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

She stared up at him wide-eyed and speechless. Of all the things she expected he might say, that was the last.

“Come on, come on, you’re not going to get a second shot at me in the same night,” he teased. “I have my reputation to think of!”

Her mind started working again, and she laughed with relief. She picked up her purse and scrambled out the door, her discarded coat over one arm.

“Listen,” he said gently, “don’t start brooding. We got a little too involved, too quickly, but we’ll deal with it.”

She hesitated. “I’m not, well, modern,” she blurted out.

“Neither am I, honey,” he said softly.

She could have melted into the ground at the husky endearment. She blushed.

He bent and kissed her with tender respect. “I know what sort of woman you are,” he said gently. “I’m not going to push you into something you don’t want.”

“Thanks.”

“On the other hand, you have to make me a similar promise,” he pointed out. “I’m not going to keep dating you if I have to worry about being ravished every time I bring you home. I’m not that sort of man,’ he added haughtily.

She grinned from ear to ear. “Okay.”

He walked her to the door, smiling complacently. “I’ll see you at work Monday,” he said. He framed her face in his hands and looked at her for a long time. “Just when you think you’re safe,” he mused, “you jump headfirst into the tiger trap.”

“You know, I was just thinking the same thing,” she said facetiously.

He chuckled as he bent to kiss her again. “We’ll take it at a nice, easy pace,” he whispered. “But I know already how it’s going to end up. We’re good together. And I’m tired of living alone.”

Her heart almost burst with joy. “I…I don’t think I could just live with someone,” she blurted out, still a little worried.

He kissed her eyes shut. “Neither could I, Cappie,” he whispered. “We can talk about licenses and rings.” He lifted his head. His eyes were soft with feeling. “But not tonight. We have all the time in the world.”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes were bright with the force of her emotions. “It’s happening so fast.”

He nodded. “Like lightning striking.”

She felt her heart racing. But in the back of her mind, there was a sudden fear, a foreboding. She bit her lower lip. “You don’t really know much about me,” she began. “You see, when I lived in San Antonio, there was this man I dated…”

Before she could tell him about Frank, his phone rang. He jerked it out and answered it. “Rydel,” he said. He listened, grimaced. “I’ll be in the office in ten minutes. Bring the cat right in, I’ll see it. Yes. Yes. You’re welcome.” He hung up. “I have to go.”

“Be careful,” she said.

He smiled. “I will. Good night.”

“Good night, Dr. Rydel.”

“Bentley.”

She laughed. “Bentley.”

He ran back to the Land Rover, started it and drove away with a wave of his hand. Cappie watched him go, then walked into her house, feeling as if she could have floated all the way.

Monday morning, Cappie still felt light-headed and ecstatic. She’d half expected Bentley to phone her Saturday or Sunday, considering how involved they’d gotten when he brought her home from the carnival on Friday night. But maybe he’d had emergencies. She hoped he hadn’t had second thoughts. She was so crazy about him that she couldn’t bear to even think about having him reconsider what he’d said. But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. They were already so close that she knew it was going to be forever.

So it came as a shock when she walked in the office and Dr. Rydel met her beaming smile with a cold glare that sent chills down her spine.

“You’re late, Miss Drake,” he said curtly. “Please try to be on time in the future.”

She looked as if she’d been hit in the head by a brick. Keely, at the counter, gave her a sympathetic look.

“I’m…I’m sorry, sir,” she stammered.

“I need you to help Keely with an X-ray,” he said, and turned away abruptly.

“Right away.” She put up her coat and purse and rushed to join Keely, who was going in the room where they kept the medical cages. She took a hair band out of her pocket and scrunched her thick hair into a ponytail with it. Inside, she felt numb.

“It’s Mrs. Johnson’s cat,” Keely explained, wary of being overheard by the vet, who was just going into a treatment room. “She stepped on his paw. It’s swollen, and Dr. Rydel is afraid it may be broken. Mrs. Johnson is no lightweight,” she added with a grin.

“Yes, I know.”

“She had to leave him with us while she went to see her heart doctor. She was very upset. She’s just getting over a heart attack, and she’s worried about her cat!” she said, smiling. Keely opened the cage and Cappie lifted the old cat. It just purred. It didn’t even offer to bite her, although it was obvious that it was in pain.

“What a sweet old fellow,” Cappie murmured as they went toward the X-ray room. “I thought he might want to bite us.”

“He’s a sweetheart all right. Here.” Keely motioned to the X-ray table and closed the door behind them. “What in the world is wrong with Dr. Rydel?” she whispered. “He came in looking like a thundercloud.”

“I don’t know,” Cappie said. “We went to the carnival Friday night and he was happy and laughing…”

“You didn’t have a fight?” Keely persisted.

“No!” She wanted to add that they’d talked about rings, but this wasn’t a good time. The tall man who met her at the door didn’t look as if he’d ever said any such thing to her.

“I wonder what happened.”

“So do I,” Cappie said miserably.

They got the X-ray and Cappie took the old cat back to his cage while Keely developed it. Dr. King gave her a worried look, but she was too busy to say much. Cappie felt sick. She couldn’t imagine what had turned Dr. Rydel into an enemy.

She waited and worried all day through two dozen patients and one long emergency. Mrs. Johnson came to pick up her cat, his paw in a neat cast, crying buckets because she’d been so worried about him. Cappie helped her out the door, smiling even though she didn’t feel like it. Earlier, she’d thought maybe Dr. Rydel would say something to her, explain, anything. But he didn’t. He treated her just as he had when she first joined the practice, courteous but cold.

At the end of the day, she wanted to wait around and see if she could get him to talk to her, but a large animal call took him out the door just minutes before the staff went home. She drove to her house with her heart in her shoes.

“You look like the end of the world,” Kell remarked when she walked in. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “Dr. Rydel looked at me as if I had some contagious disease and he didn’t say one kind word all day. It was business as usual. He was just like he was when I first went to work for him.”

“He seemed pleasant enough when he picked you up Friday night,” he remarked.

“And when he brought me home,” she added. “Maybe he got cold feet.”