One Night with a Red-Hot Rancher. Diana Palmer

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.”

      Kell studied her sad face. “Maybe he did. Everybody says he was the biggest woman hater around town. But if that’s the case, he might warm up again when he’s had time to think about it. If he’s really interested, Cappie, he’s not going away.”

      “You think so?” she asked, hopeful.

      “I know so. Men who act like he did when he came to supper don’t suddenly turn ice-cold for no reason. Maybe he just had a rough weekend.”

      Which was no reason for him to take it out on Cappie. On the other hand, she didn’t really know him that well.

      “Maybe I can get him to talk to me tomorrow,” she said.

      He smiled. “Maybe you can.”

      She nodded. “I’ll go make supper.”

      “Try not to worry.”

      “Of course.”

      But she did worry, and she didn’t sleep. She went in to work the next morning with a feeling of foreboding.

      Dr. Rydel was at the counter when she came in.

      “I’m five minutes early,” she said abruptly when he glared at her.

      “Come into my office, please,” he said.

      She brightened. At last, he was going to explain. Surely it was something that didn’t have anything to do with her.

      He let her in and closed the door behind her. He didn’t offer her a seat. He perched on the edge of his desk and stared at her coldly. “I had a visitor Saturday morning.”

      “You did?” An ex-girlfriend, she was thinking, and he wanted her back, was that it?

      “Yes,” he replied curtly. “Your boyfriend.”

      “My what?”

      “Your boyfriend, Frank Bartlett,” he said coldly.

      She felt sick all the way to her toes. Frank had come down here! He’d come to Jacobsville! She held on to a chair. She should have told Bentley about him. She shouldn’t have waited. “He’s my ex-boyfriend,” she began.

      He laughed coldly. “Is he, really? Now that’s not what he said.”

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      CAPPIE COULD almost imagine what sort of story Frank had told Bentley. But now she understood his anger.

      “I can explain,” she began.

      “You told me Friday night that you had an ex-boyfriend,” he said icily. “I didn’t get to hear the rest of the story, but Bartlett was kind enough to fill me in. You accused him of assaulting you and had him arrested. He actually spent time in jail and now he has a felony record because of you.”

      Her eyes widened. “Yes, but that isn’t what happened…!”

      “I know all about women who like to play with men,” he interrupted. “When I was in my early twenties, I worked for a veterinarian while I was in college. It supplemented my grants and scholarships. He had a vet tech who was very pretty, but never got dates. I felt sorry for her. She could only work for him part-time, because I had the full-time position. She stayed late one weekend and teased me into kissing her. Then she very calmly tore her shirt, messed up her hair and phoned the police.”

      Cappie felt her face go pale.

      “She wanted my job,” Bentley continued cynically. “I dipped into my savings to hire a private detective, who discovered that it wasn’t the first time she’d pulled that stunt. She was arrested and my record was cleared. The vet hired me back in a heartbeat and spent years trying to make it up to me.”

      “I had no idea,” she whispered.

      “Of course not, or you wouldn’t have tried the same stunt on me.”

      She blinked in disbelief. “What?”

      “You were always talking about what you’d do if you had money. You knew I was well-to-do. When were you going to accuse me of assaulting you? Have you got a lawyer waiting in the wings to sue me?”

      She couldn’t believe her ears. He actually thought she was playing him for cash. Frank had lied to him, and with his background, Bentley had fallen for the tall tale.

      “I’ve never accused anyone falsely,” she defended herself.

      “Only Frank Bartlett?”

      She swallowed, hard. “He broke my arm,” she said with quiet dignity. “It wasn’t the first time he hit me, either.”

      “He told me you’d say that,” he replied. “Poor guy. You ruined his life. Well, you aren’t going to get the chance to ruin mine. You can work your two weeks’ notice.” He got to his feet.

      “You’re firing me?” she asked weakly.

      “No, you’re quitting,” he returned coldly. “That way, you won’t be able to let the state support you with unemployment insurance, or sue me for unlawful termination of employment.”

      “I see.”

      “Women,” he muttered coldly. “You’d think I’d already learned my lesson. You all look so innocent. And you all lie.”

      He opened the door. “Back to work, Miss Drake,” he said in a formal tone. “It’s going to be a long day.”

      She worked mechanically, even managed to smile at old Mr. Smith’s jokes and Dr. King’s bland comments. Keely was looking at her oddly, but nobody else seemed to find her behavior out of the ordinary.

      At the end of the day, she went to her car almost gratefully. She still couldn’t believe that Dr. Rydel had fallen for Frank’s lies. But she was going to do something about it. She just didn’t know what. Yet.

      She pulled up in the front yard, puzzled at the colorful cloth piled at the foot of the steps. Was Kell cleaning house…?

      She slammed on the brakes, cut off the engine and ran as fast as she could to the front door. That