| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer welcomes you back to Jacobsville to become reacquainted with Bentley Rydel. He lives hard and loves fiercely—but sometimes it takes the right woman to make a man a hero. This rugged Texan is going to be Tough to Tame!
"He's gone to lunch," came an amused whisper from behind her.
Cappie jumped. Her colleague, Keely Welsh Sinclair, was grinning at her. The younger woman, nineteen to Cappie's twenty-three, was only recently married to dishy Boone Sinclair, but she'd kept her job at the veterinary clinic despite her lavish new lifestyle. She loved animals.
So did Cappie. But she'd been wondering if love of animals was enough to put up with Bentley Rydel.
"I lost the packing slip for the heartworm medicine," Cappie said with a grimace. "I know it's here somewhere, but he was yelling and I got flustered and couldn't find it. He said terrible things to me."
"It's autumn," Keely said.
Cappie frowned. "Excuse me?"
"It's autumn," she repeated.
The older woman was staring blankly at her.
Keely shrugged. "Every autumn, Dr. Rydel gets even more short-tempered than usual and he goes missing for a week. He doesn't leave a telephone number in case of emergencies, he doesn't call here and nobody knows where he is. When he comes back, he never says where he's been."
"He's been like this since I was hired," Cappie pointed out. "And I'm the fifth new vet tech this year, Dr. King said so. Dr. Rydel ran the others off."
"You have to yell back, or just smile when he gets wound up," Keely said in a kindly tone.
Cappie grimaced. "I never yell at anybody."
"This is a good time to learn. In fact…"
"Where the hell is my damned raincoat?!"
Cappie's face was a study in horror. "You said he went to lunch!"
"Obviously he came back," Keely replied, wincing, as the boss stormed into the waiting room where two shocked old ladies were sitting beside cat carriers.
Dr. Bentley Rydel was tall, over six feet, with pale blue eyes that took on the gleam of steel when he was angry. He had jet-black hair, thick and usually untidy because he ran his fingers through it in times of frustration. His feet were large, like his hands. His nose had been broken at some point, which only gave his angular face more character. He wasn't conventionally handsome, but women found him very attractive. He didn't find them attractive. If there was a more notorious woman hater than Bentley Rydel in all of Jacobs County, Texas, it would be hard to find him.
"My raincoat?" he repeated, glaring at Cappie as if it were her fault that he'd left without it.
Cappie drew herself up to her full height—the top of her head barely came to Bentley's shoulder—and took a deep breath. "Sir," she said smartly, "your raincoat is in the closet where you left it."
His dark eyebrows rose half a foot.
Cappie cleared her throat and shook her head as if to clear it. The motion dislodged her precariously placed barrette. Her long, thick blond hair shook free of it, swirling around her shoulders like a curtain of silk.
While she was debating her next, and possibly job-ending, comment, Bentley was staring at her hair. She always wore it on top of her head in that stupid ponytail. He hadn't realized it was so long. His pale eyes narrowed as he studied it.
Keely, fascinated, managed not to stare. She turned to the old ladies watching, spellbound. "Mrs. Ross, if you'll bring—" she looked at her clipboard "—Luvvy the cat on back, we'll see about her shots."
Mrs. Ross, a tiny little woman, smiled and pulled her rolling cat carrier along with her, casting a wistful eye back at the tableau she was reluctantly foregoing.
"Dr. Rydel?" Cappie prompted, because he was really staring.
He scowled suddenly and blinked. "It's raining," he said shortly.
"Sir, that is not my fault," she returned. "I do not control the weather."
"A likely story," he huffed. He turned on his heel, went to the closet, jerked his coat out, displacing everybody else's, and stormed out the door into the pouring rain.
"And I hope you melt!" Cappie muttered under her breath.
"I heard that!" Bentley Rydel called without looking back.
Cappie flushed and moved back behind the counter, trying not to meet Gladys Hawkins's eyes, because the old lady was almost crying, she was laughing so hard.
"There, there," Dr. King, the long-married senior veterinarian, said with a gentle smile. She patted Cappie on the shoulder. "You've done well. By the time she'd been here a month, Antonia was crying in the bathroom at least twice a day, and she never talked back to Dr. Rydel."
"I've never worked in such a place," Cappie said blankly. "I mean, most veterinarians are like you—they're nice and professional, and they don't yell at the staff. And, of course, the staff doesn't yell…"
"Yes, they do," Keely piped in, chuckling. "My husband made the remark that I was a glorified groomer, and the next time he came in here, our groomer gave him an earful about just what a groomer does." She grinned. "Opened his eyes."
"They do a lot more than clip fur," Dr. King agreed. "They're our eyes and ears in between exams. Many times, our groomers have saved lives by noticing some small problem that could have turned fatal."
"Your husband is a dish," Cappie told Keely shyly.
Keely laughed. "Yes, he is, but he's opinionated, hardheaded and temperamental with it."
"He was a tough one to tame, I'll bet," Dr. King mused.
Keely leaned forward. "Not half as tough as Dr. Rydel is going to be."
"Amen. I pity the poor woman who takes him on."
"Trust me, she hasn't been born yet," Keely replied.
"He likes you," Cappie sighed.
"I don't challenge him," Keely said simply. "And I'm younger than most of the staff. He thinks of me as a child."
Cappie's eyes bulged.
Keely patted her on the shoulder. "Some people do." The smile faded. Keely was remembering her mother, who'd been killed by a friend of Keely's father. The whole town had been talking about it. Keely had landed well, though, in Boone Sinclair's strong arms.
"I'm sorry about your mother," Cappie said gently. "We all were."
"Thanks," Keely replied. "We were just getting to know one another when she was…killed. My father plea-bargained himself down to a short jail term, but I don't think he'll be back this way. He's too afraid of Sheriff Hayes."
"Now there's a real dish," Cappie said. "Handsome, brave…"
"…suicidal," Keely interjected.
"Excuse me?"
"He's been shot twice, walking into gun battles," Dr. King explained.
"No guts, no glory," Cappie said.
Her companions chuckled. The phone rang, another customer walked in and the conversation turned to business.
Cappie went home late. It was Friday and the place was packed with clients. Nobody escaped before six-thirty, not even the poor groomer who'd spent half a day on a Siberian husky. The animals had thick undercoats and it was a job to wash and brush them out. Dr. Rydel had been snippier than usual, too, glaring at Cappie as if she were responsible for the overflow of patients.
"Cappie, is that you?" her brother called from the bedroom.
"It's me, Kell," she called back. She put down her raincoat and purse and walked into the small, sparse bedroom where her older brother lay surrounded by magazines and books and a small laptop computer. He managed a smile for her.
"Bad day?" she asked gently, sitting down beside him on the bed, softly so that she didn't worsen the pain.
He only nodded. His face was taut, the only sign of the pain that ate him alive every hour of the day. A journalist, he'd been on overseas assignment for a magazine when he was caught in a firefight and wounded by shrapnel. It had lodged in his spine where it was too dangerous for even the most advanced surgery. The doctors said someday, the shrapnel might shift into a location where it would be operable. But until then, Kell was basically paralyzed from the waist down. Oddly, the magazine hadn't provided any sort of health care coverage for him, and equally oddly, he'd insisted that he wasn't going to court to force them to pay up. Cappie had wondered at her brother being in such a profession in the first place. He'd been in the army for several years. When he came out, he'd become a journalist. He made an extraordinary living from it. She'd mentioned that to a friend in the newspaper business who'd been astonished. Most magazines didn't pay that well, he'd noted, eyeing Kell's new Jaguar.
Well, at least they had Kell's savings to keep them going, even if it did so frugally now, after he paid the worst of the medical bills. Her meager salary, although good, barely kept the utilities turned on and food in the aging refrigerator.
"Taken your pain meds?" she added.
He nodded.
"Not helping?"
"Not a lot. Not today, anyway," he added with a forced grin. He was good-looking, with thick short hair even blonder than hers and those pale silvery-gray eyes. He was tall and muscular; or he had been, before he'd been wounded. He was in a wheelchair now.
"Someday they'll be able to operate," she said.
He sighed and managed a smile. "Before I die of old age, maybe."
"Stop that," she chided softly, and bent to kiss his forehead. "You have to have hope."
"I guess."
"Want something to eat?"
He shook his head. "Not hungry."
"I can make southwestern corn soup." It was his favorite.
He gave her a serious look. "I'm impacting your life. The... --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Can I give negative stars?,
By Kim "Book Fetish" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tough to Tame (Harlequin Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)
OH MY! Where do I start? As a long time fan of Ms. Palmer I looked forward to each new book. Her writing had a way of drawing you in and connecting with you emotionally. The key word in the last sentence was "had". The last few books have left me wondering what happened to one of my favorite writers. "Tough to Tame" should have been titled "Tough to Read"! The dialogue that I suppose was meant to be witty banter was trite and forced. The main characters were lost in a maze of secondary characters delivering one bad line after another. But the real shame in this book is that it is void of any emotion. There was no depth of feeling in the characters or the writing. I am not ashamed to admit that Ms. Palmer's books have moved me to tears in the past. Where is that writer? The only thing that moved me to tears in "Tough to Tame" is that I wasted a Sunday afternoon reading it.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Such a disappointment!,
This review is from: Tough to Tame (Harlequin Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)
I've been a long time devoted fan of Diana Palmer, but this book stunk to high heaven! The 'witty banter' made me blush it was so horrifyingly stilted, fake and beyond corny. The story is a re-tread of so many that came before it. The 'hero' was ridiculous, after one date started talking 'rings and licenses' and yet turns on her in a heartbeat. And the set ups for the next book MUST STOP! This Jacobsville place is crawling with mercenaries, international drug cartels, tall ruthless women-hating men and sweet innocent virgins -- give me a break! Time for a new town and some new ideas!
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why do I keep reading Palmer?,
By
This review is from: Tough to Tame (Harlequin Romance) (Mass Market Paperback)
As a previous reviewer mentioned, Diana Palmer is repetitive in her stories (I can not dignify them with the title "plots"). So why do I keep reading these books? Am I hoping for a return to the old Palmer style? No-I read them for the humor-mostly unintentional (I think)- of the trials and tribulations of the residents of the ever-shifting town of Jacobsville, Texas. "Ever-shifting", you ask? Jacobsville appears to be located within close driving distance of whichever large Texas city is a key location in the "plot" of the book. Houston, Austin, San Antonio...As a former resident of Wilson County, yes, Austin and San Antonio are fairly close together (in a Texas kind of way), but Houston? Not so much.This particular tale did not irk me as much as say, the Keely-Boone book. He was in his mid thirties, and Keely was 19? What do a man in his thirties and a teenager have in common? Even a teen with a "tragic past, and health problems"? Cappie seemed a relatively stable individual, without serious health problems or a terrible terrible past (except for the moron ex), and Bentley Rydell was a typical Palmer hero-alpha male with (step)daddy issues. I enjoyed the fact that Palmer left out many of the tacked on history lessons that have permeated many of her recent efforts; instead,, the reader gets a primer on Vet Techs and groomers and their function in the well-being and health of a dog. As I am neither a vet tech, nor a groomer-this did not irritate me like the "history/archaeology/anthropology" spiels do (I am working on my PhD in History). I will continue to purchase Diana's works, as they successfully provide hours and hours of comedy gold (like CSI:Miami!)
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
