One Night with a Red-Hot Rancher: Tough to Tame / Carrying the Rancher's Heir / One Dance with the Cowboy

“So did I,” Kell confessed. “College trigonometry almost kept me from getting my degree in the first place. I also had a bad time with biology,” he added pointedly.

Dr. Rydel grinned. “My best subject. All A’s.”

“I’ll bet the biology-challenged loved you,” Cappie said with a chuckle. “Blew the curve every time, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “I bought pizzas for my classmates every Saturday night to make it up to them.”

“Pizza,” Cappie mused. “I remember what that tastes like. I think.”

“I don’t want to talk about pizza,” Kell said and sipped his milkshake. “You and your mushrooms!”

“He hates mushrooms, and I hate Italian sausage,” Cappie commented. “I love mushrooms.”

“Yuuuuck,” Kell commented.

She smiled. “We’ll leave you to your supper. If you need anything, call me, okay?”

“Sure. What would you like to be called?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and went out the door.

“Nice to have met you,” Kell told the vet.

“Same here,” Dr. Rydel said.

He followed Cappie out into the living room. “You’d better eat your own burger and fries before they’re cold,” he said. “They don’t reheat well.”

She smiled shyly. “Thanks again for bringing me home, and for the food.” She wondered how she was going to get to work the following Monday, but she knew she’d come up with something. She could always beg one of the other vet techs for a ride.

“You’re welcome.” He stared down at her quietly, frowning. “You sure you’re all right?”

She nodded. “I’m wobbly. That’s because I was scared to death. I’ll be fine. It’s just a little bruising. Honest.”

“Would you tell me if it was more?” he asked.

She grinned.

“Well, if you think you need to go to the doctor later, you call me. Call the office,” he added. “They’ll take a message and page me, wherever I am.”

“That’s very nice of you. Thanks.”

He drew in a long breath. His blue eyes narrowed on her face. “You’ve got a lot on your shoulders for a woman your age,” he said quietly.

“Some people have a lot more,” she replied. “I love my brother.”

He smiled. “I noticed that.”

She studied him curiously. “Do you have family?”

His face tautened. “Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“People get old. They die.” He became distant. “We’ll talk another time. Good evening.”

“Good evening. Thanks.”

He shrugged. “No problem.”

She watched him go with a strange sense of loss. He was in many ways the saddest person she’d ever known.

She finished her supper and went to collect her brother’s food containers.

“Your boss is nice,” he said. “Not what I expected.”

“How could you tell him what I said about him, you horrible man?” she asked with mock anger.

“He’s one of those rare souls who never lie,” he said simply. “He comes at you head-on, not from ambush.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s in his manner,” he said simply. He smiled. “I’m that way myself. It does take one to know one. Now come here and sit down and tell me what happened.”

She drew in a deep breath and sat down in the chair beside the bed. She hated having to tell him the whole truth. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ac97de4e-9f02-59ff-9ec4-f73ca2ebfd85)

CAPPIE HITCHED a ride to work with Keely, promising not to make a regular thing of it.

“I’ll just have to get another car,” she said, as if all that required was a trip to a car lot. In fact, she had no idea what she was going to do.

“My brother is best friends with Sheriff Hayes Carson,” Keely reminded her, “and Hayes knows Kilraven. He told him the particulars, and Kilraven had a talk with the driver’s insurance company.” She chuckled. “I understand some interesting what-if’s were mentioned. The upshot is that the driver’s insurance is going to pay to fix your car.”

“What?”

“Well, he was drunk, Cappie. In fact, he’s occupying a cell at the county detention center as we speak. You could sue his insurance company for enough to buy a new Jaguar like my brother’s got.”

She didn’t mention that Kell had owned a Jaguar, and not too long ago. Those days seemed very far away now. “Wow. I’ve never sued anybody, you know.”

Keely laughed. “Me, neither. But you could. Once the insurance people were reminded of that, they didn’t seem to think fixing an old car was an extravagant use of funds.”

“It’s really nice of them,” Cappie said, stunned. It was like a miracle. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. My brother is an invalid, and the only money we’ve got is his savings and what I bring home. That’s not a whole lot.”

“Before I married Boone, I had to count pennies,” the other girl said. “I know what it’s like to have very little. I think you do very well.”

“Thanks.” She sighed. “You know, Kell was in the military for years and years. He went into all sorts of dangerous situations, but he never got hurt. Then he left the army and went to work for this magazine, went to Africa to cover a story and got hit with shrapnel from an exploding shell. Go figure.”

Keely frowned. “Didn’t he have insurance? Most magazines have it for their employees, I’m sure.”