“This would go a lot faster if you grabbed a hammer and helped me set up the stage.” Ruby pointed at the box of tools located a few feet from Caleb’s head. He was sprawled on the grass next to the two dogs—Caesar slumbering sonorously on one side, Wheezy chewing on a tree root on the other. “Many hands make light work.”

“I could, but then I wouldn’t have such a lovely view,” he said. Since his eyes were pretty much trained on her ass as she did all the manual labor associated with erecting a six-foot platform, she had a good idea which view he was referring to.

“I can tell you right now that it’s never going to happen,” she said. “No offense, but you’re not my type.”

He sighed and sat up, a grin splitting his face. “I know, but I had to try anyway. What is it? My hair? My personality? My inability to do anything with this useless lump of a dog?”

She was forced into a laugh. Caleb had just spent the past hour trying to trim Wheezy’s unruly curls into a semblance of order, and the golden retriever had howled as though he was being stabbed with the scissors instead of getting a nice haircut.

“You should have told me that he’s useless before you cashed the check,” she pointed out.

“Probably,” Caleb agreed. “But I needed the work.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that there was plenty of work to be done in setting up the stage, but he turned his attention toward the dog. With the same neat efficiency she’d seen Spencer display toward animals, he ran his hand over Wheezy’s muzzle.

“In this handsome guy’s defense, he has all the makings of a winner. He doesn’t totally conform to the breed, but there’s good width to his skull and he has a nice broad face. Gorgeous eyes.” He tugged one of Wheezy’s ears forward and clicked his tongue in satisfaction. Ruby had done enough research on showing golden retrievers to recognize his actions as those of a judge examining a contestant. For all his apparent laziness, Caleb—like Wheezy—was capable of a lot more. “Other than the excess weight around his middle and a slight bow to his gait, he’s not a bad specimen. And if you fix the first, you may very well fix the second. Whoever earmarked this dog for competition-level shows knew what he was doing.”

She paused in the act of nailing one of the boards down. This was the first time she’d heard anyone other than Mrs. Orson utter a word of praise about Wheezy. “So you’re saying we have a chance?” she asked.

“Nope. Not even a little. Spencer would never allow it.”