“We’re sorry for the things we said, Jenna,” Cole said earnestly. “We really are.”
“Get out,” she tried once more, the squeezing sensation in her chest ramping up quickly.
“Jenna, please,” Dillon began, but she stopped listening. It was getting hard to breathe already, and they obviously weren’t going to leave just because she’d asked. She couldn’t risk arguing with them, and she couldn’t just walk away since they were in her shop. She placed her thumb on Hank’s speed dial number just as the bell over the door rang again. She looked up, relief washing through her when she saw Hank and Jack.
“Hey, Hank, Jack,” Dillon said, frowning at the anger he saw simmering on both men’s faces.
“Jenna, do you want them here?” Hank asked without responding to Dillon’s greeting.
“No,” she gasped, fighting the urge to raise her hands to the escalating pain in her chest.
“Jenna, we just…,” Cole began, but Jack cut him off.
“You heard her, Cole. Get on out of here now before things get ugly.”
Dillon looked at Jenna, who was now staring down at the countertop while panting as though she’d just run a race. He frowned worriedly. Her face was white, and there seemed to be a faint bluish color around her mouth, just like the morning they’d walked out on her. Their presence was upsetting her far more than they’d expected. “Come on Cole,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Cole nodded, his face a thundercloud as he turned and headed for the door with Dillon right behind him. Jack followed them out but Hank stayed, fairly alarmed at how bad Jenna looked.
“Should I call Doc?”
“No,” she said between attempts to breathe slowly and deeply. “I’ll be okay in a minute.” Hank waited, watching her carefully, his cell in his hand just in case he needed to call Doc after all. He relaxed a little when some color returned to her face.
“Better?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you for coming over so fast, Hank.”
“No problem, Jenna,” he said. “What happened?”
“They said they wanted to apologize to me for some things they said. I asked them to leave a couple of times but they wouldn’t. I was just about to call you when you and Jack showed up.” She sighed. “I guess Peter must’ve told them. I can’t blame him though.”
“I’m not so sure,” Hank said. “Were you sitting like you are now the whole time they were here?”
“Yeah,” she said nodding. “They weren’t in here but half a minute before you showed up.”
“You’re hidden enough by that counter that no one would ever guess you’re pregnant. And those boys wouldn’t have left so quietly if they’d known, either.”
Jenna’s eyes widened and her face paled again. “Aw, Jenna, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m mad as hell at those two, but I’ve known ‘em for twelve years. They wouldn’t hurt you, I’d bet my life on it. But you don’t want them here, and seeing them upsets you, so we’ll be making sure they stay away.”
“You really don’t think they’d hurt me, Hank?”
“I really don’t think they would,” Hank said. “Hand me your keys, hon, and I’ll lock up the front for you.”
Jenna reached into her pocket for the keys just as the bell jangled again. She and Hank both tensed, then relaxed when they saw it was Jack. “They’re gone,” he said.
“They don’t know, do they?” Hank asked, accepting the keys from Jenna.
“No, far as I could tell they don’t have a clue. I told them to steer clear and sent them on their way.”
“Jack,” Jenna said when Hank went to lock the door, “do you think they’d hurt me? I mean, if they got real mad about…anything.”
Jack understood what she meant. “No, Jenna, I don’t think they would, not the way you’re thinking. But having them close upsets you, and that hurts you. You do what you gotta do, and we’ll back you up one hundred percent.”
“What about the bees? Do you think they could’ve done that?”
“No, hon, I don’t. Not in a million years.”
Jenna nodded. Since they didn’t seem to know she was pregnant, she couldn’t imagine why they’d do it anyway. “Thanks, Jack,” she said. Hank returned with her keys and offered to walk her out. It made her feel a bit childish, but she accepted the offer anyway. She’d already closed out the till and done the rest of her closing routine so she just grabbed her purse and headed for the back door with both men following her.
“By the way,” Jack said, “the reason we got here so fast is we were already on our way over when we saw the Howards come in.”
“Oh?” Jenna asked. “Did you need to get something?”
“No, we were coming over to tell you we got the tee-shirts.”
Jenna stopped walking and turned to face them with a smile. “Did you?” she asked innocently, thinking of the #1 Grandpa tees she’d ordered online and had sent to them.
“We sure did,” Hank said, grinning from ear to ear as he bent to give her a hug. “I can’t tell you how happy I am, Jenna. Being Grandpa to your babies is gonna be so much fun, and I think your mother would approve.”
“I know my father would approve of both of you, too, so I guess that means we’re covered.”
When Hank stepped back, Jack hugged her too. “This counts as the second greatest honor of my life, Jenna,” he said, releasing her. “I’d say the first, but Meg marrying us has that spot.”
“Of course she does,” Jenna said over her shoulder as she opened the back door and turned off the lights. “That’s the way it should be.”
After seeing Jenna home and making sure nothing was amiss, Hank and Jack headed back down the stairs, not speaking until they reached the alley. “I think we need to give Peter a call, let him know what happened,” Jack said. “It looks like he didn’t tell them Jenna’s pregnant and I don’t want him spilling the beans when he finds out they saw her.”
“That’s a good idea,” Hank agreed. “Did they happen to tell you why they came to see Jenna?”
“No, they said it was private,” Jack said. “I’m glad Meg wasn’t here, though. She’d have drawn blood, I think.”
Hank smiled. “Yeah, I bet she would’ve. She makes one helluva good mother, doesn’t she?”
“She sure does,” Jack agreed.
***
“Damn, that went well,” Cole said sarcastically once they were out of town.
“She looked real bad, Cole,” Dillon said. “Too thin, tired, pale, circles under her eyes.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Cole said. “Did she look kind of blue around the mouth to you?”
“She did,” Dillon said worriedly. “Not at first, but by the time Hank and Jack showed up just a few seconds after us she was looking real bad. A lot like she did when we walked out on her that morning. She wasn’t breathing right, either.”
“Yeah,” Cole said on a long sigh. “We should’ve left the first time she asked us to.”
“Yep, we should’ve.”
“We really messed up, Dillon. It looks like apologizing isn’t gonna be enough to fix this.”
“I know,” Dillon said, his throat feeling tight. “Maybe if we’d gone back right away it would have been.”
Maybe,” Cole said. “But that wasn’t an option at the time.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It’s hard to believe she’s still mad after all this time,” Cole said. “Staying mad for so long just doesn’t seem like something she’d do.”
“I think we hurt her even worse than we thought,” Dillon said. “And made her angrier than we thought, too.”
“She probably just needs more time,” Cole said.
“It’s been more than five months, Cole. How much more time could she need? And what are we gonna do in the meantime?”
Cole was silent for several minutes. “We’re gonna wait,” he said finally, sitting up a bit straighter. “We’re not giving up, Dillon. We’ve waited this long just to find her. We can
wait however long it takes to win her back.”
Dillon nodded slowly. “You’re right, Cole. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”
***
Jenna locked the door behind Hank and Jack, activated the alarm, then went to her bedroom to kick off her shoes and put her purse away. Her hands still trembled from her encounter with the Howards, but she felt more stressed than scared, which surprised her. She went into the kitchen and began putting dinner together even though she wasn’t the slightest bit hungry, refusing to let herself think about Dillon and Cole.
She’d just finished eating when the phone rang, startling her. She never got phone calls at home unless it was Meg, and she was in Missoula with Flo, Sue, and Shelly. She went to answer it, hoping it wasn’t the Howards. After checking the caller ID she picked it up, frowning.
“Hi Sheriff Luke,” she said.
“Hello Jenna. I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner.”
“No, I just finished. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to come by and talk to you for a bit, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, when?”
“Tonight? I can be there in a couple minutes.”
“That’s fine, Sheriff, but is something wrong? Should I be worried?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Not a thing for you to worry about.”
“All right, I’ll see you in a few minutes then.” She hung up the phone, put her dishes in the dishwasher and neatened up the kitchen while she waited for the Sheriff to arrive, trying to think about furnishing one of the bedrooms as a nursery to keep herself from worrying. This had been a very trying day though and it wasn’t working very well. All she really wanted was to take that hot bath she’d been looking forward to.
The bell rang and she went to answer the door, checking through the peephole first to be sure it was Sheriff Luke. She disabled the alarm, unlocked the door and swung it open.
“Hi Sheriff.”
“Hi Jenna,” he said, entering when she stepped aside. “I’m real sorry to bother you like this but I wanted to do this at a time when we’d have the fewest people noticing.”
“I appreciate that, Sheriff,” she said, locking the door before leading the way into the kitchen. He sat on one of the bar stools at the counter and she stood on the other side.
“Do me a favor, Jenna, and call me Luke, okay? Otherwise I’m gonna have to start calling you Ms. James.” That got a smile out of her and some of the tension left her shoulders.
“All right, Luke,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, I won’t be here that long, but thank you,” Luke said. “First off, I checked on the Howards’ whereabouts for the day of the bee incident. They were out on the range with about a dozen of their hands from sunup to shortly after sunset. I’m confident that there’s no way they could have done it.”
Jenna released a long, slow breath. “Thank you, Luke. I’m really relieved to know that.”
“Jenna, I understand why you’re afraid of telling Cole and Dillon about your pregnancy, and I sure as hell don’t blame you, either. But I’ve known those two men for twelve years. I promise you, they would never harm you or those babies you’re carrying.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Because I know them, and because I’m damn good at my job. I know what sort of men hurt women, Jenna, and I can spot ‘em a mile away. The Howards ain’t like that. I’m not saying I think they’re perfect, and just like everyone else in this town I’m not too happy with them right now. But they aren’t the kind of men who go around hurting women, and they sure as hell wouldn’t harm a child.”
Jenna chewed on her lip for a moment, then said, “They came into the shop today. Just before I closed.”
“Did they now? What happened?” Jenna told him, including the fact that it didn’t seem they’d noticed she was pregnant. “If they don’t know you’re pregnant, what were they wanting to apologize about?”
Jenna’s face paled a little. “Some things they said to me the last time I saw them.”
Luke nodded. Like everyone else, he had no idea what happened between Jenna and the Howards, and he wasn’t going to ask. Partly because it wasn’t his business, and partly because he seriously doubted she’d tell him. Jenna was one of the most close-mouthed people he’d ever known, male or female. Of course, she had a damn good reason for it.
“Jenna, I wanted to see you tonight for two reasons. To tell you the results of my investigation of the Howards, and to ask you to seriously consider telling them you’re pregnant.”
“Why?” she asked, looking up at him in surprise.
“Because what happened with those bees was no prank, and you know it. You’re here all alone, you’re pregnant, and you’re not strong physically. I can’t post a man here to watch over you, much as I wish I could. You need help all the way around, and the Howards will help you. I’ve no doubt in my mind of that.”
“Hank and Jack don’t think they’d hurt me either,” she admitted.
“Do you trust me, Jenna?”
She looked steadily into his eyes for a moment, then said, “Yes, I do.”
“I know damn well you trust Hank and Jack, right?” She nodded. “Then please, trust me, trust all of us on this. You need to tell Cole and Dillon you’re pregnant for your sake, and for your babies’ sake. At the very least let them make you safe so you can stop worrying all the time.”
“I’ll think about it, Luke. I promise.”
“Fair enough,” Luke said, standing up. He’d noticed she was getting pale so he wasn’t about to push her any harder. “I’m gonna get out of your way now. Keep your cell close, and don’t hesitate for a moment to call me if you even think something’s wrong.”
“All right Luke,” Jenna said, walking him to the door. “And thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Jenna,” he said. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” she replied. She watched him cross the porch to the stairs, then closed and locked the door before reactivating the alarm. She went around the apartment, double checking all the windows to be sure they were still closed and locked. Then she went into her bathroom and started the water in the tub, thinking about the Howards.
By the time the water began to cool, she’d decided that since she did trust Luke, Hank, and Jack, she had to trust their advice. She didn’t think she could ever trust Cole and Dillon again, but it wasn’t really all that hard any more to believe that they wouldn’t physically hurt her. Which meant she couldn’t justify keeping the babies a secret from them any longer despite what she’d said to Peter. That was true whether someone was trying to hurt her or not. The question was, how the hell did she go about telling them?
A little while later, as she lay in bed staring up at the stars through the sky light, she reluctantly decided that, since someone meant to cause her harm, just telling them about the babies wasn’t enough. They needed to know all of it. She couldn’t come straight out and tell them face to face though. They might not hurt her physically, but she remembered all too clearly how mean they could be, and telling them her secrets would give them an awful lot of ammunition. She was supposed to avoid stressful situations, not walk straight into them.
After giving it a lot more thought, she finally came up with an idea. She needed to speak with Jack about it first, though. If he thought it was a good idea, then she’d do it. With that decision made, she rolled onto her side, placed one hand against the thumping kicks, and fell asleep.
Chapter 9
A week later Jenna locked up a little earlier than she usually closed for lunch. She picked up an envelope from the counter and slipped it into her back pocket, grabbed a bottle of water and reached for her purse only to find the place where she usually kept it empty. She frowned, then realized she hadn’t brought it down with her that morning.
This whole matter of informing the Howards of her pregnancy had been making her anxious for days. Now that she finally had the document Jack had
drawn up for her, all she wanted to do was get it in the mail. Then it would be done and she wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.
She went out the back door, locked it, then headed for the stairs. The post office was only four blocks away but Doc’s orders were no unnecessary walking. That meant driving, which meant she needed her wallet, which meant climbing the stairs for her purse. A few minutes later she was headed back down the stairs with her purse only to drop it before she reached the last step. She sighed tiredly, set her water bottle on the railing, then carefully crouched down to gather the few things that had fallen out because she hadn’t zipped it shut. When she was sure she’d gotten everything she stood up again which was far easier said than done, walked over to the Bronco and unlocked it. She climbed up, thankful as always that it had running boards. Even so, she wondered how much longer she’d be able to pull herself up into it.
After starting the engine she turned to reach for her seatbelt and spotted her bottle of water on the stair railing. She hesitated, but she seemed to be thirsty all the time these days and she knew she’d regret it if she left without it. She opened the door again and carefully lowered herself back down to the ground, then walked over to the corner of the building where the bottom of the stairs were. She grabbed the bottle and started back when suddenly there was an enormous explosion and a hot wind picked her up and threw her against the brick wall.
***
Sheriff Luke drove along Main Street, making his regular pass through town. It was nearly lunchtime and he was really looking forward to a cheeseburger at Meg’s. He spotted Cole and Dillon Howard climbing into their truck in front of the feed store and raised one hand in a wave. They waved back and he continued on to the end of the business district before turning east. He drove slowly up Pikes Street which ran parallel to Main Street, wondering if Jenna was still trying to decide whether to tell the Howards her troubles, or if she’d decided against it. It had been a week since he spoke to her, he realized. He decided to give her a call later in the afternoon and ask.
A few minutes later he turned west, crossed Main Street to Flo’s Market and turned around to make another pass through town when the distinctive sound of an explosion reached him. He immediately thought of Jenna and leaned forward to look at the sky in the direction of her shop. Sure enough, there was smoke. He hit the gas, already reaching for his cell to call for help.
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