Tough To Tame: Tough to Tame / Passion Flower

“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.

She gave him an odd look.

“I live alone.” He shrugged. “I’m used to clearing the table.” He frowned. “Well, throwing away plastic plates, anyway. I eat a lot of TV dinners.”

She made a face.

“There is nothing wrong with a TV dinner,” Kell added. “I’ve eaten my share of them.”

“Only when I was working late and it was all you could get,” Cappie laughed. “And mostly, I left you things that you could just microwave.”

“Point conceded.” Kell grinned.

“What sort of dessert did you make?” Bentley asked.

She laughed. “A pound cake.”

He whistled. “I haven’t tasted one of those in years. My mother used to make them.” His pleasant expression drained away for a few seconds.

Cappie knew he was remembering his mother’s death. “It’s a chocolate pound cake,” she said, smiling, as she tried to draw him out of the past.

“Even better,” he said, smiling. “Those are rare. Barbara sells slices of one sometimes at her café, but not too often.”

“A lot of people can’t eat chocolate, on account of allergies,” she said.

“I don’t have allergies,” Bentley assured her. “And I do hope it’s a large pound cake. If you offered to send a slice home with me, I might let you come in an hour late one day next week.”

“Why, Dr. Rydel, that sounds suspiciously like a bribe,” she exclaimed.

He grinned. “It is.”

“In that case, you can take home two slices,” she said.

He chuckled.

Watching them head into the kitchen, Kell smiled to himself. Cappie had been afraid of men just after her bad experience with the date from hell. It was good to see her comfortable in a man’s company. Bentley might be just the man to heal her emotional scars.