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“Mmm,” he answered noncommittally, glancing around at the waiting room. “And I’ll take a look at your locks, if you want, too.”
Megan had almost for got ten she’d said that only moments before outside. But now that he’d brought it up, she said, “I’m not really worried about the locks. It just seemed as if you might not be comfortable letting Mr. Burns know you were scheduled to come in for acupuncture so I thought I’d cover your tracks.”
The sheriff’s full eyebrows drew together at that. “I wasn’t worrying about who knew or what anybody thought. I just wasn’t sure I was going to actually do this,” he answered matter-of-factly. “No offense, but it just seems like some kind of hocus-pocus or voodoo or some thing. Not anything that could actually do me any good.”
“Ah, I see. I appreciate your honesty,” she said, not taking offense because it was a sentiment she’d been con fronted with before. “But if Dr. McDermot recommended me he must have told you that acupuncture can be effective.”
“He wasn’t all that convinced himself. But this damn—this allergy thing has just come up recently and the medicines he’s given me make me fuzzy-headed and too tired to think. I can’t have that on this job. So Bax thought I might as well give you a try.”
She couldn’t be sure but she thought there might be a bit of innuendo to the last part of that statement. Especially since the give you a try had come with the tiniest upward quirk to one side of his mouth. But once more she opted for pushing aside the idea and sticking to matters at hand.
“In other words, I’m the last resort,” Megan concluded.
“That’s about it.”
“And you think you’re wasting your time,” she finished what he seemed to have left unsaid. “That’s okay. You aren’t the first person I’ve had to prove myself to and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
His very attractive mouth eased into another smile, as if he thought he’d gotten her goat and it pleased him.
Well, he hadn’t gotten her goat. And to show him, she put some effort into sounding more professional.
“Have you had allergy tests to isolate what you are and what you aren’t allergic to?” she asked.
“No, but I can pretty much tell. Horses and hay seem to trigger it. And since, besides being sheriff and being around them pretty much every where I go, I need to work the family ranch, I have to do some thing about it.”
“Which is why you’re here.”
He merely inclined his head to concede the point.
“I’ll need to do some testing of my own—” Megan held up her hand when he opened his mouth to protest. “Unlike what an allergy doctor would do, my way of testing is much easier and absolutely non-invasive. It’s simple muscle testing through applied kinesiology.”
“Whatever that is.”
“You’ll see as soon as we get started. But I need to isolate everything you’re allergic to. For instance, if you were allergic to bacon you might have a sensitivity to pork, or it might be the nitrates the meat is cured with that bother you. I’d have to know which it is before you could actually be cleared.”
“For takeoff?”
Okay, so he could make her smile and she liked that in a man, too. She still tried to maintain her perspective, though, by reminding herself that he thought she was a quack. “No, not cleared for takeoff. Cleared of the allergy. That’s what it’s called when I cure you,” she said with exaggerated bravado.
He caught it. “When you cure me. Do you do laying on of hands and faith healing, too?”
“No, just acupuncture.” And she was enjoying their back-and-forth teasing too much, so she amended her tone to a more authoritative one and said, “Shall we get started?”
But before he could answer, the front door opened suddenly to admit the contractor Megan had hired to replace her septic tank.
It surprised both Megan and Josh. Their focus on each other had been so intense that neither of them had seen him coming despite the fact that anything was hard to miss through the huge windows.
“Never thought I’d find you both in one place,” Burt Connors said by way of greeting. “Glad to see it, though. Saves me a trip.”
“Hi, Burt,” the sheriff answered as if they were old friends.
“Josh,” the excavator countered the same way.
“What’s up?”
Apparently Josh Brimley thought he should take over. But since Megan was still trying to figure out why her contractor had been looking for her and the sheriff, she guessed it was just as well.
“Got that old septic tank out and put in the new one,” Burt Connors informed them both. “But when we were coverin’ it up again we dug a little in another spot for fill dirt and found somethin’ else. Somethin’ that looks like sheriff business.”
“You found sheriff business in my backyard?” Megan said.
“Yes, ma’am. Looks like a skeleton. A human skeleton.”
“Are you sure it isn’t just an old family grave?” Josh asked reasonably.
“Sure enough. He’s not too deep, there’s no coffin and it looks like the guy was planted belongings and all. I think you better come take yourself a gander, Josh. And you, too, Ms. Bailey. This ain’t no kind of formal buryin’. I’m bettin’ we’ve opened up somethin’ somebody thought would never come to light.”
Josh Brimley turned those dark, dark blue eyes to Megan again, this time from beneath one raised brow. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”
“Only that I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s going on.”
But he didn’t look completely convinced of that as he led the way out of her office.
Chapter 2
THE OCCASIONAL CAR ACCIDENT. Reckless driving. Speeding. Mailbox bashing. Minor vandalism. Cattle tipping. Drunk and disorderly conduct. Brawling. A break-in here and there—in the history of Elk Creek that was as bad as it got in the way of crime. Until now.
It was a little hard for Josh to believe that only three months into his run as sheriff he was looking at what seemed to be a murder. But it didn’t take him long after reaching the Bailey place and looking over what had been un earthed to realize that could well be just what he was con fronted with.
“I’ve put up the crime scene tape to cordon off the area. Your men can work around it,” he told Burt Connors when he had the burial site contained.
Chaos reined supreme in the Bailey backyard since Burt insisted that he and his crew had to finish up their work so the Bailey sisters would have use of their plumbing facilities by night fall. And although Josh was fairly certain curiosity in what that same crew had uncovered was the real reason behind their lingering, he didn’t object. He had work of his own to do as he used a whisk broom to care fully and methodically brush away the soil that remained partially obliterating the skeleton so that the entire grave and its contents were visible.
Josh had trained with the Wyoming sheriff’s department and he knew all the procedures, including those for a crime of this magnitude. He knew the procedures by heart. But a murder investigation was the last thing he’d ever expected to actually have to do in his small hometown.
Of course he should have known better than anyone that not many things turned out the way a person expected them to. But still, it was a sobering job that lay ahead of him.
Daylight had disappeared by the time Josh backed away from the freshly cleared hole, confident that he’d done all he should do on his own for the moment. But