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

Cappie shook her head. “Sorry. I can’t marry you tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“My brother won’t let me date ugly men.”

“You just said I wasn’t ugly!” he protested.

“I lied.”

“I can have my nose fixed.”

She frowned. It was a very nice nose.

“I can alter it for you with my fist,” the other man volunteered.

“I can alter you first,” Dead-Eye informed him.

“No fighting,” Cappie protested. “We’ll all end up in jail.”

“Some of us have probably escaped from one recently,” the other man said with a pointed look at Dead-Eye.

“I didn’t have to escape. They let me out on account of my extreme good looks,” Dead-Eye scoffed.

“Your looks are extreme,” came the reply. “Just not good.”

“If you two don’t stop arguing, I’m going to have my best friend come over to spend the night with us, and you two will be sharing the sofa,” she assured them.

“Just shoot me now,” Dead-Eye muttered, “and be done with it. I’m not sharing anything with him. Not unless he’s got proof he isn’t rabid.”

The elevator door had opened while they were arguing. Dr. Bentley Rydel stepped off it and stared at the younger man while Cappie gaped at his sudden appearance.

“He isn’t rabid,” Bentley assured Dead-Eye.

“And how would you know?” Dead-Eye asked.

“I’m a veterinarian,” Bentley replied curtly.

“We should go,” Cappie said, avoiding Bentley’s eyes.

“We?” he asked, scowling.

“These are my two new boyfriends,” Cappie told him with a cold scowl. “We’re sharing a room.”

He knew she wasn’t involved with two strangers. He had a pretty good idea of who they were and why she was with them. She probably expected him to believe the bald statement, with his track record.

“I heard about Kell,” he said quietly. “How is he?”

“Out of surgery and resting comfortably, thank you,” she said formally. “We have to go.”

“Can we talk?” Bentley asked somberly.

“If you can get them,” she indicated her companions, “to tie me up and gag me, sure. Let’s go, guys.”

She walked into the elevator and stood with her back to the door until she heard it close.

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_f1476222-bda8-56f9-8cc1-1770b5f7a5ef)

CAPPIE DIDN’T sleep, of course. She was replaying the last forty-eight hours in her mind all night, sick with worry about Kell. It was her fault that Frank Bartlett had ever gotten near them. If only she hadn’t been so flattered by his attention, so crazy about him that she ignored Kell’s warnings. If only she hadn’t gone out with him at all.

Pity, she thought, that people couldn’t set the clock backward and erase all the stupid things they did. Like getting involved with Dr. Bentley Rydel, for example, she told herself. It had surprised her to find him at the hospital. Somebody in Jacobsville must have told him what had happened, and he felt sorry for her. Maybe he was willing to overlook her smarmy past long enough to check on her brother’s condition. That didn’t mean he believed her innocence or wanted to get involved with her again. Which was just as well, she told herself, because she certainly wanted nothing more to do with him!

She got up and dressed…in the same clothes she’d worn the day before. She hadn’t packed anything. She’d have to call Keely and ask her to go to the house and pack a few items of clothing for her and Kell. But she’d make sure Keely got an armed person to go with her, in case Frank was waiting around to see if Cappie turned back up.

When she opened her bedroom door, the two men were arguing over the coffee in the tiny little coffeepot that came, with coffee, as a perk for staying in the hotel.

“There’s not enough for three people,” Dead-Eye was muttering, refusing to let go of the pot.

“Then you can get yours at a café, because I’m having mine here,” the other man said coldly.

“We’re all having ours at the hospital, because I’m leaving right now,” Cappie informed them, starting for the door.

“See what you get for starting a fight? Now neither of us is having coffee,” Dead-Eye scoffed as he turned off the coffeepot and put the little carafe back in it.

“You started it first,” the other man said coolly.

Cappie ignored the banter and opened the door.

“Hold it right there.”

Dead-Eye was in front of her in a heartbeat, his hand under his jacket as a tall man walked into view in the hall. He stood immobile, waiting.

But it wasn’t Frank. It was another man, and a woman and child suddenly appeared behind him and started talking to him.

“Nice day,” Dead-Eye told them with a smile.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” The man smiled back and herded his family ahead of him down the hall.

Dead-Eye stood aside to let Cappie out. “Wait until one of us makes sure it’s safe,” he told her in a kind tone. “Men who commit battery without fear of arrest are usually not planning to go back in prison, if you get my drift. He might decide a bullet is better than a fist.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” the other man said, following her out the door and closing it. “We’ll think for you.”

“Were you thinking, just then?” Dead-Eye grinned.

The other man indicated his sleeve. The hilt of a large knife was in his palm. He flexed his hand and snapped it back in place. “Learned that from Cy Parks,” he said. “He taught me everything I know.”

“Then what are you doing with Eb?”