Cowboy Under Fire. Carla Cassidy

had been found and the police needed her expertise in aging them and looking for anything that might provide identification.

      But this particular burial site had six bodies that had dissolved to nothing but bones. As the bodies had deteriorated, the bones had all collapsed together, forcing her to work six different puzzles. It had been easy to know that there were six bodies by the six skulls.

      At least the young woman’s body that had been found here along with the others had been identified and her recent murder solved, leaving Patience only the graveyard of old bones to deal with.

      She popped open the top of her soda and took a long drink. The tent interior was hot and would only get hotter as the July days got longer and the dog days of August moved in. But she couldn’t allow a fan to blow or any equipment to change the atmosphere, to subtly move the dirt or taint the crime scene and the six skeletons in the same grave that could only be the result of murder.

      Once again she thought of the cowboy who had broken her concentration. Forest. Forest Stevens. She couldn’t help but have noticed him around the ranch since she’d arrived.

      He rode taller in the saddle than the other men and his incredible shoulders tapered into a slim waist, and she suspected his legs were firmly muscled beneath his worn well-fitting jeans.

      She frowned. Why had he stopped to talk to her at all? She’d made it clear by action and more than a hint of snarky attitude that she had no interest in making new friends or acquaintances while she was here.

      She had a job to do, and when this job was over she’d move on to the next one. Besides, she didn’t do friends, she didn’t do lovers. She did bones.

      Bones spoke to her in words that didn’t hurt. They gave her facts, not lies. She liked her bones far more than she liked people.

      Still, she had to give Forest Stevens props for facing down the dragon lady. She shook her head ruefully and then took another sip of the refreshing soda. She knew how everyone on the ranch talked about her behind her back. She didn’t care. She wasn’t here for warm and fuzzy feelings, she was here to help the local chief of police solve a crime.

      By the time she’d finished her soda, Devon had returned from the long trailer that held not only scientific equipment and a mini-lab in the front, but also a tiny kitchenette, bathroom and bunk in the back. The vehicle was hooked up to both a generator and a water line running from the house.

      Most of the time when they traveled to burial scenes, Devon stayed in the recreational-vehicle-turned-lab, and Patience ended up staying in a nearby motel or rented room and driving back and forth to the scene.

      She’d been told before she arrived here that there was a room on the premises where she could stay. She had a room in what the cowboys called the cowboy motel, a sprawling twelve-unit building that housed all of the ranch hands who worked on the ranch.

      On the back side of the building was a large dining area where a man named Cookie prepared meals. She didn’t eat there—not because she would be the only woman in the place, that wouldn’t bother her, but because she didn’t want to pretend that she was here for anything else but work. She didn’t make small talk and she didn’t attempt to play nice with the locals. There was no point.

      The tedious job of removing each tiny bone and then staring at her computer screen where she had photos of the skeletons as they’d initially been found was both frustrating and exhausting.

      As each bone was removed from the makeshift grave, it was photographed and numbered, weighed and examined, and then placed on a table until it could be joined with the rest of the bones that would make up an entire human skeleton.

      Although they had lights set up in case they wanted to work late, by six o’clock that evening she was ready to call it a day. Her back ached from bending over the burial pit, and her eyes burned from staring at the computer screen for so long.

      “Let’s go ahead and knock off for the day,” she said to Devon.

      He nodded and peeled the white lab coat he wore off his broad shoulders and draped it over his chair. “See you in the morning,” he said as he left the tent.

      She had no idea what Devon did in the evenings. Behind the large lab trailer they had pulled a compact car. Most evenings it was gone, and she assumed that rather than attempt to cook in the small, fairly inadequate kitchenette in the trailer or join the others in the cowboy dining room, he went into town for his evening meals.

      Although they had been coworkers for a little over a year now, they didn’t share much of their personal lives with each other. She only knew that, like her, he was unmarried and dedicated to his job. That was all she needed to know about him.

      She took off her lab coat and slung it across the back of her chair. Her sleeveless white cotton blouse clung to her, and her brown capris felt heavy and hot.

      She was just looking forward to a shower and spending a mindless evening indulging in her two secret pleasures: reading tabloids and eating cheese puffs. She also had a stash of protein bars and other nonperishable foods in her room, but cheese puffs were definitely her weakness.

      She left the tent and started the long walk to the cowboy motel. At this time of the evening, the ranch was relatively quiet. Most of the men had finished their work for the day and were in the dining room enjoying their dinners.

      The grass beneath her feet was slightly crunchy, transforming from the lush spring grass to browning summer-burnt thatch.

      The heat would only get worse as summer progressed. Hopefully she could finish up her work here within the next couple of weeks. But bones spoke in their own time, and she knew she couldn’t rush things. Rushing resulted in mistakes, and Dr. Patience Forbes didn’t make mistakes.

      She slowed her pace as the cowboy motel came into view and she saw Forest standing outside his bunk door. Without his hat, his black hair shone shiny and rich in the sunlight and his features were more sharply defined.

      Why was he just standing there, as if waiting for her? She’d been abrupt...no, she’d been downright rude when he’d introduced himself to her earlier that day. Why would he want to see or speak to her again?

      Maybe he was just waiting for another cowboy to join him to go to dinner. Surely that was it. His handsome, sculptured features transformed into something softer as she drew closer, and he smiled at her.

      The warmth of his smile shifted something inside her, heated a place in her stomach she didn’t know existed. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

      “Good evening,” he said.

      She nodded and pulled her bunk room key from her back pocket. Before she could put the key into the lock, he lightly touched her forearm and then immediately dropped his hand to his side.

      “Dr. Forbes?”

      She turned to look at him, struck for the second time that day by the beauty of his bright blue eyes. “Yes?”

      “There’s a barn dance next Friday night and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

      “A barn dance?” she parroted in surprise. Was he asking her out for a date? The very thought boggled her mind. She’d certainly given him no indication that she would be remotely open to the possibility of anything like that. “Why would I want to go to a barn dance?” she asked.

      He shrugged. “To enjoy the local flavor, to step away from your work for a night of fun...maybe let down your hair a little bit.”

      “My hair is down and I’m here to work. Thanks, but no thanks.” She unlocked her door and stepped inside and closed it behind her.

      She immediately sank down on the twin bed, still stunned that he’d actually asked her out. She was thirty years old and the last time a man had asked her out on a date was during her college years, and that had been a huge mistake.

      Why on earth would he want to spend any time with her, given the fact that she’d been so...so unlikeable since she’d