Читать книгу Cowboy Under Fire - Carla Cassidy - Страница 9
ОглавлениеPatience woke up in a foul mood, and the name of it was Forest Stevens. He’d drawn her out of her comfort zone the night before, enticed her to spend time with him and get to know him a little better.
He’d invaded her dreams with his soft smile and the whole thoughtful setup of a pretend barn dance right outside her door. She’d dreamed of dancing with him closer, more intimately. His strong arms wrapped tight around her, his size making her feel like a tiny dancer in a music box...protected and cherished.
“Foolishness,” she said aloud as she dressed for the day. She’d allowed herself to be pulled into his world for a brief moment, a place where she didn’t belong, a place she didn’t want to belong.
At least the hot dogs had been wonderful, and if she looked deep inside herself she’d admit that the company had been pleasant enough. Forest Stevens was definitely eye candy with substance.
But acknowledging that didn’t change her mood or the fact that she needed to keep her distance from Forest...from everyone and everything except the bones that still awaited her particular expertise.
She left her room, not worried about running into Forest or any of the other cowboys. They would already be up and out, riding the range or doing whatever cowboys did to pass the long days.
Her back stiffened as she drew near the corral and saw Forest inside the wooden enclosure with the horse. He saw her and waved, but she ducked her head and hurried on to the sanctuary of her tent.
She sneaked out only to knock on the trailer door to let Devon know it was time to get to work. He never entered the tent until he knew she was on site. She didn’t permit anyone inside unless she was present. She quickly returned to the tent without another glance at the corral.
She didn’t even get completely inside the tent when shock stopped her in her tracks. The skeleton they’d completed putting together was gone from the stainless-steel table, as was the second skeleton that had nearly been completed.
For a moment her brain couldn’t even begin to make sense of it. Somebody had been inside the tent overnight, somebody who had removed the bones she and Devon had worked so hard to connect into a human form.
Shock turned to outrage. Sensing Devon standing just behind her, she whirled around to face him. “What happened to the skeletons?”
He looked at her blankly. “What are you talking about?”
“The bones, the skeletons we had on the tables are gone.” She was aware of her voice rising not only an octave, but also in volume. “They didn’t just get up and walk out of here on their own. Somebody came in here and took them.”
Devon backed up several steps and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll call Dillon.”
Devon called Chief Bowie, and Patience paced outside the tent entrance, still stunned by her discovery. She knew better than to enter what now might be a fresh crime scene.
“Dillon said he’ll be right here,” Devon said as he repocketed his phone. Devon appeared as bewildered and shocked as she felt.
“Who would have done such a thing?” she exclaimed. “And where was the officer who was supposed to be on duty?” Devon shrugged.
She frowned as Forest approached, apparently either seeing her agitated state or hearing her outraged voice. The last thing she needed right now was for the originator of her initial foul mood to interact with her. She already felt as if she was going crazy.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he drew closer. He brought with him the scents of leather and sunshine and a faint tinge of soap and fresh-scented cologne.
“My skeletons are missing and it’s all your fault,” she said angrily.
“My fault?” He raised a dark brow in apparent confusion.
“You distracted me last night with your barn dance. You...you made me not think about the bones and my work here.” In the back of her head she knew she was being completely irrational, but she was angry and confused and he was the nearest target.
She couldn’t very well yell at Devon. She had to work closely with him for who knew how long. Besides, he got the sharp end of her tongue on most days.
“And if I hadn’t distracted you last night what would be different this morning?” Forest asked in a calm, even tone.
She stared at him for a long tense minute. “Nothing,” she finally admitted. With that admission her anger shifted into a weary confusion.
If she hadn’t sat outside with him for his makeshift barn dance, she would have been in her room all night and still wouldn’t have answers as to what had happened to her skeletons.
“At least I got the reports on the first skeletal remains to Dillon already,” she said more to herself than to Forest or Devon. “Why would somebody do this? What could be their possible motivation?”
“To stop or slow down the process? Maybe to prevent you from finding something that might identify either the victims or the killer?” Forest replied. “I thought there was somebody on guard duty here during the night hours.”
“There is supposed to be,” she replied. “He comes around between six and seven at night and stays until about seven in the morning. I’m sure he was here on duty last night before I knocked off work for the night.” She glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes after eight. He’d already left for the day.
She sank down to the ground, unmindful of the dusty reddish earth beneath her butt. To her surprise, Forest sat down next to her.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said as Devon returned to the trailer and went inside to await Dillon’s arrival.
“You were upset,” Forest replied.
“I’m still upset, but it’s not your fault. All the work we’ve accomplished since we arrived is gone. Almost a month’s worth of digging, testing, matching and re-creating skeletons from a jumble of bones is now all for nothing. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before at any site I’ve ever worked.”
She was surprised to discover a lump in the back of her throat and the burn of tears in her eyes. Surely she wasn’t about to cry. She didn’t cry. It implied weakness and crying had never been allowed.
Swallowing against the lump and mentally willing away the alien tears, she was grateful to see Dillon Bowie’s patrol car pull up next to the big ranch house and park.
Both she and Forest got to their feet as the chief of police hurried toward them. “Maybe he’ll be able to figure this out,” Forest said with a touch of optimism.
Patience wished she could steal some of that hopeful outlook from him. She was still defaulting to a rich anger that had felt safe and familiar for so long.
“I thought somebody was on guard duty during the nights. What happened to your officer last night? Did he leave for pizza or take a nap or just forget what he was here for last night?” she asked when Dillon joined them.
Dillon winced at the same time Forest lightly touched her shoulder. “He’s not your enemy, either,” Forest said softly.
Heat filled Patience’s cheeks and she drew in a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, wondering how many times she would find herself apologizing for her temper before the day was over.
Didn’t either man understand how this would set them back? She hadn’t even been inside the tent to see if bones from the burial site were also missing. If they were, then the odds of solving this crime were zero. Evidentiary chain of command would have been broken, and she couldn’t analyze what was no longer present.
“Officer Kelly was on duty last night. I spoke to him right after Dr. Lewison called me. He confessed to me that he fell asleep for about an hour.”
“Fell asleep for about an hour,” Patience parroted in frustration. “Does he have any idea how important the work we’re doing here is? That this is a site filled with victims of foul play? This is a crime scene and it has to be guarded at all times. People can’t take naps when on duty.”
“He does understand all that and he’ll be appropriately reprimanded,” Dillon replied evenly. “Have you been inside?” He gestured toward the tent.
“No, when I stepped to the doorway I saw that the skeletons were missing,” she replied. “I figured it was officially a new crime scene and so I haven’t been all the way inside.”
“Where’s Dr. Lewison?” Dillon asked.
“In the trailer.” Patience walked over to the huge vehicle and knocked on the door. Devon stepped out and they rejoined Dillon and Forest.
“I’m assuming you didn’t hear anything odd or disturbing overnight?” Dillon asked Devon.
Devon shook his head. “I work hard and I sleep hard.” The short, well-built man raked a hand through his brown hair. He punched the center of his dark-rimmed glasses to settle them properly on the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Let’s take a look inside and see exactly what we’re dealing with,” Dillon said. “Nobody touch anything,” he cautioned them.
There was no point in wearing booties, as the floor in the tent was hard earth that didn’t retain footprints. Dillon entered first, followed by Patience, then Devon and finally Forest.
She was vaguely surprised that Forest hadn’t returned to his work in the corral once Dillon had arrived. He wasn’t needed here and couldn’t add anything to help solve the mystery. She found his continued presence both a faint irritation and a strange comfort.
She knew this scene was important to Dillon, who had to investigate the circumstances as to how these people were killed and buried. But Forest knew how important her work was to her after their little bonding session the night before. He would understand why she was so upset.
“The skeletons are gone,” Dillon stated the obvious as he stared at the two empty tables. A deep frown cut across his forehead.
Patience fought the impulse to roll her eyes. “Just as I told you,” she replied as evenly as possible. She walked over to the burial pit to see if any or all the other bones had been stolen from there.
She gasped in surprise as she saw that the bones that had been on the tables were not missing, but rather had been tossed back in with the others in the pit. She’d numbered each one and the numbered bones were there.
“They’re here,” she said. All three men moved to stand beside her and peer down. “Thank goodness part of the process is to number the bones as I put them in place. I see both number-one and number-two on the bones on top. Those are the ones that had been on the tables.”
“Are they all there?” Dillon asked. Forest stood next to him, tall and steady as a big oak tree.
“It’s hard to tell without actually pulling them out and reconstructing the skeletons,” she replied.
“So, this isn’t a theft, it’s a case of criminal mischief,” Dillon said with a trace of anger deepening his voice.
“It would appear so,” Devon muttered.
“What bothers me is that somebody had to have been watching Officer Kelly, waiting and hoping that he might nod off so that the culprit could enter the tent,” Forest said. “It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, but rather a planned bit of mischief or whatever.”
“And why go to all the bother of doing this?” Devon asked. “If the bones in the pit had been stolen, we would have had a real problem; as it is we’ve just been set back a bit.”
“Depending on what time Officer Kelly fell asleep, it’s doubtful there were any witnesses around. I think all of the men went to the barn dance last night and they wouldn’t have gotten back here until late,” Forest added. “Even then most of them wouldn’t have been in any condition to notice anyone lurking around in the tent.”
“I’ll round up all the men anyway and find out if anyone saw anything,” Dillon said. “How long will it take you to get back on track?” He looked at Patience.
“It will probably take us two days or so to redo what we’d already had done,” she replied. “And that’s only if all the bones are actually there.”
“I doubt if it would do any good to try to fingerprint either the table or the bones.” Dillon shoved his hands in his pockets, frustration lacing his voice. “Whoever was smart enough to wait for my officer to fall asleep, probably was also smart enough to wear gloves.”
“Besides, fingerprinting the bones isn’t a good idea, as it might degrade what’s already so fragile,” Patience replied.
Dillon motioned them outside of the tent. He looked at Devon and Patience. “You two have your work cut out for you, and I’ll be asking questions around here for most of the day.”
He didn’t wait for a reply but turned around and headed for the big house where Patience assumed he’d update the owner of the ranch, Cassie, on this latest development.
Forest gazed at her. “Are you all right?”
She straightened her back. “Of course. I’m fine. I just need to get to work.” In truth, a sense of violation filled her. It was as if somebody had rifled through her underwear drawer. Not that it would give anyone any thrills...just basic white cotton. But she didn’t want him to know how shaken up she was concerning this whole thing.
Forest tipped his black hat and then began his walk back to the corral where he’d been working when she’d first gone ballistic. She watched him go and remembered her dream, when she’d been held in his big, strong arms.
For a brief moment she wished she could call him back and meld into his arms. It was such a shocking thought, she turned to Devon. “Let’s get to work,” she said briskly and shoved all thoughts of Forest out of her head.
* * *
If Forest had hoped that the barn dance he’d orchestrated or his silent support of Patience when she’d discovered her bones had been moved would prompt some sort of forward momentum in their friendship, then he was mistaken.
For the past week she’d been as skittish as the horse he’d been working with, where he was concerned. She worked in the tent throughout the day and then surprisingly, she’d driven off with Devon at dinner time, presumably to eat at the local café.
At night he never heard her return to her room, and it was obvious she was avoiding him. Still, even as he’d worked each day with the horse in the nearby corral, she’d often stepped outside the tent and watched him. He might be crazy, but he wasn’t willing to give up on her yet.
Although he admitted that he had a healthy dose of lust where she was concerned, he also thought she just might need a friend, and if that’s all that he could have of her, he’d gladly take it.
Just as he knew the horse wanted to trust, he sensed that Patience yearned for some connection, but it could just be the imagining of a lonely cowboy.
He’d heard through the grapevine that Dillon’s investigation as to who had moved the bones had gone nowhere. Forest definitely didn’t want to believe that any of the men he’d lived and worked with for the past fifteen years or so could be responsible.
But who? And why?
Twilight was falling and he sat in a chair just outside his room. He glanced over to where the Humes ranch met Holiday land. Nobody knew what had initially caused the friction between Raymond Humes and Cass Holiday, but there was no question that there was bad blood between the two ranches and their workers.
The Holiday Ranch had suffered downed fences, small fires and damage to outbuildings, and Forest and his fellow cowboys suspected the culprits came from right next door.
Raymond Humes had hired thugs and bullies for ranch hands and many of them had worked for the man for the near sixteen years that Forest had worked on the Holiday Ranch.
Was one of them a killer?
Or had the killer been a drifter who had spent time in Bitterroot or on some other ranch years ago and was now far away from Oklahoma?
“Why are you sitting out here all alone?” Sawyer Quincy sat in the second chair that Forest had dragged out of his room in hopes of getting Patience to sit and chat with him when she got home from wherever she and Devon had gone.
“Just sitting,” Forest replied.
“Looks to me like you’re sitting and waiting.” Sawyer’s russet-colored hair looked more gold than red as the sun sank lower in the sky. “You’ve got two chairs out here so it’s obvious you’re waiting for somebody, and I suspect it’s a red-headed firecracker.”
Forest didn’t reply.
“I know you, Forest. Of all of us you’re the one most likely to want marriage and family, but you aren’t going to find it with Dr. Forbes.”
Forest laughed. “I’m not looking for anything from Patience. I just think she could use a friend around here.” Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered exactly when she’d become Patience instead of Dr. Forbes.
“She doesn’t act like she wants or needs a friend,” Sawyer replied.
“Everybody needs somebody,” Forest said. “Where would all of us have been without Cass, without each other?”
Sawyer’s eyes darkened. “I don’t even want to think about it. How do you know Dr. Forbes doesn’t already have somebody in her life? Maybe some hot, handsome scientist-type back in Oklahoma City?”
Forest was surprised by a momentary skip of his heartbeat. He leaned back in his chair and drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t thought of her already having somebody important in her life. Maybe that was why she was so determined to keep him and everyone else here at a distance.
He should have realized that a woman as educated, as accomplished and as pretty as Patience would have a man important to her in her life.
“I just don’t want to see a big man with a big heart take a hard fall,” Sawyer said. He got up from the chair. “I’ll see you around in the morning.” Sawyer walked past several rooms and then disappeared into his own.
Forest sat forward in his chair to digest what Sawyer had said. Did Patience have a significant somebody in Oklahoma City? Was that the reason she’d kept herself so isolated from everyone? Because she had some special man waiting for her back home?
If that was the case, then Forest would stop his subtle pursuit of her. He would never try to come between a couple even if they were just casually dating. It was a matter of honor...honor that had been instilled in him first by his parents and then by Cass.
While he appreciated Sawyer’s concern for him, Forest didn’t take the chairs and go back inside. Instead he continued to sit and wait, not knowing what might happen or what he might learn when she returned.
It was nearly dark when he saw headlights that indicated Devon and Patience had returned from wherever they had gone. Forest’s heart stepped up its rhythm just a bit as the car lights went out.
He’d wanted to talk to her, but now with Sawyer’s questions ringing in his ears, he wanted to talk to her more than ever. It would be difficult for her to avoid him given the fact he was seated just to the side of her room door.
Of course she could always fly by him with a curt nod of her head and escape into her room without having any conversation with him, as she had done all week long.
He sat up straighter when she approached, a mere silhouette swinging a white plastic bag as she walked in the moonlight. He could tell the moment she saw him. The bag stopped swinging and her shoulders punched back in a defensive mode.
It was definitely not a happy-to-see-you kind of posture. As she drew close enough to see her features, he relaxed a bit. Her lips weren’t pressed together in displeasure, nor were her eyes narrowed in a glare.
“Want to sit for a few minutes?” he asked when she got close enough.
She stepped up to her door and hesitated a moment. “Okay,” she finally said. “Let me just put my bag inside.” She unlocked her door and tossed the bag in the direction of where Forest knew her bed was located.
“More cheese puffs and tabloids?” he asked.
“You’ve got to stop looking at my trash,” she replied as she sat in the chair next to his.
“Can’t help it. Once a week it’s my chore to empty all the trash cans everyone puts outside their doors. At least your trash is more interesting than the usual beer bottles and beef jerky wrappings. I can’t believe you read those tabloids.”
“I like them. I read about people with interesting lifestyles that have nothing in common with mine.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just find somebody like that and talk to them? Get to know them on a personal level?” he asked.
“Not really. I don’t do emotional attachments and I don’t have to worry about that with the stories I read.”
“So, there’s no boyfriend or significant other waiting for you to return to Oklahoma City?” he asked, hoping he sounded nonchalant.
“Absolutely not. I dated a bit in college, but I came to the conclusion that I don’t really believe in love. It’s just a bunch of messy emotions that aren’t fact based. It’s something people do to procreate and not be alone as they get older and I don’t mind being alone.”
Forest stared at her in shock. “Not everything in life is fact based, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. How do you explain people who stay married for years?”
“A chemical attraction based on pheromones, evolution, need and hormones. In the lust and attraction stage dopamine and adrenaline play a big part. In the attachment stage the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin kick in. It’s science, Forest, not the nebulous emotion people call love.”
Forest had never heard of half the words she’d spoken, but he got the gist of what she was communicating and it made him sad for her.
“I don’t know anything about hormones and evolution, but until I was fifteen I was raised by my mother and father who not only loved each other but also loved me. I just don’t believe science had anything to do with it. It was an emotional, loving bond that was only broken by death.”
“Your parents died?”
“In a car accident when I was fifteen.” Even after all the years that had passed, a lump of loss rose in his throat. “What about you? Are your parents still alive and well?”
“My mother also died in a car accident. It was five years after she walked out on me and my father. She left us when I was six and we never heard from her again. My father was contacted when she died by a distant relative of hers.”
“I’m sorry,” he replied.
“Don’t be. She was a drama queen, constantly wailing or crying, cursing and screaming. I think if she hadn’t left when she did, my father might have divorced her. He couldn’t abide the chaos of all of her emotions.” She spoke matter-of-factly, as if relating one of the stories in her tabloids about people she didn’t know well.
“Do you have a good relationship with your father?” Forest was fascinated by this glimpse into her childhood.
“We have a good working relationship,” she replied.
Forest frowned. “What does that mean?”
“My father is a scientist and we’ve never had a warm and fuzzy relationship. He was my mentor and set high standards for me. We speak occasionally on the phone, but he lectures a lot all over the country, so we don’t see each other very often.” She shifted positions in the chair, the movement sending her faint floral scent to Forest. “What happened to you after your parents’ deaths? Did you go into foster care?”
“We lived in Oklahoma City and after my parents’ funeral I was taken back to my house by a social worker. I packed a duffel bag and crawled out of my bedroom window and took to the streets. I wasn’t going to go into foster care. I thought I was old enough, big enough to take care of myself. On the streets is where I first met Dusty.”
“Dusty?”
“Blond hair, deep dimples...the youngest of all of us here. He was a scrawny thirteen-year-old who was getting beat up and robbed on a regular basis by other street kids. I was already big enough that nobody messed with me. After I met Dusty I made sure nobody ever messed with him again.”
“How did you come to be on a ranch an hour and a half from the city?”
“A woman named Francine Rogers. She was a social worker who at night would check in with the lost boys...that’s what we called ourselves. At the time I met her, Cass had just lost her husband and this ranch was in near ruins. Hank, Cass’s husband, had been ill for some time and most of the men who worked the ranch had moved on and deserted her. Francine asked me if I wanted to come here and learn to be a cowboy. I agreed only if Dusty came with me, and here we are roughly fifteen years later. All of us were street kids when Cass took us in and turned us into men.”
“You know the timing is right that it’s possible one of those street kids committed murder.”
“I’ll never believe that,” he replied firmly. “I’ll definitely have to see cold, hard facts to believe that.”
“See, I guess we’re more alike than you want to admit.” She stood. “And on that note, I’m going inside. Good night, Forest.”
“’Night, Patience,” he replied.
When she’d disappeared into her room, he leaned back in his chair, digesting everything they’d talked about. Forest had no idea who might have killed the people whose bones Patience was attempting to put together, but if he was to guess, it might have something to do with the feud between Raymond and Cass.
He wasn’t a police officer and it wasn’t his job even to speculate on who might be responsible. What he’d found intriguing about his conversation with Patience was the glimpses into her childhood...a childhood that had made her into the woman she was today.
Raised for six years by an over-emotional mother who had abandoned her and then brought up by what sounded like a cold and distant scientist father, was it any wonder she questioned the existence of real love?
Was it any wonder her only emotion appeared to be a default to anger, the easiest of all emotions to attain and the best weapon to keep other people and more frightening emotions away?
Forest knew the sounds, the scents and the feel of love. Love sounded like his mother and father laughing as they shared a private joke between them. Love smelled like pot roast on Sundays, and it felt like a proud pat on the back or a gentle kiss on the cheek just before falling asleep.
He knew love and he hungered to have it in his life again. Unlike most of the other men who worked here, Forest hadn’t been beaten or abused by the people who were supposed to love him or damaged on the streets where he’d found himself.
He wanted love and marriage, children and the kind of forever after he knew in his heart his mother and father would have shared if they hadn’t died prematurely.
He rose from the chair and folded it and the second one where Patience had sat and carried them inside his room. He locked his door and tried not to imagine Patience in her bed just on the other side of the wall of his room.
It was just his luck that the first woman who had captured his attention didn’t believe in love and had no interest in personal relationships.
He shucked off his jeans and took off his shirt, leaving him clad only in a pair of navy boxers. He got into bed and wondered if it was even possible for him to change Patience’s mind about the most important things in life.
