He didn’t say anything as the hill got steeper. “Talk to me, Nobody. Ask me a question.”
The pause was longish, but finally he said, “You can see me?”
“What, you mean like right now? Hard to miss you, given all the holding you on a horse and stuff.”
Seeing makes it real, a voice in her head whispered that sounded just like Rebel. Was this what he was talking about? Or … “Do you mean that other people can’t see you in the dark?”
“No.” He was going past sounding pained and was rapidly moving into agonized.
Melinda found herself counting the steps of the horse. Which was not a productive use of her time, frankly—she had no idea how much longer they had to go. But it was something to do. “Why do you live so far away from everything?”
“Safer.”
There was nothing ‘safer’ about a wounded man in an unreachable location. She wondered if they were still within the ten-mile radius for the walkie-talkie that was still in the bag on her back. Along with that knife.
“Madeline gave me a knife, just in case. But you’re not going to hurt me, are you?”
That was one of those things that popped out of her mouth and usually earned her a stern look or a swift kick from Maddie. But she didn’t want him to find it and freak out on her. She couldn’t have him thinking she meant him harm.
“No.” He said this with more conviction. Good, she hadn’t lost him yet.
“Will you take the antibiotics?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Don’t take drugs.”
Of all the ridiculous positions to take on the matter. “Well, yes, hurray for not taking ‘drug’ drugs but I don’t want you to get sick and die on me. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make sure you stay alive. Try to keep it that way, okay?”
He was breathing harder now, slumping forward. It put a huge strain on her forearms. She couldn’t hold him up with her arms alone. “Lean back. You’re going to break my arms.”
“Sorry.” But he didn’t lean back. He only sat up straighter.
“Oh, for the love of Pete.” She put her chin on his shoulder and sort of pulled him backward until his back was resting on her chest. It took some of the strain off her arms, but man, he was heavy. And hot. But at least this way, she could see where they were going instead of where they’d been.
The trees were thicker now and a clear path was visible. Red seemed to know where she was going. If Melinda didn’t know any better, she’d say the horse was picking up speed. “Are we there yet?”
“Quit asking,” was the short reply she got, but again—was he teasing her?
“Then stop trying to fall off this horse. You’re not exactly a feather on the wind, you know.”
They rode on, Nobody leaning back on her and her leaning forward to keep him from pushing her right off the back of this horse. Keep him talking. “I’ve never ridden a horse without a bridle. How’d you get Red to do that?”
“I train ’em.”
Two options there—was he starting to slur his words or did he have more than one horse? “How many horses do you have?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Seriously? What the hell are you doing with twenty-seven horses?”
He didn’t answer. The trail got very steep for about five feet—actual switchbacks appeared in the hill. It took everything she had to keep the both of them on the horse.
“I can’t do this much longer,” she told him when the trail suddenly leveled out. Her legs were burning from gripping the horse’s sides and her arms were starting to shake from the effort. This was more work than a 5k run.
“S’okay,” he said, his voice getting fainter. “Here.”
“What?” Then she looked over his shoulder and saw a small clearing filled with stuff. Crazy stuff. Stuff that had her blinking her eyes to make sure she was seeing what she was seeing.
Yes, off to one side was what looked like a cabin being held up by cobwebs alone. On one side was a nearly ceiling-high stack of firewood. That was what she would have expected. But the power cord that ran from the roof of the cabin to one of those old-fashioned trailers—the kind that Mom had always called a pregnant silver-dollar camper? The trailer was set off to one side, the shiny silver top completely covered over with low-hanging branches. A bright blue and white awning hung out over the front. Underneath it was an outdoor café table with two matching chairs. She blinked, but the floral pattern tablecloth covering it didn’t change.
Oh, but it got weirder. She shook her head, but there really were twinkling stars hanging from the awning, as well as a chaise lounge with a different floral print cushion situated near a copper fire pit. Of all the possible things she might have expected to find in the middle of this particular nowhere, pregnant silver dollars with twinkle lights and floral patterns weren’t high on the list.
“What the hell?”
“Home,” he grunted out. “Chair.” He managed to lift a hand and point at the chaise lounge.
“Okay.” The horse seemed to understand and plodded over to the lounge, stopping a few feet away. “We have to get you off this horse.” The moment she said it, she realized there was a problem.
How was she supposed to get him off this horse?
Chapter Eight
“You first,” Nobody said. His side was throbbing and his head felt like steel wool that had been left in the rain for a month. But they were home.
“Um, me first?”
If he’d been able to, he would have smiled at her. “Slide off. I won’t fall.”
“But the horse …”
“She’ll be fine. Go. Now.” He needed to get in his chair in the worst sort of way before he blacked out.
She pulled away from him, which left him feeling more wobbly than he wanted to admit. What had been harder about the ride out here—her making him talk about his scars or having to feel her full breasts pressed against his back, her thighs pressed against his legs? Or the way she kissed him? Yeah—that. Feeling her mouth pressed against him—not because some drunk friend at a bar had dared her to kiss the sica and not because she had something to prove. He was pretty sure about that.
But why? Had she kissed him just to keep him from blacking out? Or …
No. There was no or and to think so was stupidity, plain and simple.
Except, now that she was off the horse, she was standing there, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. With a hand on his leg. And another on his arm. The thing was, he saw plenty of concern in her eyes, but very little that looked like pity. And none of the scolding her sister always had in store for him.
He looked away. He needed to quit thinking. He’d never been real good at anyway.
“Easy, now,” Melinda said. “Lean forward onto her neck and take it slow. Try not to crush me on your way down, okay?” She said that last bit as if it were funny, but maybe not so funny at the same time.
He did as she said and laid down onto Red’s neck. Even though the horse had been carrying a lot of extra weight, she held still as Nobody managed to get his leg over her back.
Normally, he could dismount a horse at a full gallop and land on his feet at a dead run. But today? Yeah, no. The pain ripped up through his side and he more or less flopped to the ground. He did not like having weak knees. Being able to stand up and walk away was how you let your enemies know you were not defeated.
But Melinda Mitchell was not an enemy. She’d already seen him at his lowest, unable to even get himself outside or on his own horse.
He didn’t like it.
He couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He hung onto Red’s neck with everything he had, trying to focus on the smell of horse sweat and not the way her arms looped around his waist, not the way her breasts pressed up against his unwounded side and not the way she ducked under his upraised arm to try and take some of his weight.
“Five feet,” she said, sounding as if she was talking about the end of a marathon. “Re
ady?”
He nodded. It was all he could do.
“One,” she said, tightening her grip on him—which hurt. But then, so would collapsing in a heap. “Two …”
On “Three,” he let go of Red and tried to take a step back. It didn’t quite work, but she didn’t let him fall. She couldn’t hold him up, though, so they half-stumbled, half-fell into the chair.
“Ow. You okay?”
No. But he wasn’t about to admit that to her. So he grunted instead.
Then he realized that he was laying down. With her in his arms, tucked against his good side.
Suddenly, he didn’t hurt so much.
“What do you need? Water?”
Yeah, a drink would be good right now. But he wanted to hold onto her just a little bit more. “In a minute,” he managed to get out.
“Okay.” She moved the arm that was across his chest, probably just to avoid touching his bandage. But she didn’t pull away or anything. Instead, she laid her hand down in the middle of his chest. “You still with me? Didn’t die or anything, did you?”
“No.”
“Yeah, not really sure which question you were answering there.” She kind of made this noise that could have been a sigh of frustration or could have been a giggle but was probably a giggle of frustration. “No dying allowed, got that?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“So, where did you get all this stuff? I mean, I’m pretty sure the cabin was here, right? But what the hell is this trailer doing here? And why are there so many floral prints? I figured you for more of a plaid guy, frankly.”
As tired as he was, he felt the corner of his mouth curve up. No one had ever figured him for anything before, really. No one thought about him enough to do any figuring. “Borrowed it.”
“Borrowed? What—you stole it?” Then she did sit up, pulling her other arm out from under his back. But she didn’t get up. Instead, she leaned up on her elbow, her one hand still warm against his chest, and looked at him. “Are you telling me you stole everything here?”
He wouldn’t have thought it was still possible after all this time, but his face grew hot. Was he blushing? Shit.
Of course he’d stolen all of it. He didn’t have a lot of money and what money he did have, he spent on the horses and Jamie. The only things he bought were food, books, and clothes. The books and clothes always came from thrift stores and he hunted a lot for food.
He tried to take things that no one else used. He’d kept his eye on the trailer at a storage lot for two whole years, but no one had come for it. It had just sat there, forgotten. So, after a particularly cold winter night, he borrowed a truck from the rez, drove to the lot, and went through the trailer. He kept the stuff like the sheets, but anything that looked like it might have personal value to the previous owners, he set aside, leaving a small box of belongings in the empty space where the trailer had once been.
He did that with all the stuff here. Some of it, like the chair they were in, had been left beside a dumpster. He’d cut out the busted webbing, restrung it with some rope, and borrowed a cushion from an outdoor store. Good as new. The twinkle lights had been outside an apartment. They cast a soft glow that was better than campfire for reading, but not as spotlight-bright as the lights in the trailer. The hose had been left out overnight in a park.
He didn’t take things he didn’t need and he never took things that would cause a hardship for someone. He just took what he needed to survive.
But he didn’t think he could say that in words she’d understand, so he tried ignoring her. But that was impossible, frankly. She was staring down at him. Then she began tapping her fingers on his chest, each fingertip sending a flash of something he thought might be desire through his body. Each flash pushed back at the pain.
“I’m waiting,” she said in an impatient tone of voice.
“Wanna sleep.” Then, before he was aware of what he’d done, his good arm had curled tighter around her waist, pulling her back down against his chest.
For a moment, it felt like she was going to go along with that. Her body started sinking against his—sweet and easy and something he knew he’d dream about for many a long winter night. Except for the stabbing part, he’d hold this entire twenty-four hours of contact with her deep in his memory until the day he finally did die and go on to the other side.
Then she pushed back against him. “You need water. And I have to change your bandage.” The way she said it—nervous—was so unlike her sister that he felt himself start to smile again.
“Sink in trailer.” His mouth was tired from all the talking. As much as he wanted to keep holding her, he really did need the sleep. He usually healed fast, but then, he usually didn’t lose this much blood.
As she peeled herself off him, she said, “So, you have electricity and running water? In the middle of nowhere? How the hell did you pull that off?”
“Cabin,” he replied. He’d found the cabin four days after he’d slipped off Albert’s couch in the middle of the night. He’d stayed long enough that the fever had gone down and most of the scabs had crusted over. Even though the old man had been kind to him, sleeping on his couch had brought on such a feeling of claustrophobia that Nobody had needed to get away.
Once, this had probably been some hunting cabin. It was a piece of junk, but the power was on and the water was clean. Someone, somewhere, was paying the bills, but in all Nobody’s years out here, he’d never seen a hunter—or hell, another person. Except for Jamie, of course.
And now Melinda. Man, that was going to take some getting used to. Her knowing where he lived—how he lived—gave Nobody a deep feeling that was so unsettling, he’d almost rather get stabbed again instead. At least physical wounds healed.
Finally, she was up. The sudden loss of the heat from her body made him shiver. Another sign of weakness he didn’t like.
He couldn’t keep his eyes open, but his ears did all the seeing for him. He heard her walk up to his home and open the door. He heard the trailer creak as she stepped inside.
If he could have cringed in anticipation of her response, he would have.
Sure enough, seconds later a very loud gasp came out of the trailer. “Holy crap, Nobody—what are all these books?”
He didn’t bother to answer. He couldn’t have said anything loud enough for her to hear it, anyway.
“Dude, this is like, every Louis L’Amour ever published! And Zane Grey? Wow.” There was a longish pause. “I’ve never even heard of half these guys. Who is Elmer Kelton? Are these seriously alphabetized? Where do you even sleep in here?”
Then he heard the cupboard doors opening and shutting. She found the glasses on the third try. Wasn’t that hard—only three little cabinets in there. He heard the water turn on, off, and then heard the trailer creak as she came back out.
But instead of her coming over to him, he heard her pause, then the sound of something dragging. He managed to get his head turned to see her pulling one of his table-chairs over to where he lay.
Damn. She wasn’t going to lay down with him again. Even though he had no right to be disappointed—no right to want her to—he still was.
“Here.” She held a glass up to his lips. “Drink.”
God, he’d never felt so helpless, not since those days in the closet and those nights on Albert’s couch. He’d been stabbed, shot, burned and cursed, for crying out loud, and in all his years he hadn’t been hurt so bad he had to have a woman hold a glass for him.
Unfortunately for him, he was in no shape to take the water away from her, especially not as the cool, clear liquid began to trickle down his throat. And his chest, but he didn’t care. Most of it was going in his mouth and it tasted so damn good.
But then she said, “Oops, sorry,” as she took her hand—just her hand—and started to brush away the water that had dripped down his chest. His bare chest.
At some point, her touch went from brushing the water away to stroking him—slow, teasing movements that se
t flames against his skin.
Defensively, he grabbed her hand away from his chest. She couldn’t touch him like that. She really didn’t know what he was capable of, no matter how good an idea she thought she had.
But his brain felt like it was sloshing around in his head and before he knew what he was doing, he’d pulled her hand up to his mouth and kissed the palm. Her palm.
And the funny thing was, she didn’t jerk her hand back or call him names or slap him. He kept waiting for the blow, but it didn’t come.
Then her mouth was against his ear and she whispered, “I see you,” as she moved her palm away from his mouth and rested it against his cheek.
He couldn’t find the strength to say anything, but that was just as well, since he had no idea what to say. All he could do was breathe in and out and feel the pain push back. In its place, the building blackness of sleep was taking over.
She said, “I’ll, uh, change your bandage and let you rest, okay? Is there anything else you need?”
You. He wanted to tell her that—wanted to wake up and feel her body against his again. But now that the water was hitting his guts, he couldn’t push back at the darkness of sleep.
Until he heard a twig snap and Melinda gasped. “Jamie?”
Well, hell.
*
Melinda blinked, sure she was hallucinating. Had the boy just walked out of the woods like he belonged here? “What are you doing here?”
The boy froze, his mouth open. He glanced around as if he wanted to bolt, but then he saw Nobody laying on the chaise lounge. He didn’t say anything, though.
So that’s what it was. Jamie Kills Deer was following in Nobody Bodine’s footsteps. That explained his silent, distant attitude. For the love of Pete.
Was this what Rebel had been talking about? Was Nobody one of those who’d look out for the boy? Was this why she couldn’t call social services?
“Boy.” They both turned to look at Nobody, who was trying to prop himself up on his elbows. The effort left his face looking ashen. He apparently couldn’t get anything else out, but he looked at Jamie.
Nobody (Men of the White Sandy) (Volume 3) Page 11