All I Am

They needed to get on that professional, detached playing field. He gave orders. She followed them. The end. “Are you ready to work?”

“Oh! I almost forgot.” She shoved some papers out of the way and put her bag down on the spot she’d cleared. Carefully, she pulled out a big plastic container.

“I made you a pie.” She unclipped the clasps on the lid. “It’s kind of my version of a personality test.”

“Pie as personality test?”

She nodded, her lips a brightly painted pink smile. She lifted the lid with a flourish. “I give you octo-pie.”

Wes stared at the bizarre-looking pie. It was indeed an octo-pie in that the top of the piecrust had been fashioned to look like an octopus. A big lump of pie dough made up the body, while strips made up the eight legs. It even had eyes and a mouth cut into the crust. The pie filling looked like cherry and made his mouth water.

It was ridiculous and hilarious. He actually found himself laughing. Which somehow only made Cara grin wider.

“You pass,” she said happily. “You do have a personality under all that gruff I’m-so-tough beardy flannel.”

Any humor faded. He didn’t particularly want her to see him having a personality. This would be so much easier if he could be the silent soldier and she could...go about her business organizing him. His papers. Not him. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would.” Sweetness hopped up on the desk chair and began sniffing around the pie, so Cara put the lid back on. “Are you sure about me keeping her?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“You have no idea how much I like that about you.” She said it kind of under her breath, but he caught it and was all too pleased by it.

“So, where do we start?” she asked, all sunny good cheer while Sweetness panted happily up at her despite her taking away the pie.

Yeah, the damn dog definitely belonged with Cara.

“Wherever you want. I have work to do in the kitchen. Find a way to organize all this in a way that works for you and that you can explain to a mess like me, answer the phones, and we’re set.”

Cara looked wide-eyed around the room. “That’s it?”

“You have carte blanche. And I have carte blanche to tell you it sucks.”

Instead of frowning or arguing like he would have expected, she grinned. “This might be the best job I ever had.”

“I wouldn’t say that yet,” he grumbled. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you have any questions.” And he would stay in the kitchen, because being around her was bad news. Being pleased by anything she said was a terrible recipe for a replay of his teenage life, and nope, he wasn’t going to do that again.

He left her in his office, Sweetness not even looking his way. Which was fine. At least Phantom...

He glanced back to where the dog hovered in between the doorway of the office and the hallway to the kitchen. “Another traitor,” Wes muttered, trying not to feel too bent out of shape about it.

If he were a dog, he’d be panting in Cara’s lap, too.

Irritated with himself for, well, everything, he took a deep breath and went about setting up for work. He had things to do. Things that did not involve his new assistant.

Besides, there was always the chance she’d make a mistake and he could fire her. Because, of course, you have the balls for that.

He had been isolated for too long. Talking to the dogs was one thing. Talking to himself this much? He still remembered his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Purdue, telling him that talking to himself was a sign of insanity.

She might not be that far off.

He gathered his ingredients, flipping on the radio to drown out some of his inner monologue. All he wanted to think about was the correct ratio of sweet potatoes to whole wheat flour.

He lost himself in the routine, even managing to forget Cara was in the next room most of the time. He had the batter made and the molds filled before she interrupted the peace he’d found by entering the kitchen.

“Hey, um...” Her nervous energy filled the room. Obviously she’d run across something she had a question about, something that made her uncomfortable. His shoulders that had finally relaxed tensed.

“Um, someone from Dr. Pedelmann’s office called to see if they could reschedule your appointment tomorrow.”

Well. Yeah, he could see why that’d make her uncomfortable. And damn him for not having a personal phone line so he could handle these things without the chance of her...getting wind of it. Too late now. “Super.”

“They asked if the sixth at two-thirty would work.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t move. He didn’t bother to look at her, but he could still hear her breathing, didn’t hear any footsteps retreating.

“You’re not, like, dying, are you?”

The question shocked an almost laugh out of him. “No, not dying.” Any lingering desire to laugh died. “Just malfunctioning.”

She stood there, hovering. Not asking any more questions but not leaving, either.

“Look.” He glared at the molds filled with batter. As much as he loved what he did, it so often struck him as ridiculous. Making dog treats so idiot people like Pipsqueak’s owner could pretend their dogs were children. All because he was too damaged to do what he really wanted to do.

But there were good customers, too. Non-ridiculous people who wanted to feed their dogs decent food. Which was the whole reason he’d even thought of this business when all other options had been destroyed.

Cara was still watching him. He could feel her gaze. Like a weight. Like a noose. “I have nerve damage in my arm. A pin in my hip. The nerve damage isn’t progressing the way it should, hence the doctor’s appointment. I’m not dying, and I’m not certifiable.” Not totally, anyway.

“Okay. Can I help somehow?”

“No. Just reschedule the appointment for whenever.”

“Okay.” Another pause. “Okay,” she said once more, and then, finally, her footsteps retreated.

He took a deep breath, looked out the window at the trees that surrounded his cabin. Help. A foreign concept. One he didn’t know what to do with except push away.

But the offer lingered there, accompanied by a sharp pang of something he’d tried to eradicate from his life. Longing. Loneliness. He wasn’t such an idiot that he thought he’d ever be right in the head enough to have a romantic relationship, but maybe they could have a friendly working one.

That wasn’t...totally out of the realm of possibility, was it? He’d been friends, so to speak, with some of the guys in his regiment. The guys in the dog squad especially.

Cara might be a woman, but she was an off-limits woman, which meant he didn’t have to get all nervous and uncomfortable at the prospect of anything more. There wasn’t the chance for anything more. She was like a fellow soldier, working toward the same goal.

And if she had breasts, a brain-cell-killing smile and always smelled like flowers of some kind, well, he’d find a way to ignore that.

* * *

CARA LOOKED DOWN at the desk and sighed. The enormity of stuff Wes surrounded himself with, half of it junk mail and old receipts that couldn’t possibly be needed, made it feel as if she’d gotten nowhere despite working for almost three hours straight. Well, aside from the little break to tell Wes about his doctor’s appointment and shove her foot in her mouth.

There was progress to be found on the desk; she just couldn’t see it. And that made her feel stupid. Which wasn’t exactly new these days. She needed something to gel.

Asking Wes if he was dying wasn’t gelling. Nor was getting one hundred percent turned down on her offer to help. But, hey, at least she got to keep Sweetness.

Cara’s stomach rumbled, and she chewed her lip. She’d been hungry for an hour. Couldn’t stop thinking about the pie she’d placed back in her bag. She’d need a knife, fork and plate to indulge, and she had brought it for Wes, so she probably shouldn’t eat it.

Though him eating the whole pie didn’t seem totally necessary.

When Wes stepped back into the office, he gave her a quizzical look. Probably because she was standing there staring at nothing. Doing nothing.

“I—I was trying to, um, I was going to take my lunch break. If that’s okay. I—”

He grunted, cutting her off. I suck, suck, suck.

“You have three choices,” he said. “You can eat whatever in here and take off at four. You can go get lunch somewhere in town, which seems like a total waste of time, and you’d have to work till five. Or you can come with me.”

“What happens if I come with you?” Why, oh, why had her brain suddenly made everything dirty? So not okay to think about that right now.

“We take the dogs for a walk. We eat sandwiches out by the creek. We don’t chitchat. And you can take off at four thirty, because it usually only takes me about a half hour.”

“What exactly is your definition of chitchat?” A girl with any ounce of self-preservation would take the first option. She was not that girl.

“Pick a door, Cara.”

He so rarely said her name or addressed her in any way. It was strangely nice when he did. “Door three, please.”

Again, he grunted, offering nothing else as he walked back to the kitchen. For the first time she noticed it. Not quite a limp, but a stiffness. That right leg didn’t move quite as easily as the rest of him.

Or had she noticed because she now knew he had a pin in his hip? Ouch, that sounded bad. Plus nerve damage that wasn’t getting better. Poor guy.

When she stepped into the kitchen, he was standing in front of the small slice of counter that seemed reserved for people food. “Peanut butter or turkey?”

“Um.” It took her brain a few seconds to work out he was asking about sandwiches. “I brought my own lunch.” A sad little packet of tuna and some crackers. “But if you’re offering, I’ll take a turkey sandwich instead.”

Another grunted nonanswer, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. She didn’t think offering to make her own sandwich would go over well.

“I’ve got Coke in the fridge if you want to grab two.”

She did as he asked, then stood by the door feeling like an idiot with two Coke cans freezing her hands.

Each sandwich went into a baggie. Grabbing a coat off a hook by the door, he shrugged it on, then took the cans from her. He slid one into each pocket, along with a baggie of dog treats. “You wanna carry the sandwiches?”

“Sure. Um, if you bring forks, we can eat pie, too.”

He nodded, pulling open a drawer and taking out two forks. She grabbed her bag, dropped the sandwiches in, then followed him outside.

She’d expected some first day awkwardness—and gotten it with the doctor thing—but walking around and eating with your boss, who happened to be kind of hot and intriguing, felt really weird.

He walked around the cabin to what appeared to be a small barn in the back. Probably a quarter of the size of the ones on her dad’s property, but the color and shape was all barn.

“I make sure all the animals have water and food. Make the petting rounds.”

Cara looked behind them, where Sweetness, Phantom and the other two dogs pranced. “You have more animals?”

“A few cats. Two more dogs. A sheep.”

“A sheep?”

He shrugged, tramping over to the barn and pulling the door open. “He needed a good home. I had a barn.”

“No partridge in a pear tree?”

“I like animals.”

“Because they aren’t annoying like people?”

“I’ve always liked animals. I never had any growing up.”

“Never?”

“I tried a few times, but we always lived in no-animals-allowed places, so I always got in trouble. One time I got us kicked out, so I gave that up. I was going to...”

“You were going to what?”

He was frowning now, and not just his normal scowly resting face. This was full-on pissed off.

“Doesn’t matter.” He stomped into the barn. A few yips rang out, and a cat made figure eights between his legs.

“Why do you keep these guys in here?”

“The cats chose it. The dogs aren’t trained enough yet. They run off if I give them free rein outside, but this gives them some space and we work on boundaries in the evening. Shrimp doesn’t get around too good these days, so it’s safest for him to stay in a pen, although he occasionally escapes.”

“Shrimp?”

“Sheep with a limp. Sheep plus limp. Shrimp.”

“Wes!”

“What? It’s descriptive.” His mouth quirked up. Not quite a smile, but because it was Wes she would count it as a smile.

“Come on.” He went about filling dishes with fresh water and adding food to different bowls. It was obviously his routine, and it seemed to relax him. Except for the few times he’d look up, seem to remember she was there and get all tense and frowny again.

Cara had to wonder why he’d invited her at all if she made him so uncomfortable. But she didn’t question it out loud, because she didn’t want to eat lunch alone. Strange company was better than no company.

She followed him around, and eventually they left the barn. He brought one of the barn dogs with them, so the number of animals trailing after them was now five. He didn’t look at her once as they hiked through the woods, eventually reaching a creek.

It was beautiful and reminded her so much of home, she wanted to splash in the water like she had when she’d been eight. Only it was barely fifty degrees, and walking through the sliver of leaf-filled water between two muddy banks would be ill advised in her flimsy canvas shoes.

“Buttercups! Oh, my favorite.” Shiny yellow petals sprouted next to a big, flat rock Wes stopped at. Spring had always been her favorite season. Spring had meant freedom as a kid. Everyone busy with the farm and the weather finally okay enough she could go out without Mom blowing a worry gasket.

Fresh air and freedom. It made her believe in new beginnings, far more than any January resolution did. So, maybe she needed to seek a little rebirth and new growth of her own.

Grow up. Leave Cara the screwup behind.

Not possible.

She ignored the jerk of a voice in her head and plucked the delicate flowers out of the ground, arranging a few in her hair. A little visual reminder that flowers could grow from nothing but dirt and water and a little sunlight. “How do I look?”

He’d situated himself on the rock, and Cara had a little inward sigh over his pretty eyes before he looked down. Blushing. Definitely blushing. He might have acted as if he didn’t care for her occasional flirting, but obviously he didn’t think she was repulsive.

Maybe he was shy about stuff like that. For some reason, the thought of gruff and grumpy Wes being shy made her feel all warm and squishy.

Which was not okay. At all. He was her boss, and aside from this and a few emergency shifts at the salon, she had no income. Because she hadn’t sucked up the courage to approach Sam again about the pies.

Well, buttercups as her witness, she would.

She settled herself next to Wes. And, yeah, maybe she didn’t have to sit so close, but she was feeling bold now. She handed him his sandwich; he handed her a Coke.

“This place is perfect.”

He cracked open his soda. “Yeah, I like it.”

“You do this every day?” With Phantom, Sweetness and the three other dogs sitting or lying around the base of the rock, it obviously wasn’t something new.

He made one of his grunt-yes noises as he bit into his sandwich.

“So, why organic dog treats?”

He lifted those broad, yummy shoulders—bad, Cara—but she pointed at him before he finished the motion. “No shrugging. You have to answer.”

“I said no chitchat.”

“It’s not chitchat. It’s an interrogation.”

He glared. Glowered. All frustrated irritation. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining him making that kind of look naked. If she did something sassy. And she would need to be punished.

Okay, if she were the blushing type, she’d be blushing.

“I was going to be a vet,” he grumbled, attacking his sandwich as if it had done something wrong. “But, you know, you need a steady hand.”

She had to try hard to not let the pity show on her face. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure Wes was not the kind of guy who would deal well with pity. Oh, but her heart did hurt for him. He obviously loved animals, and getting hurt had ended his chance to be a vet.

Geez, this guy was a sob story. Usually those made her run in the opposite direction. Hurt feelings and tough emotions were not her forte, but Wes made everything that usually freaked her out seem irresistible.

Well, you better do some resisting, Cara Pruitt.

“So, anyway, my mom had opened an organic grocery store in California and done pretty well, and it gave me the idea for organic pet food stuff. Did some research. Set up a business. Blah, blah, blah.”

“That’s pretty amazing. Starting your own business. I watched Mia do it, and she had a farm to start with. It’s really impressive you put together a whole business you can sustain yourself and a bunch of animals with.”

He stared into the creek. “It’s okay.”

“Right. Well, I’m impressed. I can’t even make myself go after a job I want, let alone start my own business.”

“What’s your excuse?”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Cave under pressure. Useless with expectation.” She nudged a few pebbles with her foot. “I’m working on it.”

“I would freaking hope so.”

There was an undercurrent in the way he mumbled it. Kind of mean. The meanest she’d ever heard him sound. Even meaner than when he’d yelled at that lady at the market. “Huh?”

“Sorry, no patience for that bullshit.” He stood, shoving his empty baggie and soda can in his pocket. He held a hand out for her trash, but she didn’t give it to him.

“What bullshit?”

“Not going after something you want because you’re afraid.” He made a “give me it” motion with his hand, which, for some reason, made her clutch the trash even tighter.

“I’m not afraid. That’s how I’m wired. Or whatever. I can’t handle it. I’ve tried.”

“You know what I have to say to that?”

“Something really nice and comforting?”

“Try harder.” With that, he let out a sharp whistle that had the dogs jumping to their feet and scrambling after his already retreating back.

Cara stared after him until he was a few feet away. Sweetness stood at the top of the hill, whining at her. Only then did she move.

Oh, hell, no, that had not just happened. He had not barked “try harder” at her as if she was some soldier. She might be his employee, but she took orders from no one.

And he was about to find that out.

CHAPTER SIX

WES HAD WARNED HER. That was his one and only defense. Before he’d offered her the job, he’d warned her he sucked with people. So, you know, she could not be surprised that he’d been a total jerk.

Sure.

He stalked back to the barn, headache inching its way up the base of his skull. A ball of tension, dull for now. He forced Monster back inside, even though the dog whined. Usually he let both dogs out on their runner in the afternoon, but right now he needed to get inside the cabin.

Inside and away from the woman stomping toward him looking as if she was going to beat him up.

He’d probably let her. He didn’t know where all that stuff had come from. It certainly wasn’t his place to tell her she was wrong and ridiculous, even if she was. So much for trying to be pleasantly friendly to coworkers. He couldn’t even get that right.

“You have no right to say that stuff.”

He shrugged. “True enough.”

She opened her mouth, and her eyebrows drew together. She huffed out a breath. “I—you—oh, I could punch you.”

“I’d apologize, but...” He was an idiot. Apologize and but did not go in the same sentence. He knew that, but, well, he didn’t feel like apologizing. She was fully functional and apparently had the opportunity to do something she loved, and she had caved?

She was gorgeous, funny, personable and, from all accounts, had a decent family life. What excuse did she have for not going after her dreams?

“But what?” she demanded, hands fisted on hips, muddy shoes tapping on the soggy grass.

“Would you be so angry if I wasn’t right on the money?”

Her mouth dropped open, her foot stilling and hands dropping to her sides. She looked frozen. Like a statue or one of those mannequins that only came to life when someone wasn’t looking.

“You—”

“Look, I warned you about how I am with people. So, you know, if that’s a problem, feel free to quit.”

Again there was a long pause before she reacted in any way. Which spoke volumes about how together she was. That she could pause and think before acting.

“I can’t quit.”

“Yes, you can. In fact—”

“This is all I have right now. As much as I think you’re being kind of a, well, something I can’t say to the man I want to not fire me. I’d rather be here than back at the farm supply store.”

“What about that hair place?”

“They already replaced me. I can fill in, but that’s only in emergencies. Even this job doesn’t cover all my expenses. It’s supposed to be my motivation to ask Sam for another chance at the pie thing. So you can’t take it away. I won’t let you.”

Maybe that was why he didn’t understand her self-deprecating, fold-under-pressure speech. He’d yet to see her fold under anything. She stood her ground. She swept in where she had no business being. She’d somehow convinced him to give her his dog.

She was a hurricane, and hurricanes didn’t fold.

“Then let’s go inside and work. And not talk. This, this right here is why I don’t do the chitchat thing.”

She muttered a curse under her breath, and he was pretty sure it was directed at him. He couldn’t hold it against her.

He walked toward the house, and she followed. This was some kind of truce. It was better than where they’d been when she’d put flowers in her hair and asked him how she looked.

Beautiful. Breathtaking. Words a guy like him didn’t think, let alone say aloud. But Cara defied his norm. The talking about not having animals when he was a kid, and commenting on her life and choices. That wasn’t something he did with anyone else. He’d been trying to be normal, but it had spiraled out of his control.

Thank God she defied his norm in annoying ways, too. As long as she could push his buttons, he was safe. Don’t worry, Wes, your virginity is very, very safe.

But instead of heading inside, she stepped in front of him. He had no choice but to look at her. No choice but to be sucked into Hurricane Cara.

“I bombed the job interview. The pie-baking one. The one that would be perfect. Explain that. How I did that. Me, who has been making pies forever. I could do it in my sleep. I put in too much salt. I burnt the edges. He was standing there staring at me, and everything went wrong when it never has before.” She poked him in the chest. “Explain that.”

“Bake the pies beforehand.” The way her tense expression morphed into shock was evidence enough that this had never occurred to her.

“Before...”

“If it’s the pressure that gets to you, bake it in a no-pressure zone. Then take it to him. If he’s the suspicious sort, have your sister watch you or video you or something.”

“But what if I get the job? I can’t video everything.”

“Tell him you’d rather use your own kitchen. It’s not like you’re going to sit in his restaurant making pies to order. It takes too long, doesn’t it? You’ll want to make dough in batches, make the filling in batches, right? Like a diner.”

“How did you...? That never even... Why didn’t he...? Why didn’t I...?”

Here was the choice. One he usually didn’t struggle with, but Cara’s vulnerability under all the strength she didn’t seem to think she had made it hard to be the close-the-door-in-her-face kind of guy he would prefer to be. “I’ve spent a lot of time learning to avoid my anxiety triggers. You have an obstacle, you find a way to circumnavigate it. Defuse it.”