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Realization hit him like a kick by a mule. He’d almost smothered her with the force of his grip. His face grim, vicious curses coming from between his tightly clenched teeth, he laid her back on the floor as gently as possible and stretched out his leg so he could get his knife out of his pocket. Her eyes widened as he snapped the blade open and began slicing through the pullover sweater she wore under the coat. Beneath the sweater was a shirt, but it buttoned down the front and therefore escaped being cut off. When her torso was bare he bagan carefully feeling her ribs, his face intent as he searched for any sign of give, his eyes locked on her face to see the least hint of discomfort. She flinched several times, but the ribs felt all right. Her pale skin was already becoming discolored with bruises.
“I almost killed you,” he said harshly as he lifted her in his arms and got to his feet.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she managed to say.
He gave her a violent look. “You were unconscious.” He carried her up the stairs and to their bedroom, where he laid her on the bed. He shrugged out of his own coat and let it fall to the floor; then he very gently but implacably stripped her of every stitch and exa
mined her from head to toe. Except for the bruising across her ribs, she was fine. He bent his head and brushed his lips across the dark band as if he would absorb the pain.
Madelyn put her hand on his hair, threading her fingers through the dark strands. “Reese, I’m okay, I promise.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll put a cold compress on it to stop the bruising from getting any worse.”
She made a disbelieving sound. “Trust me, I can’t just lie here and let you put an ice bag on my side! You know how ice down your shirt feels, and besides, I’m cold. I’d rather have a cup of hot chocolate, or coffee.”
The strength of her tone reassured him, and another critical look told him that the color was coming back into her face. She sat up, rather gingerly holding her side but without any real pain, and gave him a wifely survey. “You’re soaking wet from riding in that blizzard. You need to get out of those clothes, and then we’ll both have something hot to drink.”
She got dry clothes out for both Reese and herself and began dressing while he stripped and toweled off. She looked at her ruined sweater with disbelief, then tossed it into the trash. Reese saw her expression and smiled faintly. “I didn’t want to move you any more than I had to until I knew what was wrong,” he explained, rubbing a towel over his shoulders.
“Actually, I was a little relieved when the sweater was all you cut. For a split second I was afraid you were going to do a tracheotomy.”
“You were talking and breathing, so I ruled that out. I’ve done one before, though.”
“You’ve actually taken your pocketknife and cut someone’s throat open?” she demanded incredulously, her voice rising.
“I had to. One of the hands got kicked in the throat, and he was choking to death. I slit his trachea and held it open with my finger until someone brought a drinking straw to insert for him to breathe through. We got him to a hospital, they put in a regular trach tube until the swelling went down enough for him to breathe again, and he did just fine.”
“How did you know what to do?”
“Every rancher absorbs a lot of medical knowledge just in the ordinary workday. I’ve set broken bones, sewn up cuts, given injections. It’s a rough life, sweetheart.” His face darkened as he said it. It had almost been too rough for her. He could so easily have crushed her ribs.
He pulled on the dry underwear and jeans she had put out for him, watching as she brushed her hair and swung it back over her shoulder with a practiced toss of her head, every movement as graceful as a ballet. How could she still look elegant after what she’d been through? How could she be so casual about it? He was still shaking.
When she started past him on the way downstairs, he caught her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him for a long minute with his cheek resting on top of her pale hair. Madelyn circled his waist with her arms and let herself revel in his closeness; he was home, and he was all right. Nothing was said, because nothing needed saying. It was enough just to hold each other.
Reese paced the house that day like a restless cougar, periodically looking out the window to monitor the weather. He tried a radio station, but nothing came through the static. Around dusk the electricity went off, and he built a roaring fire in the fireplace, then put one of the kerosene heaters in the kitchen. Madelyn lit candles and lamps, and thanked the stars that the water heater and stove were gas-operated.
They ate soup and sandwiches by candlelight, then brought down quilts and blankets and pillows to sleep in front of the fireplace. They sat on their bed of quilts with their backs resting against the front of the couch and their legs stretched toward the fire. Madelyn’s head was on his shoulder. He could almost hear her mind working as she stared at the fire, and he decided he might as well get it started before she did. “A flag with a swallow-tail end is called a burgee.”
She gave him a quick look of delight. “The small flag carried in front or to the right of marchers to guide them is called a guidon.”
“You want to do flags? Okay, we’ll do flags. The study of flags is called vexillology.”
“The United States flag has seven red stripes and six white.”
“That one’s so easy it’s cheating.”
“A fact is a fact. Carry on.”
“Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world.”
“Cleopatra was Macedonian, not Egyptian.”
They played the game for several more minutes, laughing at the more ridiculous items they pulled out. Then they got a deck of cards and played strip poker, which wasn’t much of a challenge, since she was wearing only his shirt and a pair of socks, and he was wearing only jeans. Once she had him naked, she lost interest in playing cards and moved on to a more rewarding occupation. With flame-burnished skin they moved together and for a long while forgot about the swirling white storm that enveloped them.
The blizzard conditions had subsided by the next morning, though deep drifts had been piled up by the wind. The electricity came back on, and the weather report predicted slowly moderating temperatures. Reese checked on the herd and found that the cattle had withstood the storm in good condition; he lost only one calf, which had gotten lost from its mother. He found the little animal lying in a snowbank, while its mother bawled mournfully, calling it.
They had been lucky this time. He looked up at the gray sky, where patches of blue were just starting to show through. All he needed was a mild winter, or at least one where the bad spells didn’t last long enough to endanger the herd.
