Two Cowboys To Protect Her by Lacey Davis

Chapter 9

Rena was sleeping like the dead when a torch flew through her window. Glass sprinkled her as the burning stick landed on the floor between the bed and dresser.

With a gasp, she sat straight up on the mattress and screamed. Jumping out of bed, she picked up the torch and flung it back through the window then tried to smother the flames with a quilt from the bed.

The cracking of a second window had her running into the main area of the house. “Harley, Clayton, we’re under attack.”

A bullet whizzed by her ear and she drop to her knees. The second torch was burning and she picked it up and quickly put out the fire it started by beating it with a rug.

Clayton ran into the room, bare chested, pants barely up, his Colt 45 in hand, and fired out the broken window. The man’s looks were tossed with sleep and all she could think about was he would soon be her husband.

While she could hear Harley in the bedroom cursing as he fired from his window, she wondered how he looked.

Crawling to Clayton, she handed him the torch and he threw it out into the yard as he fired another round of bullets at a shadowy figure climbing onto a horse. They heard two horses gallop away.

It was over.

Rena sat in the floor, trembling. If they had lost the house to fire, she would've been destitute with no place to live. The few family heirlooms she possessed would be gone, and she would be without a home and a job.

Clayton knelt beside her. “You all right?”

“No, why is this happening to me? Where would I live if this house burned down?”

“With us,” Harley said. “As our wife.”

The memories from earlier in the night came flooding back. They were to marry tomorrow, and it dawned on her that as their wife, she would go where they went. This house, this home, she could possibly never live here again. And while that made her sad, it also was intriguing. She’d never lived anywhere but here.

“Where are we going to live if not here?”

Clayton glanced at Harley and it was a look of frustration. “We’re going to stay here until I can purchase our ranch. Then we’ll build our home and settle in with a couple of babies.”

Children. Oh my goodness, what would they tell their young ones?

“How will we explain us to our children?”

“We’re going to tell them we lead a different kind of life and that we’re very happy."

Stunned, she continued staring at them. They made everything seem so logical, but she knew that it couldn’t be this easy. And yet, she had willingly spread her legs for them earlier tonight. For a woman who never even courted one man, she wanted to experience two men at once.

“Do you think I’m a bad girl because of what I did with you tonight?”

Both men started laughing.

“Well, do you?” she demanded.

“Hell no. In fact, we’re so happy that you like sex and we think we’ll be very happy,” Clayton said.

Glancing around at the damage, she looked at the windows. “Three broken windows are not going to be cheap.”

How would she pay for them? How could she continue not to work when marauders were trying to burn down her home?

“No, it’s not,” Harley said. “And we need them boarded up.”

“We’ll pay for them,” Clayton said. “You’ve been feeding us. Your money is running low, so we’ll fix the windows.”

Grateful, she stared at him. Was this what it would be like when they were married?

Harley nodded. “Since Clayton got you fired, he should be the one to fix them.”

“Hey,” he said. “You’re eating her food as well as me.”

Harley laughed. “But I was trying to put it off on you.”

The two men were cracking jokes at one another right after they had been under another attack. How could she continue with this man determined to kill her? How could she sleep with the windows now broken?

“You should sleep with us tonight,” Clayton said. “There is not a good way to protect you. They could slip in a broken window.”

The man read her mind. And the thought of going back into that room and sleeping alone terrified her. A chill spiraled up her spine. By the time they realized she was gone, Jack Bell could have her out of town. Yes, she would sleep with them tonight.

“I don’t think they’ll return tonight, and if we all sleep together, then everyone is safe,” Harley said.

Sitting on the floor, she realized she was in her nightgown, but then again, they had already seen everything.

“If you don’t marry me tomorrow, I’m a ruined woman,” she said as she slowly rose to her feet. It was true, after what they had experienced tonight, sleeping in the same bed couldn’t be any worse.

Harley checked the doors. He put a piece of furniture over the window in the main room and nailed a bed slat across the window. They weren’t getting in tonight.

Then they all went to the men’s bedroom and she crawled in bed. Each man lay on either side of her and a feeling of safety and security filled her. Would this be how their nights were spent?

This was where she belonged. Between her two men. Protected. And tomorrow they would marry her and claim her for their own.

“Good-night, gentlemen,” she said.

“Good-night,” Clayton replied as he laid an arm around her.

“Good-night,” Harley said. “Tomorrow night we won’t get much sleep, so we better catch some shut eye while we can.”

“I can’t wait,” Rena said as she turned over and her eyes closed. “Sex with my men.”