Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 by Sarah Anderson Page A

in front of the fan, watching her through narrow eyes. She was exhausted. Would she own up to it, or pretend everything was fine?
    “Thank you for your help, Rebel.” It was muffled by the crook of her arm, but he heard it anyway. It wasn’t the first time she’d said his name, but it did mark the first time she said it without sneering.
    The fan wasn’t cooling much. “Glad to help. That was a hell of a lot of stuff.”
    “I believe the technical term is a shitload of stuff.” She pulled her head up and smiled weakly as she rotated her head from side to side. She was funny. He found her unintentionally humorous, but she could even be funny on purpose—when she wasn’t trying to run the world.
    “You got all that last night?” True, he was dancing around the eleven-thousand-dollar question. But every pass got him closer to some of her truth.
    She shot him the I-got-what-I-wanted look. With her mussed hair and tired smile, she definitely looked like she belonged in a bed. Or at least a sleeping bag. “That medical supply place didn’t want to stay open past eight, but money talks, you know.”
    Getting closer. He edged away from the fan. “That didn’t look like money talking. That looked like money screaming.”
    Her back stiffened and she spun the chair away from him. He was losing her. “Don’t worry about it.”
    He didn’t want to lose her, not yet. “Can I worry about you?”
    “Can you? Sure. I can’t stop you. But I’m not giving you permission.” Damn it all, he’d lost her. Right before his eyes. “You may not worry about me. I’m fine. It’s just been a long week.”
    Did she think he was going to buy that load of shit? “You can’t live here. The clinic is not a life.”
    She snorted. “Says the man who’s been here every day of the week and isn’t the least bit sick.”
    Busted. But she wasn’t the only one who could ignore the obvious. “That’s not why I’m here.”
    “Then why?” She spun around to face him. The exhaustion was gone. Instead, he found himself staring into clear eyes the color of winter ice. No defenses, no second nature. She was just a woman, and he was just a man.
    Who wasn’t quite ready to own up to the truth. He actually wasn’t so sure on the reasons himself. He pulled himself to his feet and shook the stiffness out of his back. Sitting on linoleum was a world of different from sitting on sand. “I doubt you’d understand.”
    “Sure. I don’t understand the language, the customs, why over half my patients have the flu. I don’t understand why you tell my patients there’s nothing I can do for them when that’s not true. I don’t understand why my landline won’t work. I don’t understand a damn thing.” She was on her feet, backing away from him. “Least of all you.”
    He swallowed. He’d pushed when he should have pulled. “I can check into your landline.”
    She shook her head, like she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “Don’t you have a job? Someplace to be? Anywhere but here?”
    Now they were getting somewhere. She was pulling again. She was the kind of woman who needed to pull. She was that good at it.
    “Sure. I work.”
    After she ran her hand over her hair again, she crossed her arms in frustration. Or was it protection? “Where?”
    “Wherever I want.”
    He would be lucky if he got out of here without her strangling him. At least he could tell that was what she was thinking. “Doing what?” She liked to pull. She liked the control. So she could just keep pulling.
    He shrugged, like he wasn’t sure. “What I want.”
    “For whom?” For a woman who’d seen patients all day, and unpacked supplies all evening, she was suddenly looking quite feisty. And there were no patients around this time. He could kiss her now, and the worst thing that could happen would be that she stabbed him with a scalpel.
    As long as she didn’t hit a major blood vessel...he might risk it. “For me, myself and I.” She glared at