Monroe, Marla - The Hired Hands' Dilemma [The Men of Space Station One #3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Marla Monroe

  “Come on in. You should have brought Ashley with you. Rachel is about to have a cow to meet her.”

  “She was busy and we don’t plan to stay, but we just wanted to talk a little more about the ranch and this creature you mentioned. It wasn’t in any of our literature to study.”

  Another man walked up and Danny introduced him as Andrew. “Come on in the living room and we’ll talk.”

  Keeton and Boyd followed the two men to the living room and took a seat. The house seemed to be made up around the same plans, just a little larger than theirs. Keeton sure wasn’t complaining, though. He’d lived in nothing but bunkhouses for years. A real house was a blessing as far as he was concerned.

  “So what about the creature?” Boyd prompted.

  Andrew and Danny exchanged looks. Danny sighed and started talking.

  “It looks like a cross between a praying mantis and a manatee. Weird, to say the least, but it has razor-sharp teeth and three claws on each leg. It can stand upright, but seems to run on all fours.”

  “You’re serious,” Keeton said.

  “Dead serious. It nearly killed our wife. She was lucky to have gotten away from it. That’s why the fences are going up. You need to work on yours every chance you get. You want to get it up around the garden and the house.” Danny unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off one shoulder.

  “This is what it does to you when you heal.” He showed them a scar that was puckered up as if the skin had boiled. It had a strange tint to it, almost yellow.

  “Rachel’s is much worse, but it’s on her back shoulder. We have no idea if there is any residual effect from it. Just that it seems to do something to the skin when it heals. Rachel’s is a much stronger yellow than mine is, but she had deeper cuts.”

  Andrew stood up and paced. It was obvious talking about their wife’s injury bothered him. Keeton changed the subject.

  “So how many cows are you running right now?”

  The conversation remained on cattle and their progress with breeding. After two hours, Boyd called a halt with the excuse that they needed to get back to Ashley.

  “Don’t want to leave her alone too much right now. She’ll have to deal with it when we start working regular.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it for the next few days. You need to get settled in and recover from that shuttle flight. It takes something out of you. Plus, as I understand it, you didn’t know your wife before you arrived. You need to develop a relationship with her.” Andrew patted Boyd on the back as they walked back through the kitchen.

  “Tell your wife we’ll bring Ashley over in another day or two,” Boyd said.

  “Will do. She’s taking a nap. We were up late last night putting away some meat. Butchered a cow. And filled up the freezer. You have plenty of meat in yours, too.” Danny opened the back door and watched them climb on their horses.

  They waved as they settled into a gallop crossing the pasture after closing the gate behind them. They reached the barn and climbed off their horses after walking them around the yard a few minutes. Once they had taken care of the horses, they headed to the house.

  Boyd made it inside first, but he stopped in the doorway so that Keeton ran into him from behind.

  “What’s going on? Why did you stop?” Keeton complained.

  “Something’s wrong.”

  Keeton immediately grabbed his knife out of his boot and pushed past Boyd. Once inside the kitchen, he could feel it, too. Something was inside that shouldn’t be there. Keeton carefully walked through the kitchen to the living room. There was no sign of Ashley, but the cushions were on the floor and her shoes were across the room as if she’d thrown them.

  Boyd cursed when he saw around Keeton. They headed for the stairs and took them two at a time. Keeton found the bedroom door shut. When he went to open it, it was locked.

  “Ashley? It’s Keeton and Boyd. Let us in, baby.”

  “Is it still out there?” her muffled voice came through the door.

  “Is what out here?” Boyd asked.

  “That thing. It tried to bite me.”

  Keeton cursed. “Open the door, Ashley. Now.”

  There was the sound of something moving in front of the door then the lock turning, and the door opened a fraction. Keeton pushed it open further and walked into the room with Boyd right behind him.

  It was obvious that she had moved the chair in front of the door since it was out of place. The expression on her face was one of pure terror. Keeton’s heart thumped hard in his chest.

  “What was it, Ashley? Tell us what happened.”

  Boyd picked her up and carried her over to the bed, where he sat her down. Keeton sat on one side of her and Boyd the other.

  “I was napping on the couch. I was so tired. I kept feeling something around my fingertips and figured I was brushing the rug, so I moved my hand under my chin. Then I felt something jump on me. I woke up all the way and screamed when I saw this weird animal sitting on my leg gnashing his teeth as if he couldn’t wait to take a bite out of me.” She shivered.

  “What happened then, baby?” Boyd asked, running his hand up and down her arm.

  “I started trying to get up and get it off of me all at the same time. It grabbed hold of my jeans with its claws and wouldn’t let go. I didn’t know what to do. I screamed and I shook my leg but it held on. Then it started trying to gnaw through my jeans. I managed to get one leg up, and I pulled off my shoes and started hitting it with them. When it squealed and let go, it jumped down and sat by the fireplace watching me. When I started to get off the couch, it took a step toward me. I didn’t know what to do, so I threw my shoe at it and ran up here and slammed the door shut. How did it get inside?” Ashley was shaking by the time she finished.

  “Take off your clothes, Ashley,” Keeton said, standing up.

  “What?” She looked over at Boyd with confusion all over her face.

  “Keeton?” Boyd asked.

  “Take off your clothes. I want to be sure it didn’t break the skin. We don’t know anything about this thing. It doesn’t sound like anything in our pamphlets.” Keeton was worried.

  Ashley scrambled out of her jeans and stood up in front of Keeton and Boyd. Fear left no room for modesty, evidently.

  “Which leg was he trying to bite?” Keeton asked.

  “This one.” She indicated her left leg.

  Keeton got down on his knees and searched her leg for any sign of a break. What he found worried him, though.

  “Boyd, what do you see?” he asked.

  Boyd squatted and looked over her leg. He turned worried eyes to Keeton.

  “Baby, get up on the bed for us so we can see better. The light isn’t very good with you standing up.”

  “He didn’t break the skin. I mean, there wasn’t any blood.” Ashley sounded on the verge of tears. She had held up so far.

  On the side of her lower leg there were tiny raised bumps with a slightly yellow tint to them. It looked almost like a bubbly burn, like a much smaller version of what was on Danny’s shoulder. Fuck. Keeton needed to know where that animal was and what it looked like.

  “I think we’ll clean you up with peroxide just to be safe, Ashley. Lie there and I’ll be right back.” Boyd walked to the bathroom.

  “You don’t have any idea where it came from or where it went after you got up here?”

  “No. I was asleep, Keeton. I’m sorry.” Tears began to roll from her eyes.

  “Shh, it’s okay, baby. We’ll find it and get rid of it.”

  Boyd returned with a towel and the hydrogen peroxide. He laid the towel under her leg and then poured the peroxide over the bumps. They bubbled like something was on them then settled down. He did it again until there was no more bubbling.

  “Let me see your fingers where he touched you,” Boyd said.

  Ashley thrust out her hand. Keeton and Boyd looked over her fingers and hand but saw nothing to indicate it had done any damage. It was all centered around the area on
her lower leg.

  Boyd took everything away and walked back in the bedroom with a serious expression on his face. Keeton knew they had a problem. Something had gotten in the house and they didn’t know how.

  “Baby, I want you to stay up here with the door closed until we get back. We’re going to look around the house to see how it might have gotten inside. Okay?” Keeton held her head between his hands and looked into her eyes. He needed her to be calm.

  “I understand. I won’t move.”

  “Good girl. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  He and Boyd walked outside the bedroom and closed the door behind them. They looked at each other but Keeton shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it this close to Ashley. She was going to freak out if she realized she had those bumps.

  Once they were downstairs, they searched every room in every corner trying to find the thing. They turned over the couch and looked up in the springs, but found nothing in the house. They walked outside and began searching around the house for any sign of a breach in the foundation or the walls.

  When they reached the cellar doors, Keeton noticed that they were unlocked. He went to raise one side and found it was ajar.

  “Boyd! Come here.”

  Boyd came running around the side of the house. “Look. The cellar is unlocked, and it was ajar when I reached to open it. What do you want to bet that’s how the little bastard got in?”

  “I’m going to get the guns. We might need to shoot it. Plus, we don’t know how many are down there. There might be a freaking family of them.”

  Keeton kept his foot on the cellar door and waited for Boyd to return with the guns. He was furious that they had left Ashley by herself and she’d gotten hurt. How were they going to leave her every day while they were out working the ranch?

  Boyd returned with the guns in hand. Keeton took one and checked it to be sure it was loaded. They opened one of the doors and walked down into the gloom of the cellar. Keeton found the light and pulled the cord. He heard a scurry of feet and turned toward the sound. There in the corner were three of the little buggers. They looked like a cross between a rat and a muskrat. They were the size of a small cat and had curved claws and razor-sharp teeth. They hissed like a snake when they realized they had been found.

  Keeton raised his gun and shot at the same time Boyd fired his gun. There was a cacophony of noise as they shot the little vermin.

  “Do you see any more?” Keeton asked.

  “No, all I saw was those three,” Boyd said.

  “Don’t touch them. We need gloves on in case there’s something in their blood or on their fur. Let’s find out where they got into the house first. I want to fix that right now so another family can’t crawl up in here.” Keeton began studying the ceiling.

  “Over here,” Boyd said from across the room.

  “Look. There’s a crack about the size they could squeeze through right here. It’s bound to be in the pantry on the floor. We wouldn’t see it because it would be under the bottom shelf.”

  Keeton cursed and looked around for a board to use to cover the hole. He found a piece of board that would cover it just fine.

  “I’ll go get a hammer and nails. Be right back,” Boyd said.

  He returned a few minutes later and Keeton boarded up the hole making damn sure nothing would get in that way again. He took a pair of gloves Boyd had also brought back and they cleaned out the rat things, taking them outside to bury. Boyd cleaned up the blood in the cellar so no one would accidently get any on their skin when they were down there while Keeton examined the ratlike creatures and buried them.

  “We better go shower before we touch Ashley again,” Keeton said as he closed and locked the cellar doors.

  “I’m sure she’s terrified now after hearing the gunshots. I called up the stairs that we were both fine but to stay in the room. She didn’t answer me, though.” Boyd opened the door to the kitchen.

  “She might have passed out, I guess. She was close to hysterical when we found her.”

  “Yeah, but she held up good and managed to get away from the thing,” Boyd pointed out.

  When they climbed the stairs, Keeton called out that they were coming in. He opened the bedroom door and Ashley was sitting at the head of the bed with her hands wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees.

  “Did you get it?” she asked.

  “Yep, it’s gone,” Keeton said.

  “Good. Something’s wrong with my leg, isn’t it?”

  Keeton sighed and nodded. “Let me see it again, baby.”

  She stuck out her leg, and he cursed. The bumps had grown some since they had been gone. He didn’t know what to do, and taking her over to Danny and Andrew wouldn’t help since they didn’t know what it was or what to do about the scar on Andrew’s or Rachel’s backs themselves.

  “Let’s get you in the shower, baby, and wash it good with soap and water.” Keeton began undressing.

  Boyd pulled Ashley to the edge of the bed and helped her out of her T-shirt and bra, then helped her pull her panties off. She didn’t appear the least uncomfortable around them nude now. Worry and fear had taken away her modesty. Keeton was glad about that, but hated how it had happened.

  The two men led her into the bathroom. Then Keeton adjusted the water until it was a nice warm temperature. While Boyd finished undressing, he helped Ashley into the shower.

  “Here, baby. Wash your face and the rest of your body first. Then we’ll wash your leg.” He watched her as she bathed herself with jerky movements.

  After a while he took the cloth from her and turned her around to bathe her back. He scrubbed a little harder than was necessary, but he wanted her grounded in reality now. She had to be strong. They had no idea what was going to happen with the bumps. If they spread? Well, he just didn’t know.

  Chapter Five

  Ashley held on to Keeton’s shoulder as he squatted by her leg to wash it. Boyd wrapped an arm around her waist for support. He kissed the back of her head and then her ear.

  “Relax, baby. Keeton’s not going to hurt you. He’s just going to wash those bumps off really good.”

  She remained still as Keeton scrubbed over that part of her leg with soap and water. They didn’t hurt, exactly. They burned. It was like a small burn you got from touching a hot plate or boiler.

  “Am I hurting you?” Keeton asked, looking up.

  “No. It burns, but it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Okay, I think I’ve cleaned it all I can. Let’s rinse it off and we’ll call it a night.”

  Boyd held her while she held out her leg and rinsed the soap off. She could see the yellow-tinted bubbles now without bending over. They had grown, but they hadn’t spread, thank goodness.

  “Boyd, I don’t feel too good.” She needed to lie down.

  “Let’s get you dried off and in the bed, baby.” He handed her off to Keeton, who had a towel ready for her. He quickly dried her off, taking special care to just pat her lower leg where the bumps were. Then he picked her up and carried her to bed. He laid her on the bed and pulled the covers up over her.

  “Keeton. I think we need to cover those with gauze in case they leak any.” Boyd held up some gauze and tape.

  “Good idea.” He pulled back the covers from her left leg and applied the gauze over the bumps and securely taped it down.

  “I’m going to check downstairs that we locked all the doors and I’ll be back up in a few minutes,” Keeton said.

  Ashley curled up under the covers, feeling sick all over now. She wasn’t sure if it was just a reaction to the shock or to the bite. Either way, she was scared and immediately curled into Boyd’s body when he got in the bed.

  “Easy, baby. It’s going to be okay. We’ll take care of you,” he said.

  Keeton reappeared, and after closing the bedroom door, he started to get into bed.

  “Keeton?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Could you crack the bathroom door
and leave the light on? I might need to get up.” Ashley was almost sure she would be getting up.

  “Sure.” He walked over and flipped the light on and closed the door to a thin crack. Then he climbed into bed and turned on his side with his back to her.

  She wasn’t insulted. She knew he cared by the way he’d taken care of her with the bites. She reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder. She just needed to touch him.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “Nothing. I just need to touch you,” she admitted.

  After a few seconds, he covered her hand with his and she fell asleep.

  After a little more than an hour, Ashley woke up needing the bathroom immediately. She climbed over Keeton’s body and ran for the bathroom, almost not making it before she was sick in the toilet. Keeton and Boyd were immediately by her side. Keeton held her hair back while Boyd got a cool, wet cloth and laid it at the back of her neck.

  “Easy, baby. We’re right here.” Boyd rubbed her back as she heaved again.

  Finally, she felt well enough to sit back on the bathroom floor and rest. Keeton took the bath cloth from her neck and wiped her face with it. Boyd held her hand. Ashley couldn’t remember the last time she’d been sick to her stomach. She hated it.

  “Do you feel well enough to go back to bed, baby?” Boyd asked.

  “I think so.”

  Keeton helped her up, but Boyd swung her up in his arms and carried her back to bed. He climbed in with her still in his arms and settled them both in the bed. Keeton pulled the covers over them before slipping beneath them himself. Ashley wasn’t sure what time it was, but she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep now. She was too wired from having been sick.

  Sometime later, she began to shake. She was freezing and couldn’t get warm. Boyd pulled her tighter in his arms, and still she shivered until her teeth started to chatter. It wasn’t long before the entire bed was shaking with her chills. Keeton got up and went in search of another blanket to put over her.

  Ashley’s chills soon had her thrashing and she knew she was sick. Then she didn’t know anything.