Jenna's Cowboys

by Laura Jo Phillips

  “If the shooter didn’t use the stairs, how’d he get off the roof?” Dillon asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Luke replied. “We’ve got the area cordoned off and there’s a team gathering evidence now. I’m going back myself in just a minute, once I get done here. How’s Jenna?”

  “Doc’s running some tests but it looks like she’s gonna be all right,” Cole replied. “She didn’t panic when her heart started acting up and that helped.”

  “That lady of yours is small on the outside, but on the inside she’s as tough as they come,” Luke said. “She’ll be fine, and so will Max and Marli.”

  Dillon nodded, but his frustration showed in the tightening of his fists and the twitch in his jaw. “Did you ever find Lyssa Owen, Luke?”

  “Not a trace of her,” Luke replied. “Her sister, Tina, swears up and down that Lyssa would never take off without telling her, but Lyssa was deep into the drug crowd over there in Jackston. I couldn’t find anyone who can remember seeing her in more than a month, but aside from Tina, no one seems surprised by her absence, either. Apparently Lyssa up and disappears with one man or another on a semi-regular basis.” Luke shrugged. “Even if I could find her, I seriously doubt she’s behind this.”

  “Why?” Cole asked.

  “She’s not smart enough, for one thing. She might’ve been at one time, but she’s been frying her brain with drugs since she was about fifteen. She doesn’t have the skills or the knowledge to pull off anything like this, and I couldn’t find anyone in her past or present who does. She turns a trick here and there, but otherwise she has no money, and owns nothing of value, so that rules out hiring someone of the caliber we’re dealing with.”

  Dillon nodded his understanding, though he didn’t seem happy about it. “Thanks for checking, anyway Luke.”

  “I’ve got eyes out,” Luke said. “If she shows up, I’ll haul her in. In the meantime, you know what I know about Jenna.” Dillon and Cole nodded, meeting the Sheriff’s gaze steadily. “I gotta ask if you’ve learned anything new about that situation, or if you’ve thought of anyone else who might mean Jenna harm.”

  Dillon exchanged a long, silent look with Cole, then turned to Jag and nodded shortly. “Tell ‘em.”

  “All of it?” Jag asked. Dillon and Cole looked around at the men standing in the waiting room, every one of them looking to protect one of their own. When Hank and Jack both nodded their agreement, they knew it was the right thing to do.

  “Yeah, all of it,” Dillon said. “Jenna’s learned to trust the people in this town. She won’t want anyone’s pity, but she won’t panic at the people here knowing her past the way she would have done before.” The men all nodded, understanding that what they were about to hear wouldn’t be good.

  “Four years ago, three years before Jenna came to Sparx, she was raped by the son of the mayor in the small town she grew up in,” Jag began, then paused a moment for the growls and swearing to die down. He told the rest of the story simply and quickly, unsurprised at the rising fury of the men crowding the room even though he kept his facts as bland as possible. When he was finished telling about the past, he moved on to the present.

  “I sent a full team to the town Jenna grew up in about a week after someone broke into the Howards’ home and put rat poison in Jenna’s prenatal vitamins. I followed ten days later with a few more men and we stayed about two weeks. Just got back yesterday, in fact.

  “The bastard that raped Jenna was the mayor’s eldest son, and he’s dead. The mayor was charged with embezzlement and extortion about a month after Jenna left. The people of the town didn’t lift a finger to help one of their own, but they got mighty upset about their money getting used wrong. The ex-mayor is now in prison and likely to stay there for a few decades. He has another trial coming up soon for racketeering and money laundering, as well as drug manufacturing.” Jag paused and looked at Luke. “The feds are keeping a tight lid on the situation, which is why you couldn’t get many answers through official channels.” Luke nodded his thanks for the explanation and Jag continued. “The man no longer has the resources nor the contacts to set up something like this from behind bars. My opinion is he’s too worried about his own hide to care much about anyone else’s anyway.

  “His wife, the one who trumped up the charges against Jenna for killing her psychotic baby boy, tried to kill herself with a drug overdose. She’s a vegetable in a rundown state funded nursing home. They had one other child, another boy. He was eight at the time of Jenna’s rape and now lives in a foster home. He has Down’s Syndrome, so there’s little chance he’s the mastermind behind these attacks.”

  “No other family or acquaintances who might hold a grudge against her?” Luke asked.

  “None that we could find. We talked to quite a few of the townspeople, including all of Jenna’s old neighbors. Some of them looked a bit ashamed of how they’d treated her, but mostly they just acted like they didn’t know who we were talking about, or refused to speak with us at all. None of them seemed angry though. Just embarrassed by their own behavior which, in my opinion, is the least of how they should feel.

  “We tracked down the officer responsible for taking Jenna’s case public and getting the charges against her dropped. That turned out to be the beginning of the mayor’s downfall, but it didn’t do her much good as he was still in office when she left town. We interviewed all of the men and women who worked closely with him, and a lot of those who weren’t quite as close, but still worked for him. No matter how deep we dug, we couldn’t find anyone who cared about Jenna one way or the other.”

  “You don’t think the person behind these attacks is from her past then?” Luke asked.

  “No, I really don’t Luke,” Jag said with a sigh. “I almost wish I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if it’s not anyone from that town, then it’s someone here, in Sparx, or close to us. Jenna’s never lived anywhere else. Even when she was in college she lived in the same house she grew up in and commuted thirty minutes a day into Medford and back.

  “We wanna hire you again, Jag,” Dillon said after a long silence. “Beef up the security on Jenna’s building, including the apartment upstairs, and also out at the ranch. Alarms, security cameras, and safe rooms. Susie’s using two of the shop’s extra store rooms for her candle making, but there’s one that’s still empty. Turn that room into a damn vault and I don’t care what it costs. I want a safe room out at the house, too. I also want a full blown investigation into this whole mess. Whoever this person is, he’s an expert marksman, has enough know-how to rig a car bomb, and managed to break into Jenna’s apartment and our house without leaving a trace behind. On top of that, he’s a fucking ghost. He moves around our ranch and in town here doing this shit in broad daylight and no one notices him.”

  “I can’t step on toes, Dillon,” Jag said carefully.

  “No worries,” Luke said. “We all do what needs doing. You just keep me posted if you find anything.”

  “Sure thing, Luke,” Jag said. “We’ll start immediately.”

  “I don’t wanna raise anyone’s tension level more than it is, but I gotta do it,” Luke said. Every eye went to him. “Someone got up on a roof with an automatic rifle and shot a couple hundred high powered rounds into the street in the middle of the afternoon. They aimed at Jenna who was, thankfully, in a truck with bulletproof glass, but anyone could have caught a bullet. Anyone. Men, women, and children. As important as it is to keep Jenna safe, this is about keeping the whole damn town safe now, too. Anyone who’d do that is a serious threat to Sparx and everyone who lives here, so spread that word around. If anyone knows anything at all about this, no matter how small or far-fetched it may seem, he or she needs to come forward.”

  ***

  Peter drove the Denali into town while two of the hands drove his truck so they could help transfer the feed from Cole’s truck into his. When he entered the diner and saw Jenna he walked straight to her, bent over and
hugged her gently for a long time. Jenna stroked Peter’s back soothingly, unsurprised to see his eyes were red when he released her. “Thank you, Peter,” she said softly. He kissed her on the forehead, exchanged long meaningful looks with Cole and Dillon, then hugged each of them before handing Dillon the keys to the Denali.

  He never said a word, but they understood his emotions were riding him hard, and didn’t try to engage him in conversation. After Peter left Dillon, Cole, and Jenna said their goodnights to Meg, Hank and Jack as well as the other people in the diner. Meg walked over to the big plate glass window and watched as they got into the Denali and drove away. She sensed the approach of her men behind her as she always did. She’d long since stopped wondering how she did that. She just did.

  “What’re you thinking, love?” Hank asked, one hand gently rubbing her neck while Jack stroked her back.

  “Look out there,” she said in a low voice. “We know everyone out on that street right now. Chev Langly, Stephan Cord, the Clancys, Flo, Shelly, Anna, Bess, Gordon, Peter, Clive, Theo. We don’t just know them, we’ve known them for a long time, just like we know everyone else in Sparx. I just can’t imagine someone we know being capable of doing all of this and yet, it has to be.”

  “You’re right,” Jack agreed. “We’d have all noticed a stranger.”

  “You guys check out everyone in this town before they come here,” Meg said. “How is this even possible?”

  “We don’t know, love,” Hank said tiredly. “We’ve turned over all of the council’s background reports to Jag, though. If there’s anything to be found, he’ll find it.”

  “If there’s anything in those reports to be found, you two would have seen it right off,” Meg said.

  “Yes, we would’ve,” Jack said. “Jag’s using the reports to tell him where to dig more deeply.”

  “In that case, I hope he digs fast,” Meg said. “This is the fifth time someone’s tried to murder Jenna. She’s my daughter in all but blood and I honestly don’t know if I could bear losing her. Not to mention Max and Marli. Our grandbabies.” Her voice hitched on that and the tears she’d been fighting for hours fell silently down her cheeks.

  “We know, kitten,” Jack said, kissing her temple. “Rest assured, Cole and Dillon are doing everything they can to keep Jenna and their children safe.”

  “I know they are,” Meg said, nodding as she wiped her tears with the napkin Hank gave her. “I’m still scared.”

  ***

  Jenna sat in the back seat of the Denali, staring out the window during the entire drive home, lost in her thoughts. Cole asked her once if she was all right, and she smiled and nodded, but they were starting to worry by the time they got home. Dillon carried her into the house, then asked where she wanted to go.

  “Kitchen, please,” she said. “The little monsters want dessert.” Dillon smiled. They’d discovered Jenna had a sweet tooth once she got her appetite back, and Meg loved to indulge it. Since she was still underweight even though she ate regularly, nobody gave her a hard time about it.

  Cole came in with the box containing a chocolate cream pie and a few minutes later they were all indulging in pie with decaf coffee.

  “You know who Harriet Beecher Stowe is, right?” she asked suddenly.

  “Sure,” Dillon said. “She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, among other things. Smart woman.”

  Jenna nodded her agreement. “In Little Foxes she wrote; The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Cole said soberly.

  “Yes, it is,” Jenna agreed. “I thought of that while I was lying on the floor of the truck with my hands over my face, just after I realized that I’d made two really big mistakes. Then, a short time later, I was lucky enough to change that to almost made two really big mistakes when you two showed up. It’s my intention to correct those mistakes at the earliest possible opportunity.” She then took a big bite of her pie and let them think on that for a few moments. Of the two of them, Cole was far and away the most impatient, so she guessed he’d be the first to ask. She wasn’t wrong.

  “What mistakes did you almost make, honey?”

  “The first one is that I’ve neglected to tell the two of you how much I love you. Or even that I love you. I tried a few times but I guess I wasn’t ready, or maybe I was afraid of putting something out there to get stepped on. But you’ve both loved me so well the past couple of months that I know I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

  “So, I love you Dillon,” she said, the teasing tone fading to one far more serious. “I love you, Cole. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you in Flo’s, just like you two loved me then. I didn’t realize it was love at first because I’d never loved anyone but my Dad, and no one else had ever loved me that I could remember. But I have lots of love now and I know what it feels like.”

  “Jenna,” Dillon said hoarsely. “I love you too, angel.” Jenna smiled, then squealed when Cole suddenly scooped her up out of her chair and held her tightly against his chest. Then he pulled back to look into her eyes.

  “I love you so much, Jenna,” he said, then kissed her tenderly. It only took a moment for his curiosity to reassert itself, though. “What’s the other mistake you made?”

  “Well, put me down so I can eat my pie and I might tell you,” she said, her eyes sparkling at him. He chuckled softly and set her back down in her chair. She put a bite of pie in her mouth and they grinned at her, knowing she was dragging it out to tease them.

  “The second thing is…,” she said, then trailed off, frowning thoughtfully. “Maybe I shouldn’t presume so much. I better ask first if that offer you made a couple months ago still stands.”

  “Offer?” Cole asked blankly.

  “You don’t remember?” she asked, feigning disappointment. “I guess if you don’t even remember it wasn’t that serious so we’ll skip that part.” She put another bite of pie in her mouth and watched Cole scowl before looking at Dillon who had an expression on his face that told her he was thinking very methodically, and very fast. When his eyes widened and a grin split his face she knew he’d gotten it.

  “You can be a bit of a brat,” he said, laughing softly.

  “You betcha,” she replied with a grin.

  Dillon looked across the table at his brother. “Cole, I think we need that box from the safe.”

  Cole stared for a beat, then gasped, “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Dillon confirmed.

  Cole stood up so fast his chair nearly toppled over before he caught it. Then he bent to give Jenna a quick kiss before hurrying out of the kitchen. Jenna didn’t know what he was fetching, but she had an idea. She had just enough time to finish her pie before Cole returned with a box much larger than she expected. She wondered if Dillon had misunderstood her after all. Dillon got up and he and Cole went over to the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen from where she sat, their backs to her. She sipped her coffee and waited to see what they were up to.

  She didn’t have to wait long. They turned around and approached her, then they both went down on one knee which she hadn’t been expecting at all. She blushed bright red, but it didn’t affect her smile.

  “We love you Jenna James,” Dillon said. “You’re our one and only.”

  “Will you marry us Jenna, and make us the happiest men in the world?” Cole asked.

  Then Dillon spoke, the two of them taking turns. “Will you let us take care of you and our children, share your laughter with us, as well as your tears?”

  “Will you let us share our lives with you, and love us as we love you until the end of forever?”

  Their words touched her so much that she couldn’t begin to stop the tears and didn’t try. “Yes, yes, and yes to all of that,” she said happily.

  Cole picked up her left hand and held it while Dillon reached over and slipped a ring on it before she could see what it looked like. Then they let go of her hand and she
raised it to see a shining round diamond solitaire set in a delicate platinum band.

  “Oh my,” she gasped as the brilliant stone caught the light.

  “We know it’s simple,” Dillon said as they watched her reaction, “but we didn’t think you’d want anything fussy. If you don’t like it we can get something else. We can get a bigger stone if you want, too.”

  “Absolutely not!” she exclaimed. “I love this! It’s totally perfect, completely gorgeous, and it’s not coming back off so forget it. Besides, if it was any bigger I’d list to the side and I have enough trouble balancing the watermelon twins as it is.”

  They grinned as they rose to their feet. Then Dillon picked her up and held her close for a long, deep, reverent kiss that left her a little breathless. Before she had a chance to recover, he passed her into Cole’s waiting arms for another kiss, this one just as deep and emotional, causing her eyes to sting a little.

  “So, out of curiosity, why such a big box?” she asked after she’d caught her breath.

  Cole put her back in the chair, then went to get the box. He opened it and set it on the table in front of her and she gasped softly. Inside were two thin eternity bands, both set with pale blue stones that matched the color of their eyes, and two wide platinum wedding bands, each with a round, reddish stone embedded in the center.

  “The heavy bands with the cinnamon diamonds are for us, of course,” Dillon said.

  “Cinnamon diamonds?” she asked in surprise.

  “They match your eyes,” Cole said.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said with a watery smile.

  “The eternity bands are your wedding bands, one to go on each side of the engagement ring.”

  Jenna tried to blink away her tears but it was hopeless. “They’re perfect,” she said, looking up at them. “I can’t wait to wear them.”

  “Really?” Cole asked with a happy smile. “Does that mean you wanna get married soon?”