Nobody tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”
Madeline looked at him like he was a teenager and curfew had been about twelve hours ago. “Did you have a quiet night?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She let go a weighty breath. She hadn’t seemed the least bit worried about potential vandals last night, but she still seemed relieved. “Did you write a list of symptoms like I asked?”
Nobody fished something the color of a paper bag out of his back pocket. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, handing it over.
“A paper bag?”
Rebel bit back the grin as Madeline’s scowl deepened. Later, he’d apologize to Nobody too. Hell, at the rate he was going, he was going to owe the whole tribe an apology for unleashing the mad doctor on them.
“All I had, ma’am,” Nobody replied, managing to look sheepish about it. Then his head snapped up and he stared off down the road. “How long will it take?” he asked as he began to edge back into the shadows.
“Four to six weeks,” she replied, looking a little concerned. “Where are you going?”
“Someone’s coming,” was the only answer she got before he was gone.
Seconds later, Clarence’s truck rattled around the corner. “Nobody was never here,” Rebel whispered as he too took a step away from her. Madeline stiffened at the motion.
Which was ridiculous, after all. They’d left together last night, and were standing here, together, at the clinic before eight in the morning. A man would have to be an idiot not to put one and one together, and Clarence was no idiot.
But all Rebel could think was that this wasn’t going to last, because she couldn’t give up a house and he couldn’t give up the stars, and when it ended—which, at the rate he was screwing it up, was going to be sooner rather than later—he wanted her to be able to hold her head high.
He was going to hurt her, and she was going to take a chunk out of him that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get back, all because he hadn’t been able to swear her off. He would get what he deserved.
“Morning, Doc. Morning, Rebel,” Clarence said, his eyes shifting between the two of them. He must have caught a whiff of Madeline’s cold shoulder, because he made straight for the clinic. “I’ll, uh, just get that coffee going.”
Rebel heard her make a guttural noise that sounded a hell of a lot like she was growling. So much for holding her head high, he thought as she swung those cold shoulders and colder eyes to him.
“You’re still here.” She sounded pissed and confused, but not even a little bit happy. “Is there something else you wanted?”
What he wanted was for the world to go back to the way it had been before she’d come here and taken everything he’d worked so hard to become and tossed it all on its ear. What he wanted was to be beholden to no one and nothing, to come and go as he saw fit.
And what he wanted was another night in her arms, to kiss that perma-scowl away from her face and to plunge into her body again and again until she screamed his name and drained him of everything he ever had to give.
And, more than anything, he wanted those two things to be the same thing. But they weren’t and would never be, and the sooner they both saw that, the better off they’d be.
Then he remembered the filing cabinets. If he helped her get her filing cabinets, that would count for something, right? “Did you want me to go with you to get some filing cabinets this weekend?”
She stared at him like he’d asked her how she liked Tupperware. He saw her swallow once, then again as her eyes narrowed into fine slits. Here it comes. And he had it coming.
“You do what you want. I know you always do.”
And she left him alone in the middle of the parking lot.
Chapter Twelve
Madeline let her hair stay curly, although she wasn’t exactly sure why. She could come up with a couple of perfectly good reasons if she thought about it hard enough. Getting out the door was a hell of a lot easier when she didn’t have to fry her hair one lock at a time. Everyone had already seen it, and showing up with straight hair would probably set more tongues wagging.
She could look in a mirror now and not shudder at the sight of her mop. It was kind of pretty, she had to admit, especially after she started wrapping each curl around her finger to set it, as per Mellie’s long-distance instructions. She liked it. After all these years, she finally liked her own hair.
But, solid as each of those reasons were, they weren’t the reason. He was the reason, damn it. She just couldn’t figure out if she was hoping to woo Rebel back with it, or torture him some more by letting him see and not touch.