Mystic Cowboy(41)

She wasn’t perturbed about the fact that she’d let herself get into a vulnerable situation with a man who wouldn’t know reality if it smacked him upside the head. She was more concerned that, by blowing that much cash on one of his bags, she was merely supporting his megalomaniac worldview.

She was certainly not worried about dysentery. She’d already started an emergency course of antibiotics, just to make sure nothing had taken up residence after her little dunking. No need to panic there.

She wasn’t alarmed by the fact that she didn’t know where her boots were. Good heavens, she wasn’t even the least bit tense about the fact that she was wearing her beat-up sneakers today, because it had been either that or those ridiculously soft moccasins. And she was quite certain that waltzing around the clinic in handmade footwear was akin to just going ahead and announcing that she lusted after that man on national television, and she didn’t even want to admit to herself that she lusted after that man.

Which did not explain why she was having heart palpitations about the state of her hair. Its curly state. Its unstraightened state. And, what with all the hefting and carrying and unpacking she had been doing since six this morning, her hair was huge. Bigger than Texas.

It was bad enough when Clarence lumbered in and did a double-take, but it didn’t get God-awful until Tara arrived.

“Dr. Mitchell!” she gasped, like Madeline had stuck her with a needle. A sharp one. “Your hair!”

“Um, yeah.” Her hands flew to her mop. Lord, it was worse than a mop. Her hair had nothing on Medusa right now, it was so insane. This whole thing was insane. What the hell was she doing? She was letting her hair take over the planet for what? For that man—Jonathan Runs Fast, for God’s sake? He endangered patients’ lives on what seemed like a daily basis, completely disregarded her medical authority, and lived in a freaking tent down by the river—and she was wearing her hair down? For that man?

He drove her crazy. And the hair was living proof.

“I, um,” she sputtered at Tara, whose mouth hadn’t gotten near closing again. Madeline’s hair was more than a mistake—it was about to become the blunder of the century. “My flat iron died. This morning. On me.” Yeah, that’s it. A mechanical failure that had nothing—nothing—to do with Rebel. Or any of his muscles. “It, um, does this on its own.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, and Madeline cringed. Here it came. “It’s so beautiful! I love it.”

Now it was Madeline’s turn to do a double take. Was she mistaken, or was that admiration? Lots of it?

No one had ever just admired her hair. Back in school, she’d been tormented by all the perfect little princesses who had Barbie’s hair and the attitude to match. Happiness had been the day in seventh grade when Mom finally gave in and took her to the salon to get her hair un-permed, as Mellie had described it. Madeline had finally walked through school feeling normal.

But this was different. With what could only be described as jealously, Tara sighed and looked at Madeline longingly as she ran her hands through her own big hair. “I wish mine could do that. The perms never seem to get the curls just right, and it just goes limp on the hot days.” The note of disgust was obvious.

“Really? I always wanted it to be so straight...” Limp had been a dream, long held and chased at any cost. She’d wasted all that time, all that effort to be something that wasn’t real. And just like that, she felt right. All it had taken was the courage to be who she really was.

And damn it all, it was because of Rebel. Again.

Tara’s smile was wide. “That grass, it’s always greener, yeah?”

Madeline returned the grin. To hell with Rebel. She didn’t need him to make her feel special. She was doing just fine on her own, thank you very much. “Yeah. How’s Nelly?”

And just like that, the day slid into normal. People—a lot of people—told her they liked her hair, and no one said anything that wasn’t complimentary. Tara’s mom dropped Nelly off, and the little girl giggled with sheer kid delight when Madeline let her touch it.

It all seemed perfectly normal. Even the part where Nobody slunk in during the late afternoon and attempted to smile politely as she read him the riot act for entrusting his recovery to Rebel seemed normal—by rez standards, anyway. Just another day.

Except for the part where Rebel didn’t show up.

As the shadows got longer and longer, the antsiness took hold of her. She’d worn her hair like that for him, whether she wanted to own up to it or not, and he hadn’t even bothered to show up and look at it? After all they’d shared—the skinny dipping and the trying to seduce her and the riding bareback in the dark and the hot kisses against a car—and he wasn’t even going to come and see her?