“Seriously?”
“It’s a game he plays when he’s bored. He takes something. You ask him to find it. He retrieves it. You give him a treat.”
Scott looked down at Hugo. “That’s called extortion.”
Hugo woofed.
Cole laughed. “You hungry?”
“Starved. Let’s get out of here.”
As she neared the exit with the last of Hugo’s competition gear in her arms, Cole heard the name Noel being called. She turned back.
Shajuanna was walking toward her with her girls in tow. Even after running a very taxing course, she looked as fresh as she had when she arrived. Of course, her crew included a stylist.
“We need to talk.” Shajuanna glanced up as Scott approached, her gaze narrowing in appraisal.
Cole made the introductions. “Sam, this is Shajuanna Collier. Shajuanna, this is Sam.”
Shajuanna smiled at Sam like he was on the menu as the featured dish, but spoke to Cole. “My daughter Leila wants to become a junior showman competitor.” She waved the daughter in tiger-striped leggings over. “I don’t have time to teach her but you do training, right? You want the job?”
“But you don’t know me.”
“Oh, I’m going to have people check you out. Count on it. But you’ve got passion. You stand up for what you believe in. And you can’t be bought. That’s three giant steps forward over most people I know. You say you’re free to do what you want until October. By then, Leila will be back in school. So, you game?”
“I don’t know.”
Cole glanced at Sam, who shrugged. “Your time, babe.”
Play it cool, Cole told herself. “I don’t know where you live. It might not be practical.”
Shajuanna nodded. “True enough. I live in the greater Baltimore area.”
Cole smiled, eyes going wide in fake surprise. “So do I.”
Cole turned to Leila. “My name’s Noel. Would you like to have me show you some beginner techniques for the ring?”
Leila looked up at her mother. “Would that get me more airtime?”
“No.”
Both mother and daughter turned their heads to stare at Cole, who had spoken.
Cole kept her focus on Leila. “Learning to be a handler is first about your love of dogs and a commitment to learning how to teach your dog how to compete. If it’s just for the camera I won’t teach you.”
Shajuanna tapped her daughter on the shoulder. “Looks like you found someone as demanding as me.”
Leila shrugged, her gorgeous brown eyes throwing sparks. “I guess, in the beginning, it would be okay. But when I compete, I want it on TV.”
“You get that good and we’ll see.” Shajuanna offered Cole her hand. “Deal?”
Cole took it. “How about a trial period? Two weeks. Let’s see if Leila and I hit it off.”
Shajuanna nodded. “She’ll need five lessons a week. Three hours a day. Will a thousand a week cover it?”
“Whoa. Daily training is good but three hours a day is too much for a beginner.”
Shajuanna gave her a shrewd look. “I’m covering your travel time to and from your home, plus an hour lesson. You need to start thinking like a business person. For instance, you should have asked extra for travel. Or asked me to put you up somewhere for the five days a week I’m hiring you for so you don’t have to travel. We can renegotiate after the two weeks.” She whipped a card out of her bag. “Monday, say eight A.M.?” Both Leila and Cole protested. “Fine. Ten A.M. What’s your cell?”
Cole waited until mother and daughter were out of earshot before she spoke. “This is all happening way too fast.”
Scott grinned at her. “Sometimes it happens like that. Be grateful. It will get hard.”
Cole stared at Shajuanna’s card. “She said she’s going to check me out.”
“That’s what a backstory is for. Lattimore’s ready.”
They finished stowing Hugo’s items and made certain Hugo was settled in beside Izzy then climbed in for the drive back.
Cole reached for her seat belt. “I like her.”
“That’s a rookie mistake.”
Scott didn’t continue until he had exited the parking lot. “This isn’t real life. You’re playing a role. Your job is to get close to people, maybe bad people. You get to know them. You may begin to understand how they view things. It starts to make a certain kind of sense, even if they’re criminals with blood on their hands.”
He glanced at her, his expression serious. “But at the end of the day, if the people you’ve come to know and even like are dirty, your job requires that you betray the trust they’ve put in you. You need to be ready for that.”
Cole was silent.
Scott pulled off the road when he spied a burger place and drove through the takeout lane.
Cole didn’t realize how hungry she was until she had finished her burger and was working on a mouthful of fries. “So what now?”
Scott didn’t look at her. “Lattimore called this morning. Our new residence is ready. Looks like we start playing house tomorrow.”
Cole looked away. Oh yeah. That.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN