With an effort, he left the women to talk. To distract himself, he pulled out the Italian sausage and ripped it to pieces.

A couple of minutes later, Frankie returned and stopped when she saw his face. “Uh-oh. I take it you heard some of that?”

“Enough, yes.” Bull evened out his voice. “You did well with her, Frankie. Thank you.”

Frankie shrugged. “Sexual harassment happens all too often. I’ve had to deal with it at my New York job.”

“You were—”

“No, no. My mother taught me and my sisters how to deal with office predators.” She shook her head. “Unlike Amka, I’ve never needed money so badly I was forced to be polite to bastardi.”

Bull had seen how she handled customers with wandering hands. Overly familiar co-workers were probably humiliated with equal ease.

He leaned on the counter. “You said you had a method to deal with harassment. Want to take a break and pay Harvey a visit?” There was nothing in the kitchen that couldn’t be put on hold for a while. And he was too angry to want to cook.

“Sure, let’s do it.” Frankie started putting food into the refrigerator. “Will you let me help?”

The need to deal with everything himself was there, but… “Our culture—especially in Alaska—teaches this behavior, hell, even encourages it. Even knowing that, I still want to punch him. So, if you can manage to resolve this without a firing or broken faces, that’d be good.”

“Violence and sexism—you men are all screwed up.” Her bubbling laugh lightened his anger.

She picked up her purse. “If Harvey has an imagination, we might be able to teach him something and change his behavior. I’ll give you your role-play lines on the drive over.”

Role-play? What the fuck?

Frankie settled into the seat in Bull’s pickup. The vehicle was the size of a tank, yet sitting beside him felt almost intimate. The cab smelled of clean leather and the wonderful sandalwood-and-cedar of Bull’s aftershave.

As he closed her door and headed for the driver’s side, she sighed. Somehow, he managed to treat her as if she was equal and still someone to be protected. One more thing to like about him.

Starting the pickup, he headed down Dall Road. He drove fast, but carefully, in control at all times. His sleeves were rolled up, and the light brown skin of his muscular forearms boasted ample scars. His jaw was tight, and deep lines had formed between his black brows. He didn’t just look concerned; he looked deadly.

Cavolo, Harvey had better be ready to see reason.

He turned down a rutted dirt road and stopped in front of an aged, manufactured home. An old pickup was parked off to one side. “Harvey’s home. He lives alone—divorced a while ago—and she has their two teens.”