The waitress delivered her lunch, and Patience gasped. The hamburger was almost as big as the plate. Even with her appetite she would barely make a dent in the food.
A shadow crossed in front of her table. Patience glanced up to see three of the men from the other table standing over her.
“Hello.” Patience was curious as to why they were there.
“Heard ya was over at the courthouse digging into property records,” the oldest man said. He wore a dark gray hat, jeans and his skin was so leathery it didn’t look real. His nearly black eyes were downright hostile, as was his tone.
“I might have been,” Patience ventured. She didn’t know what they were up to, but she refused to be intimidated. “I’m not sure how it concerns you, one way or the other.” Her right eyebrow rose. She’d dealt with bullies all of her life, she could handle a couple of rednecks in a Podunk town.
“Quite a mouth you got there,” said the youngest of the three, who was probably somewhere around fifty, though it was hard to tell with his black hat pulled down over his face so low she couldn’t see his eyes. He leaned forward.
Patience refused to move, holding her chin even higher.
“Reckon you should keep to your own business and leave our town alone,” the man threatened.
“I reckon you should leave my friend Patience there alone,” said a voice from the doorway of the café. There was a silhouette of a man who wore a cowboy hat, white shirt, boots and jeans, but she couldn’t see his face.
“Her business is my business,” he continued, “and I don’t appreciate you making threats to my friends.”
The older man held his hands up in surrender.
“Just looking after the town, Cade. We don’t like nosey folk in our business.”
Cade walked to the table and Patience had to forcibly shut her mouth with her hand. The man had been sexy in his suit, but in these jeans, he was nothing less than smokin’ hot, as her boss, Mariska, the owner of Stonegate, would say.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Hey, there. Everything okay?”
His lips scorched her skin, and she couldn’t breathe.
She nodded.
Cade slid into the other side of the booth. “I see you ordered enough for the both of us.” He gave her a dazzling smile.
She willed her mouth to work, but it didn’t. Though her heartbeat did double-time.
Cade glanced at the men. “Moses, Jim, Ralph, I’m sure you have better things to do than watch us eat.” He smiled but his tone implied they should leave quickly.
Up until six weeks ago when he came to town to check on his land at his grandmother’s request, it had been two years since Cade had been in Phosphor to visit his family. Not much had changed. For the most part the townspeople were friendly, but these old characters were the exception.
The men stared at him, but eventually backed away, mumbling as they left the café.
Cade jumped up to grab an empty plate from the waitress, and ordered a sweet tea.
Patience remembered the last time she’d seen him. He was like some kind of Jekyll and Hyde—a mind-bendingly sexy Jekyll and Hyde.
“Thanks,” she said finally. “I could have handled them on my own.”
Cade nodded. “I’m sure you could. But I don’t like aggressive types, especially ones who pick on beautiful women.”
He called her beautiful. No one had ever said that about her. The man was a flirt.
She cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?”
Cade took her fork and knife and cut the hamburger in half. Then he scooped a handful of fries and put everything on his plate.
“I’m taking your dare.”
2
THE SUN SHINING THROUGH the diner windows danced along Patience’s angelic locks giving the appearance of a halo, but Cade’s thoughts weren’t close to heavenly. The woman was more intoxicating than he had remembered and for the past week she’d been haunting his dreams.
Twice while closing the merger deal he’d lost track of what he’d been saying thanks to sudden visions of her face flashing in his mind. More than anything he wanted to wash away that look of disappointment she’d given him just before he’d walked out of her office.
He tried to convince himself that he’d been upset when they met and that he’d made her into much more than she was. But he was right the first time. He’d known that as soon as he walked into the café.
Taking a bite of his half of their hamburger, he studied her as she concentrated on her fries. She was obviously surprised to see him, and he’d arrived just in the nick of time. If she had any inkling of how he really felt, Patience would run straight back to Austin and lock her door.
If he had any brains at all, he’d do the same thing.
“Thanks for sharing your food with me.”
A slow smile crept across her mouth. “Uh, sure. So, you came to help me out?”
“Thought it was the least I could do after being so rude to you the other day. I’m usually never rude to women.” It was true. Many in the business community thought him to be cutthroat and they weren’t wrong. Cade was driven and wanted to provide a solid company for his employees, most of them had been with him from the beginning and sometimes that meant making tough decisions. Combining his company’s resources with that of another would in the long run make both companies stronger.
Patience pushed the stray hairs that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ears. “That’s sexist in a way, you know.”
He nodded. “You can blame my mom, and after she died, my grandmother. Gentlemen are always supposed to speak kindly to the ladies.” He gave her his best sweet Southern accent. “I can honestly say I was in shock. All these years I thought my dad was some sorry bastard who ran off with another woman. Then I find out he’d been murdered.” Cade took a sip of his tea.
“The sheriff explained as much, so I didn’t hold it against you—much.”
Cade had to stop himself from leaning across the table and kissing her when she smiled at him like that.
Whoa, boy, slow it down.
“So what were you doing that got those boys’ attention?”
She shrugged. “I was going through old property records in the courthouse. I didn’t find anything. If Moses had given me the chance, I would have told him he had nothing to worry about. And, well, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m not sure you’re going to like it, but I hope you’ll give me a chance to explain.”
Now he was curious. “I can’t imagine anything you could say that would upset me, Patience.” He liked the way her name sounded on his lips.
After glancing around the restaurant she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “I told you when we first met I’m a forensic anthropologist.”
Cade had done some checking into her background before making the drive down to Phosphor. He’d discovered she was the best at what she did. She’d written several books, and universities around the world courted her and through the Stonegate Agency she consulted for law enforcement officials all over the world. She was the superstar of the forensic anthropology field.
“Normally, in a case like your father’s, I identify the remains and then one of the detectives from our agency would take over the case to track down the murderer.”