Men of the White Sandy Vol. 1

Book excerpt: Welcome back to the White Sandy, where the cowboys are the Indians, but they also drive pickup trucks, have cell phones and occasionally advanced degrees. Change is coming to the White Sandy reservation--will the men of the Lakota tribe find their place in this new world with their women by their sides? The Medicine Man: 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. Originally published as Mystic Cowboy (2013): The Rancher: 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. Originally published as Masked Cowboy (2013) The Shadow: 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. 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 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. When she discovers that Nobody a self-appointed guardian angel for the boy in her care, she’s intrigued. But how far will he go to keep the boy safe? And will she be able to draw him into the light? Originally published as Nobody (2015)