Double Montana Treats Part 21

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you right back, Drew. You mean the world to me." He squeezed her hand again.

"Don't make the nurses mad so they won't let you come see me. I like knowing you're okay."

"Jeb is going to be on his best behavior now that he's seen you, aren't you, Jeb?" Marshall nudged Jeb's leg.

"I'm going to be a perfect gentleman as long as they let me come see you when I want to." Jeb smiled.

"That's not really what I said," Marshall pointed out.

Two days later, they let Jeb go home and promised Drew she would be able to leave the next day if she didn't spike a temperature. So far, she was feeling fine, other than being tired. They a.s.sured her, Jeb, and Marshall it would pa.s.s. She was surprised Jeb hadn't insisted that she stay longer and said as much once the doctor had left.

"The only reason is because I think I can take better care of you at home where we can watch out for you. There are too many d.a.m.n people in and out of here for my liking," Jeb complained.

She wasn't a bit surprised by his statement. Ever since the sheriff had admitted they didn't have anything on the man, or men, who were after her, he'd been like a momma bear and p.r.i.c.kly as a pear. They'd found a couple of sh.e.l.l casings, but the fingerprints didn't match anyone they had on file, so they had to wait until they had someone in custody to take their fingerprints to charge them.

Even with the bullet from Jeb's shoulder, they needed the gun to match it. All of this meant they needed probable cause to arrest someone. So far, they only had suppositions.

"I don't want to stay here another night, Jeb. Let me go home now. I can't sleep in this bed." And it was true. Since she'd come out of the drug-induced sleep, she'd been awake but tired ever since. "I'll sleep so much better at home.

"We'll take you there tomorrow, like the doctor said. Not before." Jeb leaned over and kissed her.

When she attempted to deepen the kiss, he pulled back and shook his finger at her.

"No hanky-panky while you're sick."

"I'm not sick!" she yelled.

"Shhh, they'll make us leave if we're upsetting you," Marshall reminded her.

"They already look at us funny. One of the younger nurses actually asked me if I was really living with both of you."

"What did you tell her?" Jeb asked with a glint in his eye.

"That I was actually living with three men, but only two of them slept with me."

"Aw, baby. You didn't." Jeb closed his eyes and hung his head.

"What? It's the truth. I'm not ashamed of it." Drew pouted at him.

"Once you get completely well, I owe you several spankings," Jeb warned her.

"For what?" she demanded.

"For coming back for me when you should have hightailed it out of there once the shooting started, for one." He stuck up one finger then another and said, "Two, you went and scared the c.r.a.p out of me by getting shot. Not once, but twice!"

"Shhh, hold your voice down, or the nurse will come kick you out." Drew winked at Marshall.

"Drew, baby. I know this probably isn't the right time or anything, but I can't wait any longer. Marshall and I want you to be our wife. I know that's not very conventional, and this isn't all that romantic, but I love you and can't stand not knowing if you feel the same way."

Drew felt her heart plop in a flip at Jeb's words. She'd wanted to hear them for a long time now but was too afraid to put her hopes into words. She smiled, knowing there were tears in her eyes.

"Yes, I'll be your wife. Both of you. I love you both very much, and I don't care if it's not conventional. As long as we're not hurting anyone, it shouldn't matter what goes on, on our land."

Jeb jabbed Marshall in the side with his good elbow. Marshall fiddled in his jeans pocket and pulled out a ring.

"It's not much, but we didn't figure you would wear something fancy out on the ranch, and I know you're going to always want to work out there even when you don't need to. Marshall insisted that it be a diamond. I wanted to get a stone the color of your eyes."

"I told him to get you one for our anniversary."

Marshall and Jeb both took her left hand as Marshall slid the ring on her finger. Drew's eyes teared up to the point where she couldn't see anything. She swiped her eyes and held out both arms to her men.

"I love you both. Thank you so much! It's perfect. And you're right, I wouldn't have worn anything any bigger, 'cause it would have gotten in the way. This is perfect."

"I know you can't actually marry both of us, but we felt like you should marry Jeb for real, so that if we had any children, they'd have his last name." Marshall bent down and kissed her.

"Robert and Kenny are going to witness all three of us say our vows out at the ranch," Jeb added then bent down and kissed her as well.

"That's a wonderful idea about the vows. I love it. As for marrying Jeb, I'm glad you two decided, because I couldn't have made a decision like that. Did you flip a coin?"

Marshall chuckled. "Actually, we almost did, but I told him he was the oldest, and the foreman, so he should marry you."

"Marshall, I'm not pretending that you're not my husband and lover, too, when we are out in public. I won't hide our relations.h.i.+p."

"It wouldn't matter if you did. All that matters to me is what we three know and what goes on at the ranch."

"It's yours and Jeb's now, too. It's our ranch, our home," Drew told them.

Chapter Twenty.

Jeb rubbed the back of his neck. All day he'd felt as if someone was watching him. He'd caught Drew several times, but this felt different. Ever since they'd brought her home nearly a week ago, she'd sat outside on the porch to watch them work around the ranch. If they drove around the fence line to check it, she went with them. If they had to ride horses anywhere, someone always stayed with her.

He looked around but couldn't see anyone. He finished dumping the dirty hay and horse manure in the compost pile and washed out the wheelbarrow before returning it to the barn. He ambled over to where Drew sat on the porch, drinking a gla.s.s of iced tea.

"How are you feeling? Warm enough?"

"I'm fine. Plenty warm enough. Soon it will be summer, and I'll be complaining about the heat." Drew took a sip of her tea and smiled up at Jeb.

"That's a long time off." Jeb chuckled "I can wish, can't I?"

"Marshall is jealous because I got house duty today." Jeb leaned in and kissed her. He loved her kisses.

"Hmmm, maybe I should make it up to him tonight."

"Only if you make it up to me now, first." He kissed her again.

"You're insatiable." Drew nipped at his lower lip.

"Not any more so than you, baby. It takes two men to satisfy you."

"Let's go inside," she suggested, standing up.

Jeb immediately swung her up into his arms and strode for the door. A shot rang out, hitting the door facing next to Drew's head, sending splinters flying.

"f.u.c.k!" He slammed open the kitchen door and all but threw Drew inside before slamming the door closed again.

"Get down, Drew. On the floor."

"Where did it come from?" she asked.

"Had to have come from the direction of the west pasture. There are a lot of trees out there." He was still reeling at how close the bullet had been to Drew's head.

"You might as well come out. I'll shoot your other lover when they come up. You know they heard the gunshot." The voice sounded closer than Jeb had thought.

"Do you recognize the voice?" Jeb asked Drew.

"It seems familiar, but I can't place it. He's shouting, so it's distorted."

Another gunshot rang out, hitting the door.

"He'll kill Marshall if we don't do something," Drew cried.

"Marshall will be careful, having heard the gunshots. Don't worry about him, baby. Let's concentrate on staying alive and trying to figure out where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is."

"I'm going to call the sheriff." Drew reached up and grabbed the phone to place the call.

Jeb inched his way over to the window. He peered around the curtain to look for the glint of the sun off of a gun barrel if possible. Another shot rang out and shattered the window.

"d.a.m.n it." Bits of gla.s.s rained down all over him. He shook as much of it off as he could.

"Be careful, Jeb." Drew watched him inch his way across the room toward the front of the house.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to sneak out the front door and go around the side to try and figure out where he is. If we know where he is, we can sneak up on him from behind."

"What if there are two of them and one of them is watching the front?" Drew grabbed at his s.h.i.+rt. "Please don't go out there."

"I'll be fine, Drew. I'm just going to look right now. I'll wait on Marshall to get here to help keep him occupied before I try to sneak up on him."

"Let's just wait until the sheriff gets here, Jeb."

"As soon as they hear those sirens, they're going to run again. We need to put a stop to this now." He pulled her toward him and kissed her long and deep before letting her go, so he could make his way across the living room to the front door.

He reached up and unlocked the front door, then slowly opened it. Nothing. He eased out of the door in a crouch and snuck across the porch to the corner of the house. No one shot at him. He eased his head around the house but couldn't see anything. No glint off of gunmetal or movement that he could see. He would have to wait until Marshall and Kenny showed up, and he hoped they were careful.

Waiting wasn't his strong suit. He preferred action to sitting around, but there was nothing he could do. Seconds turned into minutes. The man didn't even call out anymore. Was he even still there? How could he tell without endangering himself and giving away his position?

"Don't move."

He felt the business end of a rifle against the back of his neck. The barrel was still warm from when he'd fired it earlier.

"What do you want with Drew?"

"That's between her and me. You are just some b.a.s.t.a.r.d she's f.u.c.king. Or should I say one of them." He laughed and pushed the barrel harder against Jeb's neck.

"Now stand up, slow and easy," the voice said. "Don't try anything. I have an itchy trigger finger.

Jeb stood up and waited for his next instructions. If the man was going to just kill him, he'd have done that already. He planned to use him, and he had a sick feeling about what he was going to do.

"Let's take a walk around the back. I want Drew to see you, and I know she's in the kitchen."

"She isn't going to come out just because you have me. She'll wait for Marshall and Kenny to come back."

"Oh, she'll come out when I start shooting you one piece at a time."

"This is stupid. All of this is over the land? Why?" Jeb had no idea if that was what this guy really was after or not.

And how did he plan to get it once Drew was dead? He already knew it wasn't Brett. It didn't sound like him. He was a good bit taller than this guy. This man only stood maybe five-eight or so. The gun barrel was pointed upward into his neck now.

"Jeb! Are you okay?" Drew's voice carried from across the yard.

"I'm fine. Don't do anything he says. Wait on Kenny and Marshall."

"I wouldn't listen to him, Drew Fenton. I'm going to start shooting up parts of him until you walk outside that door," the man said.

"Get on your knees and raise your arms."

Jeb fell to his knees and raised his arms. His left arm wouldn't go up as high as the other one. It was still stiff from his last bullet wound. h.e.l.l, this was going to hurt.

"Are you coming out, or do I start shooting?"

"Don't shoot. I'm coming out."

"Don't you dare, Drew. I'll turn that bottom of yours red."

"Shut up!" the man yelled at Jeb.