“And you wanted to go into law enforcement?”
“I want to do something in the same field I’ve always done, which is similar to that line, yes. A K9 unit wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’m not sure that they hire them outside of law enforcement staff though.”
“There are so many budget cuts too,” she said. “I imagine they probably have a lot of contractors instead.”
“And that might not be a bad idea either,” he said. “I need a place to do training though, and it takes lots of space for dogs like that.”
“Would you do the training for working dogs or for family pets?”
“Both. Every trained dog needs some downtime when he’s not working. So they become pets at the same time.”
“I like it,” she said. “I always wondered if I should be doing more with mine, but that takes time, energy, and dedication. Plus, I didn’t have the motivation to take on disciplining four dogs at the same time,” she murmured.
“How about taking on one guy now?” he said, tilting her chin up and kissing her gently.
“Well, that motivation is definitely coming along a little bit faster,” she said with a laugh. “But, as to the here and now, what will we do about Ansel’s suggestion to stay somewhere else a couple nights?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving here because, well, we’re working on the house, and it’s your home, and I think we should defend your own place. I don’t want to see us up and running away. But, at the same time, I really don’t want you to get hurt.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. And I don’t want you hurt any more than you are,” she said. “In case you think I didn’t notice, I can see how stiffly you’re moving.”
Caleb just shrugged.
“Well, I vote we stay here,” she said. “We won’t find any place to take all the animals too.”
“I agree,” he said, looking down at the dogs milling at their feet. “They should be a pretty good early warning system too.”
“Only some of them,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t delude myself that all of them are that way.” She’d bent down and scooped Fancy into her arms. The little Pomeranian immediately licked her chin. “Especially this little one.”
Caleb reached over and picked her up and held her against his chest, as she wiggled in delight. “And yet how can you not love her because she’s exactly who she’s intended to be.”
“Exactly, and she is who she really is. She doesn’t put on any airs, doesn’t try to look any different. She doesn’t lie. She doesn’t cheat. She is exactly who she is,” she murmured, “and I really like that about all my dogs.”
“You and me both,” he said. “And now I’m starved. And it’s very late. I don’t know if we’ll get a coat on that floor or not,” he said, “but it would be better if we did it tonight.”
And she groaned and said, “You’re a slave driver.”
“I am, but it will also take our minds off of everything else happening.”
“As long as we don’t lose focus,” she said.
He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Never.”
As they walked back into the kitchen, she said, “I don’t know that we have any food though.”
“If it is sandwiches, it’s sandwiches,” he said. He pulled out some sliced meat from the fridge and said, “It looks like sandwiches.”
“Since that’s ham,” she said, “we can do grilled ham and cheese.”
And, with that, they set about making enough food for both of them, sat down and ate, then fed the dogs and put on yet more coffee. However, they couldn’t sit still and enjoy their coffees.
“I want to get started. And I’m good to drink my coffee cold.” He nodded, so they took a few sips and brought their cups upstairs.
She asked, “Same deal as last time? You sand, and I put down the finish?”
“I’ve got about an hour, an hour and a half left in me,” he said, “and then I don’t think I can do more.”
“Got it. After that, a hot bath for you.”
“We are likely not going to have access to the upstairs bathroom for baths. Or just muscle relaxants, maybe even pain pills tonight,” he admitted quietly.
She winced, looked at him, and asked, “That bad?”
“Well, it’s definitely not good, but I will survive.”
With that, they got down to work. He was done within his hour-and-a-half time frame, and, for that, she was grateful. He was looking pretty damn sore, as he slowly moved all the tools back downstairs again. She was in the second bedroom, working away on the coat, when she heard him outside.
She frowned, wondering what she heard, but she had none of the dogs with her—because there was just no way to keep them off the wet finish. As she worked on the upstairs hallway, she couldn’t wait for when these upper floors were done. By the time she stopped at the top of the stairs, she sat here, wondering how she kept biting off more than she could chew. It was almost as if her DIY home projects kept her exhausted, so she didn’t have to do anything else or maybe not even think about anything else.
And yet she had turned the corner on that too, thinking about her future with Caleb, which was huge for her right now, and it was enough to keep her going. Even if he did go back temporarily to New Mexico, she knew he wouldn’t stay there. The more job opportunities there were for him here in El Paso, the better she felt about it all. It was just a matter of him feeling good about it too.
As she walked slowly downstairs, her energy sagging, she saw no sign of him. She looked around, realizing she saw no signs of her dogs either. She then stepped out on the back porch to find him running her four dogs through drills and basically playing and doing training.
He looked up at her, smiled, and walked over.
“I figured you’d be crashed in bed.”
“I took some medication,” he admitted. “I wanted to give it some time to work. So I took the dogs out to just see how good their training was.”
“And how are they?” she murmured, looking down at the happy dogs at his feet.
“Well, a little untrained, a little undisciplined, but obviously happy with their lot in life here,” he said with a bright smile.
She looked at him and returned his smile. “It’s late,” she murmured. “You should be resting.”
“That’s what I was thinking, but I can’t crash if you are still working. I wanted to come up, and, indeed, I called out to see if you were okay, but you were too busy to hear me.”
“Well, I’m done now,” she said, “and I’m so glad this job is over.”
“And it looks amazing,” he said. “So proud of you.”
“I know. I’m really happy with it. It’s just really shitty timing to redo the second story.”
“Again, there’s never a good time to redo a floor,” he said. “It’s an inconvenience to everybody living in the house. If you don’t live there, haven’t moved in yet, then that’s a whole different story, but we’ve got furniture and all kinds of people and dogs traipsing up and down.”