Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 (9 page)

Only to discover that it had been a mirage. Nothing but more flatness.

Bad sign
, she thought as she tried to re-orient herself west. Confusion and disorientation were bad signs. She was starting to think she’d be lucky if a coyote tried to eat her, because otherwise she was going to get heat stroke in the middle of nowhere. And there was nothing good in that.

Her legs got heavier and heavier, but she forced them to keep going as she kept her eyes off the horizon so they wouldn’t trick her again. Finally, she saw the smoke off in the distance. He was out here, she thought as she prayed she wasn’t hallucinating that thin, white wisp. She was closer than Mr. Steinman had been, so that was something.

Damn, but her feet hurt. The longer she walked, the more she wondered what the hell she was doing. This was one of her more poorly planned ideas, that much was certain. Tracking his ass down had seemed like a good—no, great—idea at the time. She’d been so furious on the drive back from the gallery that she’d decided to have it out with her professional pain in the ass once and for all.

But that was currently the least of her worries. She needed something to drink and a cold shower, and she needed them STAT. She’d been stumbling her way through scrub brush and tall grass for what felt like days in boots that were not designed for anything more taxing than plush carpeting. And she was paying the price. Big time. Grass was stuck up under the legs of her jeans, scratching her skin more with every step. Sweat was running down her scalp, and her underwear was sticking in places it was never meant to. By the time she found Jonathan Rebel Runs Fast’s camp, she’d be lucky if she didn’t look—and smell—like Bigfoot in need of a flea dip.

The sound of water reached her ears, the promise of cool relief almost enough to bring tears to her eyes. Water. Rebel would have to wait. She needed to bring her core temperature down before her symptoms began to cascade. It was the least she could do for her poor feet.

But she’d have to find him soon. Of course he’d be near water. But he wasn’t stupid enough to drink it, was he? Well, if he was, that wasn’t her problem. Not until he got dysentery. Then maybe she’d care.

She broke through some scrawny trees and discovered herself on the bank of a decently wide river.
I’ll be damned
. She blinked several times, just to be sure she was really seeing it.
The sand is white
.

Just ahead was a long, sloping hill, so low that it was maybe only seven feet tall. The front of the hill had been shorn off by hundreds of years of water running over this very spot. The top of the hill was covered by more of the scrawny trees, but they looked less anemic up there than they did down here. And there, right in middle, was a tent.

He really did live in a tent. It wasn’t just a load of bull. He was for real.

Real like the small fire crackling in a pit at the bottom of the hill, less than five feet from the river. Real like the pot hanging over it, bubbling with what smelled like stew. Blankets were spread out on either side of the fire. Looked like he was expecting company.

Excellent. She was intruding. If she had parked close, she’d bail. This was not a good idea, much less a great one. What had she thought she’d accomplish by barging in on him? He had plans, and God only knew what a man like Rebel considered
plans
.

But the water was gurgling on its merry way past the campsite, just begging her to kick off her shoes and come on in. She turned to look at the river. She’d come so far...maybe for only a minute. Then she’d see if she could find something to drink that didn’t look like it was crawling with microbes, and it would be time to go. She spun around, looking for a place where she could sit down and wrench her boots off.

And found herself face to chest with a dripping wet,
shirtless
Rebel. Well, almost face to chest. He was still a good six feet away from her, just finishing knotting a towel around his waist.

His bare waist. She could see the oblique muscles, cut from solid rock, just above his hips. And it wasn’t a hell of a big towel. There was no way he had on anything else but one dinky little towel and a whole lot of muscles.

She was staring when it hit her.
Holy hell, what am I doing here?
Not a good idea. She should not be here, not with him looking like some sort of water god, not with her on the brink of a medical emergency. She should not be here
at all
.

His smile seemed a little less lazy this time as his eyes took in everything—the sore feet, the sweaty shirt, the hair that was about ten seconds from full-fledged frizz. Everything. The smile left lazy behind and headed straight for intent. “Hmm. Not who I was expecting.”

“You were expecting someone?” Great. Add besotted teenager voice to the long list of things that were wrong with her at this exact moment in time. But that was the best she had because, faced with that chest, she felt exactly like a besotted teenager she’d once been, watching Patrick Swayze teach that lucky Jennifer Grey how to dance in the water for the first time. The moment puberty had officially begun.

And damn it all, she was about five feet from living that delicious dream in real life. If she didn’t pass out from her plummeting blood pressure first.

At this exact moment in time, he was everything—everything—she wasn’t. He was cool, calm, collected, mostly undressed and in no apparent danger of swooning. “Someone. I just didn’t know who. Thought it might be...Nobody. If I’d known it was you...” he looked over to the pot, “...I wouldn’t have made the stew. I hope it’ll be okay.”

See, now, that was exactly what he normally did—spoke words she understood individually, but all together? He wasn’t making a single ounce of sense. “You made me dinner?”

“It’s got a little while to go.” His eyes moved again—and she realized that was the only part of him that was moving. No ball-peen-hammer heels, no tapping fingers, no swiveling hips. He was completely, utterly still. The only movement was the trickle of water down bronzed skin and off the ends of his hair.

This was officially getting weird. Hell, it was already weird. It was getting a whole lot weirder.

“So, you wanna go?”

The question caught her off-guard, but not quite as much as the yes that almost popped out of her mouth. She didn’t know for sure what she would have been saying yes to—Leaving? Swimming? Go at
it
?—but with the way he was just
looking
at her, she didn’t think she was going anywhere anytime soon.

And she was starting to think that maybe she was okay with that.

She managed to get a, “Where?” out, but she couldn’t fool him, not one bit.

He tilted his head to one side, setting all that loose hair tipping off to the right. “You look hot. I don’t have anything air conditioned, but the river would help those blisters you’re working on.”

Well. At this particular point in time, perhaps
hot
was the best she could do. “I don’t have a suit.”

He had the nerve to chuckle. “So? Neither do I.”

Now would be a good time to start breathing again. Right now. “Uh...”

“You came from the east, which means it’s about a mile and a half back to your Jeep. I don’t want you to get heatstroke or anything.” Rational—at the same time he was completely, totally irrational.

Get naked? In a river? With him?
Oh, let me count the ways this is a bad idea.
“Uh...”

Great. Just great.

And then he moved. One careful step at a time, he closed the distance between them until there was less than a foot. One measly little foot between hot, sweaty and panicked and cool, wet and calm.

She swore she could hear “The Time of My Life” echoing from somewhere. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“You’re hot. You’re blistering. You need to cool off.”

“I’m fine.” And that sweat trailing down her face? That had nothing to do with anything, thank you very much. At least she was still sweating, right?

Twisting his mouth into that canine grin, he shook his head at her lousy lie. And then, moving slow enough that it hurt her deep inside, he reached up and felt her forehead with the back of his hand. His hand was cool, damp. Her temperature dropped a whole degree—at least on her head. “Why do you do that?” he asked.

She tried to pull away from his touch, gentle and yet exquisitely dangerous, but he suddenly had her face in his bare palm. That alone was enough to hold her. “Do what?” Excellent. Her voice was starting to quiver. All she wanted to do was run into the river, water god be damned. She was going to crack.

“Ignore what you really want.” His thumb moved over her cheek, leaving a cool trail in its wake. “What you really need.”

“I don’t need anything.” She was sure that wasn’t true—she’d come here needing something—but at this exact moment in time, she was having a lot of trouble remembering what that was. She didn’t need anything. Other people needed
her
. That was how it worked.

“Everyone needs something, at least some of the time.” He should sound like he was scolding her for not knowing that simple fact, but nothing about him said scolding. “And right now, you need to cool off.”

He stepped in, close enough she could see herself reflected in those black eyes. Close enough she could smell the river water. Close enough she could taste him, if she wanted.

He slid his hand down from her face, across her collarbone, over her shoulder and down each and every one of her vertebrae with enough pressure to weaken her knees. Then he grabbed her top shirt and began to pull.

“What are you doing?” she spluttered, finally finding her hands. She grabbed at his forearms—rock solid—and halted his movement.

He let her stop him. “You don’t want to ride home in wet clothes, do you?”

There it was again, that rational irrationality. “I don’t want you to look.” And she was right back to childish.

He shook his head, his smile not moving a bit. He knew
exactly
how childish she was being. “You’re a doctor. You see people naked all the time.”

She swallowed. His hands were still on her waist, but he was tracing her ribs through her tank top now. Her shirt was half up. For the love of God, it
couldn’t
go up any farther. “That’s different. I’m a doctor.”

His eyes narrowed and his hands stilled. “Are you saying no one has ever seen you naked before?”

Excellent. Just freaking wonderful. She was so horrid at this...this...this whatever they were doing that she was coming off as a virgin. A bad virgin. “I didn’t say that.”

Did he look relieved, or was she imagining things? Either way, his hands started to move again, edging up ever so slightly and taking her shirt with them. “Let me guess. The first boyfriend, your parents hated. The other, they loved.”

How did he do that? How did he just
know
about Bryce, her one attempt at teenaged rebellion? How did he just guess that Dad had referred to Darrin as son from the second date onward? How did he
know
anything?

There was that grin again, the one she wanted to push into his head when he shot it at her in the clinic. But they weren’t in the clinic. They weren’t even in a building. They were standing on a sand bar, next to a river, under a hill.

She was pretty sure. If she was suffering from heat stroke, she might be imagining this whole thing.

He leaned in and pressed his cheek against hers. She was
not
imagining that, that much she was certain. “So which one did you leave to come here?”

He hadn’t kissed her. And she was disappointed about that—why? “The one Dad loved.”

“That’s kind of what I thought.” And her top shirt was over her head, leaving her feeling naked in a tank top.

“Madeline,” he said, his voice pushing its way past her heated daze and pouring cool, clear water on her soul. His hands found her shoulders again, tracing the straps of her tank top. “No bra?”

If possible, she got hotter. “Don’t need one when I’m not in the office.” She’d long ago given up on being jealous of Mellie’s fabu set of girls, but in an instant, she wished she had something more to bring to this particular little party.

“Hmm. A necklace.” His fingers undid the leather strap of her necklace without hesitation, which didn’t leave a doubt in her mind that a bra wouldn’t have slowed him down a bit. He let the ends of the necklace trail off her skin. “Madeline,” he whispered again, his accent taking each syllable and making it something different, something new. “I won’t look.” His eyes locked on hers with laser-like intensity. “I promise.”

And then he went for the tank top.

By now, Madeline was powerless to stop him. His voice had her mesmerized. The heat wasn’t helping. The promise of cool release was all she could think about.

That, and she didn’t know what to do with her arms. The tank top was a lot tighter than her top shirt had been. Her elbows had to go somewhere, and she was desperately afraid she was going to clock him in the nose. Of all the problems with this moment, that was the one that unexpectedly had her frantic.

He solved the problem for her. His hands guided her arms up as he stripped her of her shirt, and then he dropped the shirt behind him so that her arms were around his neck. Which brought their bare chests within a breath of touching.

Her eyes were not focusing like they should. She knew she needed to cool off before the heat stroke got serious, but all she could think was that with one stiff breeze her nipples would be introducing themselves to his bare skin.