Trusting Them (6 page)

Sometime after dawn Brock realized he was missing something. Jeni was no longer draped across his body. He felt bereft without the slight weight of her soft body covering his. He rubbed a hand over his face and turned over to find she was now draped across his brother’s body. He waited to feel some sort of jealousy, but all he felt was warmth to see her taken care of. He knew Brady would care for her as much, if not more, than he would. Then reality rushed in. She wasn’t theirs, at least not yet. He planned on changing that if he could.

Brock rolled out of bed and bunched the covers up around the two of them to ensure they stayed warm. He grabbed his jeans, socks, and shirt and eased from the bedroom and down the hall to his. He would shower and change clothes. Thank goodness they had butane for the hot water heater and the stove. He didn’t cotton to a cold shower just yet. He might have to settle for them soon enough if their guest stayed around for long. When had he started thinking of her staying around?

Probably when she’d fallen asleep lying across his body, he thought to himself. She had trusted him enough to do that. It humbled him. He quickly dressed after drying off from his shower and hurried downstairs to start the generator. He needed to check on the horses and help the men break up the ice, but he wanted to see Jeni once more before he walked out into the cold morning.

She lay just as he had left her, still snuggled up on top of Brady’s chest. Her head lay right over his heart. Could she hear it beat? Did it calm her? Make her feel safe? Brock smiled and backed out of the room. He wouldn’t wake them up. Brady could keep their woman warm and sleeping. He would take care of the rest for today. Then, if nothing changed, he would have his time tomorrow.

Brock wrestled into his coat, hat, and gloves and pulled open the door to have several inches of snow come tumbling into the room. Ah, hell. He huffed out a breath and grabbed the shovel they kept by the door to shovel a path towards the stables. He used it now to shovel the snow off of the kitchen floor. Then he wiped up the resulting water with several towels. It looked like it was going to be one of those days.

The radio in the stables warned of another bout of snow later that afternoon. They predicted another ten to twelve inches of snow with it. The wind wouldn’t be quite as rowdy, but more snow they didn’t need.

He checked in with the ranch hands and helped fork out hay and break up the water troughs again. He shoveled another path back towards the house and called it a morning. He would have another go at it later that afternoon. He hoped Jeni was feeling better today, and they didn’t have another round of high temps to tamp down.

When he opened the kitchen door, the welcoming whiff of coffee greeted him. He breathed it in and stomped off the snow at the back step before he walked inside. Brady stood over the stove wearing his coat and cooking breakfast. The sight drew a deep chuckle from his chest. He couldn’t figure out why since they had done this at least a dozen times in the past, but something had changed. It had to be Jeni.

“What’s so damn funny?” Brady groused.

“Nothing. How is Jeni doing?”

“Doing okay, I think. She’s still coughing, but she isn’t wheezing like before. I made her take two more pills and drink another glass of juice. I’m not exactly in her good graces right now.” He smiled nonetheless.

“We got more snow coming in the afternoon. Supposed to clear off tomorrow, though, so we should be able to head to town the day after.”

“Why’d you have to go and screw up a perfectly happy day?” Brady slammed the pan on the stove.

“Hey, you get another day. Quit your griping.” Brock snuck a piece of bacon and hurried out of the kitchen calling behind him. “I’m going to check on her. Be back down in a little while.”

He took the stairs two at a time and eased into the bedroom, expecting her to be sound asleep. Instead, she sat on the side of the bed wearing one of his brother’s button-down shirts, a pair of socks, and nothing else. It covered her to mid-thigh. Her head jerked up when he walked into the room.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Good, actually. I’m not coughing as much.” She smiled a shy smile, and then dropped her eyes.

“Brady is cooking breakfast. Looks like bacon and eggs and toast. You feel hungry?” he asked.

“A little.” She continued to look at the floor, or her socked feet. He couldn’t tell which.

“You need something on your bottom half if you’re not going to stay under the covers.” Brady walked further into the room.

“I’m getting back into bed. I had just gotten up to, um…” She let it hang.

“Right. Well, back into bed with you. I don’t want you to catch another chill.”

Brock pulled the cover back so she could pull her legs back into the bed. He caught a glimpse of her pretty pussy and had to close his eyes at the sight. It didn’t help. His imagination took over just fine. With a growl, he pulled the covers over her and proceeded to tuck them around her. When she looked deep into his eyes with her blue ones, Brock lost it. He took her head in his hands and kissed her. He didn’t just kiss her. He ravaged her mouth.

He burrowed his tongue into her mouth and pillaged. She moaned but didn’t try to pull away. Instead, her hands came up and wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer. His tongue dueled with hers as she explored his mouth in turn. Her fingers soon slid into his hair, and her nails raked his scalp. He reveled in it. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. She couldn’t deny it.

When he pulled back, she gasped for breath, panting along with him. Her eyes were a drowsy shade of blue now and half closed. Her lips—plump, well-kissed lips—slightly parted. She looked like a woman who’d just been loved and loved well. He leaned back in and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Brady is on his way up with breakfast.” He heard the stomp of boots on the stairs.

Her eyes went wide and she started to rub a hand over her lips. He grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“Don’t.” He wouldn’t let her feel guilty over kissing him.

Brady walked in and took one look at the two of them and smiled.

“Brock, yours is downstairs. I’ll be down in a minute to eat with you.” Brady didn’t take his eyes off of Jeni.

He walked over and plopped the tray onto her lap and then leaned in and kissed her as big as you please. Brock could have laughed at the expression on her face if he didn’t think she’d get pissed off. Her eyes were wild with uncertainty, and they darted back and forth between him and his brother as if waiting for one of them to break out into a fight. He added to her predicament by kissing her again.

“I’ll see you downstairs.” He left Brady to feed their baby girl.

He was half finished with his breakfast by the time Brady made it downstairs. He wore a grin the size of a Montana sky. It was obvious he had gotten in a few more kisses before he left.

“Did she eat anything or just play kissy face with you?” Brock teased.

“She ate everything but the bacon and toast. They still hurt her throat.” Brady raked the remnants of her breakfast into the garbage.

“How did she act after I left?”

“Scared. I didn’t let on that I knew what was going on when I walked in.”

“She likes us both. That’s half the battle,” Brock said.

“Yeah, but getting her to understand we both want her—together—is going to be the hard part.” Brady sat down with his plate piled high.

Brock rinsed his plate off and added it to the dishwasher. Then he poured another cup of coffee and sat back down. They needed to talk and make some decisions. Most of which involved the little redhead upstairs in their bed.

“I’ll stay with her this afternoon while you go out and make the rounds. So far we haven’t lost any of the cattle. The horses look good. Sunfire’s wound is fine, no signs of infection. Tornado might need a little extra hay. He’d eaten all I put out last night,” Brock said.

Tornado was one of their bulls. The other one was Riptide. He continued filling Brady in on the farm news. When he realized Brady wasn’t really listening, he shook his head.

“I think tonight we should both work on her some. Not enough to scare her but enough so she knows we aren’t going to rip into each other for kissing her.” Brock watched his brother’s brows lift.

“I’m all for that. She kissed me just fine after she had kissed you. She didn’t seem too worked up over it, but I kept her busy eating and talking to her.” Brady stuffed another piece of bacon into his mouth.

“I’m going to try talking some sense into her about coming clean with whatever she’s hiding from us.” Brock snatched a piece of bacon off his brother’s plate and smiled at him.

“Don’t push her too hard, Brock.” Brady suddenly looked serious.

“I won’t, but if she won’t trust us, we don’t have anything here between us. It takes a lot of trust to build a relationship between two people, let alone three.”

“I know.” Brady ran a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair. “I just don’t want to lose her is all.”

“If she leaves, Brady, we never really had her in the first place.”

They exchanged looks. Then Brock left his brother in the kitchen and climbed the stairs to start working on their woman.

Chapter Five

The clomp, clomp of boots on the stairs jerked her from her musings. She wondered who would be coming through the door. Would it be Brady and his playful smiles or Brock and his serious expressions? Either one of them riled her blood better than anything she’d ever come across. Not even Glenn had made her blood sing like these two could. But there were two of them, she reminded herself. She hadn’t been able to handle Glenn. What made her think she could handle two men now?

You’re still running a fever if you’re even thinking about it.
There was no way she would ever live with two men. Right now, that was two too many. She still had her ex to deal with. She needed to get out of there and soon. He would start looking for her car soon. Once he found it, it would only be a matter of time before he figured out where she was.

“What are you thinking about so hard, baby girl?”

Even though she knew one of them was coming, he startled her. Brock.

“Nothing, really. Just wondering what I’m going to do when you take me into town. I don’t even know where my car is.”

“You don’t need to be worrying about that just yet. There is more snow heading in this afternoon but it should fair off tomorrow. So in a couple more days we should be able to get you to town.”

“Oh, thank God. I mean, I really appreciate all you and your brother have done for me, but I really need to get back on the road.” Jeni swallowed wrong and coughed.

Brock started over to get her some water when she threw up her hand and stopped him.

“I’m okay. I just swallowed wrong.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and faced her. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” Jeni had a feeling she knew what he wanted to talk about.

“You’re running from someone. If you will just tell us who, we can help you.”

It was worse than she thought. They’d already figured out what she was hiding. What could she tell them? She really didn’t want to involve them.

“He’s hurt you at least once. Those are his bruises on you, aren’t they?” he demanded.

“You don’t understand,” she began.

“Tell me. Help me understand.” Brock leaned in and brushed a tear that had leaked from her eye.

She didn’t say anything for a long while, then finally gave up and told him the truth.

“He’ll hurt anyone who helps me. If he finds me here with you and Brady, he’ll try to hurt you. I don’t want either of you hurt.”