The Savage Heart

“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 like to get up a little, so that I won’t be so weak.” She smiled ruefully. “After all, I have to earn my living.”

Mrs. Hayes put another cool cloth on Tess’s forehead. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Tess murmured.

“Why have you never married? Surely you’ve had many chances.”

“I’ve had one, but from a man for whom I had no respect, none at all,” she added, recalling the cavalryman in Montana with his studied arrogance and persistence. “I should have stayed single forever rather than marry such a bounder.”

“Wise girl. I married for love, but I was one of the lucky ones. My husband and I have three children living, out of the ten that I birthed.” She sat back down and concentrated on her knitting. “We’ve had hard times, but we always had each other when things got bad.” She smiled at Tess. “I don’t suppose you and Mr. Davis…?”

“Matt is my cousin,” Tess said evasively, and closed her eyes. She didn’t like remembering Matt’s views on marriage, as well as the mixing of races.

All the same, it was hard to put out of her mind the look in Matt’s black eyes when he came close to her. He was attracted to her; she knew that. But a man could be attracted and still not love. Physical attraction alone was never enough. She loved him. Nothing short of a love as powerful as her own being reciprocated would be enough. Tess closed her eyes. She might as well try to sleep. Lamenting the future was fruitless.

She concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. Minutes later she drifted off into a restless sleep.

MATT VISITED FIVE TELEGRAPH offices before he found one with a clerk named Collier. He wrote a telegraph to one of his operatives whom he’d dispatched to an outlying town, mentioning that his cousin Tess Meredith had been wounded by an unknown assailant and that he wouldn’t be in the office for two days, and instructing the man to contact Senior Agent Riley Blair if he needed assistance before Thursday. Then he signed his name.