The problem with this plan, however, was that Rebel had had no such vision, no flash of the past that gave clues to the future. Even if he had, he doubted a vision would have been specific enough to get Jesse’s ass moving.
Which only left one option. Faking it.
He rubbed his eyes. Pretending he’d had a vision went against just about everything he believed. But Albert had laid out the path. It was up to Rebel to walk it.
Rebel sat back down, staring out into the warming sky. This was a unique opportunity—not only could he tell Jesse what to do, there was a decent chance the man would listen. For once.
What the hell. “I saw...” How best to get Jesse to man up? “I saw a vision. Your hair was white with age and you walked with a staff.” Which was probable, so not quite a make-believe lie, right? As Jesse nodded, Rebel’s mind scrambled for a future Jesse could hold onto. “Your family was here,” he added, sweeping his hands around to show Albert’s house and land, “and you were cooking the venison your grandchildren had hunted for you.” Also probable—after all, he and Jesse had done the same thing often enough. Jesse would take comfort in the familiar.
“Really?” Rebel snuck a glance at him, afraid Jesse wouldn’t believe his little white lie any more than Rebel did. But, to his surprise, Jesse looked thoughtful. Introspection was odd on him, but that didn’t make it bad. Hell, he might even get used to it. “My grandchildren?”
“Yes.” Shit, he didn’t want to get any more specific—specifics were easy to prove wrong, even if it took another twenty or so years to do it. “Your family, Jesse. The family you make is the family you have.”
Something about his own words rang in his ears. He’d spent six years making his tribe his family, and that had been enough. Had been, but it wasn’t now. A man couldn’t hold a tribe at night, couldn’t watch a tribe sleep in the morning, couldn’t swim in a river with a tribe. A man could love his tribe, but he could only be in love with a woman.
He was in love with Madeline.
“How do I do that?”
The longer he sat here, trying to get Jesse to see the light, the more time it would take him to get back to Madeline. “Get a job, Jesse. A real one. Even a job at the Quik-E Mart. Pick your daughter up from school, read her stories at bedtime and kiss her mother every night. It’s not hard. You just have to do it.” Jesse’s head sagged again. Rebel was just about done being the medicine man—a plastic shaman—right now. He was just about to become the big brother. “It’s what Albert wanted.”
“It did make him happy when Nelly came over. I read to her a lot then.”
“You keep the house.” Sure, a house would be nice. A house would be something Madeline would like—more than a tent, anyway. But this wasn’t where he belonged. Jesse needed a place to belong. “I need to get going.”
Jesse’s mouth was open, but when Rebel looked at him, he snapped it shut. Rebel kept the smile off his face as he stood. Jesse struggled to his feet. “I was going to go through his stuff, get it organized for the giveaway. If that’s okay with you.”
“That’d be good.” A small step toward responsibility was still a step. “And thanks for getting the sleeping bag ready.”
“I know he’s dead, but...” Jesse shrugged, but he looked pleased with the compliment. “I wanted him to be comfortable.”
How about that, Rebel thought long after he’d gotten on the road to town. There was hope for the twerp after all.
By the time Madeline’s little cabin came back into view, the sun was on the other side of the earth, marching toward night with unwavering certainty.
He wished he felt the same certainty. Well, he did. He was certain he was in love with Dr. Madeline Mitchell. But he wasn’t some kid anymore, convinced that the ideal love would triumph over all. He’d made that mistake once. He wouldn’t do it again.
Which left him with that unsettling feeling of uncertainty, and he was pretty sure no message from the past—real or made-up—would guide him toward his future path. All he had was Albert’s final words. Find his own path, no one else’s.
Hell was knowing what Jesse should do at the same time Rebel had no idea what he was supposed to do.
But then he saw her, and all his uncertainty about tomorrow and the day after melted into certainty of what he was going to do right now. Her hair was pulled back in a loose knot, and she was wearing that pink shirt he loved to take off her. Then he spied them, underneath her jeans.
She had on his mocs.
His blood warmed under his skin. To hell with later. Right now, he had a beautiful woman waiting for him. Right now, he had Tanka saddled up. Right now, he was just going to be in love.
Right now, life was good.
“I was beginning to wonder,” she said as she stood, picking up the small backpack at her feet. He dismounted and found her in his arms, hugging him tight. “How are you?” She sounded worried.
“Better, now that I’m here.” He kissed her, but quickly. Lingering was for later. “Ready?”
She held him for just a second more, then turned to Tanka. “Hello there. Who are you?”
“Madeline, this is Tanka. Nelly rides him a lot.”
“You brought me Nelly’s horse?” Even in the dimming light, he could see the sharp look she shot him as she let Tanka sniff her hand. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
“Show me what you got, then.”
It wasn’t that he doubted she could ride—she’d done just fine bareback—but he wanted to see for himself that she really knew how to handle herself on a horse. He wanted her to ride with him. To be with him.
Backpack on her back, she slung her right leg over Tanka’s back with authority. “Cowboy, you’re on.” And she was gone in a cloud of summer dust.
“Hey!” With him? He grinned. Or in front of him?
He tore off after her. Even through the dust, he could see she was having the time of her life. She rode like an old pro, head down, arms pumping with each stride. She was holding the reins in two hands, not one, but Tanka was going flat out anyway. Oh, yeah, he thought, giving Blue Eye her neck. She looked damn good on that horse. He shouldn’t think dirty thoughts about watching her bottom rock as Tanka galloped, hell for leather. But it had been a long day, and he hadn’t had a hell of a lot of sleep. Madeline—on horseback, at top speed—was just what he needed.
He wanted to stay behind her just to enjoy the view, but she was following the road left when they needed to go right, over the hill. Tanka was good, but Blue Eye was better, and in less than three strides, he was in the lead.
And they headed home.
By the time his hill rose up over the river and he slowed Blue Eye to a trot, he wasn’t tired anymore. Instead, his blood was pumping, flooding him with a heat that sure felt like certainty. Damn, she was beautiful, she was amazing in bed and she could ride. Man, could she ride.
“Woohoo!” Madeline trotted ahead of him and then circled back, wearing the biggest smile he’d ever seen. “That was—wow! Can we do that again?”
“Maybe in the morning.”
She looked at him, wanting to argue, but then something about her changed. “Long day.”
The horses were walking side by side now, slowly but steadily heading back to camp. “Very.”
“Did you get everything taken care of today?”
“I think so.” He’d given Jesse a gentle kick in the butt, taken Albert to the funeral home, spent four hours in Super-Mart buying things for the giveaway and ordered cake for the funeral. On about three hours of sleep.
She didn’t say anything as they made it to camp. She didn’t say anything as they unsaddled the horses or spread the sleeping bag out on the sand. She didn’t even say anything as she handed him logs for the fire. It wasn’t until the fire was going that she turned to him. Her hands found his chest, and she kissed his cheek. “So, you take care of everyone?”
He hadn’t thought of it quite like that. “Yeah, I guess.” The buttons on his shirt began to give. He d
idn’t know where she was going, but he liked where she was heading.
She laid his chest bare, leaned over and bit down around his nipple. Heat poured from her mouth onto his bare skin and he shuddered. Grinning, she looked at him through thick lashes. “Who takes care of you?”
All that heat began to melt the parts of his brain that did the thinking. “What?”
“You take care of everyone. Even me.” His belt was gone, and his jeans were down. She was undressing him, just like he’d undressed her on that hot afternoon by the river. He could remember her being dazed, in a hazy way. Hazy, dazy—all he really knew was that he was hot. That she made him hot. “What I want to know is who takes care of you?”
His mouth felt stuck in the open position, which was a damn good thing when she kissed him.
“You,” he managed to get out.
His hat went flying, and she pushed him down onto the sleeping bag. His back hit the stump, but that was okay. He had a full view of her.
“Then let me take care of you.”
She let her own hair loose. It sprang free, and he began to sweat. No part of his brain was functioning right now. All he could think was this beautiful woman—his beautiful woman—was going to take care of him.
The fire blazed brightly behind her, cutting her silhouette out of the dusky night as she undressed for him. Everything was red-hot—the fire, the woman, his dick—especially his dick. He tried to lean over to grab his jeans and get the condoms in his back pocket, but she used her foot on his shoulder to push him back against the tree stump. “I told you, I’ll take care of you,” she scolded. He could hear the smile in her voice as she finished shimmying out of her jeans.
He was burning now, burning from the outside in, the inside out. She fished out the condom, and with that crisp efficiency that made her such a good doctor, rolled in on his aching dick. Her hands lingered, which drove that hot ache up into his gut. He groaned. He couldn’t take much more. Hell wasn’t this hot.
“I promise,” she whispered, her voice thick with the same kind of heat that was burning him through and through. “I promise I’ll take care of you.”
She straddled him, and then all of her warmth and wetness was surrounding him as she whimpered his name every time she rose and fell on him. He caught a breast in his mouth and sucked hard. Her noise went from a whimper to a scream in a second, so he sucked harder. The fire in his blood went from red-hot to clear blue as she took care of him, again and again. In his mind’s eye, he was watching her ride the horse. Up, down, up, down, faster and faster until he couldn’t tell who was going to win this race. She knew how to ride, all right. She knew how to ride with him.
She slammed her hips down onto his and, in a white-hot moment, he emptied everything he ever had into her. Her head whipped back as she ground down even harder, and then she collapsed against his heaving chest. He’d won, but she hadn’t lost. Everyone was the big winner here.
“Better?” she murmured into his neck as she kissed his still-hot skin.
“Mad-e-line.” It was all he had left, and even that wasn’t much.
“I love you too.”
Good. She knew. That was all that mattered.
Sunday was nearly perfect, Madeline decided. Rebel made something that looked like biscuits but tasted a whole lot better in a big, cast-iron pot over the fire. Even the coffee seemed to be a little more special. After that, they went on a long ride, winding through parts of the High Plains that seemed still untouched by human hands. Rebel showed her where he camped in the spring and fall and then took her down a deep valley to see a herd of pronghorn grazing in the tall grass. After they got back, they went for a dip in the river and then made love under the shade of trees. Sated, they dozed through the hot part of the afternoon.
Hell, if she’d known how much fun camping was, she’d have done it years ago.
Her wheels began to turn. The cabin would be cramped for a while, sure, but maybe between the two of them, they could find enough money for a new place. And on the weekends, they could head out to the open range and rough it. It could work. They could be together. It was insane, she knew. She’d only been here for two months. But after staring down the throat of a life of Darrin-based boredom, she wanted to hold on to all the honest-to-goodness excitement that was being with Rebel. She didn’t want to let go, either.
Still, by the time they mounted up to head back to the cabin, she could tell something had changed about him. He was quiet again, and he kept looking at her not like she was going home for the night, but like she was leaving. Like she was leaving him. Like he’d looked at her that first morning.
He was making her nervous. But she refused to give into some sort of hysterical, feminine panic. Last time, it hadn’t even been about her. It had been about Albert. And he’d already come back for her, right? Right. Focus on the positive. “I had a good time camping,” she started, breaking the silence as they walked the horses back to her house.
“Yeah?” Did he sound a little hopeful?
“Yeah. I think that would be fun on the weekends—at least when the weather’s nice.”
“Yeah.” The hope was gone, and he sounded dangerously close to something like depressed.
Did he not want her to go camping with him? Lord, this man drove her crazy. But she resolved not to get ahead of herself and ruin the day. “How about you? Do you like the cabin?”
His answer was a long time coming. “It’s pretty nice. I could maybe stay with you a night or two a week.”
A night? Or two? She swallowed. That sounded ominous. “Oh. I thought...” She caught herself before she got her foot too far into her mouth. She thought he couldn’t let her go. She thought she took care of him, and she knew exactly how well he took care of her. She sort of thought he might be able to love her, crazy white woman and all.
Perhaps she’d thought wrong.
They rode the rest of the way back to the cabin in a tense silence as she tried to figure out what was going on exactly. This wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of thing. He’d gone way out of his way to make her a part of his family and to explain his customs—especially the ones that made the least amount of sense. He’d made her moccasins—moccasins she was wearing right now. He’d made breakfast, for God’s sake.
So what the hell was it?
She half expected him to just tip his hat and ride off into the late afternoon sun, but he dismounted with her and then took her hand as they walked up onto her porch. She let him, because holding hands was holding onto something. For all she knew, it might be the only thing, but it was something.
He stopped in front of her door, like this was the end of the first date and he was nervous about the kiss. “My Madeline.” His voice said it all. He wasn’t coming in. He was leaving.
“Stay,” she said, surprising even herself. So much for that foot in the mouth. Well, hell. Since she’d already shoved it in there, she might as well keep on going. “Why won’t you stay here with me?”
He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. “A piece of me will always be here with you.”
“I don’t want a piece of you, Rebel. I want all of you. Even the parts that make me crazy.”
“I...” He tightened his arms around her, like she’d said what he wanted to hear and didn’t want to hear at the same time. “I can only give you the one piece.” He found her hand and pressed it to his chest. She could feel his heart strumming along beneath the skin. “I don’t have anything else left to give.”
“What does that mean?” Was he dumping her, or what?
His raised his mournful eyes, and she saw a sadness that she didn’t think was hers. It was his. “I can’t leave the land, and it’s not fair to ask you to give up indoor plumbing.”
Her mouth opened and shut without her approval. So that was it. She’d just assumed he’d move in with her—that he’d want to move in with her and live in a real house and have a real life with her. But no. He wasn’t going anywhere.
It
felt like he’d tied a lead sinker to her heart and made a long cast out to the middle of the river. He was right, of course. It was one thing to go from the Mitchell Mansion to a studio cabin, but it was a whole other thing to go from a cabin to a tent on a permanent basis. “So what do you want to do?”
A little bit of hope crept into his eyes. “We could do what we just said. A night or two during the week, camping on nice weekends. It’s not perfect...” He kissed her forehead. “But I can’t let you go.”
Her heart sank even farther. She’d had no idea that those words were so open to interpretation, but clearly they were. She’d interpreted them to mean something damn close to I love you. This was the problem with not speaking the local language. The interpretations were always open. “And you can’t stay.”
He nodded as he smoothed a curl away from her face. His mouth was saying one thing, his body something completely different. Maybe that was her problem. She’d been listening to the wrong part.
“I’ll understand if that’s not enough for you. But you’ll always have a piece of me.”
One piece. What the hell was she supposed to do? Love him when he was here, miss him when he was gone? Damn it. Damn it all. She was going to miss him no matter what. And if she couldn’t do that, couldn’t live half in his world and half in hers, then she wouldn’t get to love him at all.
One piece. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him. Every time he popped up at the clinic, she knew she would fall apart all over again, all because she wouldn’t settle for one piece.
She took a deep breath, hoping to clear her head and instead just breathing in his smell—the smell of horse and man and river and sun, all blended into a perfect musk—until she knew she couldn’t live without any part of him. Even if she couldn’t have all of him. “Will you stay the whole night? When you come?” Because if she woke up with him, she could pretend that there was something normal about all of this. If he wouldn’t be there when she woke up, then she couldn’t. She couldn’t just be a booty call.
Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 Page 18