Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy)

by Anderson, Sarah M.

  He froze. “What do you mean?”

  Something in his eye was a warning, but it was too late to stop her mouth. “I mean, what do we do? At this exact moment in time, you are sort of living with me. Are you two just going to stay? Do we finally start dating? Are we something more? What happens to us?”

  He yanked his arm away from her, shrinking from her touch. Immediately, the playful Indian was replaced with the stone-faced cowboy sitting beside her as all that lovely sexual tension fell like a rock from the room.

  “What?” she cried as he scooted farther away from her. Warning, her brain shouted. Danger! But her mouth was on a collision course, and there was no stopping it. “I didn’t mean it like that. It wasn’t an ultimatum, really.”

  “Then why did you ask?” he said, his voice low and cautious.

  “Because I-I-I don’t know. Because I like you, a lot. You’re smart and kind and sexy as all hell, and I can never figure out what you’re thinking unless you’re naked, and I don’t know where I stand with you,” she babbled as her brain kept yelling, Shut up! You sound like a fool!

  But she ignored her better judgment. “Some days I think you like me too, and some days I think all you see in me is a roll in the hay, and some days I feel like I’m your babysitter, and some days I don’t know whether to strangle you or kiss you.”

  Shut up, her brain screamed. Stop talking. He’s just a man. Walk away!

  But she couldn’t listen to the voice that had always told her to walk.

  For the first time in her life, Mary Beth realized she didn’t want to walk.

  She wanted to stay, and she wanted him to stay with her.

  And he sat there, his eye unreadable, his nose pointed toward the door, his lips nearly invisible they were pressed so tightly together.

  “I’m-I’m sorry, Jacob. I didn’t mean that,” she sniveled, knowing that crying was only making things worse. “I won’t ask again. Forget I said anything.”

  He took a deep breath, his eye darting over to her as she wiped her nose on her sleeve before he stared at the door again, like the door was easier to look at than the mess she was devolving into.

  But then he reached back over and pulled her onto his lap, resting her head on his chest as he stroked her hair.

  “I lost the first love of my life to that thing,” he said, sounding surprisingly unsure of himself. “I can’t afford to let that happen again.”

  A small sob broke free from Mary Beth’s throat.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice choked with sorrow, “I really am, but I can’t give you anything more than what I already have. I’ve already given too much.”

  Unable to speak, she nodded as her tears fell on his bronzed chest. He was so close to her, so warm and strong, the murmur of his blood rushing steadily in her ear, but he was so far from her that she knew she’d never know him, never really possess the one thing she really needed.

  His heart.

  She tried to pull away from him, tried to walk—at least as far as the bathroom, the one place left in her house where she could sob in private, but he held her tight as she cried.

  “I’m sorry, hon,” he murmured over and over as he stroked her hair. “I’m really sorry.”

  Get a grip, her brain whispered in a mocking tone. Stop being such a girl!

  Finally, her mouth clicked on. “That’s too bad,” she whimpered, trying to sound like something other than a heartbroken teenager. “The couch is a lonely place to be.”

  “It doesn’t have to be,” he whispered, spreading his hand flat against her back. “You can come visit. Anytime.”

  Now that she had herself under a modicum of control, she shoved herself off his lap. “Jacob,” she began as she walked away, “a smart fellow like you ought to know the first rule of holes. When you’re in one, quit digging.”

  And she shut the bedroom door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mary Beth lay in bed, one hand resting on Kip’s stomach as the girl slept peacefully.

  But sleep eluded Mary Beth.

  Jacob had cared for so few people in this world, but nearly all of them had been wiped away by some shadow thing with a knife. And whether he wanted to admit it or not, he clearly cared for her too.

  She couldn’t blame him for denying it. If he didn’t love her, maybe he wouldn’t lose her. She’d driven away—how many men? Six?—for more or less the same reason, after all.

  If she didn’t love them, it wouldn’t hurt to lose them. And now she was in love with Jacob. And it would hurt.

  Time is short, she realized, and I want Jacob.

  As she slipped out of bed, she tried to convince herself this was not love, because she knew she wasn’t going to get that in return.

  No, not love. Really great, really convenient sex. Some deranged shadow demon could come for my soul tomorrow, and if I’m going, I want one last night with Jacob Plenty Holes to tide me over through eternity.

  As quietly as possible, she cracked open the bedroom door. He was still sitting on the couch in just his sweatpants, his feet stretched out before him, another huge textbook on his lap, and the loaded .45 by his side. But his head was leaned back against the couch and his eye was closed.

  Mary Beth stood there, unsure if she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to wake him, but…

  As she stood at his feet, wondering what she should do next, Jacob spoke.

  “First rule of holes is to stop digging,” he sleepily murmured, his eye still closed.

  “Yeah, about that.” She sighed as she straddled his outstretched legs. “Sometimes you need to dig a hole. Wells and stuff, you know.”

  He slowly grinned, sleep still heavy on him as he pulled the textbook out of the way. “Plants too. Gotta dig holes for trees and plants.”

  As she sat down on his lap, her Garfield nightshirt bunching up around her bare thighs, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.

  “I was thinking,” she began.

  “Always an interesting experience with you, babe,” he murmured as he rubbed her back.

  “I was thinking that we could all die in a tornado or a car accident tomorrow, and the only thing I would regret was that I didn’t get this—” she traced her fingertips down his sides to his waistband “—one more time. I’d miss this.”

  He was silent for a moment as she ran her hands behind his back, holding him as tightly as he was holding her.

  “You making fun of my driving again?” he finally mumbled.

  “Jacob, I don’t want to be alone any more than you do.” She nuzzled into his neck. “Let’s not be alone together.”

  He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing dangerously close to her nose. “Mary Beth, I can’t make you any promises.”

  “I’m not asking for what you can’t give me,” she said as she put her hand on his heart. “I won’t ask that of you. I don’t own you, you don’t own me.”

  His pulse was strong and steady under her hand. Finally, he lifted his head up and opened his eye. “You just want the part you already possess.”

  “I just want the part you’ve already given me, Jacob. You’re a part of me now, and I’m a part of you, no matter what happens tomorrow or the next day,” she said, turning his logic back on him.

  “I did say that, didn’t I?” he muttered, but now he was fully awake.

  She kissed him. “And I know you’re a man of your word.”

  In one quick movement, he peeled Garfield off of her. “I was hoping for the red bra,” he whispered as he pushed her breast up to his waiting mouth.

  “I have other colors, you know,” she managed to gasp out as he scraped his teeth over the sides of her soft flesh before he gently clamped down on her erect nipple. She wrapped her fingers in his hair, holding him to her as his other hand slipped down her hip and reached between her legs.

  “Mmm. Partial to red,” he growled as he found her waiting clit.

  At his touch, Mary Beth bucked on his
lap. “Jesus, Jacob,” she hissed as she bore down on him, giving him better access.

  “That’s not the right sound,” he mused. As his thumb began to circle the sweet spot, first one finger, then two slipped inside, quickly finding an even sweeter spot that he rubbed in short, urgent strokes.

  “Oh!” She gasped, praying they wouldn’t wake up Kip. “Oh, Jesus, Jacob!”

  “That’s better.” He sighed in contentment as he kissed her.

  As her body twitched uncontrollably, she shuddered down on him, grinding her hips into his. “I. Need. More,” she begged. “Please, please. More.”

  Sliding free of her wet embrace, he lifted her up and shimmied his sweatpants down before he set her on his waiting erection.

  “God,” he groaned, his eye rolling back in his head as she enveloped his every throbbing inch. She grabbed his hair and leaned his head back against the couch. Mary Beth ran her tongue up his throat as she pulled his hands away from her hips and pinned them back against the couch.

  “Don’t talk, Jacob,” she ordered as she slowly rose and fell on him. She nipped at his ear and then his neck, relishing the way his muscles twitched to her every touch. “Just come with me.”

  His eye still closed, he nodded almost imperceptibly as she ground into him, almost pulled free and slammed back down.

  He tried to pull his hands away from hers, but she bit him on the shoulder as she held fast. With each slam of her hips, she was getting closer again, closer to that shuddering release that left her shaken and breathless in his arms. “Come…come with me,” she gasped in his ear. “Now. Oh!”

  He obeyed as his body went stiff with tension before he relaxed beneath her final quake.

  Aside from the quick rise and fall of his chest, he looked very much like he had when she’d first come out. His head was back, his eye was closed and his legs were out straight in front of him. Mary Beth leaned into his chest, listening to the blood rush through his heart.

  No matter what happens, at least I had this, she thought as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. I’ll always have this.

  But she couldn’t start that conversation again, so her brain scrambled to think of something that wouldn’t sound like an ultimatum and wouldn’t sound sniveling. As she traced the snaps on his mask, she said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “No, you can’t take the mask off,” he replied, already sounding drowsy again.

  “I don’t care about that.” His eyebrow shot up as she continued, “Why didn’t you ever sleep with Robin? You know she wanted you.”

  “This passes for post-sex pillow talk with you?” he scoffed as he lifted her off and handed her Garfield back again.

  “I’m just asking.” She slipped the old tee over her head. “She told me you kissed her for her birthday once, and she would have given it up to you right in the middle of the party.”

  “Yeah, I did that when she turned sixteen,” he mused as he pulled his pants back up without opening his eye.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  The silence stretched, and Mary Beth began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. But then he said, “I thought about it, I won’t lie. She was pretty and sweet and I did like her. I thought about it a lot after Susan married Fred.”

  She curled into his waiting arm, warm with the afterglow. “But you didn’t.”

  “I—don’t make fun of me.”

  “I asked, remember.”

  “I couldn’t do it. I didn’t love her, and I didn’t want to just use her, no matter how much she wanted to be used.”

  “You loved her enough not to do it.” And you love me enough to do it.

  As if he read her mind, he said, “That doesn’t make this love. This isn’t love.”

  “That’s right. This is convenient.”

  “Right. Convenient. World-is-ending, no-regrets convenient.”

  “Right,” she whispered. She could feel the tears moving up, even though that was exactly what she’d told herself before she came to him tonight. But she promised herself she wouldn’t cry until she got back into her room.

  “Right,” he whispered back, his voice quivering. For a moment, he held her tight, and with her eyes closed, she could pretend that the conversation hadn’t just happened. But then he cleared his throat. “You should go to bed now, Mary Beth Hofstetter.”

  “Going,” she said, hoping the tremble in her voice wouldn’t give her away before she got the door closed.

  And she was gone.

  The world didn’t end on Tuesday, although Jacob couldn’t tell if that was encouraging or not.

  He hated leaving Mick in Mary Beth’s garage overnight, but the horse didn’t seem to mind it too much. Any other option just announced that they were shacking up.

  Not that people weren’t already suspecting things. Tommy was waiting for him when he rode up to the ranch, his tapping toe the only sign that betrayed his anxiety. “Everything okay?” he asked as Jacob dismounted.

  Jacob glared at him. So much for people not knowing they were shacking up. He’d known this was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier.

  “So there is something going on. Be careful, Jake.” It was almost a warning, although Tommy looked calm.

  “I’m always careful, Tommy,” he finally managed to say.

  “So you’re saying she hasn’t threatened to castrate you yet?” He chuckled.

  “Tommy,” he snarled as he threw the door to his office open.

  Tommy shook his head in amusement as he looked out the window and the fight was over before it began. “She’s coming.”

  “Let me know if Buck leaves the house.”

  Tommy’s eyebrow shot up, but clearly he’d already anticipated this. “Jack’s watching now.”

  Jacob nodded with approval. Jack was the best tracker Jacob had ever seen. He had a sense of smell that was almost inhuman. Nothing would get passed him.

  Tommy turned to walk out, but not before he repeated, “Be careful, Jake.”

  Jacob glared at his back again before he went out to meet her.

  And this time, she wasn’t pissed at him. She smiled warmly at him as she acted like nothing had happened, having the same morning conversation they always had. But the moment they were between the horses, she stealthily reached out and traced a single finger down his face before she spun and threw herself onto Jezebel.

  Man, he thought as he mounted up, his skin still burning with the memory of her touch, I could get used to this.

  The feeling only got stronger that night as she opened the door with the same smile, even if she did have her knife drawn. She had dinner simmering—smelled like stew maybe.

  “Hey, hon.” She beamed as he slid up behind her and kissed her cheek.

  “I’ve been waiting to do this for hours,” he replied as his mouth covered hers. He could feel the corners of her lips curving up under his. “Hours.”

  “I’d ask how your day was, but I was there for most of it.”

  “You missed the part where Tommy figured us out.”

  “Tommy figured us out? I haven’t even figured us out, and Tommy has?” she wailed, waving a stew-covered spoon dangerously near him.

  Grinning, he sat down next to Kip and kissed her cheek. “How about you, Kip? How was your day? Think we’ll have a quiet night?”

  Even Mary Beth turned to see if there would be an answer, but they both knew they wouldn’t get one. Instead, Mary Beth said, “Mrs. Browne said she was fine. Did you know there’s a school for autistic children in Rapid City?”

  “Man, she’s started that with you? Kip’s not autistic.”

  “I know. But she means well. I told her that the doctor visit went well and the doctor’s going to do get me a list of recommendations.”

  “I don’t remember that being part of the conversation.”

  “Hon,” she said as she smiled, sending a thrill through him, “you’ve got to realize that little old ladies want, more than anything, to be listened to. So I t
ell her I will check it out, and she gets to feel important. No harm, no foul.”

  “You sound like an expert in little old ladies.” He started to set the table. When was the last time he’d set a table? Years maybe.

  “My Granny died when she was eighty-two.” Suddenly, she sounded like a much younger girl. “I didn’t always have the smoothest childhood, shall we say. But Granny was this tough old farmer’s wife, one of those rocks that holds a family together.”

  Which made it pretty clear that the family had fallen apart at some point. “I would have liked to have met her.”

  “She would have liked to have met you too,” she finally answered. “She taught me to cook.”

  “I knew there was something about her I liked.” He smiled as she scooped up the stew. “Woman after my own heart.”

  He washed the dishes while she gave Kip a bath. She was so good with Kip that Jacob was beginning to think that maybe Susan wouldn’t mind. Certainly, in the three years he’d cared for Kip, he’d tried to do his best with her, but he knew he could never replace Susan and Fred.

  But Mary Beth looked at her like she was normal, and talked to her like she was normal and treated her like she was normal. It was beginning to feel normal, all three of them living in the cramped, cozy house.

  As she read a book he’d never heard of to Kip, he debated what to do. She’d essentially told him he could stay if he wanted, but then he’d told her he couldn’t, just couldn’t. Not with the shadow out there.

  But last night…last night was enough to change a man’s mind.

  His mind.

  He worked quickly, smoothing his blanket out on the floor before he hastily washed up. He was sure she’d be back out. The heat of her finger trailing down his face said she would be.

  Twenty minutes later, the bedroom door quietly whooshed open and then shut and her soft feet padded out into the living room.

  He wanted to pretend that he was asleep, just to keep her guessing, but the thought of her tiptoeing around in that old nightshirt—she had to have had it for at least fifteen or twenty years—was too much for him. She probably didn’t realize it was nearly transparent, the darkness of her nipples and hair neatly framing poor, clueless Garfield. When he opened his eye, she was already before him, her bare legs next to him as she carefully avoided standing on the blanket.