Mystic Cowboy(43)

“I’m not interested in your apologies,” she snapped, cutting around an exam table to put something solid between them. “You have nothing to apologize for, as far as I’m concerned.”

He was ignoring her. At least that hadn’t changed. She kept on walking. The sound of his boots on linoleum drowned out the soft sound of her sneakers. It occurred to her that the clinic wasn’t very large. In short order, they’d be doing laps around the damn place.

“I had to go with Nobody. We had to...check on something.”

“So?” She cut around another table.

“The something in the bags.”

That’s it, she thought as she spun around to face him. “And what the hell is in those bags, huh? What’s so important that Nobody Bodine had to sneak up on us? What’s so important that you disappear for days on end? What’s so fucking important?”

He swallowed. “I went to Rapid City after...that. To see if I could get the samples processed myself. I picked up my check from the gallery. I did Albert’s grocery shopping for the month. I went to a drugstore. I got some...” This was a first. He looked deeply, horribly embarrassed. “Supplies.”

Son-of-a... He wouldn’t even answer a direct question. If he thought he had another shot at her, he had another thing coming. “I’m sure you’ll find someone who needs supplies. I certainly don’t.”

“And then Albert wasn’t feeling good,” he hurried on. He took two quick steps, so that there was nothing but the table between them. And she had the feeling that if she tried to bolt, he’d grab her. “He needed me.”

“Oh, he needed you? Or he needed a medical professional? Why didn’t you bring him in if he was so damn sick? No—” she cut him off with a wave of her hand, “—don’t tell me. I couldn’t do anything for him. It’s not like I know anything about curing people. It’s not like I’m a trained professional who’s dedicated the last twelve years of my life to helping people. It’s not like you respect me a damn bit.”

“That’s not true,” he shot back, and for the first time in a long time, she saw the wolf in him, ready to attack.

She knew how to outflank him now. She wasn’t scared of the wolf. “The hell it isn’t. If you respected me even just a little, you’d let me do my job, Jonathan. You’d tell me what’s in those bags that’s so damned important. You’d stop driving me crazy.”

He flinched at his name, but it didn’t last. Within a second, he had a cold stare fixed on her, and his face was unreadable. “No one else even knows about those bags.” His voice was low and serious, but the edge made him sound dangerous. And most certainly not in the good way. “No one else knows that Nobody came looking for me. No one else thinks that maybe it’s not the flu. No one else, Madeline. Just you.”

“So what is it?” The shout rang out against the cinderblocks until the echo beat her upside the head.

His jaw flexed, and then it was his turn to spin away from her and stomp off. He got to the waiting room before he stopped. His whole body slumped forward, and suddenly he looked tired. She wondered how much sleep he’d gotten in the last almost five days. “I don’t know. That’s why I need you.”

Right back to where they started.

“I need it tested. And no one will give a dirt-poor red man the time of day. I need a medical professional. I need you.”

Oh, was he trying to play the pity card? “Clarence is a medical professional.”

“Clarence isn’t you. I trust you.”

There was that heart-stomach collision again. Thank God, lunch had been a long time ago. Otherwise she’d be in danger of throwing up in front of Rebel, and she’d rather have her eyeballs gouged out with a dull spoon. “Not enough to bring Albert to see me. Not enough to even tell me what’s wrong with Albert.”

“He doesn’t want you to worry.”

“Go to hell.” Right back where they started. The clinic wasn’t the only thing they were doing laps around.

The nausea built. Sleeping with Rebel was quickly becoming the biggest mistake she’d almost made in her entire life, because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that kissing him had been like being kissed for the very first time after just reading textbook definitions of the act. It didn’t matter that he’d reduced her to a quivering mass of jelly with his jeans on. It didn’t matter that he thought she was beautiful—more beautiful with her hair all crazy. It didn’t matter if he said her name like a prayer, and it didn’t matter one little bit that he was a whole lot of wild and just a smidge crazy, and that for one blind afternoon, she’d had fun, real fun. With him.