Matt continued to hold her up until his cousins vaulted onto the porch. They reached for her, pulled her close, surrounding her.
Maggie inhaled deeply, taking in the essence of the men she loved.
“Are you all right, love?”
“Did he hurt you, sweetheart?”
“Let’s have a look at you, baby.”
Snuggled and then set at arm’s length, she watched as their wonderful faces clouded, as brows furrowed and mouths scowled.
“He hurt you. I’ll kill him.”
Maggie had never heard Richard sound so fierce. She held on to him as her stomach rolled again, as her head resumed its pounding in earnest. She smiled at him, then looked at Trevor and Kevin.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I love you. I love you all so much.”
She thought her declaration would have put smiles on their faces, not make them look as if the world was coming to an end.
Maggie closed her eyes, felt herself begin to fall, and simply let go.
* * * *
Trevor had never been so terrified in his entire life. Maggie had simply crumpled, as if someone had found her “off” switch and flipped it.
Rick caught her and lifted her into his arms, calling Matt’s name. Matt looked back just as he’d been about to enter the inn. Instead he’d spun on his heel, shouted something out to Adam, and raced for his cruiser, telling them he’d get them to the clinic in minutes.
“I’m going to say this one more time, gentlemen, so please pay attention. Maggie has a minor concussion, but she’s going to be fine. The CAT scan came out clean.” Robert Jessop looked down at Maggie, and the smile he gave her was a much nicer look than he’d been giving Trevor and his brothers.
“Have the pills kicked in yet, Maggie?”
Propped up on a stretcher, the ice pack he and his brothers had been taking turns holding to her head now lying on the pillow beside her, Maggie smiled. She didn’t look nearly as white has she had when she’d passed out barely an hour before.
“They have. My stomach has settled, too. Thank you, Robert.” Maggie closed her eyes, and Trevor wondered if she was really all right.
“You’re welcome. Bed rest, fluids, and acetaminophen for the pain, if necessary.” He looked up and met Trevor’s gaze, as well as Rick’s and then Kevin’s. Then he looked back down at Maggie. “If you have any of the symptoms we talked about, you call and we’ll get you to Waco. Otherwise, come back in three days, and we’ll see how you’re doing.” Robert nodded and left the exam room.
Trevor exhaled, the panic that had lived inside him for the last hour finally easing. He stood on Maggie’s left, while Kev and Rick stood on her right. All three of them had their hands on her. He didn’t want to stop touching her, and he figured that there was no way in hell he would be able to let her out of his sight. Not for a good long while.
He bet his brothers felt the exact same way.
“Sweetheart? Are you ready to go home?”
Maggie opened her eyes and gave him a look he had no trouble interpreting. “I don’t know. Is that crazy man still at my house?”
“No, ma’am. He’s in my jail at the moment.” Adam stepped into the room and came to stand at the foot of the bed. “How is she?”
He directed his question at all three of them.
“Concussion,” Rick said. “Doc junior says she’ll be fine.”
“Doc junior?” Maggie looked at each of them in turn.
“Yep. That’s what we’ve all decided to call both Robert and David when they’re on duty here,” Adam said.
“They have to earn anything more respectful,” Trevor said. “That’s the Benedict way.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much how Kendalls do things, too,” Adam said.
Maggie laughed but not as energetically as she normally did.
“I’m going to need a statement from you, please, Aunt Maggie.” Adam’s deferential tone brought Trevor’s eyebrow up.
Adam shrugged. “This woman managed to use her feet—while suffering from a concussion, mind you—and kick that son of a bitch hard enough to push him across the room, making him hit the bookcase, which then toppled over and pinned him to the floor.” Adam smiled, then turned his gaze on Maggie and spoke directly to her. “It took me, Dev, Drew, and Jake to lift that sucker off of him. So you can bet I’ll be doing all I can to make sure I don’t get you mad at me. Ma’am.”
Maggie frowned. “The bookcase fell over and pinned him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A look of concern came over her. “Oh dear. Is it all right? The bookcase?”
Trevor snickered. “That’s not kind, sweetheart. Delicious, and deserved, but not kind.”
Adam pulled out a small recorder and held it up. “If you feel up to it, you can just tell me what happened. Then I’ll get it typed up and bring it over later for you to sign.”
“Yes, please. I want to get this done. I want to go home with my men.”
Trevor felt his smile blooming wide. He really liked being called one of Maggie’s men.
“We want that too, love,” Rick said.
Then Maggie began to speak and Trevor had to work hard at not letting his anxiety show as she detailed her encounter with Clarence Conrad.
Stark terror gave way to fury, then ping-ponged right back to terror.
“You egged him on? On purpose? The man is a murderer. Are you crazy?” Trevor felt proud of the fact that his tone sounded so reasonable.
Adam cursed. He turned off the recorder and said, “Hello? Taking an official statement, here. If you can’t behave, you’ll all three have to leave.”
“Yeah, like that would ever happen,” Kevin said.
“We’ll try and hold our comments until you’re done.” Rick brought Maggie’s hand up to his lips and kissed it. “We wouldn’t want to be caught on tape threatening to spank our woman.”
“He’s a murderer?”
“Suspected,” Adam said.
Maggie’s demeanor changed when she heard about Conrad’s grandmother and the fact that the man himself was a person of interest in the case.
“Person of interest just means ‘we know you did it, we just can’t prove it yet,’ doesn’t it?” she asked.
Adam nodded. “Yes, pretty much. Come on, let’s get this done.”
“All right. Where was I?” Maggie tried to sit up a bit straighter. All three of them did what they could to help her.
“You were describing the conversation you were having with Clarence Conrad and the way you were recklessly and foolishly baiting him,” Adam said.
“I never said I was being reckless or foolish. What happened to the part where you didn’t want to get me mad at you?”
Adam grinned. “My bad. Please continue, Aunt Maggie.”
She did, and when she told how she’d come off the love seat and ran like hell for the door, Trevor got mad and anxious all over again. He’d seen that part, seen the way she’d practically exploded out of the house.
More, he’d seen the look of terror on her face. It was a look he doubted he’d ever forget.
Adam turned off the recorder. He once more met Trevor’s gaze, and then his brothers’. “I won’t lecture you, Maggie, about how dangerous that was. I have a feeling my cousins are going to cover that fairly well. I’ll just say now I understand where Ginny gets it from. And I’m very glad you’re okay.”
Trevor didn’t snicker, which did surprise him some. He’d heard the way Ginny had gone after the man who’d been her abuser for two years and had intended to kidnap her. He remembered he’d laughed long and loud when Colt Evans had told him about it.
He wasn’t laughing now.
Trevor had never understood the true meaning of the word “relieved” until this afternoon. He stepped back so that Adam could kiss Maggie on the cheek. “Speaking of Ginny, she and Mom are waiting for you back at the inn. But there’s a mess of family to be got through between here and there. The waiting room is full. If you need m
e to, I’ll clear them out.”
“No. No, please don’t.” Her eyes shimmered, and Trevor felt his heart thud in his chest.
“Sweetheart? Are you all right?”
“Baby, do you need anything?”
“Does it hurt, love?”
Trevor shook his head, as he and his brothers had all spoken at the same time.
“No, I’m fine. Really.” She looked at Adam. “We’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later.”
As soon as Adam left the room, Maggie inhaled deeply. She blinked and reached up and wiped a tear. “He said that as if it was a given. Family.”
“Why wouldn’t it be, sweetheart? You have to know by now the entire town considers you one of us.”
“It’s not what the entire town thinks that matters to me. It’s what you think. The last time we discussed that, y’all said what we had between us was nothing more than fun and games.”
“Baby, you said ‘y’all’ like a real Texan!” Kevin beamed and Maggie smiled. Then she tilted her head to one side and said, “Is that your way of changing the subject?”
Trevor met his brothers’ gazes and knew one thing without a doubt. The time had definitely come for them to come clean with the woman they loved.
Chapter 20
This certainly wasn’t the picture Maggie had had in mind when she’d decided to bare her heart and soul to the men she loved. She’d hoped for a nice, candlelit dinner, maybe some soft music in the background, and some delicious, full-bodied, and very potent wine.
Potent just in case she got set on her ass and needed it.
A stark but functional room in the town’s clinic, with its ghastly show-every-flaw lighting and antiseptic ambience, really was not the most ideal setting for the declaration she had in mind.
She was aging a year a second, waiting for Kevin’s response to her question.
“No, baby. No, I’m not changing the subject. You have to know by now I’m a smart-ass down to the bone. Sometimes I say things without even thinking.” He shrugged and gave her that little-boy grin of his. Then his expression sobered. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
She saw remorse in his eyes and hated it. “I’m glad you’re a smart-ass. I am, too. We speak each other’s language, you and I. You have to know how special that is.”
“Maggie.”
She could see in his eyes her words touched him deeply. He leaned over and kissed her lightly, his lips almost reverent.
She turned her attention to Trevor. “You and I connect, too, in a way that feels special. You seem to know my moods, understand when I need you to touch me or encourage me. There’s a part of me, an emotional part, that I’ve mostly had to protect, keep hidden all my life. That’s a very lonely way to live. Since meeting you, that part of me isn’t lonely or in hiding so much anymore.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Trevor kissed her much as his brother had.
She turned her head and looked up. Richard was watching her in that silent, motionless, and very sexy way of his, and she felt her heart turn over and her juices begin to gather.
“You get me. I’ve been accused by more than one friend of being the most literal, anal, and linear thinker they know. I can’t help it. When I was five, I used to line my stuffed animals up in alphabetical order.”
“With me, it was my army men. Rank first, alpha by last name second.” Richard grinned.
Maggie grinned right back at him. “What I’m trying to say is that each of you completes a part of me. I never could have dreamed such a thing would be possible, even though you told me it was that very first day, at Tamara and Morgan and Henry’s commitment ceremony. But it is, and you do, and I want more than just fun and games with you. I love you. I love each of you, equally and totally and completely.”
Maggie felt her heart racing and her palms begin to sweat. There, she’d said it, and she wanted to scream as the men—her men—just stood there, looking at each other, communicating in that psychic way they had.
“Yeah, about the fun and games thing,” Kevin said.
Trevor inhaled and then cleared his throat. “Yeah, about that. We have to come clean.”
Richard said, “We lied.” He shrugged. “We had a plan. We were going to tell you it was fun and games and give you all the sex you craved.”
“That way,” Trevor said, “we figured your body would become addicted to us.”
“We hoped that eventually you’d realize that you loved us. And, loving us, would ask us to marry you.” Kevin’s gaze never left hers.
“But we’ve changed our minds,” Richard said. He tilted his head to one side. “We’re the ones who want to do the asking.”
Someday when Maggie was old and gray and needed a cane to walk, she was going to use it to hit Richard over the head for that two-second delay. Her heart had damn-near stopped between one sentence and the next.
Maggie looked at each of the brothers in turn and couldn’t prevent her eyebrow from rising. “I’m not hearing any questions here, gentlemen,” she said.
They grinned like the unrepentant teases they all three were.
“Margaret Mary Morrison, we love you with all our hearts.” Richard looked at each of his brothers and then turned his attention back to her. “It was never fun and games for us, love, but the most sacred of quests. We knew, the moment we laid eyes on you, that you were the one for us.”
“We’d given up on finding you, sweetheart. And then, finally, there you were.”
“If anyone asks us in the future to define love, or joy, or forever, baby, the definition for all three concepts would be the same. It’s you. We simply can’t live without you, because you complete us, too.”
Richard brought her hand to his lips. Heat spread through her body from that small, chaste kiss. “Please marry us, love. Be our wife, our lover, and our best friend. Be the mother of our children and grow old with us.”
Maggie had never believed such a moment as this would ever be hers. She’d put herself firmly in the old-maid column on the spreadsheet of life and considered it a miracle when she discovered she could at least be an aunt and a great-aunt.
Wife and mother were dreams she’d surrendered. Yet here they stood, waiting for her to claim them. Maggie felt her vision blur and her throat tighten.
And she felt so much love swell within her, she didn’t know how she could hold it all in.
“Yes. Oh, yes please. I want so very much to marry you and have your babies.”
Richard’s smile was so beautiful, so love-filled, she couldn’t help but reach for him. His lips took hers, hot and wet and so damned delicious. Their tongues tangled, and Maggie felt her nipples pucker and her pussy lips begin to hum in anticipation.
Richard eased his lips from hers, and then Trevor leaned down. He kissed her as she’d never been kissed, a sweet yet totally carnal kiss that thrilled and aroused, that soothed and warmed.
Trevor’s taste was still on her tongue when Kevin’s mouth devoured hers. His tongue swept and smoothed and savored her, and Maggie knew she was the luckiest woman in the world.
She’d discovered the elixir of life, the nectar of the gods, and the secret to eternal happiness. Her very own personal man-cocktail of one part Richard, one part Trevor, and one part Kevin filled her up, heart and mind, body and soul. She’d discovered love under three titans, a treasure more precious to her than any fortune could ever be.
“Please.” She smiled at each of them and sighed when they each laid a hand on her, touching her and connecting them. “Please, let’s go home. I want to be with you. I want to be filled by you. I need your flesh on mine and in mine. I want us to be one.”
“All right, Maggie, love. Let’s go home.”
The men wanted to carry her, but she insisted on walking out of the clinic under her own steam. Maggie was moved to tears that so many people filled the waiting room, there because they cared about her. They cheered when they saw her. It took her a while to make h
er way through, but that was okay.
She could truly say she’d never mattered to so many people in her life before. Her men had been right. She did belong to Lusty now. And Lusty, thank God, belonged to her.
Kate Benedict hugged her hard. Then she stood back and examined Maggie’s face. “You’re going to have a bruise, but the other guy looks a lot worse, and good for you.” Then the diminutive matriarch reached out and grabbed Richard’s right hand, turning it over and showing Maggie his bruised knuckles. “I should say, both of the other guys look worse.”
Maggie looked up at Richard, and he actually blushed. “It’s a bit of a long story, love. Briefly, there was an intelligence agent—a friend of Dev and Drew’s, actually—who’d been playing Conrad. When that bastard asked for personal details on me, he gave him your name and the fact that we were involved.”
“To be fair to the man, that was when he, and the rest of us, thought Conrad was harmless.” Devon Wakefield stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. “Glad you’re all right, Maggie.”
“Actually, Connor Talbot invited me to deck him and stood there and took it.” Richard flushed again, and Maggie thought he looked cute.
“I was a little upset at the time,” Richard concluded, “and so took advantage of the opportunity.”
“Actually, you hogged that opportunity all to yourself,” Trevor said.
Kevin nodded. “We both would have liked a piece of him, too.”
“My heroes,” Maggie said. Then she smiled. “I think I’m going to have to apologize to this Connor Talbot at some point.”
“Nah,” Drew James said. He hugged Maggie, too, and then stepped back. “Talbot’s a big boy. He can take it.”
Julia stood between her men but stepped forward to hug Maggie as well. The young woman seemed awfully weepy. She stood back and tried to laugh through her tears. “It’s been an emotional day. I just found out that my triplet brothers aren’t the jerks I’ve always thought they were.”
Maggie wondered if that was all there was to it. But she said, “Of course they aren’t. They’re just your brothers, and they love you very much.”
Love Under Three Titans Page 22
