by Debra Cowan
Annalise recalled part of the conversation she’d had with Cora the night of Russ’s wedding celebration. “An angry husband?”
She felt Ef’s gaze slice to her.
Russ glared at her. “An angry husband? Hell, no. You shouldn’t listen to gossip.”
His wife said quietly, “She’s not accusing him, Russ.”
“I don’t care.”
Annalise wasn’t convinced, but it wasn’t her business who had hurt him; it was her business to treat him. Patch him up and send him on his way. “Who do you think would’ve done something like this?”
“The rustlers he’s been chasing for months, the Landis brothers. About two months ago, he caught up to them and they beat him up.”
“We think they decided to try again,” the blacksmith put in.
“And kill him this time.”
Annalise had overheard some talk during her supper at the Pearl. “I thought they were in jail in Abilene.”
“Five of them are,” Russ said flatly. “Two escaped. Davis Lee told me late this afternoon.”
She wet the cloth with carbolic acid and began gently cleaning the caked blood from Matt’s back. For a long moment, there was only the sound of the combined breathing of those in the room, the occasional push of the wind outside. The scents of dried blood and dirt hid the clean, masculine smell she remembered from the other night. Tension pulsed in the quietness.
Russ stood to her left, looking down at his brother. “They stole his boots. That’s gonna make him madder than hell.”
After a few moments, Annalise was able to discern the actual wounds and she winced. His back was flayed by what at first looked like shallow cuts. She leaned closer, motioning for Ef to bring the lamp lower.
The lacerations were ragged, uneven, as though someone had dragged a jagged blade down his back. Bile rose in her throat.
Behind her, Russ cursed. “It looks like he’s been whipped.”
“No,” the blacksmith said quietly. “I’ve been whipped and the marks are different than that.”
“Well, what is it then?” Russ asked in frustration—the same frustration Annalise felt as she scrutinized Matt’s back.
“The wounds are shallow, most of them no more than an eighth of an inch. A few, like these in the middle of his back, are almost a quarter-inch deep. And they’re all long, three and four inches.”
“Like someone bore down on the weapon as they slashed him?” Ef asked.
“Yes, exactly.
“Do you think a knife did this?” Russ asked with quiet anger.
“The gashes aren’t clean like they would be from a knife blade. The edges of the wounds are ragged.”
“Then what the hell did that to him?”
“I don’t know yet.” After further examination, she straightened.
“Can you tell how bad it is?”
“The bleeding seems to have stopped and that’s good, but I don’t know how much blood he lost before you got him here.” She felt her way up his strong denim-covered calves, the backs of his powerful legs and then his sides. “I don’t feel more injuries.”
“So, we can take him to the hotel now?”
Her gaze caught his. “No. He shouldn’t be moved. Not now anyway.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do?”
“What do you mean? He can stay here, just like any other patient.”
“He’ll kill me if I leave him here.”
Russ’s wife started, pinching his arm.
Even though Annalise knew the man’s words were said out of worry for his brother, she couldn’t keep the sharpness from her voice. “Well, we certainly can’t do something he might not like. You go ahead and move him. When he starts bleeding again, send for me. Or don’t.”
Russ frowned.
Lydia tugged her husband’s head down to hers and said in a half whisper, “For goodness’ sake, Russ, she isn’t going to hurt him. Especially since he was the father of her baby.”
Anger shot through her. How many people knew about that? She had foolishly believed—hoped—that his brother would be the only one privy to the information.
Matt stirred, his big hand clamping hard onto her knee. His heat reached through her skirts and skimmed along her nerve endings.
“Matt?” Russ stepped forward.
Blue eyes opened, clouded with pain as they focused on Annalise. “Angel?” he whispered.
At the endearment, an unexpected knot of longing tangled in her chest, but it was quickly gone. His calling her that surely meant he was out of his head with pain.
His brother leaned over the bed. “Matt?”
Matt’s eyes closed and his hand slid from Annalise’s leg.
Reading the look of concern on the other man’s face, she said, “It may take him a while to come to.”
Russ nodded. “I want to stay with him tonight so I can be here when he wakes up.”
“All right.”
After Ef was convinced he’d done all he could for now, he handed the lamp over to Russ and said good-night. Russ assured the blacksmith he would send for him if anything changed and told Lydia the same when she offered to stay with him.
When he returned from walking his wife out, Annalise had retrieved a crock of honey from her cabinet and was carefully applying it to Matt’s back.
“Why are you putting honey on him?” Russ asked sharply.
“It will form a barrier to keep the dirt from getting into his body. It may also help dull his pain.”
“I’ve heard of that, but I didn’t know if it really worked.”
“I’ve had good results in the past.”
Russ nodded, a brief glint of respect in his eyes.
She pointed to the second cot. “Feel free to sleep there if you want.”
“Thanks, I might do that later.” He pulled over a chair from beside the door and sat down at the foot of the bed.
She worked in silence for a few moments. As she finished treating the wounds, Russ spoke, “Sorry about what I said earlier.”
“It’s all right.” She gave him a small smile. What had hurt more than that was what Matt had said. Angel.
Her throat closed up. Feeling suffocated, she rose and walked to the sink across the room to wash her hands.
Between this and Josie’s threat of miscarriage, Annalise felt trapped. The best thing for her would be to send Matt to the hotel with his brother, get him out of her clinic. That was what she wanted. But seeing the extent of his injuries had changed her mind about getting him out of here. He could start bleeding again and he might get a fever.
She stared at the medical certificate hanging above the supply cabinet. It didn’t matter how uncomfortable she found this situation, Annalise knew she couldn’t, wouldn’t turn her back on him the way he had on her.
Feeling as though he’d been beaten with a fence post, Matt forced his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight streaming through the window a few feet to his left. He sorted through his fuzzy brain, trying to get his bearings. Buttery-yellow light slanted in a wide band across a clean pine floor. He was on his belly in a narrow bed that smelled of fresh air and lye soap. And something sugary-sweet.
He wore trousers, socks, but no shirt. His bare back burned like fire as his gaze tracked what he could see of the room. Another cot, also narrow, sat several feet away behind a half-drawn curtain. Between the two beds was a small table holding a lamp and a pint-sized brown crock. A glass-fronted cabinet filled with things he couldn’t identify from this angle was against the far wall.
A vague memory of a woman’s voice and gentle touch floated through his mind. He had thought it was Annalise. Real or a dream? He remembered the Stockraisers’ Association meeting in Graham, recalled stopping overnight in Albany on his way home, then being close to Whirlwind when he’d been ambushed.
He tried to turn on his side and agony seared his back. Hissing out a breath, he went still.
“Matt?” Russ moved next to the bed, going to his haunches so Ma
tt could see him.
The rattle of a wheelchair affirmed that Pa was there, too. The older man rolled to Russ’s side. “Son?”
Matt’s mouth was dry, his head throbbing. “Where am I?”
“In Whirlwind,” his brother answered. “At Annalise’s clinic.”
Annalise? Hell. So, he hadn’t dreamed her. She really was here. “Why didn’t you take me to Catherine’s?” he rasped.
“Annalise was closer.”
A hell of a lot closer than he wanted her, that was for sure. He was surprised she hadn’t turned him away. “What time is it?”
“Late afternoon,” Russ answered. “You’ve been out since we brought you here about two this morning.”
His back felt raw, torn. “What happened to me?”
“We’re hoping you can tell us.” J.T. angled his chair out of the way so Russ could help Matt sit up.
He bit off a curse at the pain arrowing through him. Sweat broke across his forehead as he braced his hands on his knees and panted with the effort to breathe through the misery. “Thanks.”
His brother sat beside him in case he needed support, for which Matt was grateful.
“Ah, you’re awake,” said a smoky feminine voice. Her voice.
As Annalise walked into the room, his muscles tightened, sending a lash of agony through him. He looked up, taking in her practical gray daydress and the thick mahogany braid hanging down her back.
Her skirts made a soft swishing noise against the wood floor. “I brought you some water and something to eat.”
“No whiskey?”
“Water’s better for you right now.”
Maybe so, but it wouldn’t take the edge off.
She eased around J.T. and his wheelchair then set a real glass and a china plate on the small bedside table. After she removed the lamp and the crock, Russ moved the table within easy reach for Matt.
He hoped he could manage to eat under his own steam because he didn’t plan on staying here.
Annalise stepped to the head of the bed. “I sent Andrew Donnelly for Davis Lee.”
Evidently, Annalise had renewed her acquaintance with Catherine Blue’s kid brother in the two months she’d been here.
Russ glanced at Matt. “Are you up for some questions?”
“Yeah.” He took another bite of the bread and ham Annalise had brought, realizing how hungry he was. And how weak. “I was ambushed.”
“By Reuben and Pat Landis?” his brother asked.
“I don’t know. Couldn’t see their faces.” Mindful of the pain in his back, he carefully lifted his glass for a drink. “Why’d you ask about those two?”
“Davis Lee got word yesterday that they had escaped from the jail in Abilene.”
As Matt talked with his brother and father, Annalise moved behind him into the space between the bed and the wall. When she touched his shoulder, he flinched.
“Sorry. I want to make sure your back isn’t bleeding again.” Her voice was cool, detached. And close. Too close.
Matt tried not to tense up because it hurt like the devil when he did, but he couldn’t help it. Trying to focus, he fixed his attention on his brother and father. “Who found me?”
“Russ and Ef.” J.T. situated his chair a few feet away. “You were a couple of miles from here. Tony Santos sent his boy, Miguel, out to the Triple B before dawn this morning and I came on to town. Russ spent last night here with you.”
Matt nodded, going still when Annalise slid a hand into the back of his hair and probed gently. Her breast grazed his shoulder.
Before he could ask what the hell she was doing, she said, “You have a knot on your head here. Do you know what you were hit with?”
“No.” He cleared his throat, sensation stirring in his belly. If he weren’t in pain, he knew he’d be feeling that same slow curl of heat below his belt.
Her hand moved from his head. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“No,” he ground out. Did she have to touch him so much? Or stand so close? He wanted her to step away.
J.T.’s sharp blue gaze went from her to Matt and he smiled. “Annalise has been taking real good care of you.”
Matt took a drink of water so he wouldn’t have to respond. The clinic’s front door opened and Sheriff Davis Lee Holt strode in with young Andrew Donnelly, their boots thudding against the pine floor.
Finished eating, Matt greeted the dark-haired lawman, a longtime friend, and the stocky teen who lived with his sister and her husband past the edge of town.
After asking if Matt was going to be all right, Davis Lee turned his attention to the ambush. “Did you happen to see who jumped you?”
“No.”
A dark look crossed the sheriff’s face. “I was hoping you had.”
“Russ told me Reuben and Pat Landis escaped jail yesterday.” Matt’s back throbbed like blue blazes, the discomfort made more intense by the occasional soft stroke of Annalise’s fingers on his skin.
“They still owe you for shooting off Reuben’s earlobe, I reckon.”
“Probably, though they’ve got more than that coming to them.” The brothers and their five siblings had been thieving from here to the Panhandle for months. “How much longer are we gonna have to chase those SOBs? I thought we’d finally stopped them.”
The lawman shook his head, looking as grim as Matt felt. “Tell me what happened.”
“Someone came straight at me on his horse, knocked us both out of our saddles.” He paused, feeling light-headed. “I punched him and another person hit me from behind with something. That’s all I remember.”
“So you don’t know what they did to your back?” Annalise asked in a quiet distant voice.
Matt wished he could forget she was so close, but he couldn’t. Her clean, light scent had stolen into his lungs and settled there. “No, I don’t know what they did.”
Davis Lee walked behind the cot to see Matt’s back, and cursed. “What could’ve ripped you up so badly?”
“What does it look like?” Matt asked.
Russ shook his head, still propping his brother up. “Annalise, Ef and I tried to figure it out when I brought you in, but we couldn’t.”
“Is my back torn to shreds? That’s what it feels like.”
Davis Lee leaned closer. “These almost look like stab wounds, but they’re not very deep. If they used a knife, why didn’t they just stab you to death?”
“When we catch them, I’ll be sure and ask,” Matt said dryly, fighting the weakness and pain that was draining the energy from him. “Somebody tell me what it looks like back there.”
“There are long lacerations,” Annalise responded. “Uneven, like someone plowed furrows down your back.”
She explained about the shallowness and pattern of the wounds. They didn’t compare with the blade of any knife she’d ever seen.
“And you have no idea what they could’ve used, Matt?” Davis Lee moved around to the front of the bed.
“Everything’s a blank after I got hit on the head.”
Except for those shadowy images of Annalise. Her touch fluttered like a butterfly against his mangled flesh. He felt the occasional wash of her breath against his neck and back, and it put him on edge.
As Davis Lee, Russ and J.T. discussed going after the men who had attacked him, Matt realized he could be stuck here with her, completely at her mercy. Like hell.
“The men who jumped Matt could’ve gone in any direction afterwards,” J.T. said.
“If it was the Landis brothers, maybe to Abilene?” Russ suggested. “To try and free the others?”
Davis Lee shook his head. “The guard over there has been tripled. They won’t get within a hundred feet of the jail now.”
Annalise came around to feel Matt’s forehead, her hand cool and soft against his skin. “Good. No fever.”
Says you. She still spoke in that detached emotionless voice and it bugged the hell out of him because he knew how she could burn beneath that prim exterior. How she
could make him burn.
He cut off the thought. That was the last thing he wanted to remember.
The fatigue etching her fine-boned features didn’t detract from her beauty or dull the peaches-and-cream skin that was so fine-grained it was almost translucent.
He’d known he would have to see her again, but why this soon? And why like this, when he was injured and hurting?
She again moved behind him, the warmth of her body flirting with his. Every muscle from his calves to his shoulders drew tight. Being this close to her put a knot in his chest. He had to get away from her.
“Are you dizzy?” she asked.
“A little.” Growing weaker, his frustration mounted. “Headache?”
“Yes, and my back hurts like hellfire.” So why could he even feel how close she was? Why was he even this aware of her? He sure as hell didn’t want to be.
“Russ, Jericho and I can fan out from Whirlwind, each of us in a different direction, and see if we can find any tracks leading from the spot where Matt was found,” Davis Lee was saying to J.T. and Russ. “I doubt I’ll have trouble getting another volunteer to ride with us. Jake or Bram Ross would gladly help.”
Matt was sure the Ross brothers would agree, but he wanted to go. He didn’t care that he was as weak as a newborn kitten. “I can do it.”
“It’s not a good idea,” Annalise said firmly.
Her touch was feather-light on his back, yet he felt it like a red-hot brand. Frustration and resentment had him snapping, “Leave me be!”
Conversation abruptly stopped and the three men in front of him stared warily at Annalise.
Matt thought about apologizing until she leaned in and whispered, “I can’t. I’m the doctor, you’re the patient. I need to check all your wounds.”
The brush of her lips against his ear sent a shaft of heat through him and his muscles twitched in reaction, sending a wave of pain over him. Hell!
He looked at his brother. “Bring me a shirt and my horse. And my boots.”
Russ grimaced. “Uh, well, they stole your boots.”
A red haze of anger misted his vision. If there had been one ounce of energy in his body, he would have punched the wall. As it was, he could barely sit up.
J.T. frowned. “Son, Annalise is right. You’re in no shape to ride out right now.”