She registered the heavy thud of his boots on the floor, the slam of the door as her entire body went numb.
He’d brought up the past and she hadn’t been able to keep her mouth shut. She wished she had because now she was forced to admit what she had denied for seven years. She’d never gotten over him.
Chapter Four
If you hadn’t been so all-fired set to get to medical school, our baby would be alive. You as good as killed him.
Five days later, Matt’s words still razored through Annalise, a black poisonous cloud on an otherwise lovely Saturday. She wished she could push his words out of her head, push him out of her head, but she hadn’t been able to. So she’d done the only thing she could—she’d avoided him like he was a coiled rattler.
Sunlight streamed through the front window of her clinic, warming the space of pine floor between her and the patient in his wheelchair. J.T. Baldwin had come in with Cora, wanting Annalise to examine his leg and determine why he was still unable to walk.
“How’s the pain?” Annalise asked him.
“Most days, it’s just an ache, but if I do too much—”
“Or ride in the wagon for very long,” Cora put in.
J.T. smiled at the older woman before turning to Annalise. “Then it hurts like the devil.”
“Is the pain sharp or dull after you’ve exerted yourself?”
“Sharp. It’s a good sign that I can feel something, right?”
“It can be good, yes. In your case, I’m not sure. Because there are times when you can feel yet still aren’t able to make your leg move, I think you have a mass pressing on a nerve in your lower spine.”
“Mass? Like a tumor?” he asked gruffly, apprehension on his craggy features. “Is it gonna kill me?”
Cora reached over and took his hand.
Annalise understood his concern. Matt and Russ’s mother had died from a tumor in her stomach when Russ was ten and Matt was nine. “I don’t believe it’s a cancerous tumor. You don’t exhibit other symptoms.”
“So what do I do? Can you get it out of there?”
“I can do surgery, but there are risks.”
“Like what?”
“Your right leg might be paralyzed for good. Both sides of your body might be. There’s also a chance it could kill you. Any operation is risky, especially one this tricky.” She shook her head. “And you should know that I’ve only assisted in this surgery, never performed it on my own.”
“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
