Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy)

by Anderson, Sarah M.

  “How’d they get sick then?”

  Jacob sat on that for a while. If this were a normal conversation—well, hell, if it were normal, they wouldn’t be having it. “One of my hands heard something late at night.”

  “Nobody?”

  Yeah, no love lost between those two. “He wouldn’t hurt the horses.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw Tim look doubtful.

  “Anything else?”

  “No. You?”

  “Still waiting on lab reports. The good doctor is giving them hell, but it’s going to take time.” He was quiet for a moment as the council tried to bring the lawsuit issue to a vote, but they couldn’t even agree on voting on it. The bickering continued. “Did you ever find the field?”

  Damn it. He was supposed to have found the field—until a storm and Mary Beth drove him way, way off. But he didn’t want to admit he’d failed so spectacularly. “Rained out.”

  “Shit.” Jacob nodded in agreement. “When the lab results come back, the big boys will take over.”

  Jacob understood. Once the BIA and possibly even the FBI got involved, Tim—and anyone who understood anything about the tribe or the rez—would be locked out. If they wanted to catch the person—or persons—responsible, they needed to do it sooner, rather than later.

  The council attempted to call a vote again, and this time they succeeded in voting three to three. Then someone else argued that they couldn’t vote without the seventh council member, who was probably busy trying to keep his trailer from flooding.

  Jesus, Jacob hated this crap. How his grandfather had sat on this council for several decades without committing manslaughter was beyond him. The whole lot of them were no better than kindergartners arguing over who had the cooler crayons. Meanwhile, nothing important got done.

  “Have you talked to Rebel Runs Fast? He’s usually at the clinic.”

  That was the second time someone had asked Jacob that question. Maybe the medicine man knew something he didn’t. Maybe it was time he looked the man up, although why a medicine man hung out at a clinic was a bit beyond his grasp. Seemed to Jacob that doctors and nurses might not see eye to eye with someone who told people to go into sweat lodges and pray for a cure.

  Then he remembered something Mary Beth had said—he should get Kip’s eyes checked. If Rebel was at the clinic, Jacob would have a good excuse for trekking all the way across the rez. Two birds with one stone, such as it was. He could placate Mary Beth, get Kip checked out and maybe find out something about whatever the hell was going on. Maybe Rebel could tell him what to do about Kip. “I’ll look him up.”

  “If you hear anything…” Tim stood, scattering water droplets everywhere.

  Jacob answered with a nod as Tim walked past him.

  The meeting fell apart after that. Nothing had been accomplished. For the first time in a great while, Jacob missed his grandfather. He would have whipped this crew into shape. They could be doing something—anything—instead of just jockeying for position and power.

  Disgusted, Jacob slipped out before the reporter got it into her head to start asking him questions. The rain was still coming down. Mick looked less like a horse and more like an upright puddle at this point. Nights like this always made Jacob think about buying a truck. But trucks could be traced and followed and bugged. Horses could come and go and no one would be the wiser.

  So, resigned to being soaked to the bone, Jacob mounted up and pointed Mick toward Faith Ridge.

  He wanted to be excited about Mary Beth and that top and the bed in a room with a door that shut and locked.

  He had a feeling that wasn’t what was waiting for him.

  Chapter Twelve

  A slow knock on the door jolted Mary Beth awake. Which was odd. She didn’t remember going to sleep. Another knock—not the hard, scary knocking that had her grabbing for her knife. This was quiet, like he knew Kip was asleep.

  Mary Beth looked down at the small girl whose head was resting on her lap. Oh. Yeah. Kip was asleep. Mary Beth must have dozed off. There was more knocking, growing louder. Still slightly befuddled, she reached down and picked up her knife. As she headed towards the door, she glanced at the clock. 11:45.

  “Who is it?” she demanded.

  “Jacob, Mary Beth. Open up. I’m soaked.”

  She opened the door at a languid pace. She knew she was supposed to be mad at him for leaving Kip without telling her his plans, but her mind still seemed to be operating under water. “I’m not sleeping with you, just so you know.”

  A pair of saddlebags thrown over his shoulders, water was cascading down off the brim of his hat as he looked at her through the small waterfall. “Does that mean I can’t come in?” he asked with a sideways smirk.

  “Oh!” Mary Beth snapped fully awake. Wait, she thought as she took the saddlebags while he peeled off the soaked top layer. Did I say that out loud? Oh, hell.

  “Where were you?” she whispered, remembering that she was mad at him.

  He smirked again as he kicked off his boots. Slowly, he set the hat on top of the boots. Then the suit jacket came off, followed by the so-wet-it-was-transparent button-up shirt.

  Okay, I wasn’t going to sleep with you. She gawked at the Flashdance-style strip tease he was putting on right in her living room. Then he undid his belt and then the pants button. I may have to reconsider my earlier statement.

  But Jacob paused and took the saddlebags from her. “Excuse me,” he said as he walked on the balls of his feet back to the bathroom.

  Mary Beth collapsed against the door. Jeez. Can you be mad at someone while you’re shagging them?

  Jacob padded back out, still shirtless but now wearing a pair of black sweatpants. Mary Beth marveled at how differently he seemed to walk without his boots on. He moved silently across the room, scooping up his wet things and returning to the bathroom, no doubt to hang them out to dry.

  He planned on staying, she realized. He planned on it all along and didn’t tell me. That’s it! Her anger rose. Definitely not sleeping with him, and that’s final.

  Before the thought faded, Jacob was back, kneeling next to the couch and kissing Kip on the forehead.

  God, her mind rushed with the contradictions. A stone-faced cowboy with the soul of a playful Lakota. A seemingly heartless man who tenderly guarded a little girl. A maimed man who didn’t want you to look at him unless he wanted you to look at him. A righteous Native who worked for the white bully. A man who practically ignored her unless he was sleeping with her.

  Jacob lightly ruffled Kip’s hair with a smile before he stood up and closed in on Mary Beth. “She really likes chocolate chip cookies,” he whispered in her ear and the hot air rushed down her neck as his chest lightly grazed her crossed arms.

  Mary Beth’s eyes fluttered, but she shook the surging desire out of her head. Not sleeping with him, she reminded herself. Not.

  “We saved you some,” she replied, trying to sound cool. “I’ll give them to you if you tell me where you were for five hours.”

  He leaned in even closer, the stiff leather of his nose rubbing the edge of her ear. “I don’t want the cookies,” he growled as he put one arm around her waist.

  “Tough shit, because that is the only offer on the table,” she snarled, stepping out of his grasp. Kip rolled over in her sleep. Damn it, Mary Beth thought. I can’t yell at him out here without waking her up. Now I’ve got to take him back to the bedroom.

  Sighing in resignation, she grabbed the plate of cookies and headed back to her room. Chuckling, Jacob followed her, shutting the door behind them without a sound.

  “If the cookies are on the bed, does that mean they’re off the table?” he asked as he took her side of the bed again.

  “Okay, that’s it.” She tossed the plate at him. He caught it without losing a single cookie, still chuckling. His unflappable ease only made Mary Beth madder. “You listen to me, you…you ass. You are a complete jerk. You can’t say, ‘Hey, Mary Beth, what are
you doing around six tomorrow night?’ And not expect me to think that it’s a date. Just because we—well, you know—doesn’t mean you get to just dump that sweet girl on me without any notice, any explanation, for five freaking hours and then act like I’m just going to swoon at the sight of your perfect body and that’s going to make everything okay.”

  Jacob snorted in amusement as he ate a cookie.

  Mary Beth saw red. “If it weren’t for the fact that she’s asleep out there, I’d kick your sorry ass outside in this weather and keep all your clothes. You didn’t ask if you could spend the night and you aren’t spending it in my bed, that’s for damn sure.”

  “The cookies are good,” was his only response.

  “Hey!” she yelped as she raced around the bed and tried to grab the plate from him. He grabbed her hand. “Go to hell,” she all but yelled out as she tried to smack him.

  He caught her other hand and held her fast. Damn it. First-hand knowledge told her she wouldn’t be able to get out of his hold unless he was darned good and ready to let her go.

  Jacob pulled his legs out of the way and sat her down on the bed. While he still had a death-grip on her, he wasn’t hurting her. But he wasn’t letting go either. Mary Beth tried to turn away from him, but she couldn’t get very far.

  “Mary Beth,” he began after a painfully long moment, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  “You don’t own me, Jacob. I’m not a play thing—not yours, not Buck’s, not anyone’s.”

  With a steady, unforgiving tug, he pulled her up to his bare chest and kissed her. With her blood already pumping, just the touch of his lips was enough to break her resolve, but she wasn’t about to give it up just for a kiss.

  A long, wet, sloppy kiss.

  When he finally let her go she was more breathless than she cared to admit. But she couldn’t let him win, not with something as underhanded as a stupid, wonderful kiss.

  “Stop doing that. Just because you are good in bed doesn’t mean you get to end any argument with sex.” She scowled at him.

  “I wasn’t ending it with sex. You already said you weren’t going to sleep with me tonight.” He let go of her hands, and Mary Beth shivered where the cool air touched the flushed skin he’d been holding tight. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Not a shot in hell,” she snipped.

  He kissed her again, this time with enough force to bend her backwards. “I have never owned you, but I possess the part of your soul you’ve already given me. I’m a part of you now, no matter how mad you get,” he whispered as he rested his forehead on hers before he kissed that as well.

  Not sleeping with him, she chanted over and over. Not. Sleeping. With. Him. No matter how beautifully romantic and wonderful and delicious and—

  She scooted away from him. One more kiss like that and she was a goner. “Where were you tonight?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Like hell it’s not. You show up, dump her on me and expect me to be all panting smiles when you come back? Spill it.”

  He chuckled again, and Mary Beth thought about trying to smack him for the second time in less than five minutes.

  “I went to the council meeting on the reservation. I haven’t been in three years.”

  Robin’s stories floated back up. A Plenty Holes has run this tribe for a long time. Jacob is the first to step away from the council. And the whole thing with Kip had happened three years ago.

  No, not a coincidence, she knew. He’d already said he didn’t leave her at night.

  “What made tonight so special, hmm?”

  He reached over and she tensed against the expected touch. But instead, he grabbed another cookie. Oh, I’m going to kill him.

  “The tribe wants to sue McGillis to stop his latest land grab. He claims Elmer Tall Hat’s will leaves him a huge chunk off the edge of the White Sandy, but that’s a load of BS.”

  “Elmer didn’t own it?”

  “None of us own anything, Mary Beth. We are merely occupiers. The tribe manages the land for our children. That is how it has always been, and that is how it will be, if I have anything to say about it,” he replied matter-of-factly, like it was common knowledge. “Besides,” he continued, eating another cookie, “I knew Kip would be safe with you.”

  Mary Beth opened her mouth to rip him a new one but nothing came out, so she shut it again. She couldn’t tell if it was a compliment that he thought enough of her to leave Kip, or if she should still be insulted that she was little more than a combination babysitter and bed buddy.

  “And anyway, this almost counts as a date.”

  “Jesus, Jacob, you are dense, aren’t you? This isn’t a date. This is a fight that I’m winning, because I’m right and you’re wrong.”

  He looked her up and down, and despite her anger, Mary Beth wished she still had on that slinky little top.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I like you better like this anyway. You look like you, not some creation of Robin’s.”

  “Great. Well, the next time you ask me if I’m free for the evening, I’ll be sure to keep on the shitkickers. I didn’t know that was such a turn-on for cowboys.”

  He leaned back, his eye laughing as his mouth curled up into a knowing grin. “Not like red bras and panties are.”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter!” she yelped, more to herself than to him as the sensations of their wild rutting during another pounding rainstorm flooded her system.

  “You started it. Red panties and shitkickers? On you, that’s a wet dream waiting to happen,” he goaded her, kicking her thigh with his foot.

  She almost went ballistic, but as his eye grazed her chest, she froze. I’m in charge here. The realization made her feel wicked—but probably not the kind of wicked Jacob had in mind.

  “It’s just too bad you won’t get to see what color they are tonight,” she purred with aggression. “I had a nice set all picked out for you, but you blew that chance out of the water, didn’t you?”

  He frowned as he shifted, grabbing a pillow from the other side of the bed and pulling it over his waist.

  Yup, Mary Beth almost crowed. I’m the boss.

  “I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he started. It almost sounded like he was begging. Good.

  “I doubt it. You’ve still got to pay me for babysitting and cookies. This requires far more than a nice restaurant in Rapid City.”

  “I’m good for it.”

  “Well, you’re good for something.” He squirmed again and Mary Beth smiled. She leaned way over, her ponytail brushing against his arm. He stiffened as he watched, waiting for her to kiss him, no doubt.

  But Mary Beth kept going and picked up her clock. “12:40. Let’s call it a night, shall we?” She sprang up off the bed, not bothering to shut the bedroom door behind her as she went into the bathroom.

  She jumped back from the made-up woman who greeted her in the mirror before she remembered how much glitter Robin had slathered on. Quickly, she washed up, brushed her teeth and changed for bed, trying to focus on anything but what had been under that pillow. God, he made her so mad and so horny at the same time. An enigma wrapped in a riddle inside a mystery—that was Jacob Plenty Holes.

  Something about him was completely, compellingly irresistible. Maybe it was the mask or that chest or the way he looked right into her. But that other part— that inscrutable part of him drove her bananas. Unless he was naked, or close to it, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking about her, Kip or anything in this screwy little town.

  “Not going to sleep with him,” she reminded her reflection before she headed back out to make sure he wasn’t still in her bed. She opened the door and purposefully strode out into the dark hall.

  And right into his bare chest.

  “Eep!” she squeaked as she bounced backward. As if he’d been doing it his whole life, he caught her before she fell, effortlessly pulling her back onto her feet—and into his arms.

  He practically carri
ed her back into the bedroom. “I’m sorry I bailed on you tonight. It was a crummy thing to do to you, especially when you looked so nice.”

  Jesus, this just gets worse. Mary Beth cringed. Not sleeping with him.

  “I won’t do that again, and I will make it up to you.”

  “There’s always a condition, isn’t there, Jacob? You’ll work for Buck on the condition that you can screw him over like he screws everyone else over. You’ll sleep with me if it’s what you want, when you want it. You’ll tell me what’s going on when it’s convenient for you. Well, it’s not convenient for me. As sweet as Kip is, this isn’t convenient for me. You aren’t convenient.”

  His mouth screwed into a knot as his eye narrowed. She could almost see the leather nostrils flaring, but she was sure that was her imagination.

  “That’s how it is with you?” His voice was clipped and low. “Convenience first, heart second? Is that what you told all the others when you walked away from them?”

  This time, he didn’t catch her hand as she slapped his cheek. He stood there and took the hit, almost daring her to do it again.

  “Nothing about you is convenient, thečhíhila, and you’re just going to have to get used to that,” he growled as he stared her down. She thought about slapping him again but decided it wouldn’t have much impact.

  “There are bigger stakes at play here,” he went on, leaning toward her as his eye flashed. “Wanting you, falling for you—that’s not my idea of convenient. Everything was going according to plan before you showed up.”

  Whoa! Her brain screamed. Did he just say—?

  “I’ve got too much invested here to throw it all away on someone who just wants convenient. I’m sorry I brought Kip here. I clearly misjudged you.”

  As Mary Beth sucked in a pained breath, he turned, his hand on the knob as he took a deep breath. “It’s one thing to push me away but don’t do it to Kip. We’re all she has in this crummy world.”

  Mary Beth staggered under the weight of his words. He was falling for her, but he was willing to walk unless she put the same faith in him that he apparently had in her. And Kip needed them both.