“We wouldn’t want to make it too easy, now would we?” Bentley chided. He smiled at her fury. “Patience. You have to go slow and take them on one at a time, so they don’t flank you.”
She gave her boss a speaking look, turned back to the screen and tried again.
* * *
It was late when he left. The three of them had taken turns on the controller. Bentley and Kell had wanted to try the split screen, but that would have put Cappie right out of the competition, because she was only comfortable playing by herself.
She walked Bentley outside. “Thanks for bringing the pizza and beer,” she said. “Some other time, I’d like to have you over for supper, if you’d like. I can cook.”
He smiled. “I’ll take you up on that. I can cook, too, but I only know how to do a few things from scratch. It gets tiresome after a while.”
“Thanks for bringing the game over, too,” she added. “It’s really good. Kell is going to love it.”
“What did we all do for entertainment before video games?” he wondered aloud as they reached his car.
“I used to watch game shows,” she said. “Kell liked police dramas and old movies.”
“I like some of the forensic shows, but I almost never get to see a whole one,” he sighed. “There’s always an emergency. It’s always a large animal call. And since I’m the only vet on staff who does large animal calls, it’s always me.”
“Yes, but you never complain, not even if it’s sleeting out,” she said gently.
He smiled. “I like my clients.”
“They like you, too.” She shook her head. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?”
She flushed. “Oh, no, not because of… I mean…” She grimaced. “I meant it’s amazing that you never get tired of large animal calls when the weather’s awful.”
He chuckled. “You really have got to take an assertiveness course,” he said, and not unkindly.
“It’s hard to be assertive when you’re shy,” she argued.
“It’s impossible not to be when you have a job like mine and people don’t want to do what you tell them to,” he returned. “Some animals would die if I couldn’t outargue their owners.”
“Point taken.”
“If it’s any consolation,” he said, “when I was your age, I had the same problem.”
“How did you overcome it?”
“My stepfather decided that my mother wasn’t going to the doctor for a urinary tract infection. I was already in veterinary school, and I knew what happened when animals weren’t treated for it. I told him. He told me he was the man of the house and he’d decide what my mother did.” He smiled, remembering. “So I had a choice—either back down, or let my mother risk permanent damage to her health, even death. I told him she was going to the doctor, I put her in the car and drove her there myself.”
“What did your stepfather do?” she asked, aghast.
“There wasn’t much that he could do, since I paid the doctor.” His face hardened. “And it wasn’t the first disagreement we’d had. He was poor and proud with it. He’d have let her suffer rather than admit he couldn’t afford a doctor visit or medicine.” He looked down at her. “It’s a hell of a world, when people have to choose between food and medicine and doctors. Or between heated houses and medicine.”
“Tell me about it,” she replied. She colored a little, and hoped he didn’t notice. “Kell and I do all right,” she said quickly. “But he’ll go without medicine sometimes if I don’t put my foot down. You’d think I’d be tough as nails, because I stand up to him.”
“He’s not a mean person.”
“He could be, I think,” she said. She hesitated. “There was a man I dated, briefly, in San Antonio.” She hesitated again. Perhaps it was too soon for this.
He stepped closer. “A man.”
His voice was very soft. Quiet. Comforting. She wrapped her arms around her chest. She had on a sweater, but it was chilly outside. The memories were just as chilling. She was recalling it, her face betraying her inner turmoil. He’d hit her. The first time, he said it was because he’d had a drink, and he cried, and she went back to him. But the second time, he’d have probably killed her if Kell hadn’t heard her scream and come to save her. As it was, he’d fractured her arm when he threw her over the couch. Kell had knocked Frank out with a lamp, from his wheelchair, and made her call the police. He made her testify, too. She held her arms around herself, chilled by the memory.
“What happened?”
