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

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      “Oh, yes, she was an extremely persistent young woman. The third time she showed up here, she insisted on seeing Dr. Rydel. He called Cash Grier, our police chief, and had him come in and explain the legal ramifications of sexual harassment to the young lady. He didn’t smile while he was speaking. And when he finished talking, the young lady took her animal, went home and subsequently moved back to Dallas.”

      “Well!” Cappie exclaimed.

      “So you see, Dr. Rydel is quite capable of deterring unwanted interest.” She leaned closer. “I understand that you like to play video games?”

      Cappie laughed. “Yes, I do.”

      “My husband has a score of over 16,000 on Xbox LIVE,” she said, and wiggled her eyebrows.

      Keely was staring at her, uncomprehending.

      “My scores are around 4,000,” Cappie said helpfully. “And my brother’s are about 15,000.” She chuckled. “The higher the score, the better the player. Also, the more often the playing.”

      “I guess my score would be around 200,” Dr. King sighed. “You see, I get called in a lot for emergencies when Dr. Rydel is out on large animal calls. So I start a lot of games that my husband gets to finish.”

      “Kell had buddies in the army who could outdo even those scores. Those guys were great!” Cappie said. “They’d hang out with us when they were off duty. Kell always had nice video gaming equipment. Some of them did, too, but we always had a full fridge. Boy, could those guys eat!”

      “You lived overseas a lot, didn’t you?” Keely asked.

      “Yes. I’ve seen a lot of exotic places.”

      “What was your favorite?”

      “Japan,” Cappie replied at once, smiling. “We went there when Kell was stationed in Korea. Not that Korea isn’t a beautiful country. But I really loved Japan. You should see the gaming equipment they’ve got. And the cell phone technology.” She shook her head. “They’re really a long way ahead of us in technology.”

      “Did you get to ride the bullet train?” Keely asked.

      “Yes. It’s as fast as they say it is. I loved the train station. I loved everything! Kyoto was like a living painting. So many gardens and trees and temples.”

      “I’d love to see any city in Japan, but especially Kyoto,” Keely said. “Judd Dunn’s wife, Christabel, went over there with him to buy beef. She said Kyoto was just unbelievable. So much history, and so beautiful.”

      “It is,” Cappie replied. “We got to visit a temple. The Zen garden was so stark, and so lovely. It’s just sand and rocks, you know. The sand is raked into patterns like water. The rocks are situated like land. All around were Japanese black pine trees and bamboo trees as tall as the pines, with huge trunks. There was a bamboo forest, all green, and a huge pond full of Japanese Koi fish.” She shook her head. “You know, I could live there. Kell said it was his favorite, too, of all the places we lived.”

      “Are we going to work today, or travel around the world?” came a deep, curt voice from behind them.

      Everybody jumped. “Sorry, Dr. Rydel,” Keely said at once.

      “Me, too,” Cappie seconded.

      “Nihongo no daisuki desu,” Dr. Rydel said, and made a polite bow.

      Cappie burst out smiling. “Nihon no tomodachi desu. Konichi wa, Rydel sama,” she replied, and bowed back.

      Keely and Dr. King stared at them, fascinated.

      “I said that I liked Japanese language,” Dr. Rydel translated.

      “And I said that I was a friend of Japan. I also told him hello,” Cappie seconded. “You speak Japanese!” she exclaimed to Bentley.

      “Just enough to get me arrested in Tokyo,” Bentley told her, smiling. “I was stationed in Okinawa when I was in the service. I spent my liberties in Tokyo.”

      “Well, isn’t it a small world?” Dr. King wondered.

      “Small, and very crowded,” Bentley told her. He gave her a meaningful look. “If you don’t believe me, you could look at the mob in the waiting room, glaring at the empty reception counter and pointedly staring at their watches.”

      “Oops!” Dr. King ran for it.

      So did Keely and Cappie, laughing all the way.

      There was a new rapport between Dr. Rydel and Cappie. He was no longer antagonistic toward her, and she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Their working relationship became cordial, almost friendly.

      Then he came to supper the following Saturday, and she found herself dropping pots and pans and getting tongue-tied at the table while the three of them ate the meal she’d painstakingly prepared.

      “You’re a very good cook,” Bentley told her, smiling.

      “Thanks,” she replied, flushing even more.

      Kell, watching her, was amused and indulgent. “She could cook even when she was in her early teens,” he told Bentley. “Of course, that was desperation,” he added with a sigh.

      She laughed. “He can burn water,” she pointed out. “I had so much carbon in my diet that I felt like a fire drill. I borrowed a cookbook from the wife of one of his buddies and started practicing. She felt sorry for me and gave me lessons.”

      “They were delicious lessons,” Kell recalled with a smile. “The woman was a cordon bleu cook and she could make French pastries. I gained ten pounds. Then her husband was reassigned and the lessons stopped.”

      “Hey, a new family moved in,” she argued. “It was a company commander, and she could make these terrific vegan dishes.”

      Kell glared at her. “I hate vegetables.”

      “Different strokes for different folks,” she shot back. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a good squash casserole.”

      Kell and Bentley exchanged horrified looks.

      “What is it with men and squash?” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “I have never met a man who would eat squash in any form. It’s a perfectly respectable vegetable. You can make all sorts of things with it.”

      Bentley pursed his lips. “Door props, paperweights…”

      “Food things!” she returned.

      “Hey, I don’t eat paperweights,” Bentley pointed out.

      She shook her head.

      “Why don’t you bring in that terrific dessert you made?” Kell prompted.

      “I guess I could do that,” she told him. She got up and started gathering plates. Bentley got up and helped, as naturally as if he’d done it all his life.

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