Mystic Cowboy(32)

God, what was she doing? He’d given her everything she’d asked for today—and more. He’d kept his promise, told her what she wanted—needed—to hear, and she was still going to be a bitch?

No, she almost said. No, she would not be okay, not until he got that ass she was afraid she’d hallucinated over here and picked her up and went right back to a kind of freedom she’d never even dreamed existed before she fell into the river and right into his arms. “I’ll, uh, try not to drown.” Which was not the same as being okay in the water.

He looked over his shoulder at her, even though his eyes were still closed. The surprised blankness was gone again, and she caught the edge of his lazy smile again. “Do that. I’ll be right back.”

And then he walked out of the water.

Despite the heat that surged through her, she shivered. Not some sort of deranged hallucination. That was, hands down, the finest ass she’d ever seen. Rebel’s back came to a narrow V before his rounded cheeks dovetailed into legs that rippled—though she couldn’t tell if it was the water sheeting off them or the muscles twitching, but everything about that man said not only was he good with his hands, he was good with his legs.

Suddenly, she found herself wondering what he looked like on that horse with the bi-colored eyes. He might not be some Indian from an imagined past, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t imagine what he’d look like now. Legs twitching, hair flying, heart pounding as the horse raced through virgin grass.

Why, oh, why hadn’t she ever snuck a look at him riding away from the clinic?

Too soon, he was wrapped up in the towel again. “I’ll be right back,” he said, bounding up the hill with all the grace of a deer. Clearly, that was something he did a lot. All those muscles were earned the hard way.

Treading water, she waited as she tried to screw her head back on straight. It wasn’t that she’d freaked out when it had suddenly became a very real option that he was about to begin exploring her topography. No, it had nothing to do with the unexpected shock of something that sunk to her very center. Nothing to do with the certain realization that there would be nothing pitiful about sex with Rebel.

If he even had a bed.

No, she reasoned, her reaction had merely been the safest thing. If he’d actually gotten...anywhere, well, he’d have broken the natural-fluid seal her body had erected for the express purpose of keeping dirty river water on the outside, where it belonged. Yes, that was it. She was just concerned about microbes and stuff.

Sure.

The sun was getting lower in the sky. She was going to have to get home somehow. And she didn’t think she could walk back to her Jeep in those boots again. Just the thought of putting those instruments of torture back on her feet made her almost forget about everything.

Right until Rebel popped out of the tent. Then she forgot about her feet altogether. “You still down there?”

“I don’t know where else you’d think I’d go,” she shouted back. “You live in the middle of nowhere.”

“You should see the middle of nowhere I live in during the spring.” He was dressed now, sort of. A pair of cut-off jeans, the fringe billowing out behind him with each stride. “Makes this place look populated. Here’s your towel. Tell me when I can look, okay?” He draped it over the bush and turned to the fire and the pot that held dinner.

Making sure mud squished under her feet before she committed, Madeline left the water behind. She felt almost like a whole new woman. Almost. God only knew what her hair was going to look like after that.

“You don’t live here year round?”

“Nope. The river floods in the spring, so I go up into the hills.” He stirred the stew and began ladling it into bowls, his undivided attention on the meal—and not on her. He kept his promises. “In the fall, I go south a little farther. The river drops, and the water gets real shallow here.”

She wasn’t in the water anymore. She could drop this towel and parade around to his front, where he’d have to look at her, right?

And then what? He’d leap over the fire to have his way with her?

No. Knowing him, he’d probably just close his eyes.

He sat on his heels, messing around with the fire. His back—she could really stare at it, now that his backside was covered again—was a symphony of muscles moving together. Had she ever just admired? Had she ever looked at a man and not seen the sum total of parts that did and did not need to be fixed? Maybe this is what artists did—admired the form—because his form was amazing.

“Uh,” she said, trying to slip her panties back on without getting too much sand in them, “what about the winter? Don’t you get cold?” Yeah, that’s it. Just a couple of half-dressed friends discussing the weather. Nothing abnormal about any of this.