One Night with a Red-Hot Rancher. Diana Palmer

worn-out. She’d been in the waiting room around the clock until Kell was through surgery, and it had taken a long time. The chairs must have been selected for their comfort level, she decided, to make sure nobody wanted to stay in them longer than a few minutes. It was impossible to sleep in one, or even to doze. Her back was killing her. She needed sleep, but she couldn’t leave the hospital until she knew Kell was out of the recovery room.

      Beside her, two tall, somber men sat waiting also. One of them was dark-eyed and dark-headed, and he never seemed to smile. The other one had long blond hair in a ponytail and one pale brown eye and an eye-patch on the other. He was good-natured about his disability and referred to himself as Dead-Eye. He chuckled as he said it. She didn’t know their names.

      Detective Sergeant Rick Marquez had dropped by earlier in the day to talk to her about Frank Bartlett’s family and friends. She did know about Frank’s sister, but she hadn’t met any of his friends. Detective Marquez was, she thought, really good-looking. She wondered why he didn’t have a steady girlfriend.

      Marquez had assured her that he was doing everything possible to track down Frank Bartlett, and that a friend of his who was a news anchor was going to broadcast a description of Bartlett and ask for help from the public to apprehend him. There was a two-thousand-dollar reward being offered for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

      Brenda came with her to the hospital and stayed until she was called into her own office for an emergency surgery on a dog patient. She’d promised to return as soon as she could. She was upset that Cappie wasn’t going to stay with her. She could borrow a gun, she muttered, and shoot that two-legged snake if he came near the apartment. But Cappie smiled and said she hadn’t been thinking straight when she’d called and asked for a place to stay. She wasn’t risking Brenda. Besides, she had security. Brenda gave the two men a long, curious glance. She did mention that she wouldn’t want to mess with them, if she was a bad man. The one with the ponytail grinned at her.

      After Brenda left, Cappie sat with her two somber male attachments while people came and went in the waiting room. She drank endless cups of black coffee and tried not to dwell on her fears. If Kell could just walk again, she told herself, the misery of the past few days would be worth it. If only!

      Finally the surgeon on Kell’s case came out to speak with her, smiling in his surgical greens.

      “We removed the shrapnel,” he told her. “I’m confident that we got it all. Now we wait for results, once your brother has time to heal. But I’m cautiously optimistic that he’ll walk again.”

      “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, giving way to tears. “Thank God!”

      “Now, will you please go and get some sleep?” he asked. “You look like death walking.”

      “I’ll do that. Thank you, Dr. Sims. Thank you so much!”

      “You’re very welcome. Leave your cell phone number at the nurses’ desk and they’ll phone you if they need you.”

      “I’ll do that right now.”

      She went to the nurses’ desk with her two companions flanking her and looking all around them covertly.

      “I’m Kell Drake’s sister,” she told a nurse. “I want to give you my cell phone number in case you need to get in touch with me.”

      “Certainly,” a little brunette replied, smiling. She pulled a pad over to her and held a pen poised over it. “Go ahead.”

      Cappie gave the number to her. “I’ll always have it with me, and I won’t turn it off.”

      The brunette looked from one man to the other curiously.

      “They’re with me,” Cappie told her. She leaned over the counter. “You see, they’re in terrible danger and I have to protect them.”

      The two men gave her a simultaneous glare that could have stopped traffic. The brunette managed to smother a giggle.

      “Okay, guys, I’m ready whenever you are,” she told them.

      The one with the eye-patch pursed his lips. “Want a head start?” he asked pointedly.

      She grinned up at him. “You want one?” she countered.

      He chuckled, and indicated that she could go first. He turned and winked at the little brunette, who flushed with pleasure. He was whistling as he followed Cappie out through the waiting room.

      “You, protect us,” the other man scoffed. “From what…bug bites?”

      “Keep that up,” Cappie told him, “and I’ll show you a bite.”

      “Now, now, let’s try to get along,” Dead-Eye murmured as they waited for the elevator to come back up.

      “I’m getting along. She’s the one with the attitude problem,” the other man muttered.

      “Says you,” Cappie told him.

      He stared at Dead-Eye and pointed at Cappie.

      “I never take sides in family squabbles,” Dead-Eye told him.

      “She is not a member of my family!” the other man said.

      “A likely story,” Dead-Eye said. “Anyway, how can you be sure? Have you had your DNA compared to hers?”

      “I know I’m not related to you,” the man told Dead-Eye.

      “How do you know that?” came the dry retort.

      “Because you’re too ugly to be any kin to me.”

      “Well, I never,” Dead-Eye harrumphed. “Look who’s calling who ugly.”

      “Your mother dresses you funny, too.”

      Cappie was already light-headed with relief. These two were setting off her quirky sense of humor. “I can’t take the two of you anywhere,” she complained. “You embarrass me to tears.”

      “Can I help it if he’s ugly?” the second man said. “I was only stating a fact.”

      “He’s not ugly,” Cappie defended Dead-Eye. “He’s just unique.”

      Dead-Eye grinned at her. “We can get married first thing in the morning,” he said. “I’ve been keeping a wedding ring in my chest of drawers for just such an emergency.”

      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