by Marla Monroe
The two physicians looked at each other then nodded their heads.
“Since she is doing so well, it is as good a time as any. You do realize that she could ban you from her hospital room. The hospital would have no choice but to honor her wishes,” the neonatologist warned them.
“Damn, I didn’t think about that,” Randall said. “She doesn’t have anyone else to see about her.”
“Randall, we don’t have a choice. She’s going to remember if we don’t tell her. It’s just a matter of time now.”
Marcus waited until Randall nodded his head in ascension. The two doctors shrugged and after shaking hands all around, walked further down the hall.
Marcus turned and headed back to Darla’s room. Randall caught up with him and stopped him.
“We’re in agreement that we tell her as soon as our parents leave this afternoon.”
Marcus nodded. “We’ll have to hope and pray she doesn’t throw us out. I honestly don’t even want to contemplate our lives without her in it.”
Randall knocked once on the door, then pushed it open. Darla was sitting in the lounge chair by the window. There wasn’t much to look at outside other than piles of snow and the back of another building. She didn’t seem to mind. Marcus could tell she was excited by the radiant smile on her face.
“Did they tell you? I can leave in a couple of days,” she exclaimed. “I’m so excited. I’m tired of being cooped up in this place.”
“That’s great, baby,” Randall said.
Marcus leaned down and gave her a warm kiss then watched and Randall did the same thing. Would it be the last time they got to touch her? He felt sick at the idea. He swallowed and stepped behind her to give her good shoulder a squeeze.
“Our parents should be here directly after lunch,” Randall was saying. “They won’t stay long. They don’t want to tire you out on your first real day out of the unit.”
“I can’t wait to meet them. I’m still not sure how this works. I mean, marrying two men? I mean, it’s not legal is it?” Her face wrinkled in confusion.
“Legally, you marry Randall because he is the oldest, but in a private ceremony we all exchange vows. It’s binding to us,” Marcus assured her.
“You can talk to Mom about it. She’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Randall added.
“Lunch should be here soon. You’re going to eat every bite of it, too.” Randall frowned at her when she pursed her lips and made a face.
This was what he wanted for their family, teasing and smiles and passion. He worried it was all about to come down around their ears. Tonight would decide everything. If she could forgive them, they had a lot of making up to do. If she didn’t forgive them… He couldn’t even finish the thought.
* * * *
Their parents showed up at one p.m. on the dot. Randall introduced them to Darla. His mom immediately took over and kept everything from getting out of hand.
“There are four too many men in here if you ask me,” she said with a wink at Darla.
Darla wasn’t sure what to make of all of them. They all truly seemed to be happy. She liked both of the fathers. They each leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek before hustling Randall and Marcus out of the room.
“Give them some girl time, boys,” Jim said as he closed the door behind them.
“How do you handle having two of them?” She burst out before she thought about it. “Oh.” She covered her mouth with her hand embarrassed that she’d asked the question.
“Call me Ann. Sometimes I could throw them off a cliff, but I wouldn’t really. You learn to temper their testosterone with your estrogen. Guilting them into things is one way, and treating them like the little boys they can be is another.”
She patted Darla’s hand and sat back in the chair. “I raised them to be good men, and I think they turned out okay, but men make mistakes thinking they are doing what’s best for their women. I’ve learned to forgive and overlook what I can and throw a hellacious fit when I can’t.”
“How did you know you loved them both? I mean, is it natural to be able to love both men equally?” Darla asked.
“You don’t love them equally, Darla. You love them differently. Jim is my anchor in a storm. He is dependable and will always catch me if I fall. Sam is the storm.” She laughed. “He whirls through and jumbles things up. There’s never a dull moment in our house.”
Darla drew in a deep breath and tried to relax. Something still niggled at her though. For the life of her, she couldn’t grasp the thread to follow it. Everything was still too new to her. She was having to get her bearings all over again.
“Darla, anytime you need to talk, I’m here. Just call me or come over.” She laughed again. “Of course, one of the boys will insist on driving you. Usually Jim drives me where I want to go.
“Don’t you find it stifling to have someone with you all the time?” Darla asked.
“Oh, God, yes. I have my own little room where I do my quilting, and they are not allowed in it for any reason. If I’m in there with the door closed, they are to stay away unless the house or the barn is on fire.” She patted Darla’s hand. “Give yourself time. You weren’t raised in a ménage family. I was.”
Darla let it all sink in. She’d have to think about it all when she was by herself…if she ever was again. That thought brought a smile to her face.
They continued chatting until the men returned with offerings of Diet Cokes, candy bars, and chips.
“Goodness, where did you get all of this?” Darla asked.
“We ran to the corner market. We figured you would want something besides hospital food now that you are up and around. Nothing like junk food to make you feel better,” Marcus said.
Randall opened the Diet Coke for her and handed it back.
“We better get going,” Sam told them. “Darla needs her rest. We can come back again.”
“I enjoyed your visit,” Darla told them with a smile.
She’d really enjoyed her chat with Ann. She knew they could become good friends and maybe coconspirators. She smiled through all the careful hugs and well wishes. Finally, the little group walked out the door with the promise to return. The silence in the room was deafening. Randall and Marcus had gone to walk them out. They would be back soon, and there would be that unease that had pestered her ever since she’d awakened.
She would ask them point blank tonight why she had been alone in her car driving in the snow. She was sure there would be a reason, and she wouldn’t like it. What would it mean to them as a possible family? She heard a commotion outside the door then it opened and Marcus and Randall walked in.
“What’s going on, you two?” she asked.
Both men looked guilty as hell of something. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know after all. When Randall pulled up the straight chair and took a seat. He looked over at Marcus who remained standing.
“Darla, we need to confess something that we are very sorry for,” he began.
“Is this why I was running away? I was running away, wasn’t I?” she said.
Both men looked at her and nodded their heads. She swallowed around the lump that suddenly blocked her throat. This was it.
Randall took her hand in both of his. “We love you more than anything, Darla. What we did was wrong, but we did it for the right reasons. We wanted you to stay with us as our wife and were afraid you would eventually leave.”
“What did you do?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“We had you investigated.” Randall hurried on. “I thought you were running from something or someone, and we wanted to help you. We were afraid you would leave again if whatever it was happened again.”
Darla gasped. They’d lied to her. No wonder she’d run away. She could handle a lot of things, but after what her ex-fiancé had done, she couldn’t tolerate lies. Even by omission.
Then a thought hit her as her memory began to return. She touched a hand to her belly and looked up.
&nb
sp; “Yes, you’re pregnant.” Randall confirmed.
“Is the baby okay?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“They think so. It’s too small for them to tell much, but all the tests have come back positive,” Marcus supplied.
Randall recaptured the hand she’d snatched away when she realized they had lied to her. She didn’t fight him, but let him hold her hand.
“Please forgive us, baby. We screwed up big time. I know that,” Randall begged.
Marcus swallowed hard enough that she heard it. He opened his mouth to speak then closed it and turned around, jamming his hands in his pockets. He spoke with his back to her.
“Darla, I’m so sorry. We only wanted to help if you needed it. We weren’t trying to be nosy really. I’m so sorry.”
Randall shook his head and bent over the hand that he still held to kiss her knuckles. Darla didn’t know what to do or think. How could she trust them when they had lied to her? What sort of life would they have if she was forever doubting them? She closed her eyes.
“I need some time to think. I’m so angry with both of you. I’m not sure what to say.”
“What can we do to convince you how sorry we are?” Randall asked.
Darla just looked at him and shook her head. “I don’t know if there is anything that can accomplish that right now. I need to be alone to think.” She closed her eyes. “Leave. I don’t want to see either of you right now.”
She opened her eyes as they closed the door behind them. She felt all alone now. She pressed her hand on her abdomen. No, not alone anymore. She had a baby to think of. She couldn’t make a decision based on her wants and needs. What mattered now was what was best for the baby. She rubbed a circle around her abdomen and wondered if it were a girl or a boy. She sighed. She didn’t even know who the father was, but did that really matter in the whole scheme of things?
Chapter Seventeen
“She hates us,” Marcus said as they climbed into Randall’s truck.
“Maybe not. She didn’t say she never wanted to see us again. She just said right now.”
“What are we going to do?” Marcus ran a hand over his face.
Everything was lost as far as he was concerned. If she rejected them and left, taking the baby with her, Marcus wasn’t sure what he would do. She had become everything to him and now their child… He shook his head and looked out the side window as Randall drove them to who knows where.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Randall snapped. “We don’t know anything yet. She has to think about it. Remember, she just woke up from being unconscious for nearly two weeks. Then we spring this on her, and she’s overwhelmed.” Randall maneuvered the big truck easily through traffic.
“Yeah, you’re right. I just can’t get that look on her face out of my head. She looked as if we’d slapped her.”
Marcus couldn’t imagine she would ever forgive them. Randall might think so, but Marcus put himself in her shoes. If she had gone behind their back about something so major, he would have blown a gasket. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to ever forgive her for that. So how was he to expect she would forgive them?
Randall pulled into the little mom and pop motel and cut the engine. “We’ll stay here tonight and go back tomorrow and see if she will let us in.”
Marcus nodded in reply. If Randall could be optimistic, he guessed he could try.
They climbed out of the truck and walked into the office to get a room. Randall paid for one night in a room with two beds. He doubted he would get much sleep. He had too many things whirling around in his head. That was probably how she felt right then, too.
“Marcus, if she decides to leave us, we have to fight for our rights to see the child. You know that, don’t you?”
“You’d take her to court and go through all of that, put her through all of that?” Marcus asked.
Randall was silent for a few seconds. Finally, he shook his head.
“I guess not. We’re basically at her mercy when it comes to seeing our child. I wouldn’t put her through that, or drag a child through it for that matter.”
Marcus chose the bed closest to the door and stretched out on it. He wondered where they had gone wrong to begin with? Was it when they decided to place an ad for a housekeeper and cook when they were really looking for a wife? Probably. It had been a lie as well. She’d figured that out pretty quickly though. He just couldn’t for the life of him dredge up any hope. Randall might be optimistic, but he couldn’t see her forgiving them, just like that.
“I wonder what she and Mom talked about when they kicked us out,” Randall mused.
“Does it really matter?” Marcus asked, his temper beginning to get the best of him.
“It could matter. The dads told her what happened. Maybe she gave her some advice that will help us.”
“Yeah, and she’ll ream us a new one as soon as she has us alone. You hide and watch,” Marcus said.
“Don’t you think we deserve it?” Randall asked.
Marcus watched his brother pull off his boots and turn down the bed.
“Hell yeah, we deserve it, that and more. I still can’t believe we did it. What the fuck were we thinking?”
Randall shrugged. “We weren’t thinking with our brains, that’s for sure. We wanted her and wanted to make sure she didn’t leave us.”
“Get some sleep, Marcus. We’re going to need it. I need to go back to the ranch tomorrow, but I’m going to stick around and see if she will eventually see us.”
The dads said they would tend to the ranch for us,” Marcus reminded him.
“Right.”
Marcus could tell that Randall wasn’t as optimistic as he pretended to be. He was trying to cheer him up. No amount of cheering was going to work for him right now. He wanted to wallow in self-pity just for a little while. Then he had to work on a strategy for winning her love again. Only this time, he wouldn’t use deceit. He’d learned his lesson well.
* * * *
That night, Darla dreamed of living with Randall and Marcus. Their days were spent much the same way as before with her cooking and cleaning, only now, she tended to a child, as well. Their nights were spent in lovemaking. One minute soft and sensual, the next, hard and dirty. They kept her satisfied sexually and constantly told her they loved her. She was happy in the dream.
Despite the cheerful atmosphere, Darla worried about them lying to her again. They assured her they never would, but could she believe them? Every time she grew too quiet around them, they drew her into a sensual dance where the ultimate prize was to bring the other one to completion. It seemed like they always won.
Marcus would start with licking her earlobe and sucking it into his hot mouth. Randall would join in by licking her neck then nipping her chin and around her jaw to her other ear lobe. It drove her wild for them to play with her ears, and they knew it. They knew every erogenous zone on her body and touched each and every one with either their mouths or their fingers.
Randall moved from her earlobe to her mouth, taking his time to lick her lips then nip at her lower lip and suck it into his mouth. Marcus focused on her shoulder, nipping then licking the wound. She thought she would come before they even touched her sexually. It didn’t help when Randall ran a hand along her side and over her pelvis to tease her mound with his fingers. She kept waiting on him to touch her pussy, but he only teased.
A mouth closed around her nipple and sucked, while deft fingers worked her other nipple until she writhed on the bed needing more. Marcus knew how to make her come just by manipulating her breasts. He nipped at the nipple then licked it to soothe away the sting. Then he tickled the tip of her nipple with his tongue. He’d touch it with the tip then lick a circle around the areola before finally sucking it into his mouth. She thought she would die of ecstasy before they ever fucked her.
Once again Randall’s hand massaged her mound then dipped a finger between her pussy lips. He stroked all along the slit without entering her or touchin
g her clit. She moaned, willing him to touch her there. Still, he didn’t. Instead, he spread openmouthed kisses along her belly until he reached her aching cunt. God, she needed him. Right then he could have asked just about anything of her and she would have agreed just to come.
Marcus continued teasing and tormenting her aching breasts while Randall stretched between her legs and spread her pussy lips to give him room to work his magic tongue.
It all felt so real even though she knew she was dreaming. When he pushed a finger inside her, she called out his name. She nearly wept when he withdrew it only to plunge in two fingers and pumped them in and out of her.
All this time Marcus continued his assault on her defenseless breasts. His mouth, his fingers worked together to drive her insane. He pinched and pulled at her nipples until she felt the beginning of her climax. It spiraled up and up, pulling at her until she panted trying to catch her breath knowing that when she came, there would be no breathing.
As if they had choreographed it, Randall plunged three fingers inside of her and pinched her clit at the same time Marcus plucked at one nipple and bit the other one. She screamed her release until she was too hoarse to. Her breathing became jagged as she fought to draw in air. Her body continued to spasm even after they had stopped stimulating her. It was if it was caught in a cycle and couldn’t break it.
Randall placed a hand on her pelvis and pressed to ease the tremors inside of her. Darla slowly caught her breath as the men curled up around her. They didn’t expect her to take care of them. That would come later, she knew. For now, she basked in the afterglow and cuddled with the two of them.
Darla woke in the early hours of the morning aching for relief. How could she leave the two men who made her feel whole? Not just sexually, but as a human missing something in her life. Could she forgive them? Maybe one day. Could she leave them? Darla knew deep down in her heart she’d die if she did. They already held a piece of her in their hands. Leaving would mean missing out on a family, something she’d always wanted.