Mystic Cowboy(64)
“He wanted you there. He wanted to say goodbye, to say not to worry. What else was there to do?”
“You—I—we let him go, Rebel. I didn’t even fight for him. I didn’t even put up a fight.” The tears came harder now, choking up her words and making the world one giant blur. “I failed.”
He sat quiet while she sobbed. Strangely, it didn’t help her feel any better. Instead, she felt like she always had back in all those advanced math classes she’d had to take just because she was smart enough. She knew there was something she should be understanding, something she was fully capable of understanding that was right there in front of her, but she couldn’t get it. She was just spinning her wheels in the mud, and that upset her all over again.
“Sometimes, you have to let people go.” The car stopped, and she was surprised to see that they were in front of her dinky cabin. It looked lost and forlorn in the woods. Alone.
God, she didn’t want to be alone. She was tired of being the person people needed for one moment, one crisis at a time. And as soon as that crisis had passed, they went on their way without a look back at her. She didn’t want to be the person everyone needed and no one wanted anymore. Not anymore. “What about me?”
His eyes found hers, and she saw. She saw who she really was reflected back in those endless black eyes. Someone whose two halves could make a whole. Please, she found herself praying. Please.
“What about you?” It came out soft.
Please. “Will you just let me go? Without a fight?” Please.
The blackness ended as he looked out the windshield. She saw his hands flex around the wheel.
The shame was like a sledgehammer right down the middle of the two halves that would never, ever be a whole. The pain was so intense that she could only feel it in a disembodied kind of way, like it was someone else breaking to bits in the front seat, not her.
Another night with Rebel, another screw up. Of course he’d let her go. His own wife had walked away, and he’d never gone after her. His wife. And who was she? Who was Dr. Madeline Mitchell? Nothing but a stupid white woman who’d thought she could do a little good in this world, one patient at a time.
She couldn’t even cry. She could for Albert, because she’d lost him forever. But she had nothing left to lose. Least of all herself.
Suddenly, Rebel was out of the car, moving silently through the night. Her door flew open, and he lifted her out and cradled her to his chest.
“Rebel?” But he didn’t answer, and he didn’t set her down either. Instead, he carried her across the cabin threshold like she was a new bride, not an utter failure of a woman.
He didn’t let her go, not when he kicked off his boots, not when he sat on the bed and held her even tighter, and not when he kissed her. “My Mad-e-line.” His voice shook almost as much as his hand when he stroked her cheek. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand anything.” Least of all why he was stroking her hair and kissing the tears away from her cheeks. Why he was peeling the T-shirt off, then her tank top. Why he was laying her out on the bed, then taking her jeans off. Why he was stripping off his own clothes as if they were on fire, and why he was rolling on a condom.
“I don’t understand anything,” she whispered again as he found his way back inside her, each gentle thrust tying all the little shards of her back together until she stopped caring about understanding anything, anything but the way he held her legs, the way he wrapped her hair around his fingers, the way he kissed her like forgiveness was on her lips.
She didn’t understand, but her body did, and it shuddered around his until she cried out, the relief at being wanted, really and truly wanted for who she was, not what she did so strong that it crested over the orgasm. The waves of release left her unable to do anything but hold on for dear life as he moaned her name to a finish against her neck.
He pulled out, but he didn’t leave her. He rolled onto his back, pulling her into his arms and running his fingers through her hair. She clung to his chest, warm and solid and there. He was there. With her.
She couldn’t ever remember being this tired, not even when she was pulling a thirty-six-hour shift in the E.R. Then, she’d just been physically tired. Now, she was emotionally drained on top of being exhausted. And Rebel’s warmth was fast lulling her into sleep. But she fought against it because he hadn’t answered the question, the one question that held her world in the balance.
She had to know. “Please.” The effort to get the word out was just enough to send her rushing toward the inky darkness of sleep.