“There you are!” Derrick ambled up, Max hard on his heels.

The dog came to a sudden halt, lifted his head, sniffed, blew through his nose, then turned back the way he’d just come, though at a much faster pace.

“Max!” Derrick scowled. “Max! Come back here!”

The dog’s ears and tail lowered, but he kept going.

Derrick blew out his breath in disgust and turned to walk back toward Harriet and the wagon. “I don’t know about that dog. He’s a wonder at herding, but at everything else, he—” Derrick slid to a stop, slapped a hand over his nose, and said in a strangled voice, “Good God, which sheep needed ointment?”

Chase started abruptly. “Sheep?” He glared down at his hands. “That was sheep ointment?”

“It works on people, too,” Harriet said defensively. “Ask Derrick.”

But Derrick was already walking briskly back the way he’d come, his shoulders shaking as if he was laughing too hard to speak.

“Wonderful,” Chase muttered. “I’m taking a bath as soon as I get back to Garrett Park.”

“Please do. You smell atrocious, and I don’t think we could stand having you at the table at dinner.”

“You were the one who—” Chase clamped his mouth closed at her grin. Beautiful inside and out she might be, but she was also a mischievous tease. “Should we tell your family of my real identity?”

“They deserve to know. But never fear, they will keep your secret, especially once I explain how you so graciously agreed to be Captain Frakenham for another week.” She bit her lip. “I—I must admit that I was feeling somewhat bad.”

“About what?”

“About making you work so hard.”

“You should feel guilty about that. It has been intolerable.”

Her guilty look disappeared. “You haven’t worked any harder than the rest of us.”

“Yes, but you benefit from my work. I don’t benefit from it at all.” He looked down at his blistered hands, now oily from the smelly balm she’d applied to them.

“Haven’t we housed you and fed you and tended your wounds?”

“With sheep ointment!”

“With good sheep ointment.”

“I don’t think there is such a thing as good sheep ointment.”

Derrick yelled something from across the field to Harriet. Something about the last railing on the fence he and the hands had just fixed. Harriet shouted back an answer while Chase waited.

She turned to face him. “We should be able to begin the shearing tomorrow.”

“It’s about time.”

“So we think, too. We’ve never done this before, though Stephen and I have concocted a system.”

She was always the practical one, except for that streak of passion that shimmered just below the surface. Chase wondered what she’d do if he kissed her once more. He stepped a little closer, but yet another shout sounded from across the field.

Harriet leaned over the fence and shouted back an answer. Frustrated at the interruption, Chase had to constrain himself from yelling an answer himself—something rather unworthy.