Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy)

by Anderson, Sarah M.

  Like he wouldn’t. Jacob tucked her head down so it wouldn’t bounce. Rebel swooped Kip off of Jezebel and onto his horse, and then he and Jacob were gone.

  They couldn’t go fast enough.

  Mary Beth saw the little house with the bloodstained floor and the bleeding people. Everything happened out of order—one minute, Jacob was bursting in, already wearing the mask. The next minute, the dead people were eating dinner, their necks already slit. Except this time, Mary Beth was sitting at the table with them. Where’s Kip? she tried to ask the dead people, but her throat wasn’t working. She reached up to touch it and felt the huge slit. Crap, am I dead too? Where is Kip? God, let her still be safe.

  Wait—I’ve had this dream before. Just a dream, Mary Beth tried to tell herself as the swish of a knife blade passed close to her ears. Bad dream. Not real. Wake up. Wake up now.

  But she didn’t. Instead, Kip appeared inside the dream—floated really. She seemed older—different. Smiling, Mary Beth realized. Looking around. Looking normal.

  Okay, this has to be a dream. Time to wake up.

  That direct order to her brain had usually worked in the past, but something wasn’t right about this particular dream. No matter how hard Mary Beth tried to move or talk or do something that would startle her awake, nothing happened.

  Kip floated over to her. At some point, the table and the dead people eating dinner and the little house full of bloodstains disappeared and it was just Mary Beth and Kip, who was looking almost unearthly.

  Smiling a serene smile, Kip reached up and put her hand on Mary Beth’s throat. The flesh under her fingertips began to burn and itch.

  What are you doing? Her mouth still wasn’t working, but she thought it all the same. She tried to rip the fingers away, but Kip held tight. Stop! Stop, please!

  The heat burned away the itch, leaving only a shining pain that cut clear across her throat and radiated up to her eyeballs and down to her lungs.

  Stop, please stop, she begged, clawing at the hand.

  Standing on her tiptoes, Kip kissed her forehead and was gone.

  “Stop, please stop,” she begged, but the words wouldn’t form.

  “Mary Beth, you calm down this instant, or you’re going to get another sedative,” Mom warned.

  Mom? The momentary confusion distracted her from the pain.

  “I think she heard you,” another female voice—maybe Madeline, the doctor on the rez? Mary Beth wasn’t sure. “Her heart rate’s dropped back down a bit.”

  “Mary Beth, pumpkin, you’re okay. You are still alive, okay? You just need to rest. You are still alive.”

  Mary Beth began to relax, and the pain eased. Mom was here. Mom would make everything better, and she was still alive. The thought was comforting and familiar.

  She was still alive.

  At least she wasn’t still at that table with all the dead people, but Mary Beth wasn’t anywhere, as far as she could tell. And it was getting on her nerves.

  Lost without an anchor to any firm reality, Mary Beth began to doubt that she’d really heard Mom. Perhaps she’d just hallucinated Mom out of desperation for something comforting.

  Just when she thought she was going to finally go completely mad, a voice cut through the space. “Mrs. Hofstetter, is it? How is she?” The nowhere got farther away, leaving her in a hazy darkness. She felt like she could almost feel her body but not quite.

  That sounded like Jacob, except that the voice seemed worried. The combination sounded off—almost foreign. Mary Beth tried to open her eyes, or blink, or do something, but nothing happened and the effort tired her.

  “She’s still alive.” Mom again. And she was still alive. Mary Beth tried to sigh in relief, but nothing happened. “And you are?”

  “Jacob Plenty Holes.”

  “I see,” Mom replied. Mary Beth tried to smile at how unconvinced she sounded, but again, nothing moved. “And who is this lovely young lady you have with you?”

  “This is Kip. Kip Two Elks,” Jacob answered. Oh, thank God. Kip was alive. Surely this wasn’t a hallucination.

  Mom spoke again. “How do you know Mary Beth?” Oh, she sounded pissed, but Mom was a firm reality Mary Beth could hold onto.

  “Uh…”

  Mary Beth tried to hold her breath as she waited to hear how Jacob would describe their relationship.

  “I manage the McGillis ranch. She’s our vet.”

  A wave of disappointment washed over her. If she could have cried, she would have. He’d saved her but he didn’t love her. He didn’t want her. Even though the world hadn’t ended, it wasn’t convenient any more.

  He was breaking her heart. No one had ever had the chance to break her heart—not since her father had died when she was a little girl. But she’d gone and fallen in love with a masked Indian cowboy. And now her oldest fear was coming to light.

  She would be alone. Again.

  “I see. Will more of her clients be stopping by?” Mom’s voice was cutting, and for the first time, Mary Beth thought Mom sounded just like her, smart-ass and all. She couldn’t help but silently shout, Go, Mom! Which, of course, meant that she didn’t even gurgle.

  “No,” he answered calmly. “I don’t think any other clients know her outside of work.”

  “I see.” Mary Beth could almost see Mom, one eyebrow arched almost up to her hairline, giving him her patented cut-the-crap look. Mary Beth would have given her right foot to see Jacob in the overwhelming face of Mom-logic.

  He folded a little. “She’s—um, she’s an amazing woman, Mrs. Hofstetter.”

  “I know, Mr. Plenty Holes. Oh, yes, dear? Would you like to see her?”

  The bed sagged slightly and then a cool hand slipped into hers. Kip.

  Kip Two Elks. Jacob had never said her full name before.

  She was no longer hiding.

  The overwhelming joy blotted out the pain in her heart. Kip was still live. Mary Beth was still alive. This was great progress, really.

  Then lips brushed over her forehead—not cool, small lips, but rough lips—lips she knew. Lips she’d kissed. “Don’t you dare give up on me, babe,” Jacob whispered, and Mary Beth felt him trace his fingers over her cheek. “You’re still alive. Keep it that way.”

  Still alive, she thought back, wanting to talk to him more than she’d ever wanted to talk in her entire life. Nothing worked though.

  Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to give up on him either. Even if he didn’t know it yet.

  Being alive was harder than Mary Beth thought it would be. For five weeks, she suffered from crushing claustrophobia from having her head bolted into a Frankenstein-style brace. The whole time, Mom answered for her for everything from what kind of gelatin she wanted with dinner to how she was feeling today. It drove Mary Beth nuts.

  Not that Jacob made her less nuts. He made the smallest of small talk during regular evening visits, which left her all kinds of confused about him again. Maybe it was the presence of her mother that had him all clammed up again, but whatever it was, Mary Beth didn’t like it. She did like it, however, when he brought Kip in on the weekends. The small girl was starting to talk again, hesitantly mispronouncing words in a way that was both cute and heart-breaking sad.

  Rebel came and sat with her at several odd times. He’d just show up, shoot the breeze and head back out again. Once—only once—did he do anything that was even vaguely medicine-man-ly. He brought in a sage bundle and burned it—or tried to, until a nurse got after him. That was it.

  At several points during Mary Beth’s five-week incarceration, as she came to think of it, Sheriff Tim Means stopped in. He was the one who filled her in on what had happened after the thing with Buck. Nobody had come to fetch him that night, but by the time the two of them had made it back to the hidden house, the whole thing had gone up in flames. Some investigators had come in from the FBI and found enough of Buck’s body to make a positive I.D. They’d taken possession of the McGillis ranch, but Jacob was still running it,
for the time being. There was talk of selling it off after the feds got done going through Buck’s estate, which was going to take a while.

  Mary Beth got the feeling that Nobody had set the fire, but it was one of those things that couldn’t be proved.

  But, hands down, the hardest part of the five weeks was feeling that her throat was the huge, blinking, neon sign in the room that everyone stared at. Sure, everyone was polite about it, but Mary Beth couldn’t stand it. She felt like a freak of the first-class order.

  She was raring to go home. Sure, Mom would still be there, but it had to be better than the hospital. At least Mary Beth hoped and prayed it would be better than the hospital. If she never set foot in this place again, it would be too damn soon.

  The brace finally gone, Mary Beth sucked it up and headed for the bathroom, Mom steadying her from behind. She hadn’t wanted to look while she was still in the brace, but now she didn’t have a good excuse not to see what she’d survived. After all, she was going to have one of those foam braces that whiplash victims wore—and she was under strict orders not to wear it all the time. The tendons Buck had cut may have healed, but they needed the practice. The more she wore the foam brace, the longer the recovery would take.

  Okay, she reminded herself, eyes still closed as she tried to figure out if she was holding her head up straight. You can do this. You are still alive. But what she saw took her breath away.

  “Only three and a half inches long,” Mom said in a voice that was probably supposed to be soothing as she rubbed Mary Beth’s back. “It healed nicely.”

  Nicely? As the tears spilled over, Mary Beth couldn’t see a damn thing nice about it. Three and a half inches looked to be half a mile long, and a quarter-mile wide on her skin. And the holes—dear God, the holes! A set of holes marched in lockstep alongside her near-death experience.

  Hideous. Like a radioactive centipede had taken up residence on her body and wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Pumpkin, it’s really not that bad,” Mom said, slipping one arm around her waist. Holding her up, holding her close—same thing.

  “The hell it’s not, Mom,” she replied, snatching the scratchiest four-dollar tissue known to mankind from the box and exfoliating her face with it.

  Mom sighed, resigned to losing this battle. “Well, the foam brace will cover it, and if you keep your hair long… It will fade, pumpkin.”

  But not within the hour. Not by the time Jacob and Kip showed up to drive her and Mom back to the little time-warp house on Beech.

  Jacob would see it. And once he did, there’d be no chance of getting back to convenient. There was nothing convenient about that scar. Nothing.

  “Hello? Mary Beth? Mrs. Hofstetter? We’re here!”

  Shit. Jacob would see it right now. Not only was she hideous, but the red eyes and a running nose completed the look. Super, she thought as Mom went out to get her brace and greet their ride home. Can this get any worse?

  “Wow, you look beautiful.”

  Apparently, the answer to that question was yes. Jacob appeared in the doorway, brace in hand. She froze, wishing she could get the scar covered or that he’d disappear or that the building would catch fire—anything to get his eye off of her. Anything. But nothing moved.

  “You want some help with this?” he asked, his voice soft and quiet, like she was a forest creature who easily startled. One black lock of his hair fell forward over his mask, but he couldn’t see it.

  Jesus Christ, does he get better looking all the time?

  Which was quickly followed by the realization that she must be healed if she was ready to begin the dance around the bed—and the couch, not to mention the floor—with him again.

  If he kept his mask on, could she wear the brace?

  Mom! And Kip! Like three feet away!

  The rush of desire and confusion and mortification threatened to swamp her as she started to sweat. Unable to stop herself from coming apart at her brand-new seam, she closed her eyes. It was all she could do.

  He stepped in behind her and lowered the brace around her neck like it was a freaking diamond necklace. “Move your hair,” he gently ordered, his lips brushing against her lobe. “I won’t look. Not if you don’t want me to.”

  Feeling helpless as her blood pounded up to her cheeks and down to points lower, she did as she was told. The moment the Velcro scratched shut, Mary Beth felt a little better. She couldn’t see the scar anymore—and that meant neither could Jacob.

  “There. Beautiful,” he murmured, tracing his hands down her back and around her waist as he kissed her ear. He pulled her back against his hard, lean body, squeezing all the air out of her lungs as he lightly nipped at her shoulder.

  Where the hell are Mom and Kip? He can’t kiss me like this—what if they walk in on us?

  She opened her mouth, but by then, he’d already worked his way around to her front and kissed her. Not too hard, so he wasn’t pushing on her head, but not anything like those little pecks he’d been giving her.

  A real kiss. The kind lovers gave each other.

  All of the passion flowed easily from him back to her, nearly knocking her off her feet with the suddenness.

  “Wait,” she whimpered, “Mom—Kip—”

  “They’re probably halfway to the mall in Rapid City by now,” he replied, lowering his lips to hers again.

  Finally, finally, her mouth kicked on as she wrenched out of his grasp, tripped and landed on the hospital bed with a dull thud. Her head felt like a pumpkin on a toothpick, just waiting to start rolling. She physically grabbed it just to make sure the darned thing stayed attached. “Wait, what? They left us?”

  “Well, yeah. They were going shopping.”

  “Jacob, what’s going on?” she demanded as her temperature spiked higher. “No one told me about this.”

  “I’m taking you home.” He smiled, looking far more confident than Mary Beth was suddenly feeling. “Kind of like a date.”

  “Well, thank you very much for asking me out on this date,” she snipped, unable to stop her mouth now that it was on. “All girls enjoy being kept in the dark when it comes to, you know, plans and dates and stuff. Did Mom know about this?”

  “Mary Beth, calm down,” he replied, crouching in front of her. “This was your mother’s idea.”

  “You’re taking dating tips from my mother?” she yelled. Her neck began to ache. She knew she needed to relax. But just when she’d begun to feel like she might have some control over something—even something as simple as a damned car ride home—she was right back to being helpless again. “Jesus, Jacob, how hard up are you?”

  He smiled, but his eye didn’t move. “She wanted to spend a little more time with Kip before she left, and she thought we might want some time alone.” Mary Beth snorted, which sent shock waves down her neck.

  “Hey, I like your mother, I do, but it sounded good to me. I’ve really missed you.”

  “Well, for future reference, this was a lousy way to get a date.” Her whole head was starting to throb, and simply breathing didn’t seem to be doing any good. For a second, she thought maybe they’d let her out of that God-awful contraption too soon. Nothing in the neck or head region seemed to be working—brain included. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want to know what’s going on?”

  “I’m here to take you home. That’s what’s going on,” he replied, sounding more than just a little frustrated. “That was always the plan.”

  His plan, sure. But her plan? Just like she had since Mary Beth had woken up, Mom had made the decision for her. Irritating enough when it came to which kind of gelatin Mary Beth wanted for dessert—but what passed for her love life? Beyond the pale.

  And Jacob had just gone along with it. “You don’t have to get clearance from my mother, Jacob. You could have just asked me. I mean, seriously. You knew I would say yes.”

  He froze, an uncharacteristically huge grin on his face. “Yeah, I know you’d say yes.”

  Her blood b
egan to boil. “You are being a jerk right now, Jacob, and I don’t even know why. God, you make me nuts sometimes.”

  Taking her hands in his, he rolled forward from the crouch until he was on his knees. Jesus, her brain screamed, he’s not going to ask that, is he?

  Weddings—in a church and then in front of a tipi—flashed before her eyes. The kind of wedding Robin was planning, but it wasn’t Robin standing next to Mikey. It was her standing next to Jacob, with Kip off to the side.

  Isn’t this what she wanted? Because she was in love with him?

  Wasn’t she?

  “Mary Beth,” he said in all seriousness and her heart just about stopped. “Will you go on a date with me?”

  How ridiculous was she? Of course he wasn’t going to ask her to marry him. What a normal girl would have seen as a romantic surprise just pissed her off. They couldn’t even have a normal date without him reducing her to a confused, furious mess.

  And she was hopelessly in love with him.

  She opened her mouth, but the darned thing short-circuited at the near miss and silently shut again as she unconsciously covered her neck with her hands.

  Hopeless. She was hopeless. This relationship was hopeless, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was her fault. She was too screwed up—too scarred—to be a part of something that had briefly bordered on normal.

  He sat before her, patiently waiting for her response as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. And all she could do was weakly glare at him.

  “Interesting,” he mused as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “That’s the second time you’ve been speechless. Come on.” He stood and gingerly pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Oh, Mary Beth was pissed, that much was clear. But this was a different kind of pissed. Usually, when she was mad at him, she tore into him, but she hadn’t said word one since Jacob had started the truck. She wouldn’t even look at him. No cutting commentary, no snide remarks, no bitter musings muttered under her breath.

  Nothing.

  This wasn’t part of the plan to sweep her off her feet. Suddenly, he found himself wondering if she really was going to say yes or not.