Read Mystic Cowboy: Men of the White Sandy, Book 1 for Free Online

of Nelly getting sick. Not before he figured out what it was. Not before he figured out if there was a way to stop it.
    “Yes, Webel,” she said with a dutiful tone as he lifted her over the fan that was propping the door to the clinic open. And then she was gone, wriggling out of his hands and sprinting through the crowded waiting room to Tara’s arms. “Mommy! Mommy, Webel let me go faster!”
    “Hi, sugar.” Tara glared at Rebel over the top of Nelly’s head. “How fast?”
    “Not fast enough,” Nelly said with full lip-pout action.
    Tara was not a big fan of anything faster, not when every time Jesse went faster, he broke something new. Time to cover. “Jesse was getting pretty tired, and Albert had some stuff to do,” he explained, fully aware that the whole waiting room was listening. “So I brought her.”
    “Tara!” Dr. Mitchell yelled, pretty much eliminating all doubt about what kind of mad she was. “This speculum is broken! Where are the others?”
    “Check the top drawer!” Tara rolled her eyes. “All day long, she yells,” she said in a voice just loud enough that the only person who wouldn’t hear it was Dr. Mitchell. “All day long.”
    “Those are all broken too! Where are the ones that work ?”
    “We don’t have any others!” Tara shouted back. “Rebel, do me a big favor and pay your bill.” She dug out a hand-written bill with the adding-machine paper stapled to it. “The sooner she can go buy her damn supplies, the sooner she’ll stop being a—”
    “We don’t have a single speculum that works?” Dr. Mitchell appeared before them.
    Rebel was immediately reminded of a mad scientist. Her cornsilk hair was working its way loose from the same bun thing she’d had it tied up in yesterday and looked like it was standing straight out from her head, which made the elegant length of her face look deranged. Her cheeks were flaming red, but her eyes flashed with nothing but ice. Ice notwithstanding, she looked like a woman who had just gotten everything she wanted from a man. Images of her naked, twisted in sheets in a bed or bare to the air under the night sky, flashed in his mind. Against his will, his pulse picked up a notch. It had been a long time since he’d tried to give a woman what she wanted, but he was starting to think he might like to give it another go.
    At least she wasn’t looking at him. That reduced the chances of her noticing his sudden state of discomfort. Instead, she slammed the broken whatever-it-was down on the desk. Her voice came out exasperated—and tired. Two days, and this place was already wearing on her. “Add plastic speculums to the dam—”
    “A-hem,” he said, cutting her off mid-curse word. Nelly didn’t need to be hearing that—not more than Jesse already said it, anyway. “Dr. Mitchell.”
    Her mouth still hung open with the unspoken word as she shot straight up. Her hands flew to her hair, the same thing she’d done yesterday, practically the first reaction she’d had to him. “Oh. Uh…”
    Damn, Dr. Mitchell flustered was only making him more flustered. To cover for what was becoming an embarrassing situation, he got behind the computer monitor. “Dr. Mitchell, this is Nelly Tall Trees.”
    “Oh. Hello there.” Dr. Mitchell did a half wave from a safe distance, as if she was afraid of a little girl. She looked like she was under arrest, what with her hands behind her head like that. She wore no jewelry, he noticed. No bracelets dangled off either slim wrist, no necklace hid behind the collar of her shirt. She didn’t even have stud earrings. She was unadorned. Naked.
    Nelly buried her face in her mom’s shoulder. “This is just a one-time thing.” Tara looked like she’d been busted mid-cookie snatch. “My mom had something to do, and Jesse was supposed to watch her…”
    “Well.” Rebel could see Dr. Mitchell forcibly getting herself back under control. Her mouth snapped shut, her hands dropped away from her hair and