Page 79 of Inventions of the Heart

“You’ll still be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Zane never let go of her hand.

Which Michelle took to mean yes.

“There are no broken bones,” the doctor said.

“He draped me over his saddle. The saddle horn gouged me.”

He’d inspected her belly by unbuttoning the fewest possible buttons on her shirtwaist. “Nothing seems to be injured internally, though your stomach is bruised.”

Michelle didn’t like that idea much, but she was vain enough that the black eye bothered her more.

“With a fall like that, added to the blow to your face, you probably have a concussion.”

“I’m not seeing double. Except for the fall, my memory of what happened is solid. No nausea. It’s hard to judge dizziness when I’m flat on my back, but my thoughts are clear. If it’s a concussion, it’s a mild one.”

The doctor looked startled. “Are you a doctor, Mrs. Hart?”

“Michelle performed surgery to remove two bullets from my brother-in-law.” Zane kept holding her hand, kept watching every flicker of her eyes, every movement of her mouth. “And one bullet from my sister.”

“Oh, well, my goodness, youarea doctor then?”

“No, though I have studied anatomy, and I once watched and briefly assisted Professor Othniel Marsh assemble a pterosaur skeleton.”

“What?” It was Zane’s turn to look surprised.

“Papa liked to bring in tutors,” Michelle said. “I’ve had a few other classes that helped.”

“And how did it go? How is your brother-in-law?”

“He’s dead,” Zane said it absently. Maybe he didn’t quite know that he wasn’t complimenting her skills.

The doctor’s brows rose behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Michelle would have glared at Zane, but she supposed that would hurt, too. “The man’s situation was very serious. I wasn’t able to save him from two abdominal bullet wounds. No one could have.”

“You’re exactly right.” The doctor patted her on the hand. “Stay calm. I’ve got a cool cloth I want to rest over the right side of your face. The bleeding has stopped, but you’re going to be very bruised.”

Black eye. She knew it. And no, no, shewasn’ta vain woman. Heaven knew she dressed for comfort, and her main interest in her hair was keeping it out of her experiments. But surely this was a level of ugly over which no woman would be other than dismayed.

Jarvis deserved at least one good punch. She had a lot of aches and pains, but her fists were feeling just fine.

“If it helps, Mrs. Hart,” the sheriff said, “there’s a bite on Jarvis’s leg that would need medical attention if I didn’t plan to hang him before he could heal up.”

“It does help a little.”

The sheriff stood at the foot of her bed, his hat in his hands. “You can’t kidnap and batter a woman in California and expect to get away with it.”

Michelle didn’t bother to mention Jarvis had done so before, just recently.

“And you sure as certain can’t steal a horse.” The sheriff sounded more upset over the horse thieving than her getting kidnapped and punched.

“Does that hanging rule count if you get the horse back right away?” Michelle had studied the law, but mainly as it pertained to business. And anyway, her thinking was a little muddled. Maybe shedidhave a concussion.

“If they don’t hang him, they’ll send him straight to San Quentin. His pa isn’t going to be able to clean it up. Not this time.”

She relaxed, and let the cool cloth ease a bit of her pain while the doctor brewed her some concoction and served it to her as a tea.

When she felt able, she sat up and said, “Let’s go see Jarvis.”

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