LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

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