“I don’t suppose this is any crazier than anything else I’ve ever done.” She waved a hand over her hair and clothes.
“You don’t have to be different to come to the rez.” Mary Beth looked at her family. Even in the dark, the love in her eyes was obvious. “You just have to be different to stay.”
Then Kip called to her mom and Mary Beth went off, talking a lot and making the cowboy in the mask smile.
Melinda pondered over that. She’d always been the different one—different clothes, different hair, different goals. Nothing like her uptight older sister who followed in the family footsteps.
She’d reveled in being the black sheep of the family but … there’d been times when being different for different’s sake was hard. It took energy to be the weird one, to angle for the next big shock.
Here? Here she was normal and different at the same time. She was a white woman—one out of three—on a Lakota Indian reservation. But, as she looked around the campfire at the man who blended into shadows, the albino Lakota girl, the medicine man and the cowboy in a mask, she knew she was one of the more normal people here. Which made her different.
Despite the intimidating mask, Jacob Plenty Holes seemed to be fairly normal. He was on the tribal council and approved of her plan to get custody of Jamie. “Won’t happen overnight,” he warned her later in the evening, after everyone had agreed on the details for the house. “Things have to be done the right way. The sheriff will have to get involved, but I can make him see our side of things as long as …”
Everyone looked at Nobody. As long as Nobody stayed out of trouble. Although his face stayed blank, Nobody’s gaze met hers and she saw the panic in his eyes.
So she went to sit next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She caught Kip giving her a secret smile, almost as if she were thankful Melinda had done that.
She smiled back. She didn’t have to be different to come here. She just had to be different to stay.
And she was going to stay.
*
True to his word, Jacob had men out at the site within the week, clearing the trees, digging the trenches for the pipes and getting the foundation ready. Melinda went in with Rebel and Madeline on Saturday to pick out a manufactured home. She wanted to ask Nobody to come with her, but he was nowhere to be seen and it wasn’t like he had a cell phone. Hell, even though she’d been to his place twice, she still had absolutely no idea how to get there.
She wanted to be disappointed—well, she was—but she understood. She imagined that Nobody traveling to the city in the daytime wasn’t going to happen in this life or possibly the next. So she bought herself a house with some of her trust-fund money and then they loaded up the car with supplies for the clinic and the center and drove home.
Nobody didn’t show up on Sunday, either. Or Monday at the center. She stayed later than normal, hoping that he’d walk out of the dark like he’d never been away, but he didn’t. She asked Jamie if he’d seen Nobody, but got a short, “He’s doing stuff,” as an answer.
“You still okay at home?” she asked him as she ruffled his hair.
Jamie nodded. At least he didn’t rub his side and Melinda didn’t see any new bruises. “It won’t … it won’t take much longer, right?”
“Jacob is getting things done as fast as he can,” she told him, pulling him into an awkward hug. “And you’ve got our numbers, right? Call anytime, honey.”
Jamie pulled away from her, like he was embarrassed by the hug. But he nodded. “I will.”
Then he was gone, wandering off into the dusk toward the last place anyone wanted him to go—his home. She couldn’t help but worry. No matter how fast things were happening, it wasn’t fast enough. She’d signed up for the required weekly classes for being a foster parent, but the classes were spaced out over ten weeks. She tried to keep up with the reading, since she didn’t have Nobody around to distract her. All she could do was hope that, since Nobody wasn’t spending his evenings with her, he was keeping an extra close eye on Jamie.
A week passed. Everything else seemed perfectly normal. She got up, went to work, played with kids—Nobody was obviously back on the job. The center was suddenly much cleaner than she’d been able to keep it.
There were just no strange shadows hovering in the distance, no silent man standing in the trees. She would know—she looked.
She resorted to leaving him letters. Mr. Bodine, she always started them. She thanked him for a job well done, asked how his stab wound was doing and how things were at Jamie’s house after dark. She told him about the progress on the new site.
Every night, she went home, hopeful that he’d either leave her a reply or show around the campfire. She sat up past her bedtime, watching the trees around her.
Nothing. No shadows, no notes. Nothing but a clean child-care center and a boy without new bruises.
Finally, on Friday night, she left him a final note. I miss you was all it said. She taped it to the door so he’d have to read it.
She sat near the campfire that night, waiting. Madeline tried to make small talk, but Melinda wasn’t in the mood. Eventually, her sister gave up and went to bed.
Rebel didn’t go, damn him. She was in no mood for his particularly irritating brand of wisdom. She worked extra hard to ignore him. Sometimes, a woman just wanted to be alone with her misery. Pity party for one.
“He’ll come back when he’s ready,” Rebel finally said.
She snorted. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You understand, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
This was the problem with talking to Rebel. He never took her at face value. Normal people would have accepted the lie and gone on with their lives, but not him.
“This is … beyond him, you know.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better, Rebel?”
He chuckled. Irritating man. “Nope. But you need to understand. He’s existed outside of the tribe for so long, with only a few people to even acknowledge that he’s alive.”
“And that’d be you?”
Rebel nodded. “Madeline, too. And Jamie. But that’s all he’s used to. He doesn’t think he can handle suddenly having meetings, suddenly having to be somewhere at a certain time—having people expect things of him.”
She glared at him. It didn’t do much, seeing as Rebel was staring at the fire and not at her. But it made her feel better. “Gosh, that makes it all okay, then! Thanks, Rebel!”
The thing that made it really bad was that she could see how Rebel was right. Nobody had spent more time sitting quietly with Kip the last time she’d seen him than discussing housing plans or working through social services. Even in a crowd of different people, he’d kept himself apart.
He gave her one of his most irritating looks—the calm, peaceful one filled with wisdom. It only made her madder.
“I got it, Rebel, okay? I’m turning his world upside-down, taking him outside his comfort zone—whatever cliché you want to throw at me, I got it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to have him suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, okay?”
That man chuckled again, as if Melinda was suddenly the funniest human on the planet. “He’ll come when he’s ready. He won’t be able to stay away for long.” On that parting shot, Rebel got up and went to bed.
Melinda glared at the fire for a while longer. She didn’t add more wood, though. She just watched it burn down to embers. She hated it when Rebel was right about stuff.
But more than that, she hated how much she missed Nobody. She understood that, yes, she had turned his world upside-down. But didn’t he want to see her? Didn’t he trust her?
Or was it that easy to stay away from her? She’d tried to help him out after he’d gotten stabbed on her behalf. She was doing the best she could to take care of the only other person in the whole world Nobody was comfortable with. Didn’t that count for something?
And then there was the sex thing. Even if the process of her getting custo
dy of Jamie was overwhelming—could he really not want to have sex with her again? Had it been bad? Or had she freaked him out too much by enjoying the spanking?
Hell, she didn’t know.
The fire died down. She doused the remaining embers and stood, scanning the darkness for any sign of him.
Nothing.
She wasn’t going to find out tonight, that was for sure.
*
Nobody stood in the shadows, staring at Rebel’s place. Specifically, he was staring at the window he was pretty sure was Melinda’s. It was late—so late, it was early. He’d been stalking Lou and Myra Kills Deer all night, watching them while they got shit-faced at a bar and then following them home. He’d sat underneath their living room window for a few hours until he was sure they’d passed out. He hadn’t bothered Jaime—hadn’t wanted to do anything that might attract attention.
More than ever, he couldn’t risk what would happen if someone saw him take the boy out of his house. Before, it might have sparked a phone call to the sheriff, maybe a search party. But now?
Now it’d put Melinda’s plan in danger. He couldn’t risk doing anything stupid now. Not when he was so close to making sure the boy was safe.
He’d been following the Kills Deer family for days now, sitting on the ground so he could hear inside their house. To make sure he stayed awake, he’d read the little letters that Melinda had written him over and over. The plan was working. He was tired and sore, but Jamie was okay and that’s all that mattered.
At least, that’s all that used to matter.
He wanted to see her. It was selfish of him to want that so badly, but he did. He wanted to sit next to her around the fire, just the two of them. No Rebel, no Dr. Mitchell, no Jacob Plenty Holes. Not even Jamie or Kip, although Nobody was pretty sure Kip would have understood anyway. She did, about this sort of thing.
Nobody sighed. For the first time in his life, he was tired of lurking in the shadows—never seen, never heard. Melinda saw him like no one else did.
If it were just that, it wouldn’t be so bad.
But she forced everyone else around her to see him, too. She dragged him out of the shadows and carved a place for him around the fire by sheer will.
He didn’t know how to be like that—how to act around people. Even if those people were Rebel and Dr. Mitchell and Jacob. Besides, Jamie needed him. That had to come first.
He took out the last note she’d left him. I miss you.
No one had ever missed him before. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. He was pretty sure the answer wasn’t ‘tap on her window around three in the morning.’ But he didn’t have any better ideas and tomorrow, he was going to gather up Jamie and disappear into the back country for a few days.
Courage, he told himself as he pocketed the note and walked up to the window. This was wrong, all wrong—normal people didn’t tap on windows. They called or wrote and knocked on the front door during regular hours.
He tapped on the window—once, then twice again ten seconds later. The room stayed dark. He realized too late that Melinda wouldn’t know the secret code, but old habits died hard.
He was just about to give up when a light came on. Another momentary flash of panic had him wondering if he’d accidentally knocked on the wrong window and Dr. Mitchell was about to tear him a new one. Then Melinda stood in front of the window, barely dressed in a thin tank top and a pair of panties. Her hair was a fright, but he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
Her eyes went wide as she yanked the window open. “What’s wrong? Is Jamie okay?”
“Fine. His parents were passed out when I left. Should be good until tomorrow.”
She relaxed into a huge yawn that she tried to hide behind her hand. “Oh, okay. What’s up?”
He couldn’t help himself. He reached up and flattened his palm against the screen. “I … I missed you, too.” Saying it out loud was harder than he thought it would be.
Melinda stared at him a moment before her mouth cricked up into a small smile. She leaned against the window frame, which did interesting things to her breasts—right at Nobody’s eye level. “And you had to tell me that at 3:17 in the morning, huh?”
He swallowed as he dragged his gaze away from the thin panties and top. Face. He needed to focus on her face. “Yeah.”
“You could have left me a note, you know.”
He nodded. “Didn’t know what to say, really.”
She leaned forward—God, that body—and slid the screen up. She rested her elbows on the ledge and brought her face down to his level. “You could have told me you missed me, too.”
“Could have.” He’d thought about it. Felt weird to write something like that down, though. Someone else might have seen it.
“You could have told me when you were going to come by again.”
“Didn’t know when.” She arched an eyebrow at him and he felt his face get hot. “Been keeping an eye on the boy,” he offered, hoping that would make her happy. “Don’t want anything to happen that would mess up the plan.”
“Ah,” she said in a breathy kind of voice. “How very responsible of you.”
He had no idea if she was complimenting him or not. So he didn’t say anything.
She reached out and cupped his face. Her palm was warm and soft against his skin. Something in him relaxed—like he’d let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“You are an infuriating man, Nobody Bodine.” It should have been an insult, but it wasn’t, not the way her voice, all warm and soft, wrapped itself around the words.
“My apologies, Ma’am.”
Her thumb moved over his skin as she lifted his chin up so he had no choice but to look her in the eyes. “I don’t like it when you disappear on me. I know you can’t come around the fire every night, but I need you more than this.”
He had no idea if he was supposed to feel bad for not showing up or really freaking happy that she needed him. Him! And not because she needed protecting or anything like that—just him.
Then, heaven help him, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. Warm. Soft. She needed him.
He needed her. He didn’t want to. But he did. Damn it all.
He tangled his fingers in her wild hair, then slid them down over the barely-there top until he hit the edge. But when he started to pull it up, she stopped him.
“Will you come inside?” Her voice was quiet—none of the challenge she’d just laid at his feet.
She leaned back so that he could see the bed—her bed. It was far bigger than the narrow things back in his trailer—bigger than his chair, too. It had pretty white sheets that were all messed up from her sleeping in them and pillows. The whole thing looked soft and warm—just like she was.
But … inside. He shouldn’t be afraid of the room. It was just four walls with a door and a window. It shouldn’t bother him.
“It’s late, Nobody.” She could have sounded irritated—she would have been well within her rights to be pissed at him—but instead she sounded tired and maybe a little confused. “Come inside with me. We can leave the window open, if you want. I just …” She sighed. The sound pulled on his chest just as hard as if she’d grabbed him. “I just want to hold you for longer than a horse ride.”
He shouldn’t, and not just because it was inside. Dr. Mitchell might string him up by his toes if she found him in her house in the morning, uninvited and unasked.
But … Melinda. A night in her arms—in a bed—couldn’t be a bad thing, right?
“Please.” There was something else in her voice—something vulnerable and delicate and so entirely feminine that he almost didn’t recognize.
Need. She really needed him. God, what a weird feeling.
He couldn’t say no. Not to her. So he nodded. She stepped away and he hefted himself through the window.
Then he was inside. It didn’t make him twitch as hard as it normally did. Maybe because she was here, looping her arms arou
nd his neck and molding her body against his. “Come to bed,” she whispered against his neck. Then she kissed him, right there.
Nobody was not a weak-in-the-knees kind of guy, but in that moment…yeah.
Bed. It wasn’t such a bad thing, was it? Just a flat surface. With a woman in it.
He ran his hands down her back until he was cupping her ass. Her body filled his hands. If she hadn’t been pulling him toward the bed, he could have just stood there and held her against him.
His dick stirred—and she stirred against him. “Come to bed,” she murmured again. This time, her teeth scraped over his skin. “I want you.”
“Can we … can we turn the light off?”
“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate, didn’t call him weird or crazy or anything. She just turned off the light and left the window open. For him.
He could love this woman.
The thought terrified him.
He picked her up—not a big gesture, but just enough that she could wrap her legs around his waist. The weight of her body pressed against his dick—no stirring this time. He went hard, straining against his jeans. She made a little noise in her throat, something that was almost a plea.
So he carried her to the bed. He had to. She gave him no choice.
He laid her down on the bed and leaned back just enough that he could strip her panties off. She made a small noise—it felt pretty damn loud in the quiet of the room—but he knew it couldn’t be that loud. He paused, listening for any other noises that came from the other side of the trailer. Nothing.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “Don’t make me wait.” The challenge in her voice was implicit as she traced a single fingertip down his chest. She hit some of the scars, but it wasn’t like she was going out of her way to hit them or trying to avoid them. They were just part of his skin. Part of him.
How could something as basic as a finger running over his skin do the things it was doing to him? Because her touch was making him shiver with want. With need.
He shucked his shirt and his jeans and leaned down to her. He had a vague feeling that he was doing something wrong. Last time, he’d had the ride to get her all worked up. But this time? He couldn’t make her wait.
Nobody (Men of the White Sandy) (Volume 3) Page 21