Because he was never going to touch again. Period, end of sentence.
God, what had she done? Screwed up, that’s what. She’d screwed up in a highly old-fashioned kind of way, losing her head and a whole lot more to a smooth-talking, untamed bad boy. Plus, she’d slept with a—well, he wasn’t exactly a patient, but he paid the bills. More like a client. She’d slept with a client, and had put the entire financial health of the clinic on the line. If Rebel stopped paying everyone’s bills, the clinic would go under faster than the Titanic. She only had so much money to work with, and her selfish wants and needs had put the clinic and the wellbeing of the entire damn reservation in danger of sinking.
And for what? For a one-night stand? So what if one night with Rebel had been mind-bogglingly good? So what if she was suddenly unsure if she could live without that kind of personal attention, that kind of shattering release? So what if she felt whole again? So what? He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt the morning after. Hey, thanks, she was a swell kid, maybe he’d call her some time. A one-time deal. It wouldn’t happen again, and she was all the more fool for even having believed it might. He’d sworn off women. He’d said so himself.
Against her will, she still tingled at the thought of it happening at all.
A week passed. A long week. A week that had her sitting on her porch at sundown, drinking wine until the sky went as dark as she felt.
And, of course, Rebel hadn’t shown up during the week. She’d hoped—against her will—that he would show up on Thursday to mop the floors and that she might be able to figure out what she’d done wrong so she could try to fix it, but no. Instead, Nobody Bodine had just appeared in the waiting room and began to empty the trashcans without a word. Her blood had boiled. Rebel wouldn’t even face her. He sent his lackey instead.
So she’d driven herself to Rapid City and coldly flirted with the office-supply stock manager until he’d loaded the cabinets for her. Strangely enough, Nobody had been waiting in the shadows for her Monday morning and had gotten both of them out of the trunk and unpacked in the corner of the waiting room Tara had cleaned out before Clarence showed up.
She wanted to be mad at the big, silent man, but there was little good in that. It wasn’t Nobody’s fault Rebel was an asshole, and besides, Madeline was still a little afraid of him. So they kept their conversations to pleases and thank yous and yes, ma’ams, and the world kept on turning. People still got sick, the sun rose and set, and she ran out of iodine again.
Her world kept right on turning.
Without Rebel in it.
Bambambam.
Madeline shot straight up in bed, her heart pounding. What the hell?
Bambambam.
Someone was pounding on her door at—she rolled over and looked at her clock. 12:47 in the morning? Someone was pounding on her door at 12:47?
By the third round of pounding, she was up and out of bed, shrugging into her summer-weight bathrobe as she dug around the island drawer for a knife. Just in case.
“Who is it?”
“Madeline?” the muffled voice shouted. “It’s me. Open up!”
Me? Me who? Grabbing the biggest knife she could find, she attempted to shake the last of the cobwebs from her head and tried to place the voice. For a heart-stopping second, she was certain that Darrin had shown up, driven all night to beg and plead for her to come with him, come home back to Ohio, back where she belonged.
The thought terrified her.
Knife at the ready, she opened the door a crack. A shaft of light spilled out of the doorway and right onto Rebel.
“It’s me,” he repeated, but without all the shouting this time.
Her mouth fell open. What was he doing here, standing on the steps of her porch? No, he wasn’t just standing. He was swaying, for God’s sake, hips swaying from side to side like he was a cobra and she had a flute. Her heart did that weird lurching thing again, and for a split second, she was not only glad to see him, but really regretting not sleeping in something a whole lot prettier than a tank top and flannel shorts.
Rebel cleared his throat, breaking her spell. “Is that a knife?”
She looked at the knife, a big santoku that she rarely used because it didn’t come with a can-opener attachment. Jeez, it seemed even bigger in the pale light. And then she realized that perhaps she wasn’t as awake as she’d like to think.
Rebel took a step back. “I, uh, I need you.”
“Really?” Damn, she really wasn’t as awake as she wanted to be. She was hoping for a cool, don’t-give-a-shit attitude, and instead, she sounded like a hopeful teenager. She tried again. “Is that so?” There. That was better.