by Marla Monroe
“Do you want your Danish now or later?” He grinned at her.
“Mmm, now. I might as well eat if I can’t shower.”
Jayson grabbed a Danish on a small plate and brought it to her. She licked her lips and jerked. She’d once again forgotten about her split lip.
“Careful, baby. That’s bound to hurt for a while.”
“No kidding.” She took a bite of Danish and grinned. It was delicious.
The bathroom door opened and Joshua stepped out fully dressed. He glanced over her way and frowned.
“I thought we were going to let her sleep for a while longer.”
“She was already awake when I got back.”
“Finish your Danish and jump in the shower. We’ll get an early start home.”
“I’m going to hate leaving. We’ve really had a good time here, at least I have.”
“We can do it again sometime, baby. Or we could go somewhere like Salt Lake City.”
Joshua walked over and sat next to Haley. She leaned her head on his shoulder for a minute then took the last bite of her pastry before standing up and heading for the bathroom.
“It shouldn’t take me long, guys.” She closed the door and turned on the shower, adjusting the temperature before she got in.
Fifteen minutes later, she was out and drying off. She used the hair dryer on her hair and once she had it almost dry, she decided that it was enough that she wouldn’t catch cold from having a wet head. Once she had dressed, they began packing up. Joshua and Jayson took a load downstairs to stow in the truck. When they returned, Haley was ready and waiting for them.
“Let’s go, baby girl. We have a little trip to make. Anything you want to look at before we leave?”
“Nope. I’m ready whenever you are.” The men ushered her out the door then made sure it closed and locked behind them.
“We don’t have to check out. I’ve already done it.” Jayson led the way across the lobby to the front door. He had the truck pulled around in the circular drive.
They helped her up into the truck before joining her. Joshua pulled out of the parking lot and they headed toward home. Haley was sad to be leaving, but at the same time, glad to be going home. She had a lot to think about. Between realizing she’d fallen in love with them and wondering how a ménage relationship would work, she was a little overwhelmed. The bad thing was that they were eventually going to expect her to move in with them soon. She’d heard the hints and little innuendos.
They talked about their trip all the way back home. They pulled up outside her house and climbed out to help her with her things. After putting everything in her bedroom so she could unpack it, the guys suggested running to the diner for lunch.
“I really need to unpack and get ready for work tomorrow, guys.”
“You have to eat lunch. We promise to leave right after lunch,” Jayson said.
Haley sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay. But you leave after that. I’ve got too much to do.”
They ushered her back out to the truck and headed for the diner. Thirty minutes later, they were eating when Matt walked into the building. He zeroed in on Haley. She watched him headed her way and groaned.
Jayson followed her line of vision and immediately stood up. Joshua actually growled and stood up.
“Guys, don’t cause a scene. He won’t do anything with you two here. Just let him vent and leave.”
“Matt, you aren’t supposed to be anywhere near Haley. Get out of here.” Jayson wasn’t listening to her.
“She belongs to me. You two are corrupting her. You’ve turned her into a slut.”
Joshua took a step toward him, but Jayson put a restraining hand on his arm.
“Matt, I don’t belong to you and never did. That was the entire problem with you. You tried to own me. I’m my own person and don’t belong to anyone but me.” Haley hoped he would leave now. He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving.
“Just stop seeing these two and maybe people won’t be talking behind your back about how you’re fucking two men.”
“That’s enough, Matt.” Joshua walked over and grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the door.
About that time, the sheriff walked in and frowned. “What’s going on?”
“Haley has a restraining order against Matt, but the damn asshole keeps bothering her.”
Jayson spoke up. “We’re almost finished with our meal. We’ll be out of the way in a few minutes.”
“Take your time. Matt is going down to the station with me. We have some things to talk about. Like how a restraining order works and what it means.”
Haley sighed and drank her iced tea, wishing it was a beer. She hated making a scene, and Matt had succeeded in causing one. People were looking at them with curiosity. She wondered how many of them would judge her now.
“Joshua, I’m finished. Can we go?”
“Sure, baby. Jayson, let’s go.” He stood up and helped her out of her chair.
Joshua ushered her out of the diner while Jayson paid the tab. On the way home, they each held one of her hands in theirs. When they pulled in her drive, she hoped to get inside without them saying anything, but she wasn’t so lucky.
“Don’t take anything he said seriously, baby.” Joshua clearly knew that she would.
“He’s crazy, Haley.” Jayson squeezed her hand.
“I don’t know what to think, guys. I know he’s delusional, but am I crazy for wanting to be with both of you?”
They both gave her an emphatic, “No!”
“I really need to go, guys. I have a lot of unpacking to do.” She needed some space and to get ready mentally as well as physically for work the next day.
Jayson climbed out of the truck and reached to help her down. She accepted his help, and then walked into the house since Joshua had unlocked her door. She turned and smiled at the two men.
“I’ll see you later.” Jayson pulled her in for a brief kiss.
“We’ll call you.” Joshua kissed her lightly on the lips then placed another little kiss on her nose.
“Good-bye, guys.” She felt as if she was saying good-bye to them forever. It felt wrong.
* * * *
The following week passed by fast to Joshua. He was surprised since he wanted to see Haley so badly. Jayson thought the same thing, but then he was working with the hands out on the ranch. Joshua worked primarily in the office, handling the paperwork for their breeding and ranch accounts.
They called and talked to her most nights, but they hadn’t talked to her Thursday night, and today was Friday. They had wanted to take her out. Maybe it would work out better to take her out Saturday night since she did her errands and such on Saturday. They would have brought her home with them, and then she would have been fussy about her errands. No, Saturday night would probably be best. Jayson would be disappointed.
He thought about calling her at work and asking her then. He decided to wait and talk to Jayson about it at lunch. They needed to make decisions together where she was concerned.
He worried that she was pulling away from them. She sounded different over the phone and that bothered him. She was probably taking things Matt said to heart, and he didn’t want that to happen. Somehow they had to convince her that no one would think any less of her for loving both of them.
Lunchtime found Jayson walking in the door about the same time that Joshua finished up the sandwiches for them.
“How’s it going out there?”
“Good. The cattle are looking healthy and sticking around the north pasture on their own. I like that. No chasing strays.”
“You know Haley does her chores on Saturdays. I’m thinking we should wait to take her out until Saturday night so if we bring her back here for the night, she won’t be in a rush to get home and work on them. What do you think?”
“I really hate not seeing her tonight, but you’re probably right. She would be in a better mood that way, too. She’s seemed really distant on the phone.
Have you noticed that?”
“Yeah. I’m worried we’re losing her.”
“Not going to happen,” Jayson said. “I refuse to let her go.”
“We can’t force her, Jayson.” Joshua prayed it wouldn’t come down to anything like that.
“I know. But we can still pursue her until the cows come home.”
Joshua sighed. He knew Jayson was going to be stubborn. He could be, too, but he also knew when things were out of their hands.
“So, are you calling her at work or do I need to?” Jayson asked.
“I’m going to call her after lunch. I wanted to give her time to get back and I don’t know what time she took her lunch. She usually takes it whenever she finishes what she is doing, so it could be most anytime.”
“Call me when you finish talking to her. I want to know what she said.”
They finished eating, and Jayson got up to head back out. He turned and looked straight at Joshua.
“I’m not letting her go. I don’t think I’d survive without her, Joshua.” Then he walked outside, closing the door softly behind him.
Joshua ran a hand through his hair. What in the hell was he going to do?
Glancing at the clock, he figured that with it being twelve thirty, he’d give Haley till one thirty before he called her. He’d called her before at the office, but it had been when they had been friends, not lovers. He wasn’t sure how she was going to react to his calling now. It would hurt if she didn’t want to talk to him while she was at work.
Damn Matt and his crazy ass. Since Haley had already had reservations, Matt and that woman at the bar were stacking the deck against him and Jayson. They needed to spend more time with her to keep her close to them. He just wasn’t sure how to work it.
The clock struck one thirty while he was finishing up some banking paperwork. He set it aside and reached for his cell phone. This was it. He would know how she felt about them with this one phone call. He dialed the number and waited for her to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey, baby girl. How are you doing today?”
“Hi, Joshua. I’m fine. Busy, but it seems like I always am nowadays. How’s Jayson?”
“He’s fine, missing you. I miss you, too.”
There was dead silence on the other end. “I miss you both.” Her voice was almost in a whisper.
“I know you’re busy doing chores and running errands tomorrow, so we figured asking you out on a Friday night isn’t a good time for you. What about Saturday night? Would you go get something to eat with us, and then maybe go to the bar?”
Once again she hesitated. “Sure, that would be nice.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief. He had truly thought she would decline. Why he thought that, he wasn’t sure. Maybe because of the way she kept hesitating. Why was she doing that?
“Baby, is something wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I–I haven’t been sleeping well. Just nervous for some reason. I’m planning on going to bed early tonight, so maybe I can catch up on my sleep.”
“I’ll let you go, baby girl. You rest tonight, and we’ll pick you up tomorrow about six. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine. I’ll see you then.”
Joshua hit end on the cell phone then punched in a one for Jayson’s number on speed dial.
“Hello?”
“I talked to her and she agreed to go out with us on Saturday night.”
“But?”
Joshua hesitated. “She doesn’t sound right, Jayson. She sounds like she’s pulling away for sure. We’ve got to really work on her Saturday night.”
“I plan on it. I’ll do anything it takes to make her see that she belongs with us.”
“We’ll talk about it some more tonight.”
“Bye.”
They both disconnected. Joshua sighed. He didn’t have a good feeling where Haley was concerned. Something didn’t feel right. He prayed she wasn’t going to tell them to leave her alone Saturday night. He didn’t think he would be able to control Jayson if she did.
Chapter Seventeen
Haley was late getting off work. That was unusual for a Friday. Not so unusual for a weekday, but for a Friday, it was. She had received a last-minute research project that her boss needed right away for a case that was scheduled for the following Monday. She’d dug up the information he needed, but it had taken several hours and now it was nearly 7:00 p.m. She had planned to pick up her dry cleaning on her way home instead of waiting for Saturday. Now it was too late. They were closed.
Climbing into her SUV, she pulled out onto the road and headed toward home. The entire time she was driving, she was thinking about what she was going to do about Jayson and Joshua. She’d slowly begun to think that the best thing they could do was to stop seeing each other as lovers. Maybe over time, they could return to their friendship, but it would never be the same.
She made it home without really thinking about it, having driven on autopilot while she worked out what to do about their relationship. She got out of the car and headed toward her house with her key out and ready to unlock the door.
Something hit her on the back of the head and she blacked out.
* * * *
A sudden jarring that had her head hitting against something brought her around. She was disoriented and her head was throbbing. Had she fallen? She tried to open her eyes and realized she was blindfolded. She hadn’t fallen. Someone had hit her. How long had she been unconscious? She wiggled and found that her hands were taped behind her back, and her ankles were taped as well.
The first thing she thought about was that Joshua and Jayson would be worried when she didn’t answer her door the next day. The next thing she thought about was that, that was the least of her problems. She’d been kidnapped, and no one would miss her until six o’clock.
She took stock of her situation. She was obviously in a moving vehicle. She tried to sit up but didn’t get very far until she bumped her head on something. That meant she was in the trunk of a car. She knew there was a child release in most cars now. She would search around and find it. Once she found it she could probably use her mouth to release the catch.
She searched around, completely blind, looking for a latch. She finally gave up when she had been all around the car three times trying to locate it and didn’t find it. Either they had disengaged it or the car never had one. Her next thought was that she could bust out the taillight and stick something through it. Hadn’t she seen that in a movie before?
The taillights were hard to find with her hands tied behind her back, but finally she located one set and turned around and began to kick her feet at them. She felt things crunch, but she had no way of knowing if she had broken the light out or not. She swirled back around over all sorts of obtrusive things that scraped, poked, and bruised her. The good thing was that it scraped the blindfold off and she could make out a little light.
Haley backed her hands up to where she felt broken pieces and began to push anything she could find through the broken area. She still didn’t know if it was actually going anywhere.
The car lurched to a stop. Panic set in. Where was she and what was going to happen next? The sound of footsteps shot her heartbeat into overdrive. She remained completely still in hopes that whoever it was would leave her alone.
The footsteps grew closer then there was a loud curse and the trunk flew open. It was dark outside, but the man had a flashlight and shined it in her eyes. She was temporarily blinded, so she didn’t see the hand that came at her. The slap caught her by surprise.
“You broke my taillight, bitch.”
“Matt? What in the hell are you doing?”
“I told you that you were mine. Now shut up.” He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to a sitting position. Then he picked her up with a grunt and threw her over his shoulder.
“You’re going to get into so much trouble if you don’t let me go, Matt.”
“I said shut the fuck up!”
He hit her on her ass hard enough that she yelped.
She struggled to figure out where they were, but she couldn’t see anything but inky blackness. She had no idea how long they had been driving either. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours.
Matt stopped and struggled with something then stepped inside of a building. She tried to see where it was, but once again, the darkness swallowed everything so that she couldn’t tell where she was.
Her ex-boyfriend slammed the door behind him and felt along the wall for something. Evidently it was a light switch because the room was suddenly lit by a single hanging lightbulb in the center. She strained around to see what else she could see. There were two other doors in the room. On one side there was a sink, an old gas stove, and a table with one chair. On the other side, there was an old, nasty-looking couch and a straight-back chair.
Matt swung her around and headed for one of the doors. She struggled trying to overbalance him, but he just hauled back and hit her on the ass again.
“You’re making things harder on yourself, Haley. You’re mine now. I can do anything I want to you, and I have all sorts of ideas.”
He bumped the door open and walked further into the room. Then he dumped her on the floor. Well, it was a mattress on the floor, but either way, it hurt.
“You’re crazy, Matt. They’ll find you and put you in jail. You can let me go now and it won’t be so bad.”
“They can’t prove that I’ve done anything. It will be Monday before anyone even knows that you’re missing. No one will notice that you weren’t doing your usual things on Saturday. By the time they realize it, they won’t know where to look.”
“They’re going to be looking at you, Matt. You have motive and have been bothering me for the last month.”
“But they can’t prove it because you aren’t there to tell them anything. They’ll never find you here. It’s not connected to me at all. It’s an old abandoned hunting cabin that I’ve been watching for quite a while now. No one comes out here at all, so don’t think you can call for help.”
He turned to go and Haley struck out with her feet, hitting his ankle and causing him to fall to his knees. He turned around and backhanded her. Haley saw stars this time and had to fight to remain conscious.