Mystic Cowboy(90)

Rebel didn’t like being the only one in the room who didn’t know what was going on—it was a foreign feeling, to say the least. But he couldn’t care about that right now. “Listen. I’m taking her home and putting her to bed.”

Clarence looked at him, at the kids in the beds and at the new, pitiful patients. Rebel thought he seemed a little anxious. Talk about a foreign feeling—Clarence never looked anxious.

Rebel sighed as he pulled Madeline to her feet. Her knees buckled, and he was forced to sweep her off her feet in full view of everyone. What the hell. If things were going to be more permanent around here, this was as good a place to start as any. “Give me an hour or so to get her cleaned up. I’ll come back.” She wouldn’t miss him while she was passed out. He just had to be there when she woke up.

“Thanks, man,” Clarence called after him as he carried Madeline out to her Jeep. She didn’t even flinch when he whistled for Blue Eye to follow them

And then he took her home.





Chapter Seventeen

Madeline had the nagging feeling she should be doing something—something besides chasing a rabbit down his hole. She’d been having strange chase dreams the whole night, but as she lay in bed in the limbo of not awake and not asleep, the only one she could remember was of Alice in Wonderland. She’d been wearing her costume from trick-or-treating when she was seven, but she’d chased that damned rabbit all over the rez. That was all she had, though. Alice in Wonderland and something to do.

God, what was it? She knew she had something she needed to get up and do, but her eyelids were not responding. Nothing was responding. She tried to say something—tried to tell herself to get out of bed—but she couldn’t even manage a mumble. And attempting to swing her legs out of bed was even less productive. No, it seemed she had no choice but to lie there and continue drifting.

Still, that something itched at her—if only she could remember what it was. That does it, she thought with growing impatience. I am waking up. Right now. That’s an order.

Which, actually, didn’t turn out to be right now. Even concentrating all of her effort, waking up was more like climbing underwater stairs in the dark. A long set of underwater stairs.

Finally, her eyelid—just one, the left one—opened. An amber glow made the ceiling of her little cabin look like a magnificent dome of some cathedral. The brightness of the room popped the other eyelid open for her. An amber glow? The sun didn’t hit this side of the house until late in the evening. Her heart picked up the pace, which was enough to get the rest of her moving. She managed to get her head turned to the clock. What the hell time was it?

6:10. As in, 6:10 in the evening. As in, 6:10 at night.

She swung her feet over the bed and shook her head. It didn’t help. She should be doing something? Holy hell, she should be at work! She’d slept through work? How did she sleep through the entire day? It was Monday, for God’s sake. It’s not like she could just...sleep...through...

Monday. The lab.

And from there, her brain filled in the blanks like it had just been waiting for the word go.

The phone call. Nelly, sick. Everyone sick. Rebel and supplies. Jesse and Nelly. The phone call.

She kept coming back to that call. As her eyes did their best to operate at the same speed, she was fully aware that she might have dreamed the whole thing. But she had the word campy ricocheting around her brain. Campy. If it had been campylobacter, then she’d done the right thing. And everyone would be okay.

She pinched herself, but nothing changed. Except that she noticed the straw cowboy hat hanging off her dining room chair, and then the pair of black cowboy boots next to the door. A mug, still steaming, was on the table. She managed to get on her feet and took a cautious sniff. Tea. Warm tea.

She wasn’t alone.

“Morning, Madeline.” The voice coming from the front porch made her jump. That was why her ceiling looked so lit up. The front door was open. “Or should I say evening?”

Rebel was here. Rebel was waiting for her.

She bent over to pick up her mug and noticed that she was wearing a T-shirt—and nothing else. It barely skimmed her thighs. Her hands flew to her hair—it was a gnarly, knotted mass of scratchy craziness that made Medusa seem well-styled. There was no doubt about it. She’d gone to bed with wet hair.

Rebel was here, and she was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and had funky hair. It was dinner time on a Monday, and she couldn’t remember leaving work.

What the hell was going on?

There was only one way to find out. But she was doing it with her pants on.

A few minutes later, she cautiously crept out onto the porch, mug in hand. Her head hummed in protest as the full force of the sunset hit her, but she ignored it. Instead, she focused all her attention on the man on her porch. Rebel was kicking back in her recliner, his bare feet up on the railing as he watched another jeweled sunset settle over the land. He had a mug of his own in his hand, and his hair hung loose around his shoulders.