as it should have been. Mary couldn’t quite put her finger on what was off about it, but something was wrong.
She took her cues from Bullet rather than Eli. The dog occasionally shied sideways, which was unlike the well-trained K-9. Bullet’s skittishness suggested his handler was agitated, and Mary watched Eli closely, looking for signs of anxiety. His expression was sober and his jaw set in determination, but she didn’t necessarily think that was cause for concern. Eli had always been a bit of a perfectionist. Clearly he wanted to be successful in his new endeavor. There was nothing wrong with focus and resolve. But sometimes when Eli would mix up his commands, the dog didn’t know how to respond and returned to Mary’s side, which only served to set Eli’s face into a deeper scowl and widen the distance between him and his new K-9 partner.
How was she going to get him to relax? He’d been so laid-back in high school. She remembered him as the guy who always had a smile on his face, and his nature had been easygoing and friendly. But that was only her teenage love-struck observation. Maybe that wasn’t his true personality at all...at least, not anymore.
People grew up. Things changed. And she couldn’t say it was the first time he hadn’t met her expectations. When he’d become engaged to Natalie, Mary had assumed he’d join in their family life and culture, but that had never happened. Serendipity was a small town with country ways, and family was a big deal here. Yet it hadn’t appeared to matter to Eli.
Maybe he wasn’t the way she had imagined at all.
Maybe he was still bitter and frustrated from being jilted only one week before the wedding.
Maybe he didn’t like this situation.
Maybe he didn’t like her.
Whatever was behind his shady mood, if he wanted this program to work, he’d have to get over it and put forth a little more proactive effort.
He’d—they’d—get a lot further if he would relax. Bullet wasn’t going to respond to inconsistent or turbulent emotions. The dog needed regular praise and enthusiastic feedback or all of the training in the world meant nothing. Bullet wouldn’t work unless he thought it was a game.
How to express that to Eli was another thing entirely. She’d trained plenty of dogs, but this was her first cop. She didn’t know how best to proceed, but she was fairly certain Eli wouldn’t respond to criticism, even if it was constructive.
She paused, examining her own thoughts and actions. Dumping all the training commands on him at once might not have been such a great idea. Just because she’d easily picked up Dutch didn’t mean Eli was going to. He’d been a jock in high school and had been good at math. She couldn’t recall his performance in English or in the Spanish class he’d taken.
What if learning a new language had proven difficult for him in the past? That would certainly explain a lot, perhaps even why he was resisting her every effort on his behalf. Her heart softened toward him. Maybe if she backed off instead of pushing him so hard, his relationship with Bullet would progress naturally. It was certainly worth a try.
“Let’s take a break from all this hard work. Why don’t you and Bullet play for a while,” she suggested.
“Play?” He turned to her and crossed his arms, another defensive gesture that set Mary’s teeth on edge. “What does that even mean? You make it sound like we’re fifth graders on a swing set.”
“Something like that.” Mary pinched back a sharp retort, refusing to be thrown by his cranky attitude and determined to work through it. She’d have to show him how much fun it could be to work with Bullet. She leaned down and scooped up a simple white bath towel that had been rolled the long way and strung together with rubber bands.
Eli arched a brow. “A towel? Really?”
Dog training wasn’t about expensive equipment and fancy gimmicks. Mary ignored him and waved the towel toward Bullet.
“Come on, boy,” she encouraged in the high voice she instinctively used with animals and children. “Come and get it.”
Eli observed her silently, his lips pressed, and his posture stiff, while she played tug-of-war with Bullet and then threw the towel across the lawn for the dog to retrieve.
“You want to give it a go?” Mary offered the towel to Eli but he didn’t grab for it. Instead, he took a step backward and jammed his hands into the front pockets of his pants. His lips curled downward. He wasn’t nearly so handsome when he frowned.
He shook his head. “If you’re only going to play with him, I think I’ll pass. It doesn’t look that complicated. You go on ahead. I’ll grab one of those lawn chairs over there and watch.”
Now it was Mary’s turn to frown. She was doing everything she could to encourage him. What was his problem?
“Eli, seriously. You are never going to bond with Bullet if you don’t personally interact with him. You guys are supposed to be a team, a unit. Dogs have different personalities just like people do. You have to learn his quirks and characteristics, and he needs to get to know your idiosyncrasies, as well.”
Eli scoffed under his breath, but loud enough for Mary to hear it. The man was thoroughly exasperating in every respect. He was certainly nothing like the guy she’d been putting on a pedestal all these years.
Maybe he never had been.
“Are you going to do this or not?” she demanded, at the end of her emotional rope and quickly losing patience.
“All right, already.” He snatched the towel from her grasp and tossed it across the yard in a long, high arc. “Nag,” he muttered crossly, under his breath.
“Somebody’s got to be,” she retorted, propping her fists against her hips. “Do you give Captain James this much grief?”
His eyes widened. “No, of course not. I—”
He paused. His frown deepened for a moment before he offered her a rueful smile. “You’re right, of course. I’m acting like a class-A jerk, aren’t I?”
His grin sent her stomach aflutter. “You said it, not me.”
“I’ll try to do better,” he promised.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she assured him, surprised at the intensity of the relief that washed through her. She hadn’t realized how very much she didn’t want to have to butt heads with Eli. She could only pray things would go better from here, now that he’d checked his attitude. She’d just known he’d be the kind of man willing to own up to his mistakes, and it was heartening to be proved right.
Bullet sat on his haunches directly in front of Eli, wagging his tail. Eli tentatively reached for the towel and removed it from Bullet’s mouth. “Now, what did you say when you tossed this old rag for him?”
“Apport. It means fetch.”
“Yeah. I figured.”
“Actually here’s a little bit of useless trivia. I named my business Rapport Kennel. It’s a play on words.”
“Clever,” he said, displaying his admiration in both his voice and his gaze.
Mary
