Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1

by Sarah Anderson

  Jesse donned the mask and gloves and then put himself on cleanup detail, giving his daughter a sponge bath and holding the bedpan for her when she threw up. Madeline felt proud of him, although she didn’t have time to stop and think beyond that. Even though he was a toddler, Mikey hadn’t been as far gone as Nelly was—he’d been a mess, but at least he hadn’t been bleeding. He only had one IV, and that was doing its job. And the three women all managed to keep their antibiotics down. All good things. She’d gotten to them in time.

  But they weren’t the only ones who were sick. Before long, Madeline was in real danger of running out of IVs. She already had people lying on the floor and sitting in the waiting room, with the patients who could stand acting as human IV poles. Rebel had taken over Tara’s job, answering the phone and pulling files while Nobody made pass after pass of the place, trying to stay one step ahead of the mess. She thought Jesse was washing down all the kids, but she couldn’t be sure.

  They were barely keeping their heads above water. The clinic got more and more crowded as people dragged themselves in. Everyone was throwing up, which was bad enough, but the diarrhea seemed to be hitting the kids the hardest. And the story was all the same. Everyone who was sick had gone to the church picnic. Everyone had eaten steak.

  For Madeline, each hour had been the same as the one before. Sick people, not enough space, not enough supplies. She felt vaguely like she was stuck in a movie—everyone had had the fish, the pilot was ill and was there anyone on board who could fly a plane? That was just the exhaustion talking, she knew. It had all started to blur in a mess of vomit and saline and bleach when she looked up and saw it was seven in the morning. Dawn had happened at some point, which meant it was morning in Columbus.

  It took three tries before Mellie answered the damn phone, but when she heard Madeline’s voice, she didn’t even whine about the ungodly hour. The woman was an Internet-stalking genius. In twenty minutes, Madeline had the home phone number of the owner of the medical supply place in Rapid City. She didn’t have time to do it Mellie’s way, so when the owner, one Mr. Hubert Terstrip, told her he couldn’t possibly make it to the store today because it was Sunday, she broke out the Mitchell sneer with enough force to make half the waiting room recoil in fear.

  She sure as hell wasn’t going to let a little thing like Sunday keep her from containing this mess. “If I lose a single patient because you didn’t get me what I needed,” she shouted, not caring who heard her, “I’ll sue your ass back into the last century and then, once you’re there, I’ll sue it again. And I’m talking class action, Mr. Terstrip. Hordes of lawyers, all wanting a piece of you, for years. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to open the damn store on Sunday and give me what I need.”

  Even Rebel backed up a step. Well. At least the Mitchell sneer was working again, even with a surgical mask covering her mouth. She’d have to remember this version of it the next time she needed to put that man in his place—but that wasn’t today. She waited.

  “Fine,” Mr. Terstrip said, sounding anything but happy about it. “But I’m not going in before nine, you hear me?”

  “Fine. Nine it is. I’m sending an associate,” she replied, feeling the sneer crack just a little into something that might be a smile. Rebel’s eyebrows knit together in suspicion. She nodded, and he nodded back. Rebel was the only one who could do it right now. “He’ll pay with my check.”

  With a snarl, Mr. Terstrip hung up.

  “Supplies?” Was she insane, or did she hear a little joke in his voice as he dug out a pen and a piece of paper?

  She snatched them out of his hand and chose to ignore whatever double entendre he may or may not be slinging at 7:46 in the morning on less than four hours of sleep. “Can you do this?” She needed more of everything—dextrose, saline, IVs for both kids and adults, more Zofran for the kids and lots and lots of antibiotics.

  “You can count on me,” he replied as she dug out her checkbook.

  “Can I?”

  Over the top of his own mask, he gave her a look that said, “Oh, come on,” and she mentally winced. This was not the time or the place to get into that again, not when she needed his help. His help, she reminded herself. Not him. She signed the check and then looked at her balance. “I can cover four, okay?”

  “Thousand?”

  Damn, she hated it when he got mildly bug-eyed. Him looking freakish made her feel freakish. “Do the best you can.”

  Rebel got himself back under control. After all, Madeline reminded herself, he’d been up for hours on heavens-only-knew what kind of sleep too. He took the list, read through it once and held out his hand for the check.

  She paused for a second. This was unfettered access to her back account. But then, he’d already had unfettered access to her body. Was this any different? And she was desperate. Behind her, the wet sound of projectile vomiting hit her ears. Desperation in a nutshell. She gave him the check, and he tucked it in his back pocket. “If he gives you any crap, you have my permission to beat the hell out of him.”

  He caught her eyes and held her gaze for a long moment. She tried to read his eyes, but all she could see was something that might be admiration, professional respect.

  “I’m going,” he said, his voice low and suddenly intimate.

  “Go, then.”

  With a nod of his head, he turned and stepped over patients on the floor.

  But come back, she added silently as Jesse’s truck peeled out of the parking lot.

  Come back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Normally, it took Rebel about an hour and fifteen or twenty minutes to get to Rapid City. Today, he made it in under an hour, which, unfortunately, left him with seven minutes to sit in the Terstrip Medical Supply parking lot and figure out how he wanted to handle this. Madeline had gone in with both barrels blasting, but he wasn’t Madeline. And he’d never met any of these people, so he didn’t know what was coming. Who would he need to be? Rebel or Jonathan?

  As he debated, he looked around. He’d never been on this side of the city. When he came in, he stuck to the gallery neighborhoods and the Super-Mart strip malls. A corner grocery that looked like it catered to Mexican immigrants was up the block and a manufactured-home sales lot was across the street. Terstrip Medical Supply took up most of a whole block all by itself. Together, they gave the place a desolate, industrial feel at nearly nine on a Sunday morning.

  He wondered what time the grocery opened. No one had eaten anything since he’d shown up, and Madeline probably wouldn’t let anyone eat anything that had already been in the clinic for fear of cross-contamination. But everyone would need something to keep going, or they wouldn’t be any better off that the patients. His stomach managed a small growl in agreement.

  At exactly nine, a smooth black sedan with dark windows pulled into the lot and an ill-tempered man who looked dressed for church got out and slammed the door. His comb-over ruffled in the slight breeze as he stalked up to the door, unlocked it and wrenched it open.

  He’d have to go in as Rebel, he decided. Nothing about Terstrip said he could be flattered into anything right now. He followed Terstrip into the store.

  “Well?” Terstrip snarled, his lip curling up in distaste. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Jonathan Runs Fast. Dr. Mitchell sent me to pick up the supplies.” No need to give this man more to glare about. He held out the list.

  Terstrip looked at him like he’d taken a dump in the middle of the sidewalk. “You’re an associate? You look like a dirty hippie. A girl hippie.”

  So much for politeness. He knew it didn’t have much on Madeline’s sneer, but he didn’t have to look mean. He just had to look a little dangerous, so he smiled. Terstrip froze. Smiling always threw people off. “I’m just here for the supplies.”

  Unfreezing, Terstrip scooted behind the counter. Gun or baseball bat? Rebel hoped baseball bat. They were a lot easier to dodge than bullets. “You dirty Indian, you’ll probably just
steal the stuff, try to get high or something. I outta call the police on you, on all your kind.”

  To hell with looking dangerous. He was feeling a whole lot of dangerous. Terstrip started to duck under the counter, but Rebel moved before he could get anywhere and had the man by his Sunday-best lapels. “Too bad that they’d never find me. You know Indians. We all look alike. But they would find you.”

  “Take your hands off me!”

  That’s better, Rebel thought. Proper fear. Terstrip started to stink with it.

  “I’m just here for the supplies,” he repeated, aiming for more menacing this time. Too bad he hadn’t brought Nobody. Nobody could do menacing like nobody. The man was a professional at it. Rebel was a rank amateur in comparison. However, Terstrip didn’t know it. His eyes widened even more. “And then I’ll leave.” He let go of the man and got ready to dodge lumber.

  “What’s going on in here?”

  The sound of a soft voice whipped him around to see a petite woman with big, artificially blonde hair standing in the doorway. She had the kind of sweetheart face that said she’d turned a lot of heads back in her time, Even now, her generous curves were still a sight to appreciate.

  He felt a sigh of relief try to escape. A woman like that—even if she was married to this asshole—was someone he could handle with his eyes closed. He whipped off his hat and let Jonathan’s eyes do the talking for him. She blushed. Oh, yeah. He knew how to handle a pretty woman. “Ma’am, I was just thanking your husband for opening up for us today.” He let his accent drawl on a little. Most every woman he’d ever met had a secret thing for a tall, dark, mysterious stranger. “The clinic has just been flooded with sick children.”

  A manicured hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, goodness, what happened?”

  Rebel stepped away from the counter, just in case Terstrip took advantage of this distraction and tried to bash in his brains. “Ma’am, we were at a church picnic, and most everyone got food poisoning. My niece...” He drifted off. It didn’t take much work to get choked up. He’d tried real hard not to think about what Nelly had looked like when Madeline found her, because she’d looked terrifying enough when he’d pulled her from the back seat of the Jeep. In that crystalline moment, he’d seen the sickness had come, but not with the silent, sterile whiteness of his smallpox vision. If he didn’t get the hell out of Dodge, and soon, Madeline would be fighting a losing battle with a death of moaning and retching and shit that reeked to high heaven. And he didn’t have to be a medicine man to see that Nelly would be first. “The children are suffering, ma’am. The doctor needs more supplies or we might start losing them...”

  Mrs. Terstrip looked like she wanted to hug him. “Oh, you poor thing. Church picnic, you say?”

  You poor thing. The words scraped over his ears like steel on flint. No, he yelled to himself. You’ve got her where you want her. Just reel her in, and then you can go. “Ma’am, the St. Francis parish on the far side of the White Sandy reservation.” He didn’t have a problem with Catholicism on the whole—they did good work and educated a hell of a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t get anywhere, like Tara. However, they’d only added classes in Lakota culture to the curriculum a year or so ago. That was why Tara and Tammy and whole bunches of people didn’t speak the language. While it was true that he hadn’t been at yesterday’s picnic, he’d gone to one or two in the past. “It was a fundraiser for a new school,” he added, trying to sound mournful. “I’ve got the money to pay for the supplies, but I’ve got to hurry. My niece...she’s only five, ma’am.”

  “Oh, goodness.” This time, she did touch him. She patted his arm with sympathetic sorrow, but Rebel couldn’t help but note that her touch lingered for about two seconds longer than it should have.

  A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, Madeline’s voice whispered in his ear. He gritted his teeth through the appreciative smile he was favoring Mrs. Terstrip with. And sometimes, he silently replied, a man’s got to do what a girl asks him to. He realized that no matter how hard this was for him, it had been a thousand times harder for her, but she’d done it anyway, for him. He saw exactly what kind of first-class jerk he’d been. Later, after the dust had settled and everyone was out of the woods, he owed her the biggest apology ever. He, of all people, should know about faking it. Like he was doing right now. “I do appreciate you took time away from your own worship to help us out.” This is it, he thought. Going for the kill. “You truly are doing God’s work today.”

  Her hand was now resting on his biceps, and, given the warm weight of it, she was about ten seconds from squeezing. “Bless your heart,” she said, her eyes watering.

  “Kathy!” Terstrip snapped from behind Rebel, making them both jump. “What the hell are you doing? This man is a criminal.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Hubert.” Any trace of the caring-mother figure disappeared in a heartbeat. “You heard him. He needs his stuff.” She let go of Rebel and marched back to her husband. “Why are you just standing around? Go on, get moving.”

  Mission accomplished, Rebel thought as he kept his victory grin to himself. As the two of them traded snipes behind the counter, he wondered what would be the best, least dangerous way to make it up to Madeline. Flowers weren’t enough, and she never wore jewelry. While he tried to come up with something that would convince her to take him back, he found himself looking out the front door at the manufactured-home lot. There, gleaming in the morning sun, was a pristine white house on cinderblocks. The porch ran the length of the house and was wide enough for some chairs. Or even a recliner.

  The vision he’d had in the sweat lodge yesterday—although it felt like a lifetime ago—floated back through his mind and seemed to merge with the house he was looking at. He saw himself sitting on that porch in the early evening sun as Madeline pulled up in the Jeep. He saw her get out and rush up the porch, where he met her with a kiss. He saw the two of them settle back into the recliner and watch the sun finish setting.

  He saw home.

  Shaking back to reality, he glanced back at the Terstrips. Hubert had a couple of boxes on a wheeled cart.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No!” Hubert shouted, no doubt afraid that once behind the counter Rebel would start stuffing painkillers in his pocket. “This will take about half an hour. You can wait in your truck.”

  “Hubert!”

  “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder as he headed across the street. Open, the neon sign in the sales office announced.

  His path was right there in front of him.

  He just had to walk it.

  By the time he got back to the clinic, it was almost noon. Nobody was outside waiting for him, and silently they offloaded the boxes. Damn, he thought as Madeline tore into the first one like a hungry animal, she looks like hell. He couldn’t see a lot of her—she had on that mask she was making everyone wear, her less-than-pristine doctor’s coat and gloves covered her arms, and she even had on one of those shower caps doctors wore in surgery. The only things he could see were her eyes, but that was enough to worry him.

  The bags under her eyes were so purple that he was afraid for a moment someone had been beating up on her in his absence, but he quickly realized she was just that tired. Her eyelids weren’t even making it past half-mast, which gave her the air of being permanently pissed.

  He didn’t want her to be pissed at him. “Madeline—”

  Her head jerked up. She may look exhausted, but behind those lids, her eyes were still sharp—sharp enough to stop his apology in its tracks. He almost bit his tongue.

  “Did that ass give you any trouble?” she said under her breath to him as he ripped open the box of IVs.

  Wrong conclusion, again. The relevant conclusion, but still the wrong one. And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. I’ve got the receipt.” Both of them.

  She shot him a sharp look but let it slide. “Hang on to it. We don’
t have time to file anything.” She scooped up a few bags of saline and IVs and went right back to work.

  That’s right. They didn’t have time for filing and talking and apologizing and making up. They had work to do.

  So he got to work.

  “I think we’ve turned a corner,” Madeline said, the weariness dripping off each word as she chugged a Gatorade outside. Something about electrolytes, she’d said when she’d sent him to clear out the Quik-E Mart of all its sports drinks. Rebel thought she sounded worse than she did when she’d come looking for him during the hot part of the day. “Some of these people can be just as miserable at home.” She turned to look at him. “Do you want to be the chauffeur, or should we send Jesse?”

  We. There was still a we. She’d been too tired to notice it, no doubt, and there was always a chance that she’d meant we in a medical-professional sense. But she was looking at him when she said it.

  “Jesse.” Rebel didn’t want to leave, frankly. He wanted to keep close to her. She looked like a drowned rat. Plus, he was tired. In addition to the Rapid City run, he’d made peanut butter sandwiches—outside, away from the germs—for anyone who wanted one and tried to keep up with the patient files—although he knew Tara would probably have a cow once she started feeling well enough to see what he’d done to her carefully organized system. He’d called the priest at the church and Tim, at Madeline’s request. He’d burned sage and said prayers with anyone who wanted him to, which had been nearly everyone, despite the number of practicing Catholics in the clinic. When people felt that bad, it didn’t matter who was praying for them, as long as someone still cared.