The blaze was back in his eyes and she wanted to fall into that dark fire and just for one night feel like a sexy woman, not like a schoolteacher with triplets. It was a foolish desire, but at the moment she wouldn’t mind a little bit of foolishness with him.
“There’s no question that there’s something between us, Grace, some crazy physical attraction that has been there since the minute I laid eyes on you. But because we’re adults we aren’t going to follow through on it. It would only complicate what’s already a pretty good mess.”
She knew he was right. Now that the heat of the moment was passing, rational thought was returning. “I know you’re right. You and I together would just be plain stupid. I just got carried away in the moment.”
He offered her a small smile. “We both did. And now I think it’s definitely time we say good-night.” He didn’t wait for her response but turned on his heels and left the kitchen.
Grace wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or glad at the way things had turned out. On the one hand, she knew that Jake would never be more than a one-night stand—the second in her life and another one with unwanted consequences. Although she wouldn’t have wound up pregnant, she had a feeling it would have been impossible to keep her heart uninvolved.
On the other hand, she knew it would have been a night to remember when she was back home by herself and with that whisper of loneliness that sometimes struck her.
She turned off the kitchen light and then climbed the stairs and went directly into the room where the triplets were sleeping. She wanted to be the best possible mother she could be for them, but that didn’t stop her needs and wants as a woman.
She’d told him the truth when she’d said she wanted somebody to share her life, a soul mate who would grow old with her and watch their grandchildren grow.
As she left the triplets’ bedroom she glanced down the long hallway to the very end where she knew the master suite was located. Was Jake in bed now thinking about what might have happened? What could have happened if he hadn’t stopped it?
Was he in bed still feeling the burn that filled her stomach, that ached deep inside her? She knew with a woman’s certainty that if she walked down that hallway and opened the door to his bedroom they’d wind up in his bed making love.
Her feet actually took three steps in that direction before she stopped herself and instead turned and went into her own guest room.
At least this room didn’t smell of his scent—that of a wonderfully clean male combined with a woodsy undertone. She’d cracked open the sliding door that led to the balcony earlier in the day and the slight breeze blowing through brought with it the scent of fresh grass, evening dew and country flowers.
She undressed and changed into her nightgown, then put the sling back on. She was going to try to sleep in it, although usually when she woke up in the mornings she discovered she’d taken it off at some point in the night.
As she placed her cell phone on the dresser, she realized she hadn’t heard anything from Natalie that day. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad.
Grace got into bed, feeling as if it had been a lifetime ago that she had loaded the girls into her car to leave Wichita. She’d had such hope in her heart that she’d come away from here with a father for the girls, a father who would love and emotionally support them as they flourished and grew.
She knew now that wasn’t going to happen. If Justin wasn’t the kind of stable, mature man he needed to be by the age of thirty-five, she didn’t see it happening ever. She suspected Justin had a drinking problem, and that only added to the many reasons she knew he’d never be the man she wanted in her daughters’ lives.
Maybe someday she would find somebody to love her, to love them, and he would take on the role of a good and loving stepfather. Grace hoped if that ever happened it might be enough for the girls.
There was no way of knowing for sure, but her gut instinct told her that Justin hadn’t had anything to do with whoever had shot at her. She was willing to believe the sheriff’s speculation that a drifter had set up camp in the woods and in some deluded thinking had seen her walking around as a threat to his little temporary home.
Justin had been a mistake, and she was more than a little half-crazy for his brother. She squeezed her eyes closed, seeking sleep rather than thoughts of Jake.
Although her shoulder was still sore, it was less so than it had been. She was hoping that by the day after tomorrow at the very latest she could head home. She just needed to get back to her ordinary life, raising her children and enjoying the summer before fall came and she had to return to work.
With a deep sigh she closed her eyes, knowing she needed to get some sleep in order to have the energy to deal with her daughters and anything else that might come up the next day.
She wasn’t sure what awakened her…a noise…a whisper of breath on the side of her face? For a sleepy, half-conscious moment she thought it was Jake who had come to her room to finish what they’d started earlier in the night.
She came fully awake and immediately a cloth was shoved in her mouth, preventing her from releasing the scream that instantly leapt to her lips.
Somebody jumped on top of her, although in the dark it was impossible to tell who it was. What was going on? She couldn’t make sense of it. She only knew pure unadulterated terror as gloved hands wrapped around her neck and began to squeeze.
With one arm in her sling and her legs trapped beneath the sheets, she was nearly helpless in any effort to fight back. She flailed her good arm, trying to make contact with the face of the attacker.
Air.
She needed air.
Her lungs were slowly being depleted of precious oxygen as it was being squeezed from her. She bucked her hips, kicked wildly at the sheets and twisted her head back and forth, trying to break the grip on her throat.
Help! Somebody please help me!
The words screamed in her head but had no way around whatever had been stuffed in her mouth as a gag. She was going to die!
Her babies. Who was going to take care of her babies? As she felt the edges of unconsciousness creeping in, she made one last desperate attempt to help herself. She flung her free arm out and it connected with the bedside lamp. The Tiffany-style light crashed to the floor with a shattering of glass and an answering cry came from one of the triplets.
Don’t hurt my babies, she thought wildly.
The intruder jumped off Grace and ran for the balcony. As the person disappeared over the balcony edge, Grace pulled the gag from her mouth and released a scream.
Chapter 8
The crash awakened Jake from a wild, sexy dream about Grace. In the dream she’d been in his bed and they had been making love. The cry of one of the girls galvanized him to leave the dream behind, get out of bed and pull on his jeans. But the sound of Grace’s scream shot him out of the room and down the hallway toward hers.
As he ran his heart pounded with adrenaline. What on earth would make her scream like that? He entered her room and flipped on the light to see her sitting up, her hand at her throat and utter terror shining wildly from her eyes.
By now all three girls were crying, but Jake’s complete attention was focused on the woman in the bed. “What happened?” he asked, feeling as if his heart was about to pound out of his chest.
“Somebody came in…attacked me…he went over the balcony.” The words rasped from her as she half stumbled from the bed. “I’ve got to get to the girls.”
“Don’t move,” Jake replied. She looked as if she was in shock, her legs barely able to hold her up. Her throat was red and angry looking, and as Jake ran to the balcony there was nothing more he wanted to do than rip somebody’s head off.
Unfortunately, as he stepped outside on the balcony and looked around, there was nobody to see. The night was complete with darkness and barely a sliver of moonlight to faintly illuminate the landscape.
It was easy to tell how the intruder had gotten inside. The bal
cony could have been accessed by the sturdy wooden trellis that climbed up the house next to it, a trellis that would no longer exist after he got done with it.
He went back into the bedroom, closed and locked the sliding glass door, unsurprised to find Grace not there. Even crazy with fear and with her throat burning and raw, her first thought would be to soothe her crying daughters. He spied her cell phone on the dresser and used it to call Sheriff Hicks, then went to where he knew Grace would be.
Sure enough she was in the girls’ bedroom, moving from crib to crib in an effort to put the girls back to sleep, and it was working. As she rubbed a back, spoke softly and gave kisses, the girls eventually all settled back to sleep.
It was only when the room was quiet again that she met him in the hallway. He gestured for her to follow him back into the bedroom. There, under the overhead light, he could once again see the angry red ring that decorated her neck.
As he stared at it, she began to shiver, as if the initial shock was wearing off and now that she felt like her daughters didn’t need her anymore she was about to fall to pieces.
He opened his arms and she collapsed against him, deep sobs ripping up from someplace deep inside her. He didn’t ask any questions. Those would come later. For now he just held her as she trembled almost violently in his arms.
He would kill the person responsible for this. Anger roared through him as he held her tight, her heartbeat frantic against his own.
“Come on, let’s go downstairs to wait for Greg,” he finally said when some of the trembling had eased. He wanted to get her out of the bedroom where the attack had taken place in case there might be some evidence that could be collected.
“You called him?” she asked as she grabbed her robe. She pulled it around her and they left the bedroom.
“I did. He’s on his way.” He kept one arm around her as they went down the stairs and then he sat next to her on the sofa, still with an arm around her as she continued to shiver off and on.
“I had the sliding glass door open a little bit,” she said, her voice filled with self-recrimination. “I didn’t imagine that anyone could get inside. I didn’t think that anyone would want to get inside, to get to me…to try to kill me.” Her voice rose slightly with each word. “Why is this happening? Who’s doing this to me?”
“Shh, it’s all right now,” Jake said, but his mind raced. This attack tonight put the shooting incident in a whole new light.
There was no mistaking the fact that somebody had breached the sanctity of his home in the middle of the night for the sole intent of hurting Grace. They’d climbed up that trellis, crept into her room and wrapped their hands around her throat.
That meant in all probability those shots had been intended specifically for Grace and not the result of some drifter trying to protect a temporary homestead.
Somebody had tried to kill Grace not once, but twice, and Jake had never felt so helpless or so damned angry in his entire life. Thankfully, at that moment Greg Hicks and a couple of his deputies showed up at the door.
Jake and Grace took the lawmen upstairs to the bedroom to explain what had happened. Two deputies stayed behind to begin collecting evidence and processing the scene while Greg, Jake and Grace returned to the living room so Greg could ask Grace some questions.
“Now, tell me exactly what happened,” Greg said.
Jake was impressed by the way Grace had pulled herself together. The robe was belted tightly around her slender waist and she’d not only stopped trembling, but even had a steely strength radiating from her eyes.
“I woke up knowing somebody was in my room. Before I could do anything, he was on top of me and had shoved a gag into my mouth. Then he tried to strangle me.”
She raised her hand to her neck. Some of the redness had faded, but the idea of anyone wrapping their hands around her neck, the throat he’d kissed with such desire earlier, filled Jake with new rage.
“I thought he was going to kill me. I tried to fight but with my sling on I only had one hand. I finally managed to knock over the lamp next to the bed, which woke up one of my girls, which apparently woke up Jake.” She cast him a grateful look. “I pulled the gag out of my mouth and screamed.”
“By the time I got to the bedroom, whoever had been inside was gone. I went out on the balcony but didn’t see anyone. Unfortunately, there’s no light out there so he could have been anywhere in the yard and I probably wouldn’t have seen him.”
“Do we know for sure it was a him?” Greg asked.
Grace looked at him in stunned surprise, as if the idea that her attacker might have been a woman hadn’t occurred to her. It certainly hadn’t occurred to Jake.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I just assumed…” Once again her hand went to her throat. “The grip was awfully strong to be a woman. And the person felt heavy…big.” She dropped her hand and released a deep sigh. “But I was also terrified out of my mind, and my perceptions of those moments could be way off.”
“Hopefully Deputy Bartell and Deputy Lathrop will find something…a fingerprint or a hair,” Greg replied.
Grace shook her head. “There won’t be any fingerprints. Whoever it was, he or she was wearing gloves.” She winced, as if able to feel those gloves still around her neck.
“Greg, you’ve got to do something about this,” Jake snapped angrily, and then caught himself and offered a tight smile of apology. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m just frustrated.”
“Don’t worry,” Greg replied easily. “No offense taken.”
“Does Shirley know how to fire a gun?” Grace asked. Both Greg and Jake looked at her in surprise. “Well, it’s obvious she resents my connection to Justin. I was just wondering.”
“I don’t know if Shirley knows how to shoot or not. Certainly most of the women around these parts aren’t unfamiliar with guns,” Greg replied. “I believe her daddy is a hunter.”
Jake tried to wrap his mind around the idea of Shirley as some crazed, jealous killer. Crazed jealous girlfriend, yes, that was easy to imagine, but a killer? He’d known Shirley for most of his life and wouldn’t have thought it of her, but wasn’t this the kind of real-life stuff television movies were made of?
He listened as Grace explained to Greg about the earlier confrontation with Shirley in the ladies’ room at the restaurant. “It wasn’t really ugly,” she said. “I assured her I had no grand design on Justin, and when Jake and I left them at the restaurant I assumed everything was fine between me and Shirley.”
“So right now I’ve got a list with a grand total of two suspects on it—Justin and Shirley.” Greg shook his head. “Justin’s alibi for the time of the shooting was fairly solid. Maybe I need to have a little chat with Shirley about where she was when those shots were fired and where she was tonight. At least that’s a place to start.”
He looked at Grace for a long moment. “You sure there isn’t somebody else in your life that might have a grudge against you?”
“A grudge deep enough to want me dead?” She gave a half-hysterical laugh. “Nobody that I can think of. I can’t even imagine what Justin or Shirley would hope to gain by my death. None of this makes sense, none of it!”
Jake once again placed an arm around her shoulder as he heard the rising emotion in her voice. She was scared and bewildered and he felt the same way.
“I need to go home,” she said, more to herself than to anyone in the room.
“I understand your desire, Ms. Sinclair, but I’d really like it if you’d stick around another couple of days while I do a little investigating,” Greg said.
“I’ll keep you safe, Grace,” Jake exclaimed. “I’ll turn this place into a damned fortress if necessary to make sure that nothing else happens to you while you and the girls are here.”
She looked at Greg. “I’ll stay through tomorrow, but first thing the next day I’m going back home.”
Jake wanted to protest but realized he had no right to ask her to stay a
ny longer. Justin had certainly given her no reason to hang around. Somebody had tried to kill her twice. Could he really blame her for wanting to get out of town as soon as possible?
He had a feeling if not for her shoulder injury she’d already be packed up and in her car headed back to Wichita. He knew with certainty that come hell or high water, she’d force her shoulder to be okay to get her out of here the day after tomorrow.
He should be glad to see her go. After all, that’s what he’d wanted from the moment she’d shown up here with those adorable little girls and a gun in her pocket.
Thoughts of the gun sat him up straighter on the sofa. He hadn’t thought about it since they’d locked it in his glove box at the hospital the day that Grace had fallen. If she’d had that gun tonight maybe she would have been able to stop the attack, wound the attacker. Or the gun could have been taken away from her and used on her instead.
A headache blossomed across his forehead, along with a tight vise across his chest as he realized what might have happened tonight. If she hadn’t managed to hit the lamp, if one of the girls hadn’t started to cry, he might not have gotten out of bed and the intruder might have been successful in killing her.
Chapter 9
Grace awoke the next morning in Jake’s king-size bed between the navy sheets that held his familiar scent. For a long moment she didn’t move, just remained still and breathed in the essence of him.
After Greg and the deputies had finally left, Jake had insisted she sleep in here for what was left of the night while he bunked in Kerri and Jeffrey’s room next door.
She’d expected to be awake all night. She’d expected to be scared senseless until dawn lit the morning skies. But almost the minute she’d wrapped herself in the sheets that smelled of Jake, she’d fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She suddenly shot up, aware that the sun was drifting in through the window at an angle that let her know it was late. The girls! Why hadn’t they awakened her with their morning cries? They never slept this late.
Cowboy's Triplet Trouble Page 10