She was still staring at him. She nodded once more. “Cappie.”
He burst out laughing. He bent and kissed her again. “And they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” he mused. “This is much quicker than food. See you.”
He turned and went to his car. Cappie stood and watched him until he was all the way to the main highway. It wasn’t until Kell called to her that she realized it was cold and she didn’t even have on a coat.
After that, it was hard to work in the same office with Bentley without staring at him, starstruck, when she saw him in between patients. He noticed. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling. But when Cappie started running into door facings looking at him, everybody else in the office started grinning, and that did inhibit her.
She forced herself to keep her mind on the animal patients, and not the tall man who was treating them.
Just before quitting time, a little boy came careening into the practice just ahead of a man. He was carrying a big dog, wrapped in a blanket, shivering and bleeding.
“Please, it’s my dog, you have to help him!” the boy sobbed.
A worried man joined him. “He was hit by a car,” the man said. “The so-and-so didn’t even stop! He just kept going!”
Dr. Rydel came out of the back and took a quick look at the dog. “Bring him right back,” he told the boy. He managed a smile. “We’ll do everything we can. I promise.”
“His name’s Ben,” the boy sobbed. “I’ve had him since I was little. He’s my best friend.”
Dr. Bentley helped the boy lift Ben onto the metal operating table. He didn’t ask the boy to leave while he did the examination. He had Keely help him clean the wound and help restrain the dog while he assessed the damage. “We’re going to need an X-ray. Get Billy to help you carry him,” he told her with a smile.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he going to die?” the boy wailed.
Dr. Rydel put a kindly hand on his shoulder. “I don’t see any evidence of internal damage or concussion. It looks like a fracture, but before I can reduce it, I’m going to need to do X-rays to see the extent of the damage. Then we’ll do blood work to make sure it’s safe to anesthetize him. I will have to operate. He has some skin and muscle damage in addition to the fracture.”
The man with the boy looked worried. “Is this going to be expensive?” he asked worriedly.
The boy wailed.
“I lost my job last week,” the man said heavily. “We’ve got a new baby.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Rydel said in a reassuring tone. “We do some pro bono work here, and I’m overdue. We’ll take care of it.”
The man bit his lower lip, hard, and averted his eyes. “Thanks,” he gritted.
“We all have rough patches,” Dr. Rydel told him. “We get through them. It will get better.”
“Thanks, Doc!” the boy burst out, reaching over to rub a worried hand over the old dog’s head. “Thanks!”
“I like dogs, myself,” the doctor chuckled. “Now this is going to take a while. Why don’t you leave your phone number at the desk and I’ll call you as soon as your dog’s through surgery?”
“You’d do that?” the man asked, surprised.
“Of course. We always do that.”
“His name’s Ben,” the boy said, sniffing. “He’s had all his shots and stuff. We take him every year to the clinic at the animal shelter.”
Which meant money was always tight, but they took care of the animal. Dr. Rydel was impressed.
“We’ll give her our phone number. You’re a good man,” the boy’s father said quietly.
“I like dogs,” Dr. Rydel said again with a smile. “Go on home. We’ll call you.”
“You be good, Ben,” the boy told his dog, petting him one last time. The dog wasn’t even trying to bite anybody. He whined a little. “We’ll come and get you just as soon as we can. Honest.”
The man tugged the boy along with him, giving the vet one last grateful smile.
“I can take care of his bill,” Keely volunteered.
Dr. Rydel shook his head. “I do it in extreme cases like this. It’s no hardship.”
“Yes, but…”
He leaned closer. “I drive a Land Rover. Want to price one?”
Keely burst out laughing. “Okay. I give up.”
Billy, the vet tech, came to help Keely get Ben in to X-ray. Cappie came back after a minute. “I promised I’d make sure you knew that Ben likes peanut butter,” she said. “Who’s Ben?”
“Fractured leg, HBC,” he abbreviated.
She smiled. “Hit by car,” she translated. “The most frequent injury suffered by dogs. They know who hit him?”
“I wish,” Dr. Rydel said fervently. “I’d call Cash Grier myself.”
“They didn’t stop?”
“No,” he said shortly.
“I’d stop, if I hit somebody’s pet,” Cappie said gently. “I had a cat, when we lived in San Antonio, after Kell got out of the army. I had to give him away when we moved down here.” She was remembering that Frank had kicked him, so hard that Cappie took him to work with her the next day, just to have him checked out. He had bruising, but, fortunately, no broken bones. Then the cat had run away, and returned after Frank was gone. She’d given the cat away before she and Kell left town, to make sure that Frank wouldn’t send somebody to get even with her by hurting her cat. He was that sort of man.
“You’re very pensive,” he commented.
“I was missing my cat,” she lied, smiling.
“We have lots of cats around here,” he told her. “I think Keely has a whole family of them out in her barn and there are new kittens. She’d give you one, if you asked.”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure if I could keep a cat,” she replied. “Kell wouldn’t be able to look out for him, you know. He has all he can do to take care of himself.”
He didn’t push. He just smiled. “One day, he’ll meet some nice girl who’ll want to take him home with her and spoil him rotten.”
She blinked. “Kell?”
“Why not? He’s only paralyzed, you know, not demented.”
She laughed. “I guess not. He’s pretty tough.”
“And he’s not a bad gamer, either,” he pointed out.
“I noticed.”
“Cappie, have you got the charges for Miss Dill’s cat in here yet?” came a call from the front counter.
She grimaced. “No, sorry, Dr. King. I’ll be right there.”
She rushed back out, flustered. Dr. Rydel certainly had a way of looking at her that increased her heart rate. She liked it, too.
CAPPIE STAYED late to help with the overflow of patients, held up by the emergency surgery on the dog. The practice generally did its scheduled surgeries on Thursdays, but emergencies were always accommodated. In fact, there was a twenty-four-hour-a-day emergency service up in San Antonio, but