Whirlwind Reunion Read Online Free PDF

but he couldn’t help it. Trying to focus, he fixed his attention on his brother and father. “Who found me?”
    â€œRuss 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?”
    â€œNo.” 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?”
    â€œNo,” 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?”
    â€œNo.”
    A dark look crossed the sheriff’s face. “I was hoping you had.”
    â€œRuss 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.
    â€œThey still owe you for shooting off Reuben’s earlobe, I reckon.”
    â€œProbably, 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.”
    â€œSomeone 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.”
    â€œSo 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?”
    â€œWhat 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.”
    â€œIs 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?”
    â€œWhen 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.”
    â€œThere 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.
    â€œAnd