"Kenny, get that first aid kit. Marshall, get a towel and a wet bath cloth. Then get those boots off of her so we can get her fully in the bed."

Jeb carefully moved her hair around the wound to see how deep the cut might be. She had a pretty large b.u.mp on her head. The cut appeared to be fairly small, though. He'd know more when he got some of the blood off.

Marshall returned with the towel and the wet bath cloth. Jeb took the towel and laid it over her pillow to protect it from the blood when he finished cleaning her up. Marshall eased her boots off and then waited while Jeb cleaned around the wound in her head. Kenny returned with the first aid kit.

"Give me that bottle of peroxide in there, and I need another towel, Marshall." Jeb took the opened bottle and waited on Marshall to bring the needed cloth.

"Hold it right here next to her head. I'm going to pour this over the cut to clean it up some."

It boiled and cleared out some of the blood. The wound began to seep a little once again. He folded the wet bath cloth and held it to her head to stop the bleeding. He didn't think it needed st.i.tches. If it did, he would take her to the hospital. He wasn't going to sew up a head wound.

"What do you think?" Kenny asked.

"I don't think it's a large enough cut for st.i.tches. She has a nice size goose egg, so there shouldn't be any pressure inside to worry about. I think we wait and see if she wakes up on her own in the next couple of hours. If she doesn't, we take her to the hospital." Jeb picked up the cloth and checked to see if it was still bleeding. It appeared to have stopped.

"Let's get her out of these clothes and under the covers." Jeb began unb.u.t.toning her coat and pulling it off of her. They took off her gloves and socks. Then Jeb began unb.u.t.toning her blouse.

"Um, I'm going to go start the biscuits for dinner. You two can handle undressing her without me," Kenny said.

"Fix a pot of coffee while you're at it. We're going to need to try and wake her up around the clock. Gonna take coffee for us to stay awake to do it," Jeb told him.

"I'm on it." Kenny walked out of the bedroom.

They could hear his steps as he descended the stairs. He muttered the entire way down.

Marshall unfastened her jeans and pulled them down her body. They left her panties on, but Jeb unhooked her bra and pulled it off. They turned her on her side and covered her with the blankets and comforter. Jeb wasn't certain if she'd end up sick at her stomach or not from the head wound.

"Do we try and wake her up or leave her be?" Marshall asked.

"Let's leave her alone for an hour, and see what happens. We did enough to her that if she were going to wake up now, she already would have," Jeb told him.

"Someone hit her, Jeb."

"I know. We know it wasn't one of us or Kenny, as we were all together with the herd. Her body was cold enough she'd been out there for at least thirty or forty-five minutes. She needs something warm in her belly, but not until she wakes up and we know if she's going to be sick at her stomach or not."

They left her alone with the door open, so they could hear her if she called out. Marshall followed Jeb down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"We all know someone had to have hit her," Marshall said.

"Why knock her out?" Kenny asked.

"To make sure she doesn't see them. Then she would know who had been behind all the trouble she's been having lately," Jeb explained.

"So what were they doing out in the old barn for her to catch them?" Kenny poured three cups of coffee.

"I don't know, but hopefully whatever it was they were up to, she scared them off, and they left without doing it." Marshall took his cup and wrapped his hands around it.

"It's too dangerous to leave her alone anymore. From now on, one of us will be at the house with her at all times. There's always something to do around the place, so we won't be slacking while we watch after her," Jeb told them.

"Better not let her know you're watching out for her," Kenny said. "She'll throw a fit like you've never seen before."

"She can throw a fit, but she can't stay by herself anymore. None of us need to be out by ourselves until we figure out who the culprit is behind all the accidents and cut fences," Jeb said.

"De we need to try and get her to the doc before the snow sets in for good?" Kenny asked.

"Let's check her and see if she'll wake up for us before we decide." Jeb took a sip of his coffee before leaving it on the cabinet.

They all hurried back upstairs to her room and walked in to find her sitting up on the edge of the bed in nothing but her panties, holding her head and moaning. Kenny backed out of the room and closed the door. Even as quietly as he closed it, it must have jarred her head, because she moaned and looked up at them.

"What in the h.e.l.l happened to me?" she whispered.

"You don't remember?" Jeb asked in a quiet voice.

"I wouldn't be asking you if I remembered, now would I?" She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed.

"Grouchy, isn't she," Marshall said, a relieved smile across his face.

"Someone hit you over the back of the head out in the old barn. Do you remember going out there for some reason?" Jeb asked.

"I remember checking all the buildings and stringing the lines..." Her voice faded away as she seemed to be thinking. "I remember getting the snow shovels out from there, but I don't remember why I would have gone back."

"So you don't remember someone hitting you on the head," Jeb said again.

"No, not at all. How bad is it? Did I need st.i.tches again?" she asked in a resigned voice.

"No st.i.tches, but you might have a pretty bad concussion, so we're going to be waking you up all night," Marshall told her.

"Don't act so happy about it," she fussed.

Then she grabbed her head again and bent over. Then she suddenly realized she was naked and grabbed the covers.

"I'm naked! What happened to my f.u.c.king clothes?" she demanded, staring a hole through Jeb.

Chapter Seven.

Then she grabbed her head with one hand and groaned.

"Your clothes were all wet, so we stripped you and put you to bed with the electric blanket," Jeb explained.

"You could have been gentlemen and turned your backs when you saw that I wasn't covered," she complained.

"We aren't gentlemen. The only one here left as soon as he saw you were sitting up." Marshall snorted.

"That would be Kenny, bless his heart." She sighed and closed her eyes. "I think I need a nap. Can I have some Tylenol? It's in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet."

Marshall disappeared into the bathroom while Jeb watched Drew hold her head in her hands. He returned with the bottle of Tylenol and a plastic cup full of water. He shook out two pills then handed them to her, along with the cup. She swallowed them and handed the cup back to Marshall.

Jeb leaned over and pulled the covers up around her and helped her to lie back down. She snuggled beneath the electric blanket and sighed. They turned to go, but she stopped them.

"Don't forget to check the cattle every couple of hours, and if the electricity goes out, you have to break the ice on the water troughs," she told them.

"We'll take care of it. You just rest, and leave the worrying to me," Jeb told her.

"Somehow I figured you would say that."

She slipped into sleep, and the next sound they heard was a dainty little snore.

Jeb and Marshall walked back down the stairs and found Kenny in the kitchen serving up steaming bowls of chili and slightly burnt biscuits.

"Sorry about the biscuits. It's been awhile since I've cooked any, and not since she got the new stove."

"Don't worry about it. We're going to have to make do for a few days while she's getting over this," Marshall pointed out.

"I'm just glad it happened right before the snow. This way, we'll all be in the same general area for the duration," Jeb said. "We'll take turns checking on her and the cattle. Two of us will check the herd every time. No one goes outside alone for any reason."

"I figure she went back out to the barn for the ax to chop wood for the fireplace in the living room," Kenny pointed out.

"There looks to be plenty of wood for a day or two, but she must figure this is going to last longer than a few days by the amount of supplies she had us lay in the other day," Jeb said.

"She's real good about guessing the weather based on what the weather reports tell us. If she thinks it will last awhile, it will," Kenny said. "I'm just glad we got our hay in when we did."

"Maybe with the snow we won't have to worry about someone messing with things for a while." Marshall wiped the last of the chili up in his bowl with a biscuit.

"I doubt anyone is going to risk exposure in more ways than one while it's snowing. It would be too easy to track someone with snow coming down, unless it turns into a blizzard," Marshall agreed.

Kenny snapped his fingers. "I bet I know what else she was going after."

"What?" Marshall and Jeb both asked together.

"The pickax to break the ice in the water troughs if the electricity goes out. We'll need it. I'll go back and find it and bring it up to the house," he said.

"Marshall, you go with him. I don't want any of us going or doing anything alone anymore," Jeb reminded them. "I'll watch Drew."

They finished the rest of their meal in silence, then Marshall and Kenny bundled up to go look for the pick ax in the old barn.

Jeb cleaned up the dishes and checked on Drew. She was still sound asleep, with the covers pulled up to her nose. He grinned. She looked like a kid all bundled up like that. If it wasn't for the blood-stained towel on the pillow and the matted blood in her hair, he would think she had just climbed into bed for a nap.

He checked his watch. She still had thirty minutes before he had to wake her. He would give her that. She wasn't going to like being awakened every two hours as it was. Jeb figured he could finish cleaning up the kitchen before he had to wake her up again.

By the time he had the dishes in the dishwasher and the table wiped down, it was time to wake Drew again. A noise at the washroom door stopped him. Marshall and Kenny walked through the door with a swirl of snow following behind them.

"Picking up out there. Going to be a good foot out there soon," Kenny said.

"Got the pickax." Marshall leaned it against the wall next to the other ax they'd brought in.

"I'm on my way up to wake Drew and check her. Marshall, fix a small bowl of chili, and let me see if I can get her to eat a few spoonfuls," Jeb said.

He waited for Marshall to dip the chili and warm it up in the microwave. When it was warm enough, Jeb carried it up stairs to Drew. She hadn't moved from when he'd checked her earlier. He sat the bowl on the bedside table and eased the cover down below her chin. Then he leaned in and whispered in her ear.

"Wake up, Drew. Need you to wake up now." He waited for her to stir.

She didn't move. He began to worry.

"Drew, honey, wake up. I have something for you to eat." He shook her just a little bit, and she moaned. Well, that was better.

Jeb frowned. He pulled the covers down a little more to allow more of the cooler air to circulate around her neck.

"Drew, wake up right now, or I'm going to pull this cover off you."

Drew moaned and grabbed for the cover. "Go away."

He grinned. She was okay. He leaned in and licked across her lips.

She scrunched up her face and opened one eye. "What is your problem? I've got a headache. Go away," she complained.

"Not until you eat a little bit of the chili. You took that Tylenol on an empty stomach, and I know you want some more for your headache in a couple of hours, so you have to eat something now."

Drew frowned and seemed to be trying to think of something. Then she sighed and pushed herself upwards in the bed, only to remember too late that she didn't have anything on.

"Aw, h.e.l.l. I need a T-shirt to sleep in. There's one on the back of the bathroom door."

Jeb grinned and got it for her. He held it just out of reach though. "You going to eat the chili?"

"Yes, I'll eat the f.u.c.king chili. Just give me my d.a.m.n shirt."

"Here, let me help you so you don't rub that cut on your head pulling it on."

She let him gently slip it over her head and then guided her arms through the arm holes. Then he stepped back as she settled it over her body and beneath the covers.

She leaned back against the headboard with her back but kept her head well away from the wood. He handed her the bowl of chili and sat on the edge of the bed to watch her eat. She managed to swallow four spoonfuls before she handed it back to him.

"That's all I can eat right now. Maybe later. I'm really tired." She sank back down in the bed and pulled the sheets up. Jeb brushed the hair from her face and settled the cover under her chin before picking up the bowl and leaving her to sleep.

"How's she doing?" Kenny asked as soon as he walked back into the kitchen.

Marshall was washing up the bowl Jeb had brought back down. He turned as well.

"She ate four good spoonfuls of chili and was grouchy, so I think she's doing fine. We'll wake her up in two hours and give her two more Tylenol for the headache, and let her sleep again. She'll have to be wakened every two hours all during the night. We'll take shifts," Jeb said.

"I'll take the next shift," Marshall offered.

"We've also got the herd and the horses to take care of. We need to make rounds on them every two hours as well. We'll each get four hours sleep followed by checking on Drew and checking on the herd." Jeb added Drew's bowl to the dishwasher and turned it on.