Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 (33 page)

Well, hell, she couldn’t argue with that. And, if she was remembering things correctly, Jesse had done a fine job of keeping the kids clean and calm. She looked down at Rebel’s hand, which was loosely circling her wrist. And, damn that man, his thumb was stroking her skin. “I’m not happy about this.”

He froze and then pulled his hand back. “Which part? The part where you single-handedly saved several lives? The part where you guessed right about the campy and E. coli thing?” He swallowed. “Or the part about me?”

You. The part about you.
But strangely, she couldn’t put a finger on exactly which
part
of the part about him bothered her. The fact that he was here? Maybe that was it. Maybe. “Why are you here?” she repeated, taking a step away from him and his long arms and strong hands.

He finished his tea and stood. Automatically, she took another step away. Instinctively, she knew a close Rebel was a dangerous Rebel.

“I want to apologize. To you.”

Of course, he was plenty dangerous without touching her. Her heart did that weird lurching thing, but she ignored it. “All right, then. You can apologize.”

One corner of his mouth notched up. “I know I can. May I?”

Damn this man
, she thought. But that was as far as she got.

“I’m sorry, Madeline. I acted like an… Well, a real asshole about that phone call.”

The lurching thing got stronger. “Yes,” she managed to get out. “You did.” She wanted to tell him apology accepted, and since they all agreed she was fine, he could just get the hell off her porch. But she couldn’t. He was still standing before her, shifting his hips back and forth as he didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath.

“And you were right.” He took another small step toward her—but, given the overall tininess of her porch, it was more than enough to back her into the corner. “I, of all people, should know about faking it.”

She couldn’t get anything out. Which was just as well. If she’d opened her mouth, she might have started squeaking or something equally undignified.

“I know who you really are,” he went on, politely ignoring her silence. “I know that wasn’t the real you, and I know you were doing that for me. For me.”

She was being the bitch, remember? An apology was one thing, but the way he was slowly closing in on her made it clear that he thought a simple apology wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t. It was time to be the bitch.

“Is that so? When did this blinding revelation hit you? Because it sure didn’t have you over here for three days. Three days, Rebel. And I don’t want to hear the crap about you not used to being certain places at certain times.”

He closed his eyes and nodded in a way that struck her as tired. “You aren’t going to like the answer.”

Did she like any part of this? “Try me.”

“I was in the sweat lodge. Albert told me to get my shit together.”

There was a small chance she was still in bed, still dreaming, because in the normal world, dead grandfathers did not tell Traditional Masters of Fine Arts to get their shit together. But if she knew anything, it was that the rez wasn’t the normal world. And the hell of it was, she actually did believe him—a little, anyway. “Oh? And did he tell you to apologize?”

“Nope. I had to figure that out myself.” The color on his cheeks deepened as he took another step forward. “I’m not too smart. It took me a few days.”

“It took you a few days to figure out how to say you’re sorry?” She took two quick steps past him. At least she wasn’t in the corner anymore, but she wasn’t sure if she should make a break for the house—he’d just follow her in—or head off the porch. Which would not be a victory since it was her damn porch.

“No.” The quick, solid way he said it pulled her up short. “It took me a few days to figure out how to make it up to you. And then,” he said as he reached around to his back pocket. For a split second, Madeline was afraid he’d pull out a ring. Instead, he grabbed a sheaf of papers. “There was that whole medical crisis. I’d been planning on coming up to see you Sunday afternoon, hoping you wouldn’t pull a gun on me, but I had this dream that night...” He trailed off as he began smoothing the papers out. “I had to get to the clinic. And the clinic is no place to make a formal apology.”

Make it up to her? Without a ring? She shook her head. She didn’t want his ring. Rings were just things. She didn’t want things. She wanted him. “And?” she said, trying to bitch her way through this, because
this
wasn’t what she’d expected. He wasn’t groveling, and he wasn’t begging, and he wasn’t telling her that she was making the biggest mistake of her life. He was being his regular old self.

Not dreaming, she realized. If she were dreaming, they’d be naked in a river.

His smile was cautious. “You don’t wear jewelry. So I had to get something better.” And he handed her the paper.

This made no sense, none whatsoever. She was looking at a flyer that had a trailer—scratch that, a modular home, the flyer said—on it, with a happy family sitting on a porch. At the top, a small square of paper was stapled to the flyer. “What is this?” Even as the words left her mouth, she realized what the small square was. It was a receipt. For nine thousand dollars.

“A house.”

“You bought a house?” All she could do was stare at him.

And he was grinning away at her. “I bought you a house. With a porch.”

“You bought me
a house
?”

“Actually, I bought us a home.”

Us. Home. That was all she heard. Us. Home.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he went on, again ignoring her carp-mouthed silence. “I’ve been thinking that a man could get used to indoor plumbing and coffee that makes itself. A man could get used to soft mattresses and warm blankets.”

He was going to stay. It wasn’t even January, and he was going to stay. That lurching thing was going to knock her to her knees.

“And I’ve been thinking. A porch—that’s like being outside, only with one wall. Hell, give a man a comfortable chair and a porch is even better.”

“A home?” Excellent. She was squeaking.

“We could still go camping when it’s nice.” He closed the distance between them with one step and pried her hands loose from the flyer. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crushing it against her chest. “Besides, I think your pipes are going to freeze this winter.”

“Home?” Oh, this just got better. She was down to one word.

He set the flyer down on the recliner, and then his hands were around her waist. “I made a down payment, but they said we could come back and pick out a different model, if you wanted. It doesn’t matter to me, just as long as it’s got a porch.” He touched his forehead to hers and tilted her head back. “Just as long as it’s got you.”

He was going to kiss her. He’d worked alongside her to fight the campy, he’d brought her home and cleaned her up, he’d apologized, he’d made a down payment on a modular house and now he was going to kiss her.

She put her hands on his chest and shoved him back, just enough that his lips didn’t touch hers. Because she knew that as soon as he kissed her the deal would be sealed. He let her push him back, but his hands stayed firmly anchored around her waist.

“You’re going to give up camping?”

His grin got wolfish. “You’re doing it again.”

She would not let him sidetrack her with all that talk of wants and needs—even if he was right. “I don’t care. You’re going to give up camping?”

He nodded, waiting patiently.

Her wheels began to spin. Apologies and homes were all very nice, but she was going to make sure they both read the fine print before they signed on the dotted line. “If you buy us a home, you have to get used to being certain places at certain times.”

He tilted his head. She couldn’t tell if he was amused or irritated. “Understood. You’ll have to get used to having a sweat lodge in the back yard.”

Like she even knew what a sweat lodge looked like. And who the hell had
yards
around here? “You’ll have to get used to Mellie coming out to visit,” she fired back.

The grin got more wolfish.
If only he had a longer nose
, she thought. “You’ll have to get used to people dropping by looking for a medicine man.”

She managed to keep the
oh, yeah?
to herself, but the rest of her thoughts devolved into a juvenile he-said, she-said kind of argument, which wasn’t exactly bitchy but still wasn’t giving in.

“You’ll have to get used to going to Columbus.” Rebel Runs Fast in the Mitchell Mansion—she’d bet cold, hard cash that Aunt Matilda would drive
herself
down from Cleveland to see that sight. The thought got her dangerously close to a smile.

He ran a thumb over that almost smile, and her bitch resolve wavered even more. “You’ll have to get used to going to New York in the winter.”

He was trying to outflank her. Well, it wouldn’t work. She had ammo to spare. “You’ll have to get used to going to gala charity banquets.”

Damn it, nothing was ruffling his feathers. “You’ll have to get used to gallery openings,” he said, like he’d been waiting for her to say it.

That didn’t sound pleasant. But if it was only for a week or so... “You’ll have to get used to me being on call.”

“You’ll have to get used to being married.”

Outflanked. Completely and totally outflanked by a mystic cowboy who happened to be an Indian. Nothing came out of her mouth. Not a damn thing. He leaned in and kissed her, and in that exquisite moment, she didn’t care if she was awake or not. She only knew that she was where she belonged.

“I will never let you go, Mad-e-line,” he whispered in her ear as he held her tight. “I couldn’t, even if I tried. I love you too much.” He leaned back and stared into her eyes. She saw herself, crazy white woman with crazy hair who just wanted to do a little good in this world. But she saw him too. A man who walked in two worlds. A man who wanted to find his place.

She looked down at the flyer, with proof of down payment fluttering in the evening breeze on top. It wasn’t a ring, that much was certain. But it was a promise, all the same. Then she looked at him again. All the cocky wolfishness about him was gone as he waited. He wouldn’t let her go, she realized. Even if she said no.

“Please,” he said. The glimmer of fear in his eyes was just that—a glimmer. But it was enough to tell her that she could still outflank him, still take him down with one word.

“Please say yes.”

But that wasn’t the victory. This wasn’t even a battle. This was the rest of her life.

The rest of their lives.

“Yes.”

Victory had never been sweeter.

Epilogue

Nobody Bodine stepped to the edge of the shadows. The thin stand of pines was more than enough cover for him to see what he’d come to see. He’d been here on and off for months now, looking at what he’d lost.

It was the same. It was always the same. Rebel Runs Fast, the one man in this world he counted as a friend, sat on the far side of the fire. He was beading tonight, his attention focused on his next project. Some nights he sat and just watched the fire, some nights he worked, other nights he had his brother and his family over to sit around the fire with him. Sometimes, he went riding.

Rebel was never alone.

His wife, the white doctor, was always with him. When he worked, Madeline sat on her padded chair next to him at the fire, reading with this weird little book light attached to what Nobody assumed were medical journals. When Rebel was lost in those trances that came to him, she inched closer to him, watching him with the kind of intent devotion that could only be true love.

No one ever looked at Nobody like that. Nothing even close. What he got was fear from strangers, and disgust—contempt even—from those who thought they knew him. No one knew him. Only Rebel had ever come close.

Rebel looked up from his beading, his head cocked to one side. Nobody froze. He was silent—hell, he was always silent. Nobody ever heard Nobody, and nobody ever saw Nobody, not unless he wanted them to. But Rebel was not just anybody. He was a medicine man. He saw what the spirit world wanted him to see, heard what the spirit world wanted him to hear.

Before he’d married the white woman, he’d been the only person to ever see and hear Nobody.

To Rebel, Nobody was a part of this world. He’d belonged here in this world, just as the wind and the rocks and the river belonged here. To Rebel, Nobody wasn’t just a nobody, who came from a nobody and would always be a nobody. To Rebel, Nobody was a man to be trusted, a man to be believed. Nobody was a man who counted.

Nobody didn’t trust the white woman. He trusted no one—except Rebel—but the white woman was especially suspicious. She seemed to be a good woman, from what he could tell from the shadows. She was a doctor, and she had patched him up without question.

But she was still an outsider—a woman, and a white one at that. Her judgment of him was different from others—she had never known his mother, and knew nothing about the hell that had been his childhood. But she still sat in judgment of him and found him wanting. Nobody wasn’t good enough to share Rebel with her. That much was clear every time she jammed her hands onto her hips and scowled at him. Which was every time she saw him.