Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy) (32 page)

Rose My Love Always Billy

She squeaked a tight little noise as she veered dangerously toward hysteria. “This…this is my Granny’s ring!” she finally choked out, caught somewhere between hopeless and out of control again.

“I know. Your mom had your uncle mail it to me.”

Heart pounding, her head began to swirl. “My mom knows?” she demanded, her voice shaking as much as her hands.

He nodded, looking a little panicked himself.

The walls moved again, giving her panic no place to go. It turned back on her, wrapping itself around her neck with a brutal efficiency. This was all wrong. Normally, this would have been a fight—a fight she would have won, because she was right. But her mouth wasn’t operating like normal anymore—nothing was.

She wasn’t the same woman she’d been—the three-and-a-half-inch radioactive centipede she’d have for the rest of her live proved it. The old Mary Beth really had died on the floor of that little shack and she realized that there was no way Jacob could love the leftovers.

Everyone knew leftovers were never as good as the original. Even Kip had to know that.

“Did Kip tell you I was going to say yes?” she asked, feeling like a boa constrictor was just seconds from eating her. His wounded look said that she had, and Mary Beth officially lost it. He didn’t really want her—this sure as hell wasn’t convenient—but the tag-team of Kip and Mom was more than even Jacob could withstand. “You—you—you—” She couldn’t even talk. The boa constrictor was too tight, cutting off her air. Which was just as well, because the walls were so close that there wasn’t any air to be had.

“You think that the only reason I’m asking you is because Kip told me I had to?” he coolly replied, seemingly unconcerned that the walls in this place were squishing him flat. “You think that the fact that I actually love you has nothing to do with it? The fact that I want to spend my life with you because you make me happy—damn it, actually happy—has nothing to do with it?”

He loved the old, convenient Mary Beth. That woman made him happy—content. She knew that just as soon as he figured out that woman was dead and gone, he wouldn’t even be able to look at her, much less love her. The scar felt like it was trying to fight back against the boa constrictor, pushing out when everything else was pushing in. The pain was searing.

The light flooding the living room began to pop in little flashbulbs of blue and green as her throat turned to solid stone and took her lungs down with it. Not a boa constrictor, her medical brain realized, but the brace. Gotta get the brace off. Only chance to breathe.

All the blue and green lights began to merge into suffocating black.

Jacob caught her as she collapsed, easing her down to the ground until her head was comfortably resting in his lap. “I’m sorry, babe, I’m sorry. Come on, Mary Beth, breathe,” he begged, kicking himself for pushing her over the edge. What the hell was he doing? She’d just gotten out of the hospital. He should have known she wouldn’t be strong enough for an engagement ring, much less a trailer. This was all his fault and it was up to him to make it right. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

She made a gurgling noise as her eyes rolled back in her head.

Shit, what was he supposed to do? She’d just crumpled like he’d hit her, but he hadn’t touched her. Somewhere from the back of his mind, he remembered that maybe he was supposed to loosen her clothes. “I’m going to take the brace off, okay?”

“N-n-n,” she tried to choke out, pulling his hands away from her throat.

Okay, that was a good sign. She hadn’t had a complete nervous breakdown. “Are you gonna breathe?”

Her eyes shut tight, she winced as she gave a faint nod.

God, he hoped her throat was okay.
Please, let her be okay
, he prayed as he said, “That’s good, babe. Just breathe. I’m right here.”

The patches of light coming through the windows without curtains moved across the floor as they sat there. Jacob gently stroked her hair, willing her to calm down with everything he had. Finally, her chest rose and fell evenly as her neck relaxed. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes slowly, and he flinched at the regret that spilled out.

“Jacob,” she whispered, the tears running down the side of her face.

“I’m sorry, Mary Beth, I really am,” he cut her off, caressing away the tears with his thumbs. “This was too much.”

“A normal woman would be really impressed.” She hiccupped as her eyes raced around the trailer again.

“You’re normal,” he reassured her.

“I was, once,” she sobbed, curling away from him. “I’m not anymore.”

God, it just about broke his heart. There was only one thing to do.

When the first snap gave, she went stiff. When the second snap gave, she quickly flipped back over and grabbed his hand as it hovered near the final snap. The mask was barely clinging to his skin.

“Don’t.”

He smiled as a sense of peace filled him. “I want to.”

A fresh panic seemed to take hold of her. “No, you don’t,” she insisted.

“Yes, I do,” he said as he moved her hand and slipped the mask off. “Today’s the day. I’ve got nothing to hide from you, Mary Beth. I’ve got nothing I
want
to hide from you.”

Her mouth gaped as she stared at the face Buck had left him with, but the dread he’d always feared didn’t materialize. The only thing he felt was that this was right.

“This is what I am. This is who I am. You want to talk about not normal?” He smiled, never more sure of who he was. “I’m a Lakota warrior who sends others to fight in court. I’m the surrogate father to an albino girl who’s only seven. I’m an Indian missing half his face in love with a white woman. Nothing about me is normal, except when I’m with you.”

“Me?” she squeaked, unable to tear her gaze away from the scarred skin that covered the place where his eye had once been.

“You. When I’m with you, I’m normal. I’m just a man in love with you. That’s what you do, and not just for me. You give that to Kip too. She’s just a little girl with butterflies on her bed to you. You make us profoundly, deeply normal, all because you love us.”

She choked a little, covering her mouth in shock as her eyes danced around his face, jumping back and forth from his eye to the scars on his nose.

“You don’t have to be normal to be with me. I love you because you’re not normal. I love your smart mouth and how Kip always trusted you from the start, and I love how you don’t let me get away with being a jerk.”

“You love my smart mouth?”

“Yup. It’s all part of who I love. You.”

Her hands snaked back up to her throat. “But-but—”

Deliberately, he moved her hands and undid the Velcro holding the brace on her neck. She went rigid beneath his fingers, closing her eyes as if she could pray him away, but she couldn’t.

Her neck laid bare, he traced his fingers lightly over the still-angry flesh. His scars were old, flat and faded in the almost-four years that had passed, but hers were still fresh, the pain still new. “I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t matter to me, but I know I’m not very good with this talking thing.” She forced a little grin, but he could see she was still mortified. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand how much this bothered you, babe. I should have known. It will get better, I promise. You can wear the brace or a scarf if you want to, but you don’t have to.”

“But I’m—it’s so ugly,” she whispered, turning away from him again.

He couldn’t stop the chuckle that broke loose. “Compared to what? Have you seen my face?”

“Don’t laugh at me,” she sobbed. “Please.”

“Babe, please. What do you think of when you think of me?”

“What?”

He asked slower this time, enunciating all the words. “What do you think of when you think of me? Am I just a guy in a mask? Is that all you ever think about?”

“Um, at this exact moment, it’s kinda high up there,” she whispered, swimming in the guilt.

He beamed, so relieved she sounded almost normal. “But not always.”

“Jacob, what does—?”

“You think that when I look at you, all I’ll ever see is the scar, right?”

She started to suck in air as she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Babe, please, hear me out. It’s a part of you, but it’s not who you are now. You know what I think of when I look at this?” he asked as he stroked the length of the scar, his fingers memorizing every pinhole and every ridge. “I think of love and honor and sacrifice. I think of everything you willingly almost gave up to save Kip. I think of how brave you were—braver than I ever was. I think of a warrior who fell down and accepted her scars for her family.”

“I’m not—” she protested.

He pressed a finger to her lips to quiet her. “You don’t have to hide from me, because you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not an ugly scar, not to me and not to Kip. It’s a badge of honor.” And slowly, he leaned down and kissed all three-plus inches of it as he wrapped his fingers through her waves of hair. By the time he finished, she’d gone from board stiff to relaxed, leaning her head back to give him better access. “It’s not the worst of you,” he murmured as he held her to his chest. “It’s the best.”

She began to cry again, but he could tell this was different. These were tears of relief. So he let her go as she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. He glanced around and finally saw where the ring had landed, just behind her.

They were almost to
yes
.

When she finally leaned back, she looked lighter, a silly smile waiting for him. “And I’m sorry I didn’t figure out how much your mother was getting on your nerves,” he said with a smirk. “I would have sent her home with Kip sooner if I had realized you needed such a break.”

That did it. “You really bought this trailer for me?” She giggled, looking around at all the newness that was hers for the taking.

He smiled. It felt different without the mask on—his face unencumbered by the leather. He didn’t need that piece of leather to hold him together anymore. That’s what she was for. “Manufactured home, actually. Trailers have apparently gone the way of all things. And I want you to pick out whatever you want. Even if you wanted to haul that ugly couch out of your house and bring it up here, that’d be okay with me.” She giggled again, and he couldn’t help but lift her to his lips. “I did already get the mattress…”

“Uh huh,” she said, her voice still shaking. “When did you do all this?”

“It was delivered two weeks ago. I decided to ask your mother for permission, and then she called your uncle, so I asked him too, and then I asked Kip what she thought, and she said you’d say yes. But she asked me where we were going to live. So I bought us this trailer.”

She rolled her eyes as she smiled, real joy radiating from her eyes. “Uncle Hank knows?”

“He gave his permission. So I think everyone’s said yes but you.” He leaned down and kissed her. It felt different now that he wasn’t wearing the mask. “I love you. Kip loves you. Stay here with me. Stay here with us. You belong here.”

She reached up and traced a finger down the pale scar tissue that had once been his eyelid before it circled the scars where his nose had been reattached to his face. “This—it never really mattered to me.”

“I know.” He leaned far over, trying to reach the ring without squishing her. “So you want to get married?”

She beamed as he slipped the family diamond on her finger. Her eyes got all misty, but she pulled him down and kissed him hard, setting him on fire again. It wasn’t the easiest way to yes, but they’d gotten here all the same.

“
Techihhila
,” she finally managed to say, not quite getting the pronunciation right. But close enough. Jacob hugged her tight before he tasted strawberries in sunshine again.

“I thought you might.”

About the Author

Award-winning author Sarah M. Anderson may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out west on the Great Plains. With a lifelong love of horses and two history teachers for parents, she had plenty of encouragement to learn everything she could about the tribes of the Great Plains.

When she started writing, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves out in South Dakota among the Lakota Sioux. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and see how their backgrounds and cultures take them someplace they never thought they’d go.

When she’s not helping out at her son’s school or walking her rescue dogs, Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians, all of which is surprisingly well-tolerated by her wonderful husband. Readers can find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at:
www.sarahmanderson.com
or
www.facebook.com/pages/Sarah-M-Anderson-Author
. You can also find Sarah at Twitter: @SarahMAnderson1, Goodreads:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/4982413.Sarah_M_Anderson
or contact Sarah by snail mail at Sarah M. Anderson, 200 N 8th ST 193, Quincy IL 62301-9996.

Look for these titles by Sarah M. Anderson

Now Available:

Men of the White Sandy