Whirlwind Reunion

“I trust you.”

“I appreciate that, but you really need to think hard about having this operation. If you want, I can wire a doctor in Abilene and ask that he come to the ranch to give you another opinion.”

“You and Dr. Butler have already given your opinions. I think two doctors hovering around me is plenty.” He winked to take the sting out of his words.

“Are you advising against the surgery, Annalise?” Cora asked.

“No. I just want J.T. to think about it. Both of you. And discuss it with Matt and Russ.”

The older man frowned. “But you won’t, will ya? If they find out, I think I should be the one to tell them.”

“Of course. I don’t discuss my patients with anyone. You decide who you tell and who you don’t, but I do think it’s a good idea.”

“So what do you suggest for now?”

“Give your recovery a little more time.” At the impatient look on his face, one that reminded her too much of his youngest son, she said, “I know you’re ready to walk again, but you can’t rush it. You might damage a nerve permanently. If your pain becomes worse and longer lasting, you need to tell me.”

“Dr. Butler never found this lump,” he said quietly.

“He’s been back east for a few months now with his wife’s family, hasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“It may not have been there when he last examined you. Or it may have grown from a non-detectable size.”

He nodded and Cora reached over to pat his arm. Annalise had been surprised to find that her friend and J.T. were courting, but they had a lot in common.

“Any more questions?” Annalise asked.

“Not right now,” J.T. answered.

Cora rose and opened the clinic’s front door as the man rolled his wheelchair closer to Annalise and squeezed her hand.

“I’m glad you’re home, girl,” he said gruffly.

“Me, too.” And she was, except for having to see his son. She picked up her bag and walked out with them, closing the door behind her.

At the other woman’s questioning look, Annalise explained, “I have to check on another patient. Should I fetch Russ to help you into the wagon, J.T.?”

Russ had lifted his father from the wagon to his chair when he had arrived at Annalise’s. There had been no sign of Matt, which was good because she didn’t want to be within ten yards of him.

“Both boys are planning to come over. The rustlers’ trail has gone cold so Matt’s going to ride out to the ranch with us. He’s healed up enough now to come home.”

“Ah.” She gave a polite smile, which promptly faded when she saw her former fiancé standing on the steps of Haskell’s General Store, talking to Jake and Bram Ross.

She focused her attention on the dark-haired Ross brothers, both broad in the shoulders and tall. Jake held a little blond girl in one arm. Annalise knew the toddler, Molly, was the half-sister of the rancher’s wife, Emma. Held against Jake’s wide chest, the child looked tiny.

Annalise was glad to see her friend with a family. It had been horrible for him, for everyone after Delia’s death. The woman had been one of Annalise’s closest friends, the first one she had told of her feelings for Matt. Matt.

Try as she might, she couldn’t stop herself from looking at him. Those long powerful legs, the muscled chest she had rested against too many times to count. But not when she had needed it most, she reminded herself.

Looking up, she was startled to find his intense gaze moving over her like a heavy hand, stripping her inside and out. Even from yards away, she could see the anger in his eyes. She could feel it like a blistering wind.

He was still riled up? Well, so was she.

As he stepped down into the street from Haskell’s porch and started for her clinic, Annalise said her good-byes to J.T. and Cora. Rather than walking toward Matt and taking the alley between the general store and Cal Doyle’s law office, she went around the other side of her building and made her way to Davis Lee’s house.

There had been a time when she would’ve been too stubborn to let Matt Baldwin think she was avoiding him or to let on that he affected her that much. But after the horrible accusation he had made, she wanted nothing to do with him and she didn’t care if he knew it. His blaming her for their child’s death had caused her guilt to flare up. Of course, it was never far below the surface anyway. In the days since their set-to, that guilt had seeped through the anger and hurt. Always the guilt. But Matt wasn’t innocent in this either.

She didn’t want to think about him any longer. Pausing on Davis Lee’s porch, she waited until her thoughts were focused solely on her patient. Several minutes later, she stood in Josie Holt’s bedroom.

The woman was in bed, as Annalise had instructed and Emma Ross sat in a nearby chair, visiting. Annalise had met the petite blonde at church. “Hello, Emma.”

“Hello.” The young woman rose and squeezed Josie’s hand, saying, “Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.” Aside from her paleness, Josie looked to be otherwise all right.

As long as she stayed put, the hemorrhaging shouldn’t start up again.

Emma let herself out and Annalise turned back to her patient, pleased to see Josie’s bleeding had long since stopped. “This is a good sign, though you still need to stay in bed.”

The petite seamstress nodded. “If it weren’t for the visitors, I’d be crazy as a Bessie bug. Catherine and Jericho have come more than once as have Russ and Lydia. And Matt’s been here several times.”

Ignoring the sharp pang in her chest at his name, Annalise moved up the side of the bed to take her patient’s pulse. “And I imagine Emma has visited a few times?”

“Yes. I’m so glad she found her way to Whirlwind. She’s been good for Jake.”

“From what I’ve seen, I think so, too. They seem very happy.”

“You’ve known Bram and Jake a long time.”

“All my life.”

“So, you knew Jake’s first wife?”

“Delia, yes.” After her death, Annalise had wondered if Jake would ever move on.

Then last year he had found Emma. Or rather, she had found him. Annalise recalled him telling her that his wife had fled her stepfather’s house with her infant sister and left the child on Jake’s doorstep then hired on as the baby nurse. He was happier than Annalise had ever seen him.

She still hoped Delia’s brother, Quentin, would one day stop blaming Jake for Delia’s death and find happiness, too.

Annalise eased down into the chair next to the bed. “Have you had any pain?”

“Not since that first night.”

“Contractions? Lower backache?”

“Sometimes my back does ache, but I think it’s because of being in bed all the time.”