Mystic Cowboy(8)

She looked from the ancient X-ray machine rattling to life to Jesse’s broken bone and back to Rebel. “Do you know how to mix plaster?”

Anything sheepish about him disappeared, and her temperature shot up another few degrees. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Rebel’s okay,” Tara said between sniffs. “Better than Jesse is.”

“I’ll do better,” Jesse muttered as Madeline tried to position his leg for the best shot. “Promise—Ow!” He tried to sit, but didn’t manage much more than some unproductive shouting.

Lord, she had her hands full, and nothing about Rebel said he was a problem. Well, not the bad kind, anyway. She nodded, and Rebel spun on his heel and made straight for the supply closet in one smooth motion. Madeline knew she shouldn’t just stand there and watch him walk away from her, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never seen jeans sit on a man like that. But then, she’d never seen a man like Rebel.

“Uh, Doc?” The humor in Clarence’s voice snapped her out of her little cowboy fantasy. “The X-ray?”

Excellent. Everyone was noticing. She hadn’t been staring, she reasoned. She’d been keeping an eye on a strange man in her supply closet. That’s all. “Of course,” she said, trying to play it cool as she bent over Jesse’s leg. It didn’t look swollen—hopefully it was a minor fracture so she could cast it now. To be sure, she’d have to get the angle just right… “Tara, does Jesse have a file?”

Tara nodded, but she made no move to leave Jesse’s side. “You were supposed to watch Nelly tomorrow so Mom could have a break. Now what?”

The old man from the waiting room appeared at her shoulder. He said a bunch of stuff, but the only thing Madeline understood was “Jesse,” and even that was iffy.

So that’s Lakota, she thought as Jesse nodded. Didn’t sound anything like it looked in the textbook she’d tried to study from.

“What?” Tara demanded. “Albert, you know I don’t understand.”

“He said bring her over. Jesse can read her stories,” Rebel informed them, arm-deep in a bucket of plaster of Paris.

Okay. So Tara had a daughter—Nelly—and Jesse was the most likely father figure. She still had nothing on Rebel, and who the hell was Albert? But none of that mattered. She didn’t have to understand any of the drama to do her job. “Okay, everyone who’s not broken, please go to the waiting room. I’ve got to shoot this film.” Although she wasn’t sure the walls of the clinic were enough to protect them from the X-ray’s radiation, she shooed them around the corner anyway.

Everyone crowded near the front door, and Madeline found herself standing side-by-side with Rebel. He was still moving, mixing the plaster with his bare hand. Each muscle in his arm twitched in turn, leaving no question in her mind. This was a man who was good with his hands.

“You got a first name?” he asked, so low that she wasn’t sure she’d heard him at all. But he was staring expectantly at her.

She opened her mouth, but then caught herself. She knew nothing about this man, including whether or not he was the sort of person who should know her first name. And as far as she was concerned, an attractive set of musculature and a couple of well-placed ma’ams gave him no right to expect anything from her. “You got a real one?”

His eyebrow moved up as the corner of his mouth curved into something that might have been a smile if it hadn’t been so focused. “Rebel is my real name.”

She knew she was staring at him, but she couldn’t help herself. If she could, she’d stare all day long, but that would undoubtedly be an even bigger problem than it already was. She had to stand with her whole arm hanging out in the room because the cord didn’t stretch. The X-ray machine rattled and hummed and finally clicked. She didn’t even want to think how old it was, but it was all she had, and there wasn’t enough money in the world for a new one. Some things would have to wait.

Twenty minutes later, Madeline had set Jesse’s femur with absolutely no plaster to spare and was reviewing his hefty medical chart. Clarence dug up a used sling for Jesse’s separated shoulder. Tara finally roused herself from his bedside to add fiberglass to the list while Rebel was talking in quiet tones to Jesse. Albert had disappeared, only to reappear with a mop and a bucket. He began to mop the floor and wipe down each exam table with the kind of efficiency that said he’d been doing it for years.

Madeline had regained her bearings now that everyone had stopped talking all at once, and she was pretty sure she’d come off as cold and overbearing to the man who emptied her trashcan. “I’m sorry—Albert, is it? I didn’t realize you worked here. It’s nice to meet you.”