Cowboy Under Fire. Carla Cassidy

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      “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.

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