One Bride for Four Ranchers

Chapter 23

Trey

The week after we retrieved Jessa from the hospital passes very peacefully. But I have a hard time relaxing. I’m itching to do something about whoever’s plotting against us, and it distracts me from everything else—even Jessa. Beautiful Jessa, who seems to be thriving under our care. Lovely Jessa, who me and my brothers get more attached to every day she spends with us.

The ranch is on high alert. And it’s not just Joshua, Tyler, Clay, and me. We have everyone on the ranch keeping their eyes peeled.

And nothing happens.

“I have an idea,” Clay says, during a morning meeting with the ranch hands. All of my brothers are present, even Clay and Tyler, who despite having to be up at six-thirty in the morning like they are today, have both shown up. They’re both nursing their coffees, and it doesn’t even look like Tyler has brushed his hair this morning. But they’re here, and conscious.

To their credit, all of the ranch hands look fully alert. Joshua and I are also generally up at dawn, so we’re managing better than Clay and Tyler. And today, even BethAnn is attending the meeting in the barn. She’s brought out a big plate of muffins—in addition to the carafe of coffee she usually keeps filled in this area of the barn. It serves as a breakroom for the guys that don’t feel like coming into the house. Or for the ones who had been working in the mud who BethAnn doesn’t want in the house until they get cleaned up.

There are several tables and chairs set up, along with a couple old couches set along the walls, and fridge in one corner. It smells a little dusty and slightly of cow, but it’s a pretty comfortable spot.

“It might sound a little odd, but bear with me,” Clay adds.

I glance at Clay sharply. He’s the one who set up this meeting, and it seems like he has more than a simple check-in planned.

“And what’s your brilliant idea this early in the damn morning?” Tyler asks, grumpily. He takes another long drink of his coffee, while still managing to glare at Clay the whole time.

All eyes are on Clay, and he clears his throat. “Everyone keeping an eye out was a good idea. But let’s be honest, it doesn’t seem to be working.”

There are murmurs of agreement, and hearing them, Clay continues, “Since keeping our guard obviously up isn’t working, I think we should do the opposite.”

“Keep our eyes shut?” The ranch hand who turned in Griz, Caleb, quips.

Clay makes a semi-rude gesture at him, and everyone laughs. “Basically, yeah.”

“Get on with it, Clay,” I say. But I understand where he’s going with this. And it’s a good idea.

Clay kicks up a little dust from the plank wood floor and crosses his arms. “I think we need to be not looking real hard. Pretend like we’ve given up. Like we believe all this shit that’s been happening was just bad luck.”

“Let t

hem think we put our guard down,” another of the hands, Dylan, adds. “That they’ve got us all fooled.”

“Exactly.” Clay runs his fingers through his hair. “Maybe if we ease up, he’ll let his guard down, too. Do something else that we can catch him at.”

Clay’s idea is a sound one. And at this point, I’m so goddamn frustrated at our lack of progress that I’m willing to try just about anything, so long as it doesn’t put Jessa in any danger.

For the next hour, we work out the details. BethAnn disappears somewhere in the middle to start breakfast, and by the time we’re done talking she’s ready to feed the whole lot of us something heartier than muffins.

The rest of the day is uneventful. I spend most of it out in the range but staying close enough to be there if I’m needed. If I’m honest with myself, I can admit that I’m only going as far as I absolutely have to in order to give Clay’s ruse have a chance of working. And I have to force myself to do that much with Jessa at home. She’s pregnant and on bed rest, and she could be a target of the fucker messing with us. I know it isn’t likely, but I can’t take that risk.

If it’s Griz, he’s going to be sorry.

“So you guys are at the pretending you’ve given up point?” Jessa teases when Tyler and I stop in to visit her for lunch. She’s still on bedrest, so her days are spent either actually in bed in her room or downstairs on one of the big, fluffy couches. Today, she’s in bed and I can see her laptop off to the side. She’s still working off and on, and that worries me. But I guess I have to trust the doctor who has told her that a couple of hours of laptop work, while she’s propped in her bed, won’t do any harm.

“I’m afraid we’ve hit that point,” Tyler says.

The rest of the afternoon would have been blissful if not for the fact that I knew whoever had sent Jessa into bedrest was still out there. Still, I’m swept away by her charm.

We do nothing with the simplest of things. Take turns watching over Jessa, spending time with her. Watching movies, reading books—just being together. It’s almost enough to make me forget that someone is out there with a grudge.

The call wakes us after midnight. I fumble around for my cell phone on the nightstand as my familiar ringer cuts through the quiet.

“This is Trey,” I say, groggy since I’ve only been asleep for about an hour.