Cowboy's Triplet Trouble

by Carla Cassidy

  “Thank you,” Grace said, noticing that Bonnie was grinning and batting her eyelashes at Jake, obviously flirting as usual.

  “Now, what’s this I hear about a shooting taking place out here?” Sheriff Hicks asked as he looked at everyone standing around in the room.

  Jake gestured them all to chairs. Grace found herself on the sofa next to him, and the memory of being in his strong arms played in her head. She had never felt so safe in her entire life as she had in those moments with his arms wrapped around her and his heart beating next to her own. For a wistful moment she wanted that again, that feeling of safety while standing in his strong arms.

  “Grace and I were taking a walk outside when I got a phone call I needed to attend to in my study,” Jake began. “It was a supplier and I needed to order some things. I had the list on my desk.”

  Grace picked up the story. “Jake asked me to head inside with him, but I told him I wanted to walk a little bit more and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air.”

  As she told the sheriff about the gunshots her heart began to beat faster and her throat went achingly dry as she thought of those moments when she was so certain she was about to be killed. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.”

  “I had some of my men check out the area in the woods where the gunfire came from. Jimbo told me it looks as if somebody had a blanket out there and was hanging around, maybe camping or something.”

  “You haven’t seen anyone unusual around the place?” Hicks asked Jake.

  He shook his head. “Nobody.”

  “Anybody around here have a beef with you?” Sheriff Hicks asked Grace.

  “I don’t know anyone around here,” she replied. “I live in Wichita. This is my first time to the area, and I only just arrived yesterday.” She paused a moment and averted her gaze from Jake. “Of course, it could have been Justin. He wasn’t real happy to see me when I arrived here with his daughters.”

  Sheriff Hicks looked at her in surprise at the same time she heard Kerri gasp and felt Jake tense next to her in obvious protest.

  “I can’t imagine Justin doing anything like this,” Sheriff Hicks said dubiously, “but I’ll check it out. It’s probably more likely a drifter who thought you were getting too close to where he’d been camped.”

  Grace had a crazy image in her head of the Johnson family circling the wagons to protect one of their own against an intruder. And there was no question in her mind that she and her daughters were the intruders. No matter how nice these people had been to her, she was really on her own.

  “Justin wouldn’t do something like this,” Jake exclaimed as he leapt to his feet the moment Sheriff Hicks walked out the front door. “I know my brother, and he might be a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a cold-blooded killer.” He glared at Grace as his stomach churned with anxiety.

  “Well, I don’t know him,” she replied with strain in her voice. “Although I’ve certainly been trying to get to know him.” She raised her chin as she returned his glare. “I’d be a fool not to mention his name to the sheriff given what’s happened with him since I arrived here.”

  Bonnie crawled over to Jake and grabbed hold of his pants leg. She wobbled to her feet and raised her arms, obviously wanting to be picked up. Grace jumped off the sofa and hurried to the little girl, trying to wrangle her up in her arms one-handed. It was obvious from the awkwardness of her effort and the pain that spasmed across her face that her bad shoulder made it impossible.

  Jake bent down, picked the child up and drew a deep breath to steady himself. “Look, I know Justin has behaved badly, but there’s no way anyone can make me believe that he was out there in the woods trying to shoot you.” Bonnie grabbed his nose with one hand and patted his face with the other.

  He realized at that moment it was impossible to sustain any kind of anger with a ten-month-old giggling in your arms and squeezing your nose in delight. Besides, he wasn’t really angry at Grace, he was angry with Justin for putting himself in the position to even be a suspect in a shooting. He was livid that a guest at his home had been nearly killed by an unknown assailant.

  “Maybe you weren’t the specific target,” he finally said.

  She frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Maybe it’s just as Sheriff Hicks suggested. If it was a drifter or somebody who had set up some kind of makeshift camp, he might have shot at anyone he thought threatened his space.” It was a stretch and Jake knew it, but none of it made any sense as far as he was concerned. No matter how he stretched his imagination he couldn’t put this on his brother. Justin just couldn’t be responsible for this.

  “So what now?” Grace asked. There was something in her expression that told him she was taking a secret delight in the fact that Bonnie was now pulling the hairs in one of his eyebrows.

  “We wait and see what Sheriff Hicks can find out,” he replied. And personally he hoped to hell his brother had a good alibi for the time of the shooting.

  At that moment Grace’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and answered. “How did that happen?” she asked after a minute. The frown that had already ridden her forehead deepened. “Okay, whatever. There’s a credit card in the top drawer of my dresser underneath my camisoles. Take it and use it, but just for what you need and then put it back where you got it. Okay, yes, I love you, too.”

  Jake set Bonnie back on the floor, trying to dispel the thought of Grace in a camisole from his mind. The visual image that had instantly sprung into his head was as sexy as it was unwanted.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  She sighed. “Everything is as usual. My sister, Natalie, has a small trust fund and gets a monthly allowance, but somehow there’s always more month than there is money for her. Anyway, it’s taken care of for now.”

  “You didn’t tell her what happened.”

  “There’s no point in worrying her about all this. It’s not as if she can do anything about it from Wichita.” She released a sigh of obvious frustration. “Look, I didn’t mean to throw your brother under the bus, but, under the circumstances, it would have been foolish of me not to mention him.”

  Kerri and Jeffrey had drifted out of the room, as if not wanting to be caught in the middle of any argument that might be brewing between Jake and Grace.

  Jake didn’t want to argue. He sat in the chair across from her and released a weary sigh. The adrenaline that had pumped through him when he’d seen Grace pinned against the barn had disappeared, leaving him confused and upset about everything that had happened.

  “I know,” he replied. “And it was the right thing to do.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence between them. Once again his head filled with a vision of her in a sexy, silky red camisole. He was grateful when she broke the silence.

  “You know, it was a near-death experience that made me decide it was the right thing to do to find Justin in the first place,” she said.

  Jake looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink. “It probably doesn’t sound like much now, but two days before I left Wichita to come here, I was on my way home from the grocery store. It was after dark, and Natalie was watching the girls while they slept so I could make a fast run to get some milk and a few other items. Anyway, I was on the way home and a car forced me off the road. I went down an embankment and it was only by the grace of God that the car didn’t flip over and kill me.”

  “That’s terrible,” he said, surprised that the thought of her getting hurt created a tight band of pressure across his chest. He glanced at the triplets playing on the blanket. “And thank God they weren’t with you.”

  She nodded. “Thank God is right.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was shaken up badly, but thankfully not hurt. The car had no real damage and the only result was groceries had spilled all over the backseat.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. Ther
e was really no point. I didn’t get a good look at the car that forced me off the road and it was long gone by the time I finally pulled myself together. I managed to get back on the road and drive home and that was that. But that night I decided life was too short and too unpredictable and it was time I make contact with Justin.”

  Jake leaned back in his chair. “It doesn’t make any sense—the shooting, I mean. First and foremost, I don’t believe my brother is capable of trying to shoot you or anyone else. But, aside from that, it wouldn’t make sense for him to do that. You being dead doesn’t change the fact that he’s their father. In fact, your death would only put more responsibility on him.”

  She raised a hand to the back of her neck and rubbed, as if trying to ease a tension headache. “That’s true. I just need to get home. I need to take the girls and get back to Wichita,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.

  “But we both know that’s not an option right now,” he reminded her with a pointed glance at her shoulder. He stared out the window, unable to look at her and not remember how she’d felt in his arms.

  Soft and yielding, she’d filled him with a heat that had him instantly responding to her. Her hair had smelled slightly fruity, mingling with the floral scent of her, and when she’d stopped crying he’d been almost reluctant to let her go.

  He definitely didn’t want a woman in his life permanently, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t mind one occasionally.

  Just not Grace.

  Definitely not Grace.

  “Look, what I’m really hoping is that this is all some sort of weird mistake, that it was some delusional drifter on the property or a drunk cowboy just popping off his weapon,” he said, forcefully pulling his thoughts away from their brief physical contact.

  “Do those kinds of things happen a lot around here?” she asked, one of her perfectly arched pale eyebrows raised dubiously.

  “No, they don’t,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.” He got up from the chair, feeling the need to distance himself from her.

  “I’m going to go out and talk to my men. Maybe one of them indiscriminately shot off a couple of rounds and now is too embarrassed to admit to it.”

  What he really wanted to do was get hold of Justin and find out where he’d been when this whole thing had gone down, he thought as he walked to the porch. Although he couldn’t imagine his brother having anything to do with what had happened, there was a tiny part of him that knew when Justin had a few beers in him almost anything was possible. But surely not this, his heart rebelled.

  Finally, what he needed was some distance from Grace and the little girls. The triplets filled the house with a joyous noise he wasn’t accustomed to, and Grace filled his head with thoughts—very dangerous thoughts.

  Never in all his years had he been attracted to any woman Justin had brought around, and yet he was intensely attracted to Grace.

  A couple of days, he told himself. A couple more days and they’d all be gone, back to where they’d come from, back to a life that had very little to do with his.

  Things would be much easier when she went back to Wichita. He was far too conscious of her on a physical level, drawn to her in a way that was completely undesirable.

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in Justin’s phone number, unsurprised when the call went directly to Justin’s voice mail.

  He turned at the sound of the door opening and gave a tight smile to Jeffrey, who stepped out on the porch next to him. “Did you get in touch with him?” Jeffrey gestured to the cell phone Jake still held in his hand.

  “No, it went straight to voice mail.” Jake pocketed the phone and stared at the barn in the distance. No matter how many times he worked the events of the last couple of hours through his brain he couldn’t make sense of it.

  “He wouldn’t do something like this. It doesn’t make any sense,” Jake said in frustration.

  “When has anything Justin done made any sense?” Jeffrey countered drily.

  “Yeah, but this is different than borrowing money or getting drunk or running up a bunch of traffic tickets. Grace could have been seriously hurt. She could have been killed.” Jake’s stomach muscles tightened. “If I find out he was behind this, then I’ll wash my hands of him. I mean it,” he said at Jeffrey’s dubious look.

  “You’ve carried him for a long time, Jake. Sooner or later he’s got to stand on his own.” Jeffrey clapped Jake on the shoulder. “And now to something else that’s not going to make your day. You do remember that Kerri and I are leaving tomorrow for Topeka for a couple of days?”

  Jake stared at his brother in horror as the full impact of his words struck. He knew better than to ask his brother to postpone the trip. It had been planned for months, an anniversary celebration at a bed-and-breakfast that was almost impossible to get reservations at.

  With Kerri and Jeffrey gone, that meant Jake would be alone in the house with Grace. He’d be alone with a woman with three little girls, an arm in a sling and, worst-case scenario, a murderer after her who had missed once, but might not be done trying.

  Chapter 5

  Grace sat on the edge of the bed in the guest room and stared out the sliding glass door that led to a small balcony. They had finished a quiet, tense dinner and then she and Kerri had gotten the girls into bed. She’d excused herself for an early night, just wanting to go to sleep and put all the troubling thoughts away for a while. But sleep had proved elusive.

  Her shoulder hurt more tonight than it had since she’d fallen, and she knew there was no way she could make the drive home the next day. But it was the ache in her heart that made her feel half-sick.

  Was it possible that the man who had fathered her daughters had tried to kill her? Jake certainly didn’t believe so. He’d been adamant in his defense of Justin. There had been no word from the sheriff since he’d left the house and no sign or contact from Justin himself.

  What she’d like to do was open the sliding door and step outside, get a breath of the fresh scent of night air in hopes it would settle her thoughts. But she was afraid. What if the shooter was still out there, just waiting for another opportunity to get to her? She’d make herself a perfect target out on the balcony.

  Grace’s mother had been a strong woman who had no tolerance for weakness of any kind, and Grace had tried to live up to that, but at the moment she felt weak and vulnerable and utterly alone.

  She decided to call Natalie, who rarely went to bed before dawn, even though she knew there would be little comfort there. Natalie was always in the midst of her own drama. It was Grace who was usually fixing Natalie’s life, not the other way around. In any case, the call went to Natalie’s voice mail.

  Although she didn’t leave a message about the shooting, she did say that it had been a mistake to come here, that it was obvious being a father was the last thing in the world Justin wanted and that he’d probably never want to be part of the girls’ lives. She explained that it would be another couple of days before she got home but that the trip had certainly been a waste of time where Justin was concerned.

  Enough self-pity, she thought when she hung up. Maybe if she went downstairs and got a glass of milk or something it would help her sleep. She’d taken the sling off when she’d gotten into bed, finding it cumbersome. With difficulty she pulled on the red-and-black silk robe that matched her nightgown.

  The house was dark and quiet as she left the bedroom. She slid into the room next door where a night-light gave off enough illumination for her to check each crib and see that the girls were all sleeping peacefully.

  She stood for a long moment by each crib, her heart swelling in her chest with love. All she’d really wanted was for the girls to know their father and him to know them. She’d hoped that Justin would be the kind of man who would embrace the girls, a man she could be confident would take her babies and care for them if anything ever happened to her. Now she certainly wasn’t going to leave here with that confidenc
e. He didn’t seem to have any real interest in even getting to know the girls. She just had to make sure she stayed alive and well until the triplets were adults.

  Leaving the room as quietly as she’d entered, she made her way down the darkened hall to the stairway. From the living room she saw the glow of a small lamp on.

  She followed the glow and found Jake seated in a chair. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone else was still awake,” she said as she self-consciously held the robe closer around her neck with her good hand.

  “I couldn’t sleep. Looks as though you’re suffering from the same affliction.” He gestured her toward the sofa. She noticed he had a glass of amber liquid in his hand. “Scotch,” he said. “Would you like one?”

  “No thanks. Contrary to what happened the night of Sally’s wedding with a bottle of champagne, I’m really not much of a drinker.” She sat on the sofa.

  “Neither am I,” he admitted and set the glass on the end table next to him. “I just occasionally like the taste of a little good Scotch. Sheriff Hicks called earlier.”

  Grace sat up straighter, trying to staunch the pain the motion created in her shoulder. “And?”

  “And apparently there has been a drifter in the area. He stole some clothing from Rebecca Castor’s clothesline and she chased him off with her broom. He was also apparently sleeping in Burt Kent’s barn off and on. Several people around the area have seen him and told the sheriff he appears to be mentally unstable.”

  “So, it could have been him who took those shots at me.” She wanted to believe it. She desperately wanted to believe that it had been anyone but Justin.

  “It’s possible. At least that’s what Sheriff Hicks believes happened, although nobody who has caught sight of him has seen him with a weapon. Hicks and his men are trying to hunt him down, and once he does maybe we’ll have more answers.”

  “And Justin? Have you heard from him?”

  He shook his head, his rich, dark hair gleaming in the artificial light. “Not a word.”