Debra Cowan - Whirlwind Reunion

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.”

Davis Lee and Russ nodded in agreement.

Matt didn’t want to admit it, but he was about to give out just sitting here. He would be worse than useless on a horse. It didn’t help that Annalise was torturing him under the guise of doctoring him.

Andrew spoke up. “I could check that spot by the creek bed where the McDougal gang used to rendezvous. They might not be the only outlaws to use it and someone might’ve been there recently.”

That outlaw gang had been wiped out a couple of years earlier. Thanks to Jericho, Jake, Davis Lee and Riley, the men who had murdered Cora Wilkes’s husband as well as Josie Holt’s parents and former fiancé were gone for good. Matt really wanted to make that happen for the Landis brothers and anyone else involved in the rustling.