One Bride for Four Ranchers

“What’s going on?” My voice is muddled from my nap. My brain refuses to fully wake up, but I can’t go back to sleep without knowing what they’re talking so seriously about. The journalist inside of me refuses.

Tyler starts, and Clay flinches. Trey merely turns to look at me, and Joshua leans back on his heels and crosses his arms.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. We didn’t mean to wake you,” Trey says.

I take a deep breath and let it out in a huff. He’s not answering my question on purpose. “What are you guys talking about? What did Jed do?”

The men share a glance, and I have the sudden urge to hop out of the bed and shake them.

“I was injured. But I’m not going to get hurt simply because you guys tell me what’s happening. Please don’t treat me like I’m so easily broken.” If there’s a warning in my tone, I can’t help that. I don’t care for being left out of the loop.

Before I can actually hop out of the bed and kick one of them, Trey answers me. “The car accident wasn’t exactly an accident, in the strictest meaning of the word.”

Trey’s reluctance to get into details annoys me immediately. Hadn’t I just said I wasn’t going to break? I sit up in the bed. “What you mean? How was it not an accident? There were no other cars around or anything.”

Another long moment of hesitation that makes me want to grind my teeth passes. Then Trey finally adds, “The brake lines were cut. Someone made us wreck on purpose.”

My mouth drops open, and a million questions buzz through my brain. Someone tried to make us wreck? More likely, anyone familiar with that road was trying to kill us.

Or could this be someone’s idea of a joke? No. You don’t cut someone’s brake lines as a joke. Someone who knew enough about the truck to know how to disable the brakes would certainly realize what would happen if they did so.

Then it really hits me what they said. “Why do you think it was Jed?”

“He’s got a grudge against us. You said it yourself. Besides, he was at the feed store, too.” The anger and Clay’s tone makes me jerk my head back. They know Jed better than I do, but I’m still not convinced.

“Has he ever done anything like this before?” I tug at a loose string on the quilt Trey had covered me with earlier. It’s pretty, and I wonder if their mother or grandmother might have quilted it.

“No,” Joshua says, uncrossing his arms. “But we’ve given him cause to be angry with us.”

My mind is still fuzzy from my nap, but even so, the little bit I know about the situation makes me wonder if this could really be Jed. “But you guys have been in this fight with Jed for over a year now, right?

Tyler nods. “Last time I was here was a year and a half ago. And Jed was fully pissed by then.”

“Has anything changed on Jed’s end in the last year? Or even, more importantly, in the last few months?” I ask

“He’s losing money,” Trey points out. “And he blames us for it.”

“But the Burke ranch has been in trouble for a few years. And I can’t think of anything new that could’ve set them off.” Clay crosses his arms and shakes his head. But I can see that I’m getting through to him, at least a little. Instead of anger touching his expression, his brows scrunch with confusion.

Sure, I don’t really know Jed Burke. And people can be capable of things that you’d never think possible in meeting them. But the reporter in me doesn’t think this feels right. “Could it be someone else? Is there anybody else with the recent grudge against you guys?”

Clay’s eyes widened. “Griz!”

“The foreman?” Now it’s Tyler’s learn turn to look confused. “Why would he have a grudge?”

“Because we caught him stealing the same night Jessa got here,” Joshua says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe we didn’t think about him, too. But he could be the one orchestrating everything. He’s already proven he has no problem stealing from us. It isn’t a huge leap to think he might want revenge for being fired.”

“You’re right,” Clay sits on the edge of the bed. “I mean we caught him stealing parts from the truck. It figures he’d know where to cut a brake line.”

“He was royally pissed,” Trey concedes. “I could definitely see him cutting the fence, at least. And hell, maybe the brake line, too. I guess we don’t really know how far he’d go.”

I let out a big yawn, and it suddenly hits me that if anything, the nap has actually made me more tired than I was before I laid down.

“You should get some more rest,” Joshua says sternly. “We’ll figure this out. It’s not something you should have to worry about.”

I stifle another yawn, just barely. “I’ll get some more sleep. But only if you guys promise me that you won’t do anything rash.”

They all agree, so after giving them another warning look, I snuggle back down into the bed. One by one, my boys come by to wish me a good night. And I fall asleep, secure in knowing that they are close by.