Meet the Men of White Sandy

The Medicine Man

(Men of the White Sandy #1)

Originally Published as Mystic Cowboy

The White Sandy Reservation needs a doctor, and Madeline Mitchell needs to do a little good in the world. It seems like a perfect fit, until she meets the medicine man, Rebel Runs Fast. As far as Madeline can tell, Rebel’s sole mission is to convince her patients that modern medicine can’t help them. And the fact that he makes her heart race every time he looks at her only irritates her more.

Rebel swore off the white man’s world—and women—years ago. But he’s never met a woman like Dr. Mitchell. She doesn’t speak the language, understand the customs, or believe he’s anything more than a charlatan—but she stays, determined to help his people. He tries to convince himself that his tribe doesn’t need her, but when patients start getting sick with strange symptoms, he realizes that he needs her more than ever.

Excerpt from The Medicine Man

And suddenly, it got a whole lot less boring. Tara gasped in shock as the fan was kicked out of the door. Now what? Madeline spun around in her pitiful supply closet.

Two men stood in front of Tara. Well, one man stood. He was tall and straight, all the more so compared to the broken people she’d looked at all day. His jet-black hair hung long and loose under a straw cowboy hat, all the way down to his denim-clad butt. Even though he was supporting the other man, he was moving from one black cowboy boot to the other, his hips shifting in a subtle-but-sexy motion. He was wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, revealing a set of honest biceps that looked like carved caramel—the best kind of delicious.

“Find a nice cowboy.” Mellie’s voice floated back up her from their last conversation. “Ride him a little. Have fun!”

Now, Madeline wasn’t exactly a thrill-seeking adrenaline junkie. On more than one occasion, she’d been accused of being the party pooper, the stick in the mud, a real-bring-me-downer in the room. Several times, it had been pointed out that she wouldn’t know fun if it walked up and bit her in the ass. And that was just what Mellie said to her face. God only knew what everyone else said behind her back.

But there he was, standing in her waiting room. Fun in cowboy boots. No biting in the ass required, because she knew him immediately, and all she wanted to do was find a horse and ride. With him. The heat started at her neck and flashed southward. She could feel her curls trying to break free into a full-fledged frizz with the sudden temperature change, which only made things that much worse.

“Jesse!” Tara said in a voice that was just one small step below shouting. “What did you do now?”

“Give me a hand, will you?” Fun in Cowboy Boots called back to Clarence. He pivoted just a little, revealing the other man who was leaning all of his weight on Fun’s right side.

Not good. The second guy’s leg was being held together with what looked like broomsticks and duct tape. His right arm hung limp, and his scratched face was contorted in pain.

“Damn, Rebel, what happened?” Clarence was already hefting the broken man—Jesse?—onto the nearest free table, leading to a volley of clenched grunts from the injured man. “I thought we might get through this month without you trying to kill yourself, you know.”

Did Clarence really just call this guy Rebel? Well, it was official. She’d heard it all today.

Rebel—if that was his real name—was shaking his head when he caught her staring. He had beautiful black eyes, the kind of black that didn’t so much show you the window to his soul, but reflected yours back on you. Those eyes widened in surprise. “You know how it goes, Clarence,” he said, his gaze bearing down on her with enough heat that the rest of the clinic felt suddenly cool by comparison. “Life with Jesse is always an adventure.”

Tara was next to the exam table now, holding Jesse’s hand as she felt his head. “Do I even want to know?”

“Not really,” Rebel replied, taking his time as he looked her over. His thumbs were hanging from his belt loops, which only made the shifting thing he was doing look more intentional. Aside from the long hair, he looked like every cowboy fantasy she’d ever had. Did he have a horse, or was her imagination way out of control? “You must be the new doctor, ma’am.” He took off his hat and nodded. All that black hair, so straight it made her jealous, flowed around him like a cape.

Oooh, her first ma’am. From an honest-to-God cowboy, no less. She felt the sudden urge to curtsey, but then realized what he’d said right before the ma’am. She was the doctor, and she had a job to do. Wrenching her eyes from the caramel-colored cowboy to the patient, Madeline tried to regain her professional composure. “Dr. Mitchell, please. And this is Jesse?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That wasn’t helpful. “I need to know how this happened, Mister...”

“Rebel,” he said, those hips still moving.

She was not staring like a schoolgirl at this man. “Excuse me?”

“Just Rebel, ma’am.”

A shiver ran down her spine. One more ma’am and she might swoon. “Dr. Mitchell,” she said with more force as she turned to her patient.

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The Rancher

(Men of the White Sandy #2)

Originally Published as Masked Cowboy

Mary Beth is the kind of woman who wishes she had a five-second delay on her mouth. The swath of verbal destruction she leaves is why she goes west to start over. But any resolve to hold her tongue is lost immediately when she meets Jacob, a Lakota cowboy who says next to nothing—especially about the black leather mask that covers half his face.

Jacob’s silence is his armor in a white man’s world, but even that isn’t enough to protect him—or the mute girl he guards—from forces he can’t control. Fascinated by the masked cowboy and drawn to defend the girl, Mary Beth finds herself in the middle of a decades-old power struggle that only she could talk her way out of.

Excerpt from The Rancher

Mary Beth followed Robin’s gaze, blinking through the streaking evening sun.

Down the center of the street, a cowboy was riding a horse, leading another behind him. As he got closer, Mary Beth could see the cowboy was shirtless. The golden light settled over his dark hat and shimmered off his bare shoulders. His front was still in light shadows, but if the rest of him was as carved as those dark brown shoulders, things were about to get interesting.

“Mmm,” Robin hummed and Mary Beth swore the whole restaurant was humming in pleasure with her.

As the lone rider got closer, the shadows eased back a bit, and Mary Beth realized that there was something different about this cowboy.

He had an eye patch.

Whoa, hunk on the hoof, just like in a romance novel. But as she blinked through the angular sunlight, Mary Beth realized that the patch was far larger than the kind a pirate would wear. The swath of dark leather started at his left temple, covered his left eye and continued down over the center of his face, coming to a sharp point over his nose.

Mary Beth shook her head, but the patch remained the same. “He wears a mask?” she whispered to Robin, afraid to break the spell that gripped the café.

“Shhh,” Robin hissed.

The masked cowboy rode right up to the café and stopped mere feet from Mary Beth’s table before he slid out of the saddle, his leg muscles twitching through his tight jeans the whole way down. He paused for split second, clearly enjoying every female eye trained on his bare torso before he walked up to Mary Beth’s table.

“Robin,” he said, gently tipping his black felt hat, its brim creased from countless such tips. His one eye, nestled between a strong eyebrow and a stronger cheekbone, swept over the scene before it settled on Mary Beth.

“Jacob,” Robin practically sang. She held out the tray with the towel and the water.

Jacob, the masked, shirtless cowboy, gracefully lifted the glass of water from the tray before he set his hat in its place. He took a huge drink, then grabbed the towel, leaned forward and poured the rest of the water over his head.

The water rushed through his slightly overgrown jet-black hair as he stood up, his mask covered with the towel. Rivulets raced down his browned, chiseled chest before he slowly mopped them up, his gaze grabbing Mary Beth’s face and refusing to let it go again.

She was sure her mouth was on the table, but she couldn’t help it. Every fiber in her body was vibrating as she watched the towel trace passed his pecs, down his lean abs—the muscles moving just beneath the smooth surface of his skin—and follow a faint trail of hair that ended in his jeans. The mask notwithstanding, this man was quite possibly the most ideal specimen of masculinity she’d ever laid eyes on.

A hint of a smile on his face, Jacob handed the towel back to Robin, took the to-go bag, pivoted and walked to the saddlebag of his paint. Mary Beth admiringly noted the huge tear in the seat of his pants, just under his left butt cheek. It was hard to tell what was more promising—his rock-solid chest or that flash of ass. Pausing again for just a second, he tucked the meal in the bag after he whipped out an Anthrax T-shirt that might have been black back in the 80s.

As he began to unbuckle his jeans, Mary Beth heard the entire café suck in a hot breath.

He won’t. Mary Beth’s brain stuttered in shock. He wouldn’t!

The top button gave under his nimble fingers, and then the second. Mary Beth couldn’t help but stare at the treasure trail of dark fur that crested at an even darker line peaking just over the undone buttons.

Jesus Christ, is he even wearing underwear? She gasped, unable to look away as she squirmed in her chair.

Jacob slipped the tee over his head, tucked it in and buttoned back up. As he took his hat off Robin’s tray, the whole café—the sum total of women in Faith Ridge—sighed and leaned back in their chairs. Mary Beth wondered if there were enough cigarettes in town for the collective orgasm that had just happened in broad daylight.

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The Shadow

(Men of the White Sandy #3)

Originally Published as Nobody

Nobody Bodine is a nobody who came from a nobody and will always be a nobody.

He disappears into the shadows—no one sees him if he doesn’t want them to. He exists in neither the white man’s world nor the tribe’s, dispensing vigilante justice when he sees fit. There’s no other place for a man like him in this world.

Until Melonie Mitchell shows up on the rez. From the first moment he lays eyes on her, he can tell there’s something different about her. For starters, she’s not afraid of him. She asks where his scars came from, and why he has so many. But more than that, she sees him. For the first time in his life, Nobody feels like a somebody in her eyes.

Melonie has come west to run the new day care on the White Sandy Reservation. She’s intrigued by this strange man and his tattered skin, and when she discovers that he’s a self-appointed guardian angel for the boy in her care, she realizes that there’s more to Nobody than meets the eyes. But how far will he go to keep the boy safe? And will she be able to draw him into the light?

Excerpt from The Shadow

Nobody stood in the shadows, watching her.

She wasn’t leaving. Melonie Mitchell normally closed up shop and drove off by this point in the evening, but not tonight. It had to be close to eight—two hours after she normally left. Was that because it was Friday?

What was she doing? Light streamed out of both the front and back doors of the center as she did something inside. He was tempted to edge closer and steal a look in.

She couldn’t be painting. In the two weeks since she’d left him the last note, the inside of the center had gone from concrete gray to plain white to rainbows. Maybe that’s what she’d meant by creative chaos? Because it was still chaos. He wasn’t sure if it was beautiful, but it was definitely wild.

The rainbow colors went vertically up over the walls—even over the foam she’d managed to hang from the ceilings. The foam covered the top four feet of the walls. Not that Nobody made a lot of noise, but even he could tell that the center was more hushed now. Less echo-y.

At the height he’d come to think of as her eye-level, she’d hung bulletin board strips. Papers, splashed with finger paint and crayon scribbles, were tacked up along the wall now, some with kids’ names neatly printed at the bottom, others with names that were barely readable.

Then, at kid level, the wall had been covered with tiny handprints. Each set of prints had a name and an age painted onto the wall underneath it. Jamie’s hands were up there—no last name, though.

He’d been right. Melonie had taken the boy in. Good.

But that didn’t explain what she was doing here now. Didn’t she know this wasn’t the safest place on the rez? True, he hadn’t caught any junkies trying to break in recently, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try again.

She appeared in the front door. Light streamed from behind her, giving her an otherworldly glow.

He felt himself breathe at seeing her again. The two weeks since she’d almost walked right into him at Rebel’s place had felt long. Time, as marked by days and weeks, didn’t have much meaning for him. His world was divided into light and dark, warm and cold. He cleaned the clinic every day. There were no Mondays, no weekends.

But the last two weeks had moved by at such a slow pace that he’d begun to feel... uneasy about it. Not his usual sense of when someone was in trouble. This had been different. He’d wanted to see her just because. Not because he had to keep her safe or anything. Just... because.

But he’d forced himself to stay away from Rebel’s. She’d looked right at him, walked right toward him as if he were standing in broad daylight. If she hadn’t gotten distracted... no. He didn’t believe she could actually tell he was there. Something else had attracted her attention. That was all.

Backlit, she stretched, her body reaching for the dusk sky. Something else began to make Nobody feel uneasy and that something was obvious—Melonie Mitchell had a hell of a body. Part of what had been bothering him had been those curves—those generous breasts, those hips.

How would her body feel? Would she be terrified if he filled his hands with those breasts? Would she be afraid of him if he grabbed her hips and pulled her into him?

Onto him?

Or would she like it? Would she think it exciting to do it with someone dangerous? Would she moan or cry out?

He got hard just thinking of it. Of her.

Then she did something that snapped him out of his thoughts.

She looked at him.

There was no mistaking this—she looked right at him. And smiled.

What the hell?

He started to shrink back, but she turned away from him, gathering up something off the floor. Did she know he was here or not?

He should go.

He didn’t.

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The Medic

(Men of the White Sandy #4)

Originally Published as Clarence

Clarence Thunder may not be as young as he once was...

But is he as good once as he ever was? He hopes so. He’s been watching Tammy Tall Trees, the young single mother who works next door in the Child Care Center. He wants to show Tammy he can take care of her and her young son—but can he compete with the boy’s real father?

Tammy was crushed when her old boyfriend abandoned her after she got pregnant. Since then, she’s put her son first—which means no dating. Who would want a broke single mother, anyway? Certainly not Clarence—one of the best men on the White Sandy. Until one day, the older man starts making her coffee—and bringing her son toys. Can she put herself first—or will her past catch up to them both?

Excerpt from The Medic

Clarence Thunder pulled into the parking lot at the White Sandy Clinic and Child Care Center and shut off his truck. He yawned as he rubbed his eyes. Man, it was early. Not even six in the morning.

But the parking lot was empty. Just like he wanted it to be. He had a pound of some fancy flavored coffee, a Matchbox car, and a plan.

He got out of the truck and opened up the Clinic. So far, so good. He’d been half afraid that Nobody Bodine, the night janitor, might still be lurking around. If Clarence was going to make a fool of himself over a woman, he didn’t want an audience for it.

But the place was empty, so he got the coffee going. The whole time, he rehearsed what he was going to say when Tammy Tall Trees showed up.

“Hey, Tammy—I made you some coffee.”

But the more he rehearsed it, the weaker it sounded. Hell. He didn’t know what else to do, though.

For the last four months—ever since the Child Care Center had opened up right next door to the Clinic, Tammy Tall Trees had been arriving at six thirty every morning, along with her three-year-old son, Mikey. And the first thing she did was make coffee.

Clarence got to work about seven—give or take. He operated on Indian time, which meant that sometimes he got here at seven fifteen, sometimes he got here at eight. Didn’t matter much. He was the head nurse at the Clinic. It didn’t function without him.

At first, when Tammy had started getting here before him, she’d said, “Clarence, I made the coffee.” They’d exchanged pleasantries about the weather or people they knew. That was how Clarence found out that Dr. Mitchell’s sister, Melonie—the one who’d come out to run the Child Care Center—had somehow fallen for Nobody. Clarence still couldn’t figure that one out, but who was he to judge?

Then, after a moment or two of Clarence and Tammy chatting, either a kid or a patient would show up and Clarence would go to his side of the building while Tammy went to hers and that was that.

But recently, in the last month, Clarence had noticed a change in their little morning ritual. Instead of saying, “I made the coffee,” Tammy had started saying, “I made you coffee.”

And maybe that wasn’t much. One word. Three little letters. That didn’t say much about whether or not she was interested in him, did it?

Except...

Tammy had a way of looking at him now that he was pretty sure she hadn’t been doing back when she started. She’d hold her cup of coffee up against her lips and blow on it gently—she was a gentle woman—and then, she’d look up at him through her thick lashes and he’d see the corners of her mouth curve up at the same time a pretty blush would dust her cheeks and damn if it didn’t hit him like a ton of bricks.

That look combined with those three little letters—that had to mean something, right?

Clarence had never been particularly good with women. He was big, he could be mean when he had to be—all things that could appeal to women with a thing for bad boys—but he was a nurse. When he’d joined the Navy right out of high school and gotten off this rez for a decade, being a male nurse—a Lakota Indian male nurse at that—had not been the way to score with the ladies. It had been the shortest path between Clarence and a punch line.

But it was a job—a job he was good at. He didn’t have the head to be a doctor, but he was good with people and had a strong stomach. And because he had a regular job with a regular paycheck—hell, ever since Dr. Mitchell had come out and started paying him with real money, it was even a decent paycheck—Clarence had been able to save up a little and get some nicer things. Like his truck. The Dodge Ram was only three years old and it ran real good.

That had to be a point in his favor, he decided as he filled up the coffee pot. Clarence didn’t know much about whoever Mikey’s father was. Tammy’s sister, Tara—who was the receptionist at the Clinic—only referred to him as ‘that dickbag,’ which was a sentiment salty enough to make Clarence blush, old seaman that he was.

As far as Clarence could tell, Tammy was pretty much on her own. Well, sort of on her own. She lived with her mom, who helped take care of Mikey. Flo Tall Trees was more like Tara—brash and outspoken and not afraid to tell you when she thought you were screwing it up.

Tammy was different, though. She was quiet and shy. She had a way with the kids that she watched over—she was the one to soothe hurt knees and hurt feelings, whereas Melonie Mitchell was the loud, bouncy, fun one.

Clarence knew that because he’d taken to popping over to the Center when they had a lull—which wasn’t often, but still. He’d stick his head through the door and survey the chaos—or the story time, or the snack, or whatever—and there would be Tammy, right in the middle of it all, handing out hugs and encouragement and always with this beautiful smile on her face. Those kids could be crazy, but he’d never once seen her lose her cool.

“Hey, Tammy—I made you some coffee. And I brought Mikey a toy.”

Yeah, that was better. The toy car was a key part of his plan. Namely, he was banking on the car buying him five minutes of uninterrupted time to talk with Tammy. Ten minutes would be better. That was the best he could hope for. Ten minutes to try and figure out if she was looking at him like she was interested, or if she just really liked coffee.

God, he hoped she was interested.

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The Sheriff

(Men of the White Sandy #5)

The last thing he needs is another person he has to protect...

Tim Means is the sheriff on the White Sandy Reservation—a thankless job on the best of days. He’s trying to keep a gang war from breaking out, vigilantes from running amuck and he’s doing it all with a two-man force. When a kid named Georgey gets busted breaking into the Clinic, Tim doesn’t have time to keep the kid on the straight and narrow. He needs a relative to take the teen off his hands.

But who? The only person who could take custody of Georgey is Summer Collins, Georgey’s half-sister. She hasn’t been on the White Sandy in almost twelve years . But what choice does she have? She made a promise to her father to look out for her little brother, so she gives up her job teaching summer school and her hopes of a summer fling to venture west and meet a brother she barely remembers. But what she finds on the White Sandy is more than just a family or a sense of belonging. She meets one sexy sheriff and suddenly, a summer fling seems like just the thing.

But things on the White Sandy are never simple—or easy. When the gang war threatens Summer and her brother, will Tim be able to do his job—or will his heart get in the way?

Excerpt from Sheriff Tim

Just as she approached the T in the road—the T that had lead her down to a frightening dead-end, she saw the most wonderful thing ever—a cop car was approaching. Even better, it was slowing down! Dear God, please let it be someone on the White Sandy police force.

The car pulled off to the side of the road at the intersection. Summer’s breath caught in her throat as she watched the man get out of the cop car. Was this the same man she talked to on the phone—Sheriff Means? Because the man striding toward her looked absolutely nothing like the man she pictured in her head.

Instead of short hair streaked with white, he had long black hair that came down just below his shoulders. It wasn’t even tied back in a tail—instead, the breeze caught it and blew it around him. And the man she’d been picturing had had a gut—too much beer and too many donuts. But the man who was now walking around her car was lean and muscled and moved with a coiled grace that did more than catch her breath—he took it away.

He stood by the driver side door while she gaped at him. She hadn’t remembered much about her brief time on the reservation, but she remembered what her father had looked like. Actually, now that she thought about it, her father in the way she’d envisioned this officer looking work that different. Large and heavyset with short hair that was going white.

One corner of his mouth quirked up into what she hoped was an amused smile and he made a motion for her to roll down her window.

Oh, damn. She’d just been sitting there, staring at him. She quickly rolled down the window. “Sheriff Means?”

He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Ms. Collins?”

“Yes. Call me Summer.” She didn’t know why she said that. She was Ms. Collins as all of her students called her. She was perfectly fine answering to her last name.

But for just a moment, she felt almost like someone else.

“Then you have to call me Tim,” the sheriff said, his warm brown eyes doing something that looked remarkably like twinkling.

Was he laughing at her? Or was he flirting with her?

She jerked her gaze away from his face. Was it hot in here? “How did you know where I was?” She looked around at the nothingness that surrounded them. “I mean, I don’t even know where I am and there’s no one around. Except...” She looked in the rearview mirror that she didn’t see that something that had been there earlier.

Sheriff Means—Tim—stiffened and turned to look back behind the car.

“What is it?” She asked, a bit of that panic coming back up. At least this time, she wasn’t alone. She had an officer of the law—she glanced down and saw that he did have a gun at his side. An armed officer of the law. Whatever that shadow thing had been, she wouldn’t be scared anymore.

Tim was scowling at the open space behind her car. “It’s all right,” he said in a comforting voice that he’d used during a phone call. “You saw something, I take it?”

She nodded, unsure she was supposed to feel silly for being scared of shadows or terrified that he knew what she’d seen.

“You have nothing to worry about,” he went on, setting his hands on the roof of her car and leaning down closer. Tobacco—not cigarettes and not cigars but the good kind that she’d only smell during that one powwow—wafted around him and unconsciously, she leaned forward and inhaled deeply. “What you saw was a man—an...associate of mine, if you will. He seemed to think you might get lost and so he was keeping an eye out for you. He let me know where you were.”

How the hell was she supposed to interpret that statement? “It didn’t look like a man,” she said, feeling stupid. “It was like some sort of shadow.”

Tim grimaced. “Yeah, he does that. I’ll introduce you, if it’d make you feel better to see that he is nothing but a man.” He sounded hesitant about this, as if he didn’t want to. Summer must have given him a look, because he added, “Been a while since you’ve been on the rez?”

She felt her cheeks heat. “Is it that obvious? I haven’t been here since I was twelve and so far I’ve gotten lost and seen an associate of yours.” She knew she was not putting forth the most competent of first impressions. Why would anyone trust her to make decisions about a teenager at this point?

The lazy grin lifted up the other corner of Tim’s mouth. How old was he? He had that kind of ageless face that meant he could be anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. Her eyes moved to his hand—well, his wrist, as his hand was still resting on the roof of her car. Now she was just being ridiculous.

And the way he was grinning at her made it pretty clear that he felt the same way. God, she was screwing this up so badly.

Desperately she remembered the reason she was here in the first place. “Where’s Georgey?”

Tim shifted, his hips moving side to side and she was absolutely not staring at the fluid motion of his body. Really, really not. He brought his hands down under the door. No ring. Why was she even looking? She wasn’t. She was only going to be on this reservation long enough to do... Something with Georgey. To make sure Georgey was well cared for.

“My deputy is keeping an eye on him. Don’t worry—the boy isn’t going anywhere.”

She stared up at Tim in confusion. “You kept him locked up? You promise me you wouldn’t!”

Something in his face changed—closed, almost. “I didn’t lock him up,” he said in a dull voice. “I know you don’t know me and I know that you don’t know how things work here, but I’m a man of honor.”

Her cheeks got even hotter. Why was it so damned hot out here? “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

Tim gave a little shake of his head and stepped back from the car. “You can follow me. I won’t let you get lost.” Then he turned on his heel and walked back to his cop car. As Summer watched, he opened the car door and set one foot in the vehicle, but then turned and stared off into space behind her. He touched two fingers to his forehead in a small salute and Summer twisted in her seat to see if there was really a man back there. But there was nothing. Nothing but grass and more grass.

Sheriff Tim Means was right about one thing. She didn’t know him and she had no idea how things here worked.

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