Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy) (25 page)

“You are an amazing woman, Mary Beth Hofstetter,” he whispered, his mouth against her ear as he molded his body against hers. His breath rushed against her hair at a different angle, bathing her in his warm musk.

Safe in his strong embrace, with Kip tucked into hers, Mary Beth fell asleep.

And slept dreamlessly.

Snap.

Huh
? Mary Beth thought.
What time is it
?

Snap. Snap.

Oh. Right. The mask
. She opened her eyes and found herself face to face with Kip, her purple eyes only inches from Mary Beth’s.

“Morning, honey,” she whispered. “Do you get to see Jacob without his mask on? He won’t show me.”

“I can hear you, you know.” He chuckled behind her. “I’ll be right back.” Jacob shoved the dresser out of the way. The bathroom door clicked a few seconds later.

“You okay, honey? I hope Jacob and that Nobody didn’t upset you too much last night.”

Mary Beth wasn’t expecting an answer, but she was surprised when Kip reached up and rested her hand on Mary Beth’s cheek. Even for being wrapped in blankets and against Mary Beth, her skin was still cool to the touch.

“Yeah. Okay. Just have to remember that patience is the key.” The bathroom door clicked again as Mary Beth stretched out. “It’s Friday. I’ve got cereal, toast and eggs. You want breakfast?”

After they mowed through the last of the eggs, Mary Beth asked, “You want me to walk with you two?”

“People would notice.” Jacob shrugged.

“Yeah. Okay. No need to set the gossips off.”

“You pick her up tonight. I’ll run by the trailer and grab some stuff before I come down.”

Mary Beth kissed Kip’s forehead. “I’ll see you tonight, honey.”

She stood up and into Jacob’s arms. He kissed her forehead as he hugged. Tightly. “See you tonight. And be safe.”

Despite the weirdness of the situation, Mary Beth couldn’t help but float as she dressed for the office.

He hadn’t been gone when she woke up.

He was coming back tonight.

She’d never been so happy at the thought of having a man to come home to in her whole life.

Kip polished off the spaghetti and buttered bread, and then Mary Beth gave her a bath before Jacob tucked her in. Mary Beth read two more chapters of
Island of the Blue Dolphin
before Kip’s little body settled into sleep.

Out in the living room, Jacob was sitting cross-legged on the couch wearing nothing but his sweatpants again, an open book on his lap and a Colt .45 beside him.

“Man, and I thought everyone had knives,” Mary Beth muttered as she sat next to him.

Grinning, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she picked up the book.

“
The Ecology and Management of Grazing Systems
? Sounds like fun.”

“Always.”

“You really have an MBA?”

“University of South Dakota, class of 2010.
Summa cum laude
.”

“I am impressed, you know.”

“White people usually are.” He snorted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sighed heavily, his eye apologizing. “It’s just that it takes a lot of work to walk in both the white and Lakota worlds, and few people appreciate that.”

“So the Lakota don’t think much of the MBA?”

He snorted again. “Which ones? The ones that think I’ve sold out the tribe, or the ones who treat me like an endangered species? These days, the only person who really gets it is Shawn—and he’s still at Harvard.”

She threw up her hands, dropping the textbook back in his lap with a thud. He winced. “I’m
trying
over here. I don’t speak the language. I talk with medicine men. I have an albino asleep on my bed. And you are about the best damned businessman I’ve ever seen.”

His eyebrow shot up as he carefully turned the page. “Businessman? Not what I was hoping for.”

“You are impossible!” She sighed as she collapsed on his bare shoulder.

Lightly chuckling, he wrapped his arm around her, snuggling her in tight as he turned another page filled with charts and graphs.

Mary Beth sat and listened to him breathe for a few moments, but the question that had been bothering her all day refused to go unanswered any longer. “Jacob?”

“Hmm?” he asked, turning the page.

“What happens next?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay. Let’s just assume, for argument’s sake, that we defeat the shadow thing and save Kip and earn our superhero tights. Then what? What happens next?”

He cocked his head in that way that Mary Beth knew meant she had his undivided attention. “I’m still not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“You do realize that she’s just a little girl who misses her mom and dad? She’s only seven. She’s not ready to lead the free world or the tribe or do much but run around and ride horses. You’d do her a big favor if you just treated her like a real girl, okay? She just wants to feel normal.”

“She’s not normal,” he patiently explained. “Even if she’s not a holy woman like her grandmother, she’s not normal.”

“I
know
.” He was being intentionally obtuse, damn him. “That doesn’t change the question. What happens next? Will she ever be normal?”

He thought about that for a while. “She used to be pretty normal, for a four-year-old. Giggled at squirrels chasing each other, laughed when I stuck straws up my nose and snorted milk—”

“Geez, you are a boy, aren’t you? Garth Courland used to do that all the time in school.”

He hugged her tighter. “I’ve got some money set aside for her. Then, when she’s around thirteen, she’ll go to Bear Butte for her vision quest. After that—well, it depends on what she sees. The elders—and that does include Rebel—will interpret her vision. No matter what happens, I’ll take care of her for as long as she needs me to.”

Mary Beth looked at him next to her, the proud Lakota warrior. “You’re a good man, Jacob Plenty Holes.”

He kissed her forehead with a smile. “You make me better.”

She blushed, hard, under the weight of that compliment. It was a damn good one, made all the better by the fact that he’d given it in such a casual way. He could turn on the charm when he wanted to. “Great.” She rolled her eyes. “When puberty hits. Can’t wait to see what raging hormones do to her. Looking forward to it.”

“You know—” he leaned forward, his lips hovering just beyond hers, “—you’ve got some mouth on you. I like it.”

As he kissed her, Mary Beth let herself get lost in the sheer manliness that was Jacob Plenty Holes. His strong arms around her, his firm lips pressing against hers, his tongue caressing hers—it was almost too much to bear. She broke away from him before she completely lost what was left of her mind.

He ran his fingers along her jaw, lifting her face to his. “You are an amazing woman, Mary Beth Hofstetter. I keep waiting for you to run screaming.”

“I couldn’t leave her. She needs me.”

“Yeah,” he agreed as he feathered kisses down her neck. “She’s not the only one.”

The next kiss was anything but light. Mary Beth curled into him as she wrapped her arm around that fine bare chest. Her cowboy hero, sworn to protect the weak and helpless, just like in romance novels.
Maybe one day
, she thought,
we’ll ride off into the sunset together
.

But then an old memory bubbled up to the surface, and she could almost hear her Granny saying, “Romance is a tragedy that happens to someone else.” And this tragedy wasn’t finished playing out. So she pulled back from his warm arms and warmer lips, and he let her.

“No, wait.” She sighed, forcing herself to push him away. “We aren’t done yet.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, pulling her back up. “What part of this did you want to talk about?”

“Assuming that everything turns out okay, and she’s safe and all that good stuff, what happens with us?” She ran her hand down his bare chest. “What happens with this and us?”

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.