LITMIR.BIZ

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himself to get into such a rut.

       He put the paperwork aside, still fuming about the attack on Tess. He didn’t like remembering how sick she looked when he left for work this morning, or how careless that doctor had been about her wound. Wounds brought on fever and infection and sometimes led to gangrene. He’d seen men die of it. He was worried and he was angry at himself for not checking the doctor’s work at the time. He could have punched that doctor for doing such a haphazard job. If Tess wasn’t better by morning, he was going to find another physician for her.

       Why had Tess been attacked? He couldn’t answer that question. But he could make some reasonable assumptions. The assailant had to know her on sight. That narrowed down the possibilities. It could be someone from the hospital, which was highly unlikely, or someone connected with a woman who participated in the women’s rights rallies.

       As he considered that last possibility, it began to make good sense. Tess had told him that she had a young friend who attended the meetings with her, whose husband disapproved of his wife’s involvement.

       He shoved his chair back and stood up. Yes. That would be the most likely source.

       He jerked open his office door in time to catch Stanley putting on his derby. “Stanley!”

       “Yes, sir?”

       “Hold on a minute. Before you go any further with your hunt for the man who attacked my cousin, I want to stop by my boardinghouse and check with her. I think I may have an easier way to find the culprit.”

       “Yes, sir!”

       Minutes later, Matt tapped briefly on Tess’s door and waited for Mrs. Hayes to admit him.

       The older woman was chuckling as she shut him in the room with Tess and herself.

       “Must have lit a fire under that pill pusher, Mr. Davis,” she mused, “because he treated herself here as if she were royalty. Looks better, don’t she?”

       Indeed, Tess did look better. She was still feverish, but she was conscious and seemed aware of her surroundings.

       “Matt,” she croaked, smiling through lips cracked with fever. “The doctor says my arm looks better. He put ten stitches in it this time.”

       “Did he?” Matt asked with a faint smile. “Feeling up to a question?”

       She nodded. Her lovely long blond hair was loose and hung over her shoulders like a cloud of gold. Matt stared at her appreciatively for a moment before he moved closer to the bed and looked down into her wan face.

       “That young woman who goes to meetings with you, who is she?”

       “You mean Nan?”

       “Yes.”

       “Her last name is Collier,” she said in a strained tone, wincing as she moved her sore arm. “Her husband, Dennis, is a telegraph clerk somewhere. Why do you ask?”

       She didn’t know that she’d given him the information he wanted, without his having to pry it out of her.

       “I wondered if you might like to have her visit you,” he said, lying through his teeth. “She’s the only real friend you’ve made since you came to Chicago.”

       “That’s nice of you, Matt,” she said. Her tongue felt almost too thick for speech. “But I don’t think her husband would like it. He’s very angry that she comes to our meetings, and forbids her to attend more than one a week. She has to sneak out if she comes to more than that. I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of her coming here.”

       Another wealth of information. He scowled as he saw her face contort.

       “It must hurt a lot,” he said.

       “My mouth is dry,” she replied. “Could I have some water, Mrs. Hayes?”

       “Certainly, dear. Here you go.”

       Matt took the cup from her with a smile. He lifted Tess’s head, his hand buried in that thick, silky blond hair, and he held the glass to her lips, watching them move weakly as she drank. Her hair felt soft, he thought, and her eyelashes were long and thick, too. Under them, her pale green eyes were the color of the leaves on the cottonwoods early in spring.

       “Had enough?” he asked.

       “Yes, thanks.” She smiled up at him, but the look in his eyes froze the smile. She couldn’t look away. Even in her weakened condition, Matt at close range was overwhelmingly attractive to her.

       His face filling her eyes, his breath on her mouth, he eased her very slowly down onto the pillow. His eyes were black and unblinking. He hesitated there, the glass forgotten in his hand, as he searched Tess’s soft, shocked eyes.

       “Mind that glass, Mr. Davis,” Mrs. Hayes murmured as she searched for her knitting needles. “I’ve already spilled one glass of water over her this morning and had to air the bedclothes.”

       He stood up abruptly, putting the glass down on the bedside table with too much deliberation. “She does look better,” he said after a minute. His voice sounded hoarse. Tess’s heartbeat was visible at her throat.

       “I told you so.” Mrs. Hayes chuckled. She took out her yarn and sat down in the rocking chair beside the bed. “Mrs. Mulhaney is fixing some nice chicken dumplings for supper this evening. Tess said she thinks she can eat something today.”

       “Not too much,” Matt cautioned. “She’s still pretty frail.”

       Tess smiled at him, all the fight gone out of her as the fever fluctuated. “Thanks for coming home to see about me,” she said. “When I get better, can I borrow your knife?”

       The unexpected question threw him off balance. “Why?”

       “I want to have a conversation with the man who cut me,” she murmured weakly. “You can hold him while I talk to him with your…your knife in my hand.”

       “Tess, I’m shocked!” he lied.

       She chuckled weakly and closed her eyes. “Isn’t he lucky…that I was on the ground and helpless?” she asked wearily. “I still remember how to throw people. You taught me, remember?” She murmured softly in Sioux and Matt smiled.

       “There she goes, babbling again,” Mrs. Hayes said with a sigh, having failed to recognize that Tess was speaking another language.

       Tess had reminded Matt that he’d once taught her how to throw him, unbeknownst to her father, who would have thought the close physical contact between them indecent.

       “I never babble,” Tess denied with a sleepy chuckle. “Do I, Cousin Matt?”

       “Only when you’re recovering from sword wounds,” he said dryly. He pulled out his watch, checked the time and slid it back into the watch pocket of his silk vest. “I’d better get back to work. I’ve used up my lunch break,” he added, leading the women away from the real reason for his presence. “I’ll check on you later, Tess. Take care.”

       He smiled at Mrs. Hayes, put his hat back on and closed the door behind him.

       “He’s a fine figure of a man,” Mrs. Hayes remarked as she began to cast on stitches for the woolly cap she was knitting. “Good to have around in an emergency, and that’s for sure.”

       “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Tess was still feeling the heat of that look he’d given her, and even in retrospect it was exciting. Matt was like a volcano. Only a very little fire escaped until an eruption was imminent. She wondered what violent passions he hid behind that calm face, and colored as she realized the track of her errant thoughts.

       Mrs. Hayes glanced at her patient, put her wool aside, and stood up. “You’re flushed again. I’ll wet some more cloths. Poor child, you’ve had a terrible time of it.”

       “I feel more fit, though,” Tess assured her companion. “Tomorrow, if the fever goes down, I’d

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