other day, it seemed like you knew exactly where to go.”
“I know more than that,” I admitted. “Dad used to take me hunting with him sometimes. At least, up until my mom died.” I paused, thinking about that for a moment. Once Mom had died, Dad’s hunting trips had turned solitary. They were a way for him to get away from the world and get everything figured out in his head. Or at least, that was what he told me.
I shook those memories off and smiled at Luke. “I think he always wished he had a boy, but instead, he got me.”
“You’re an only child?” Luke asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “My parents thought about having more kids, but I guess things just didn’t work out for them.” I shrugged. “But it was nice. I was really close to both of them. I’m still really close to my dad; I go over there for dinner a lot. He’s a pretty quiet guy, but usually, I can get him talking about the horses and then he opens up a little.”
Luke smiled. “My family is the total opposite of quiet,” he said. “I suppose my dad doesn’t tend to say all that much either. But there are four of us boys, so things were always crazy around here when I was growing up. My mother definitely wished she had gotten a couple of girls in the bargain.”
“I can only imagine,” I said, shuddering. I took a sip of my coffee.
“So why is it that you’re always late, anyway?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t even know,” I admitted. “I mean, different things every time. I’ve overslept my alarm, or I can’t find anything clean to wear, or I find something clean to wear and then spill coffee all over myself. Or I get to the coffee shop and have to wait in line for ages, or the car won’t start because I’ve accidentally left the lights on overnight, or traffic’s bad. It could be anything.”
“I can’t tell if you’re admitting to being too damned careless or if you just have the worst luck in the world,” Luke said, but I could tell he was teasing.
I shook my head. “When you figure out the answer, let me know,” I told him.
There was a honk out front, and Luke looked at his watch. “That’ll be Tanner,” he said. “Time to go. For real this time.”
Laughing, I finished my coffee, putting my mug next to his in the sink. Then I followed him out to the truck, with Duck bounding alongside us.
We got to the pond, and I helped the boys rig up the decoys. “You’re more handy out here than I thought you’d be,” Tanner commented, watching me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, with mock outrage. But again, it was all just lighthearted teasing. And I appreciated that.
We hunkered down to wait. It took a while, but Luke finally managed to shoot a duck. We saw it flop down from the sky, and we were able to pinpoint roughly where it was. Time for Duck to leap into action. “Go get it,” I whispered, letting go of her new collar.
But Duck wasn’t having any of it. She just rolled over on her back, showing me her belly. She wanted a good long rub. Some attention.
“Not now, Duck,” I said, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Go get it.” Still nothing. Maybe if I started running with her, she would keep going on her own? I didn’t really love the idea of running around here, the banks were pretty swampy in places, and with my luck, I was bound to fall in. But I didn’t see that I had much choice. I wanted Duck to show her master what she could do. And it seemed she wasn’t going to do anything without help.
“Come on, Duck,” I said, getting into my racing position. “Let’s go.” I ran a few yards and looked back. Duck was snapping her jaws at a butterfly.
Disappointment welled up inside of me. I had been so sure that we were making progress. I knew it wasn’t fair to be upset, either. Duck was still young, and there was a big difference between chasing after things on the farm and chasing
after things here. The farm was familiar territory. This was strange and new, and there were plenty of other things to catch her attention. Like that butterfly.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, I’ll grab it,” Tanner said, already moving off to do just that.
I sank down onto the riverbank again, looking helplessly at Luke. “Sorry,” I told him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Luke echoed. “I’ve seen you guys on the farm. I know how much progress you’re making. Current positions aside.” There was a big splash as Duck jumped into the water. She paddled around a little and then climbed out, shaking water in every direction.
“Come here, Duck,” I tried, whistling shrilly. Duck was too busy sniffing something near the shore of the pond, though, and she barely moved.
In short, she was acting just as though I had never done any training at all. I could feel the disappointment on my face, but Luke smiled over at me, reaching out to lightly squeeze my knee. “Hey, relax,” he said. “She’s still young.”
There was something in his eyes when he looked at me, I was surprised to see. It wasn’t disappointment; it was something much softer than that. But the emotion, whatever it was, was gone before I could name it.
17
Luke
I had to admit that I was a little disappointed when Duck didn’t go after the first kill I made. But I wasn’t half as devastated about it as Brea was, from the look on her face, so I did my best to mask it. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting all that much. I knew that we were taking Duck off to some place the pup had never been before, and she was bound to get a little distracted once she was out of the familiar pattern of her now-daily life. I wasn’t worried about it.
Brea, from the looks of it, felt like she was a total failure. I wanted to reassure her. To hold her in my arms and kiss her. To remind her that everything that she had managed with Duck thus far was nothing short of a miracle. Hell, the fact that I hadn’t had to worry, all week, about waking up to a puddle of piss on my bedroom floor? That was miracle enough for me.
But I didn’t think Brea would appreciate hearing that.
I was amused, though, and remembered what she had said about someone saying my standards were too high. Who was the one with too-high standards now?
Or maybe not. I was forced to reevaluate things when I made the second kill. “Go get it,” Brea said halfheartedly to Duck.
Duck looked back at her, ears perked up, and then she took off. A couple of minutes later, there was the duck, lying at Brea’s feet while we all stared in disbelief. Then, both Brea and Tanner started cheering.
“What a smart puppy,” Brea said, grabbing one of her homemade dog biscuits out of her bag and giving Duck a solid pat on the head. “What a good dog.”
She turned to me then, a huge smile on her face, and I nodded at her. I was, quite simply, amazed beyond words. Oh, I had seen them work on similar things at the farm. But I hadn’t expected it to work out here, especially not after Duck’s earlier performance.
To be honest, after the first little while with Duck in my life—before Brea had started training her—I’d had my doubts about whether she would ever amount to much of a hunting dog. But this gave me hope.
I wanted to pick Brea up and reward her for everything she had done. For all her hard work and the early mornings. But the things I wanted to do to her weren’t appropriate while others were around.
“On that note, should we call it a day?” Tanner asked, smirking at me as though he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“But you haven’t got a kill in yet,” Brea said, frowning at him.
Tanner shrugged. “I don’t need to get a kill every time I go out,” he said. “I’ve gotten some shots off, even if all of them missed, and all in all, it was a great way to spend a day. Besides, I don’t think either Luke or I are going to surpass the triumph of what you’ve done with Duck, so why bother?”
Brea laughed, sounding relaxed in a way I’d never heard from her. Was I really putting that much pressure on her? Was she that worried that I might fire her if I didn’t see improvements in Duck’s behavior?
She might be, I realized. We hadn’t exactly gotten things off on the best of footing. That first day, I had pretty much flat-out told her that I expected Duck to keep learning new tricks or else I was going to cancel the rest of the lessons. I had never bothered to change those terms.
No wonder Brea had brought up that thing about my high expectations. She was feeling a little of that herself. I felt guilty just thinking about it.
Guilty enough that when Tanner dropped us off back at my house, I immediately felt the need to say something. To do something, rather. “Do you want to grab dinner together in town?” I asked.
Brea looked at me in surprise. “What?”
“You heard me.” I paused. “I know I’ve been pushing you pretty hard ever since you got here, but I just wanted to thank you again for everything you’ve been doing with Duck. You’ve really made some crazy progress, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
Brea grinned and shook her head. “I’m just doing my job,” she said. “I’m glad I’ve been able to help, though. Duck’s a great pup.”
“And you’re a great trainer,” I maintained, looking seriously at her. “I know when you first came here, I tried to tell you that I could handle her training on my own, but you were right to call me out on that. Obviously I couldn’t. I’ve had too much else on my plate, and I still do. So I appreciate everything you’ve done, and all the hours you’ve put into it. I hope you don’t feel like I’m pushing you too hard.”
Brea stared at me for a long moment, her expression solemn. It was the first time I had seen her look that serious. Finally, she nodded. “You’re welcome,” she said. “Even though, again, it’s just my job.”
“So, dinner?” I asked.
“Yeah, I could eat,” Brea said. She was still hesitating, and I wondered whether she was afraid that this was too much like a date. After the other night, she might be preparing to flee. But I didn’t mean it that way. I was just enjoying her company, and I owed her after everything that she’d done with Duck. Even if she continued to maintain that she was just doing her job, which I supposed was true.
She’d taken one huge thing off my plate, and that meant a lot to me.
I drove us out to Kinsey’s Bar. I wanted to go someplace nicer, but in order to do that, we’d have to head a couple of towns over, and that was probably pushing it. Besides, we were still dressed in our hunting gear, so neither of us was ready for a fancier place, not tonight.
And besides, this wasn’t a date. Why did I feel like I had to keep reminding myself?
Maybe because you never go get dinner with anyone anymore, and especially not with a woman. I quickly pushed that thought away and tried to just enjoy myself.
We ordered appetizers to split between us, plus a couple of beers. And then a couple more beers. And a couple more.
While we drank, we talked. “I’ve never met a woman who likes dark beer before,” I said, eyeing the stout that she was sipping at.
Brea laughed. “My dad raised me right,” she said. “No piss beer for me.”
“Don’t be insulting my beer,” I said, putting my hand around my lager protectively. That brought another laugh, and I couldn’t help grinning at her.
I was starting to realize that it would be very easy to develop feelings for her.
But where had that idea come from?
“Seems like you mention your dad a lot,” I commented, trying to change the topic of conversation.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Brea said, shrugging. “Like I said before, I’ve always been close to him.” She paused, swirling her glass for a moment. “I worry about him a lot, actually. I just moved out of his place not too long ago, and I hate that he’s all on his own out at the farm now. He’s not totally on his own; there are all the people who come out for lessons, plus he has a little bit of part-time help. But he’s getting up there
in years, and I really wish he wasn’t pushing himself quite as much as he is. And I think the only way to get him to stop is to get him to find someone else to live there with him. Like a new wife, or at least a girlfriend.”
“But?” I asked.
She shook her head. “But he just doesn’t like leaving the house for things like that. Social things. Drinks at the bar or whatever. He’d much rather stay at home with a book. And the trouble is that all the people that he’d like are also the type of people who are much more likely to stay home with a book in the evenings."
“There’s a senior book club at the local library,” I told her. “I saw fliers for it not too long ago. I mean, it would be a little bit of a drive, but maybe you could bring him to and from meetings. He might get to meet someone his age who was also interested in books.”
“That’s a great idea!” Brea said, looking for all the world like she wanted to rush out of there right now to go tell her dad about the idea. I felt my heart swell just looking at her excited face. So cute.
“I thought about telling my mom about it,” I told her. “She’s been trying to get more involved in the community ever since—” I trailed off. There were still some things that I didn’t feel like I was ready to talk to Brea about yet.
Which wasn’t surprising given that we hardly knew one another. She’d only been working with Duck for a couple of weeks now. Before that, we’d been total strangers. And given that we hardly interacted most days at the ranch, we weren’t much more than that now.
No, I didn’t want to talk about Mama’s sickness.
“It must have been hard for her, to watch all her baby boys grow up and move away,” Brea said, sympathetically.
“How did you know about that?” I asked in surprise.
Brea blushed and ducked her head. “I did a little digging,” she admitted. “I was just curious. It’s such a nice farm, but it’s such a big place. I thought you must have more workers, or at least more people who were going to come for planting. So, I asked some questions. That’s all.”
