That protective streak Jake had in him had resulted in many a beating throughout his youth from their father, who had handed out corporal punishment for any infringement, slight or imagined. Jake had taken more than one beating for Justin, and he was determined to never take another on behalf of either of his brothers.

It took him nearly twenty minutes to take care of the business that needed attending. He was just leaving his study when he heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

What the h.e.l.l?

He raced to the front window and looked out, stunned to see Grace with her back pressed against the side of the barn. Another shot split the air and it was immediately obvious to him that somebody was shooting at her. The shots were coming from a thickly wooded area on the right of the property.

Jake's heart leapt in his throat as he raced back into his study and grabbed his gun from his desk drawer. Somebody was shooting at Grace. It didn't make sense. His mind couldn't wrap around it. As another shot exploded he only hoped he could get outside before whoever it was managed to kill her.

Chapter 4.

Grace pressed against the rough wood of the side of the barn, terror clawing up her throat as another bullet splintered the wood precariously close to where she stood.

Her brain had stopped functioning when the first bullet had whizzed by her. If she hadn't heard the explosion of the gun she would have a.s.sumed the loud buzz was an annoying insect too close to her ear.

When she'd realized what was happening she'd slammed herself against the barn in an effort to make herself a more difficult target. If she could, she'd push herself right through the wood and into the barn itself.

Who was shooting at her and why? None of this made any sense. But there was n.o.body else around, no way to mistake that those bullets were intended for her.

She cursed her bright yellow T-shirt that made her an easy target as her eyes darted around frantically seeking some sort of a safe escape.

Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears she couldn't hear anything else. Why was this happening? What was going on? The sight of Jake barreling out of the front door with a gun in his hand forced a sob of relief to escape her lips.

He fired several shots into the woods where the original bullets had come from as he ran toward her. Jeffrey appeared on the porch with a rifle and he began to fire into the woods as well, providing cover for Jake as he approached where she stood.

Jake slammed against the barn next to her. "You all right?" he asked, his voice a terse snap of tension.

She gave a curt nod, unable to find her voice. Her terror had stolen it clean away from her.

"We're going to get you back into the house," he said, his eyes narrowed to dangerous-looking slits. There had been no more gunfire coming from the woods since he'd appeared.

"I'm afraid to move," she finally managed to reply.

"We need to move," he replied. "Did you see anyone?" he asked, not taking his gaze from the woods.

"No, I just felt the first bullet buzz by my head and I ran, but I didn't know where to run to." A tremble tried to take hold of her body but she fought against it, knowing she couldn't give in to her fear until she was safe and sound.

She certainly felt safer with Jake by her side and with Jeffrey on the front porch, but someplace out there was somebody who had apparently just tried to kill her not once, not twice, but three times.

There could be no other explanation for what had happened. Any one of those bullets could have hit her...killed her...and she wasn't safe yet. They still had to get from the barn back to the house.

Several men appeared on horseback, rifles pulled and faces grim. "The cavalry," Jake muttered beneath his breath.

One of the men pulled up in front of Grace and Jake, providing an effective barrier. "We heard gunfire," he said. He was a big man, with shoulders as wide as a mountain and a paunch belly to match, but his eyes were dark and dangerous as he gazed first at Grace then at Jake.

"It came from the woods over there. Maybe you and the boys can go check it out while I get Grace safely back into the house," Jake said.

The cowboy gave a nod of his head and then he and the other two took off riding toward the woods. "Can you run?" Jake asked her.

"Not as fast as usual with my arm in this sling, but I'll do the best I can," she replied. She'd do whatever she could to get away from this barn and into the house.

Her babies. She needed to be with her babies. She needed to kiss their plump cheeks, smell their baby sweetness and hug them tight.

"I'm going to wrap my arm around you," he said. "And then we're going to go as fast as we can to the house. Ready?"

He put his arm around her. For a moment she wanted to bury herself against him, to meld into the hard safety of his arms, to lose herself in his scent of sunshine and woodsy cologne.

"Ready," she murmured.

They took off and it was the most terrifying run Grace had ever experienced. With each step she expected a bullet to pierce through her back, to hit her body and slam her into the ground. And with each step her shoulder jarred, shooting pain through her and making her wonder if they'd ever reach the safety of the house.

All she could think about were her babies. If she died who would take care of them? Natalie certainly wasn't at a place in her life where she would be a fit parent. Justin definitely wasn't an option. Grace had to get back to the house safe and sound.

Jake used his bigger body as a shield. When they reached the porch and stumbled past Jeffrey and into the house, Grace wrapped her good arm around Jake's neck and clung to him as tears of fear and relief mingled together and finally erupted.

He remained stiff and unyielding for a long moment and then his arms went around her waist and he held her as tight as her slinged arm would allow.

"It's all right. You're okay now." His deep voice reached inside her and soothed some of the jagged fear that still spiked through her as one of his hands slid up and down her back in a soft caress.

She buried her face in the front of his T-shirt as the tears fell freely. Someplace in the very back of her mind she recognized she liked the way he smelled, she liked the feel of his strong body so close to hers.

She didn't cry for long, but after the tears had stopped she was reluctant to leave his embrace. He felt so solid, so capable, and she hadn't realized until this moment how desperately she'd hungered for a man's embrace. For just a moment to be able to lean on somebody, anybody other than herself.

As Jeffrey came through the front door, she reluctantly released her hold on Jake and stepped away from him. Kerri grabbed her by the arm and led her to the sofa. Grace sank down and allowed the shudder that had threatened earlier to work through her.

"What on earth is going on around here?" Kerri asked, obviously distraught as she moved from Grace to her husband's side.

Everyone looked at Grace. Her shoulder ached, her heart raced and she still couldn't wrap her mind around what had just happened. "I don't know. I was just walking, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. I heard the gunshot at almost the same time I felt the whiz of a bullet go by my head."

She began to tremble, the motion causing her shoulder to ache more and bringing with it a headache that screamed across the back of her skull. "At first I didn't realize what was happening, but when I did, I didn't know what to do. So I pressed against the side of the barn and then it was as if I was pinned there. Whoever it was kept firing. I thought I was going to be killed." She was rambling, her mouth working almost faster than her brain.

"Call the sheriff," Jake said to Kerri, who immediately went into the kitchen to use the phone in there.

A knock at the door whirled Jake around, his gun still drawn. Grace felt her breath catch painfully in her chest in frightening antic.i.p.ation of more trouble. She relaxed as the cowboy Jake had sent to the woods came through the door.

"Somebody was out there," he said in a deep, booming voice. "Looks like whoever it was had been there for a while. The gra.s.s was tamped down and a blanket of some sort had been spread out."

"A blanket?" Grace stared at him in horror. That implied somebody had been sitting out there just waiting for her to make an appearance, just waiting to put a bullet through her.

"The sheriff is on his way," Kerri said as she came back into the living room.

"By the way, Grace, this is Jimbo Watkins, my ranch manager. Jimbo, this is Grace Sinclair, a visitor here on the ranch," Jake said.

Jimbo tipped his black cowboy hat. "You brought some nasty critters with you when you arrived here from wherever you came from?"

"Wichita. And, no, I don't even know any nasty critters," Grace said, aware of the slight edge of hysteria in her voice. She was a schoolteacher, for crying out loud. She didn't know people who laid in wait to shoot a helpless woman. She knew eight-year-olds who had trouble with math and talked out of turn.

"Me and the boys will check out the rest of the property, but I'd say whoever was there is probably long gone by now," Jimbo said.

"You find anything else you come let me know," Jake said.

With another tip of his hat to Grace and Kerri, Jimbo left the house.

"Could this have been some sort of a mistake?" Grace finally ventured. "You know, a hunter taking some wild shots?"

"Honey, you are from the city," Kerri said drily.

"This was no mistake," Jake replied. His dark blue eyes lingered on Grace. "This isn't hunting season and there's no way anyone could confuse you with a wild turkey or a deer."

"So somebody just tried to kill me." The words fell from Grace's mouth and hung in the air as she stared at the people around her, hoping somebody would negate her words or at least somehow make it all make sense.

Instead, she heard a cry from upstairs and knew that the triplets were awake from their naps. "Go on, I'll let you know when the sheriff arrives," Jake said to Grace and Kerri.

As the two women climbed the stairs, Kerri grabbed hold of Grace's hand. "I can't imagine how frightened you must have been," she said as she squeezed Grace's fingers. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."

"I feel like it's all a horrible dream," Grace replied.

"It has to have been some sort of terrible mistake," Kerri replied as she dropped Grace's hand.

Only the sight of Abby's, Bonnie's and Casey's sweet little faces grinning at her over the tops of the cribs could finally calm some of the fear that had iced Grace's heart for what seemed like forever. "Hey, girls," she greeted them with a forced bright smile.

It took several minutes to change diapers, and with Abby and Casey on Kerri's hips and Bonnie riding Grace's good side, they went back down the stairs.

By the time they had the girls happily settled on the floor with toys surrounding them, the sheriff had arrived.

Sheriff Greg Hicks was a tall, gray-haired man with kind brown eyes and a deep cleft in his chin. "Would you get a load of these little beauties," he said with a look at the girls after Jake had made the introductions. "They're like peas in a pod and cute as b.u.t.tons."

"Thank you," Grace said, noticing that Bonnie was grinning and batting her eyelashes at Jake, obviously flirting as usual.

"Now, what's this I hear about a shooting taking place out here?" Sheriff Hicks asked as he looked at everyone standing around in the room.

Jake gestured them all to chairs. Grace found herself on the sofa next to him, and the memory of being in his strong arms played in her head. She had never felt so safe in her entire life as she had in those moments with his arms wrapped around her and his heart beating next to her own. For a wistful moment she wanted that again, that feeling of safety while standing in his strong arms.

"Grace and I were taking a walk outside when I got a phone call I needed to attend to in my study," Jake began. "It was a supplier and I needed to order some things. I had the list on my desk."

Grace picked up the story. "Jake asked me to head inside with him, but I told him I wanted to walk a little bit more and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air."

As she told the sheriff about the gunshots her heart began to beat faster and her throat went achingly dry as she thought of those moments when she was so certain she was about to be killed. "I've never been so scared in my entire life."

"I had some of my men check out the area in the woods where the gunfire came from. Jimbo told me it looks as if somebody had a blanket out there and was hanging around, maybe camping or something."

"You haven't seen anyone unusual around the place?" Hicks asked Jake.

He shook his head. "n.o.body."

"Anybody around here have a beef with you?" Sheriff Hicks asked Grace.

"I don't know anyone around here," she replied. "I live in Wichita. This is my first time to the area, and I only just arrived yesterday." She paused a moment and averted her gaze from Jake. "Of course, it could have been Justin. He wasn't real happy to see me when I arrived here with his daughters."

Sheriff Hicks looked at her in surprise at the same time she heard Kerri gasp and felt Jake tense next to her in obvious protest.

"I can't imagine Justin doing anything like this," Sheriff Hicks said dubiously, "but I'll check it out. It's probably more likely a drifter who thought you were getting too close to where he'd been camped."

Grace had a crazy image in her head of the Johnson family circling the wagons to protect one of their own against an intruder. And there was no question in her mind that she and her daughters were the intruders. No matter how nice these people had been to her, she was really on her own.

"Justin wouldn't do something like this," Jake exclaimed as he leapt to his feet the moment Sheriff Hicks walked out the front door. "I know my brother, and he might be a lot of things, but he's definitely not a cold-blooded killer." He glared at Grace as his stomach churned with anxiety.

"Well, I don't know him," she replied with strain in her voice. "Although I've certainly been trying to get to know him." She raised her chin as she returned his glare. "I'd be a fool not to mention his name to the sheriff given what's happened with him since I arrived here."

Bonnie crawled over to Jake and grabbed hold of his pants leg. She wobbled to her feet and raised her arms, obviously wanting to be picked up. Grace jumped off the sofa and hurried to the little girl, trying to wrangle her up in her arms one-handed. It was obvious from the awkwardness of her effort and the pain that spasmed across her face that her bad shoulder made it impossible.

Jake bent down, picked the child up and drew a deep breath to steady himself. "Look, I know Justin has behaved badly, but there's no way anyone can make me believe that he was out there in the woods trying to shoot you." Bonnie grabbed his nose with one hand and patted his face with the other.

He realized at that moment it was impossible to sustain any kind of anger with a ten-month-old giggling in your arms and squeezing your nose in delight. Besides, he wasn't really angry at Grace, he was angry with Justin for putting himself in the position to even be a suspect in a shooting. He was livid that a guest at his home had been nearly killed by an unknown a.s.sailant.

"Maybe you weren't the specific target," he finally said.

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Maybe it's just as Sheriff Hicks suggested. If it was a drifter or somebody who had set up some kind of makeshift camp, he might have shot at anyone he thought threatened his s.p.a.ce." It was a stretch and Jake knew it, but none of it made any sense as far as he was concerned. No matter how he stretched his imagination he couldn't put this on his brother. Justin just couldn't be responsible for this.

"So what now?" Grace asked. There was something in her expression that told him she was taking a secret delight in the fact that Bonnie was now pulling the hairs in one of his eyebrows.

"We wait and see what Sheriff Hicks can find out," he replied. And personally he hoped to h.e.l.l his brother had a good alibi for the time of the shooting.

At that moment Grace's cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and answered. "How did that happen?" she asked after a minute. The frown that had already ridden her forehead deepened. "Okay, whatever. There's a credit card in the top drawer of my dresser underneath my camisoles. Take it and use it, but just for what you need and then put it back where you got it. Okay, yes, I love you, too."

Jake set Bonnie back on the floor, trying to dispel the thought of Grace in a camisole from his mind. The visual image that had instantly sprung into his head was as s.e.xy as it was unwanted.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

She sighed. "Everything is as usual. My sister, Natalie, has a small trust fund and gets a monthly allowance, but somehow there's always more month than there is money for her. Anyway, it's taken care of for now."

"You didn't tell her what happened."

"There's no point in worrying her about all this. It's not as if she can do anything about it from Wichita." She released a sigh of obvious frustration. "Look, I didn't mean to throw your brother under the bus, but, under the circ.u.mstances, it would have been foolish of me not to mention him."

Kerri and Jeffrey had drifted out of the room, as if not wanting to be caught in the middle of any argument that might be brewing between Jake and Grace.

Jake didn't want to argue. He sat in the chair across from her and released a weary sigh. The adrenaline that had pumped through him when he'd seen Grace pinned against the barn had disappeared, leaving him confused and upset about everything that had happened.

"I know," he replied. "And it was the right thing to do."