Whirlwind Reunion by Debra Cowan Read Free Book Online Page A

him, he knew it would be impossible.
    Once his back was covered, she helped him sit up so she could secure the dressing by wrapping strips of cloth around him, under his arms and just above his hips.
    The warm puff of her breath against his chest, his belly, had sweat breaking out across his face. His muscles tightened, sending a shaft of pain through him.
    â€œThere.” With her gaze averted, she appeared unaffected, but Matt knew better.
    Her pulse tripped wildly in the hollow of her throat and though her breathing was controlled, he’d heard it hitch more than once. Right now, though, he was more concerned with not passing out and tumbling off this cot.
    She finally looked at him, then frowned when she saw his face. “We overdid it.”
    She helped him lie back down. Once she’d made sure he was comfortable, she left the room, returning a few minutes later to pick up the cloth gingerly and hold it up for his inspection. “The cornstarch mixture has set up enough now that you might be able to recognize the pattern.”
    Matt concentrated, but couldn’t identify the jagged streaks. “Could you hold it farther away?”
    She stepped back a few feet, keeping her hands beneath the cloth to support it. Distance didn’t help.
    â€œI don’t recognize the likeness. Maybe Russ or one of the other men will.”
    Disappointment chased across her features.
    â€œIt was a good idea.” Matt didn’t know why he was reassuring her.
    Pleasure flashed in her eyes then was gone. “I can’t take credit for it.”
    â€œDon’t know why not.” She had possibly given him a bonafide lead, using a technique he had never heard of. “The idea to take the impression of my wounds was your idea, not your teacher’s.”
    She shrugged, turning away to return the cloth to its place atop the cabinet.
    It didn’t escape him that Annalise had been able to help both with the weapon and with his injuries because she had left Whirlwind. Left him. And he didn’t like it one damn bit.
    Â 
    For the last three days, the walls had been slowly closing in on her. Annalise was painfully conscious of Matt and had been since she had bandaged his wounds after making the impression.
    As she walked out of Haskell’s General Store after lunch, she admitted her pulse hadn’t settled down since. Faced with his wide, hair-dusted chest, she wasn’t sure how she had managed to keep a steady hand. His body was more tautly muscled than it had been when they had been betrothed, the plane of his stomach even more well-hewn. Looking at him, touching him, made her mouth go dry.
    It was beyond vexing. It scared the daylights out of her. Why couldn’t she view him as just another patient? After what he’d done, how could she feel anything for him?
    Sometimes, when she was too close to him, her skinstung with sensation. Andrew’s presence helped dull the awareness as did J.T.’s and Cora’s. But at night, it was just Annalise and Matt in quarters too close for her liking. She was upstairs and he was down, yet it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing could stop the memory of those work-roughened hands moving slowly over her bare skin or the hot press of his mouth on her breasts.
    His presence, their history, the low-thrumming tension wore on her. As she had done the last three days, she forced her thoughts to something else. Neither she nor Matt had yet been able to identify the weapon used on him.
    After comparing the marks on the impression with those left by pitchforks, rakes and even a circular saw blade, she still had nothing to tell Matt, his family or the sheriff. The weapon in question also didn’t match any blade pattern she’d checked on knives at Haskell’s or in his Montgomery Ward catalogue.
    Davis Lee, Russ, Jericho and Bram Ross had returned to Whirlwind frustrated and empty-handed. The men had found nothing to identify Matt’s