He was a good-looking man, although probably in his fifties. But there was something in his eyes that reminded Mary Beth of Brian Greevy and the way he would smile at her when she threw herself in between him and her mom. Everyone thought Brian was such a great guy. Even her mom had been convinced Brian was a winner, if only Mom could have done what he wanted, when he wanted it. Only Mary Beth had seen him for what he was—a coward hiding behind a bully’s fists. Skeevy Greevy, she’d called him.
Buck McGillis and Skeevy Greevy didn’t look anything alike, but their eyes told her everything she needed to know. She’d refused to be afraid of Greevy. She wasn’t about to be afraid of Buck McGillis.
So she swallowed down her dread and met his gaze straight on. He owned the major ranch near town. Mary Beth knew that she’d have to work with—work for—this tyrant of a man. Man, she wished she’d brought her knife to dinner.
“Well, now, what’s this?” McGillis drawled, jerking his waistband up and down like he was screwing his zipper. She’d seen lots of farmers and cattlemen hitch up their pants, but his agonizingly slow pace was just plain wrong.
Then he bent over to get a good look at what passed as her cleavage in her V-neck T-shirt. “Haven’t seen a pretty little thing like you here before.” He jerked his head towards Jacob. “Enjoy the show? I got a better one. You’ll have to see it some time,” he said as he gave the pants one final tug.
Jacob’s mouth opened, but Mary Beth beat him to the punch. “That’s Dr. Pretty Little Thing to you, Mr. McGillis,” she bristled, casually resting her hand on the steak knife on the table. It was no Bowie knife, but it’d do. “And I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t sleep with clients. I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on everyone’s show.”
As McGillis’s smile hardened, Mary Beth caught Jacob cocking his eyebrow, looking almost amused. But the look quickly vanished into impassable stone as McGillis sat down at the table.
“Doctor? You’re the new vet?” He looked her up and down before his face began to warm into something that might have been seductive if it hadn’t been so mercenary. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night. Take you out for a ride around the ranch. You’ll like it, better than that,” he said with jerk back towards a stone-faced Jacob.
The I-don’t-sleep-with-clients thing went whistling right past him. Okay, she thought as she leaned forward on her hands, batting her eyes, draw the line early. “Oh, Mr. McGillis,” she cooed.
“My friends call me Buck,” he replied, his eyes trained on her cleavage.
“Buck? Why that’s an interesting name,” she giggled as she broke out the dazzling smile. A quick glance to the left revealed the shocked look covering Jacob’s face. He was properly befuddled. She giggled again.
McGillis’s eyes fluttered as he tried to hitch his zipper up again. Yes, proper befuddlement had occurred all the way around. “You like it?” he preened. “I picked it out myself.”
“Well, I’m not sure it really fits you,” she drawled, tracing a finger on the tablecloth. She caught Jacob’s mouth flop open before a look of rage wiped out the shock.
“No?” McGillis replied, his honeyed voice making him sound pleased with himself.
“No,” she cooed again before going for the jugular. “I think you overvalued yourself by at least fifty cents.”
McGillis stood up so fast that his chair flew into the street. “You little—”
“Dr. Hofstetter!” Robin screeched, carrying a huge chocolate confection that had an honest-to-God sparkler flaming out of the top. “Here’s that chocolate bomb you ordered.”
She’d done no such thing. But Robin’s actions made it blisteringly clear that the whole restaurant had been listening in. McGillis looked from Mary Beth to Jacob before he leaned in close to Mary Beth. She caught the movement of Jacob grabbing his knife as she did the same.
“No one says no to Buck McGillis,” he snarled.
“Bill Coleman hired me. I don’t sleep with clients. I castrate calves. If you’ve got a problem with that,” she snarled back, slamming the butt of the knife back onto the table, “you just feel free to find another vet. It’s your call.”
McGillis smiled, a joyless thing that didn’t fit on his face. He stood up straight, brushed invisible lint off his shirt and slowly looked her up and down again. “Another time then.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Mr. McGillis,” she replied, looking as mean as she could despite the cold chills he sent racing down her spine. She wasn’t afraid of him, she reminded herself. She wasn’t afraid of anyone, but especially not the jerks of the world.
The big man gave her a joyless grin before he turned and casually strolled back towards a spotless black Jeep as if they’d just been shooting the breeze instead of threatening each other. The vehicle’s windows were tinted, but as the Jeep rolled past the restaurant, Mary Beth could feel Buck’s eyes on her—even if she couldn’t see them.
As he drove past, Jacob’s two horses shifted nervously from where they’d been drop-tethered, and Jacob patted their necks as he stared at her. “You don’t want to make an enemy of Buck McGillis, Dr. Hofstetter.”
“I don’t want to be treated like a play toy, Mr. Plenty Holes.” The horses calmed at his touch, and God help her, all she could think about was the show. “You’re not suggesting I give in just to make nice?”
“No. Just steer clear.” He caught her gaze and held it. His eye was so black it was almost blue, and Mary Beth felt like if she wasn’t careful, he’d pull her in with just one eye. “Just be careful.”
“Jacob?” a woman’s voice—older, clear and authoritative—called out from across the street. “We’re ready.”
Mary Beth watched as he crossed the street. Robin had misspoken. One woman in Faith Ridge hadn’t been watching the show.
“Who’s that?” she asked the shaken waitress.
“Mrs. Browne, the school teacher.” Robin collapsed in the chair she’d just set back at the table.
Mrs. Browne looked every inch the old West schoolmarm, her gray hair pulled back into a tight bun, reading glasses perched on the edge of her nose. She was holding the hand of a small child nearly lost behind the folds of her voluminous skirt.
Mary Beth leaned to the right, trying to get a better look at the child who seemed to be—
White.
Milk-white skin, shock-white hair.
McGillis’s barb came back to her. You here to get that albino again?
Mary Beth rubbed her temples. In the course of less than fifteen minutes, she’d nearly orgasmed watching a one-eyed, masked cowboy put on a strip-show shower in the middle of a street, managed to piss off her biggest client who just happened to be the town bully, and now she watched as the masked cowboy took the hand of an albino child, long white hair practically glowing in the early dusk. Mary Beth could see the purple-tinged eyes never move from the ground as Jacob led him? Her? Mary Beth couldn’t tell, but then Jacob was boosting the child onto the bare back of the second horse.
In one fluid movement, Jacob sprang up onto his horse’s back as if the five feet were nothing.
“Robin, Dr. Hofstetter.” He touched his fingers to his hat. “Ladies,” he replied to the remaining gawkers at the café.
And the masked cowboy rode off into the sunset, leading a horse carrying an albino child behind him.
The moment he was out of sight, the café began to buzz again, and Mary Beth’s mouth kicked into overdrive. “What the hell?” she asked Robin. “Does he have a nose or not? And was that albino kid a boy or a girl? And do I need to start packing a weapon?”
Robin sighed as she got up to clear a table. “Where are you staying?”
“Dr. Coleman set me up in a little house up on Beech—”
“Oh, yeah, Junior Malley’s old place,” she said as if that would mean anything to Mary Beth. “Ronny and I live two houses down.”
“Well, after you get off work tonight, you can come over and tell me what the Sam Hill just happened here.”
Chapt
er Two
The knock on the door—swift and solid—made Mary Beth jump. She grabbed her Bowie knife off the table. Better safe than sorry. “Who is it?” she yelled, hoping she didn’t sound as panicked as she felt.
“Dr. Hofstetter? It’s me, Robin!” Robin yelled back.
Mary Beth’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Just a sec.” She stowed the knife back in the sheath and opened the door.
Robin grinned and held up a six-pack. “I brought a housewarming gift.”
“How old are you again?” Mary Beth scolded as Robin sauntered past her. Jeez, I sound like my mother. She shuddered.
“I turned twenty-one two months ago,” Robin giggled, sounding more like a teenager than an adult. She popped a can’s top and handed it to Mary Beth, then opened one for herself. “But we’re not here to talk about me. You were drooling all over Jacob.”
“Everyone was drooling all over Jacob,” Mary Beth shot back. “So tell me why everyone drools all over Jacob.”
“Oh, where to begin?” Robin asked as she took a drink.
“Start with the mask part and go from there.” Mary Beth sighed as she collapsed on the one spot of the couch that didn’t have a box of books on it.
“The masked cowboy.” Robin sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Has he always worn the mask?”
“No. He lost his face about three years ago.”
Recent. He was probably still having depth perception problems, like that one-eyed horse that kept walking into doorframes back in vet school. “What happened?”
“He said he got into a brawl at the bar in Sturgis over a girl.”
Right. Sturgis. Mary Beth remembered they were less than three hours away from motorcycle heaven. “You don’t sound like you believe that.”
“I don’t.” Robin took another drink. “You should have seen him back before he had to wear that mask. I mean, he was Indian perfection on a horse. Hair almost down to his ass, face carved of stone—the rest of him carved of stone—man, he was freaking perfect. Number one hunk on the rez.” Her eyes got dreamy at the memory.
Mary Beth was feeling a little dreamy herself. “You knew him?”
“He played football with my oldest brother, Ronny—the one who owns the café—and my second-oldest brother, Randy, at the consolidated high school on the rez.”
“Sure,” Mary Beth said, trying to sound like she knew that.
“God, how I lusted after him. He and Ronny and Randy would come over after practice and race their horses up and down before they jumped in the pond out behind our house and—” She shivered, but the room seemed several degrees warmer to Mary Beth. “You should have seen him.”
“I think I saw enough today. How old is Jacob?” Honestly, it didn’t really matter. What mattered were those abs and forearms and especially that trail of hair. But she was curious.
“Twenty-six, I think. Ronny turned twenty-seven last fall, and Jacob was a year behind him.”
Damn. She had three years on him. But now was not the time for self-pity. Now was the time to pump Robin for all the info she could. “So you don’t think he got into a brawl?”
“I know Jacob, and he doesn’t drink. He’s one of those Indians who believes the white man’s alcohol is the ruination—” she pulled the ruin part of the word out, like she was calling pigs “—of the tribe. Very righteous.”
Righteous? A man who nearly pulled off a full monty in the middle of town was righteous? “Really?”
“Sure. Helped us get a loan from the tribe so we could buy the café.”
“Your brother knows about the show?”
“Of course he knows about the show. Ladies’ hour, he calls it. Trust me, in this town, there’s no way we’d make it if we didn’t get the business Jacob pulls in every night.”
“So that’s why he does that? He’s helping a friend?”
“Sure, part of it,” she shrugged, taking another swig. “But…”
Mary Beth slid off the couch, getting down on Robin’s level. “But…”
“I think it’s because of the mask. He didn’t do it before. I think he thinks that if everyone’s looking at that rock-hard body, no one will see his messed-up face.”
“Distraction.” Her mind reeled. Of all the coping mechanisms, that had to be one of the more unique ones she’d ever heard of. It was like he was hiding in plain sight.
“Absolutely. And you saw all those women.” Robin giggled. “You should have seen yourself gawk at him. He likes you, you know.”
“Wait, what?”
“He only undoes the top button, but today, he undid two. He was showing off for you.”
“Whoa. Whoa.” Mary Beth repeated, finishing her bottle as the image of his black-blue treasure trail ending at the horizontal line of thicker hair floated before her. That was flirting around these parts? “So how well do you, um, know him?”
Robin smiled dreamily. “He kissed me, really kissed me for my sixteenth birthday. I swear, I would have given it up to him right then and there in the middle of the party. But he just stepped back, tipped his hat and said, ‘Robin,’” her voice dropped into a reasonably good impression, “just like he does every night at the café.”
She wasn’t going to be jealous. That was an order. “He doesn’t do that in the winter, does he?”
“Any night it’s over sixty, he’s out there.” As Robin worked through the beer, her accent got a bit thicker, but it was a lovely sound. Completely different from the Midwest drawl Mary Beth was used to.
Only another three months to watch the show. She couldn’t help but wonder how many buttons he’d undo tomorrow. Was hoping for three being greedy? “Is he married?”
Robin smirked, her eyes knowing. “You like him too.”
“Let’s be honest. I like parts of him.” They both giggled. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“Which is why we’re here,” Robin replied, sweeping her arms out to encompass the entire living room crowded with boxes. “No, he’s not married. He dated this girl from the rez in high school pretty seriously, but she was a lot older than I was, so I didn’t really know her. I think she married someone else and they got off the rez. Maybe they moved to Pierre or something.” She shrugged.
“That’s it? He had a high school sweetheart, he kissed you when you turned sixteen and he puts on a striptease every night in the summer?”
“That’s it.” She got a greedy look in her eyes. “It’s almost like he’s uncharted territory just waiting to be discovered. God, I’d love to discover what he’s got in those pants.”
Mary Beth whistled, more to keep from saying something that her mother would have said than anything. “But back to the mask. If he didn’t get messed up in a bar brawl, how did it happen?”
“No one knows, except maybe that little albino.” Robin shrugged, getting up to fetch two more beers. “He was gone for a month or two, and one day he rides into town wearing the mask and leading her to school on that broken-down nag. No one had ever seen her before. Mrs. Browne said that he said she was his daughter.”
“So she’s a girl?”
“That’s Kip. She’s always wearing the same blue pants and a baggy T-shirt.” Robin twisted the caps off both bottles and handed one to Mary Beth. “It’s like he’s trying to hide her or something.”
“How do you hide an albino in the middle of Indian country?” But the moment she said it, she realized it was just like what he was doing with the mask and the show—hiding in plain sight.
Why would anyone do that?
“I don’t know. He won’t tell anyone where she came from or who her mother is—not even Ronny.”
“She just appeared out of thin air? How the hell does that make any sense?”
“It doesn’t,” Robin agreed. “She seems pretty slow too. Mrs. Browne says she just sits in her chair all day long, staring at whatever is in front of her.”
“Autistic?”
Robin nodded. “Mrs. Browne is a nice lady,” Ro
bin went on. “She really cares about Kip, but I don’t think she understands that girl at all. At least she keeps Kip in the schoolhouse until Buck goes by.”
“Okay, that’s the next thing. What is up with Buck McGillis?”
“Mr. Faith Ridge? He’s a bad man, Dr. Hofstetter. You stay clear of him.”
Mary Beth looked at the suddenly gloomy young woman drinking her third beer far too fast. “How bad?”
“You heard the man. No one says no to Buck McGillis.”
“I can’t stay clear of him,” she moaned. “He’s the biggest client we have—he’s like three-fourths of our entire business.”
“He owns everything. He doesn’t own the town proper, but Faith Ridge is like a bowl in the middle of a huge ranch. He owns most of the land around the town on this side of the White Sandy.”
“Who owns the rest?”
“The Lakota tribe.” The word Lakota came out strong and proud, the accent even thicker as she stressed the ko. “We used to own everything, a long time ago,” Robin patiently explained. “The McGillis family has been chipping away at the edges of the reservation for decades, maybe longer.”
“So why does Jacob work for a slime like him?”
“To keep a Lakota hand on the land. Did you know that Jacob is the grandson of a powerful chief?”
Mary Beth shot her a smarmy look. “You didn’t tell me that until right now.”
“Well, a Plenty Holes has been running this tribe for a long time. Jacob is the first to step away from the Council.”
“Because of Buck? Why?”
“It’s not a big secret, although I wouldn’t say it to Buck’s face if I were you.” She winked. “Jacob’s a smart fellow. Went to college, got one of them—oh, you know—masters in something business—”
“An MBA? He’s got an MBA?” Indian perfection on a horse with an MBA. Almost too good to be true, she mused.
“Yeah,” Robin slurred, the beer finally working on her tiny body. “An MBA. He probably figures if he can just outsmart ol’ Buck there, he can steal the land back. He cut his hair and got hired. Worked up to manager real quick like too.”
Mary Beth wondered what was more dangerous—outsmarting Buck or working for him. “Okay, Robin, why aren’t you at college?”
Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy) Page 2