Left Behind (14 page)

“Hell no, he packed up and left everything behind; said he didn’t have any family, so it didn’t matter.” Troy said. “I’m going to call Greg; get him to do an extensive background check on both names and see if he can pull up anything.”

I knocked on the wall to get their attention.
They all jumped, not expecting me.
Tory was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Toby and Troy were in chairs.
I walked over to Tory, and signed , ‘
You want to come into the kitchen and eat with us, or do we bring it in here?
’

“Let’s go into the kitchen. I am so sick of
lying
down.” He looked at me, tilted his head, and gave puppy eyes. “Will you help support me? I’m still feeling a little weak.”

I laughed.
‘
You didn’t have to give me the look. I would have done it anyway.
’

I bent down a little to put his arm around me. When he stood up, he surprised me by using that arm to pull me close enough for him to kiss me. It was just like I remembered it. I felt the heat from his kiss spread throughout my body .
I missed this; his kiss. Each triplet had a different and equally potent kiss, but something I knew about Tory is that he had never kissed anyone else, and he was a virgin. Unless of course that changed while he was in the military, but he had once told me that he didn’t begrudge his brothers for what they did because he only wanted his one special woman; that his virginity was the one thing that he would never be able to take back if things didn’t work out. That was one of the many points we had agreed about, but of course that was ruined for me. I no longer had that gift to give. I had only ever wanted my boys . I was so stupid to let loneliness make me go out with someone who ended up being psycho .

I guess he felt my change in mood, because he backed out of the kiss, and looked down into my eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you sad by doing that.” I think I’d hurt him with my reaction.

I made sure he was steady, and looked at the other two to let them know I needed a minute with Tory. When they walked out of the room, I turned back to Tory.
‘
It wasn’t you, it was me.
’
I huffed out a breath in frustration. Tory just looked confused, so I explained.
‘
I was thinking how our kisses are so special, and how you were saving yourself for the woman you’d marry.
’

“I know by now you know that you have always been that person for me.” He said.

I nodded.
‘
Yes, I know, and I’ve always loved you and your brothers, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. I was doing the same thing. I was saving myself, even when I went on those dates; I never did anything , but…
’
I looked down trying to hold back the tears. I was so tired of crying.

Tory lifted my chin so I’d look up at him. “But?” He asked, waiting for me to continue.

‘
But that was taken away. I no longer have that gift to give.
’

“Yes, you do Marti.” He said, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. “You are still a virgin, honey. That gift, your virginity, is something freely given. It doesn’t matter if one little piece of your anatomy is missing.
It was taken, not given. The love that comes with the first time you give yourself; that is the true gift, and no one can take that from you.”

I couldn’t hold it back anymore, I cried. Tory pulled me back into his arms and rocked me as he held me, letting me cry it all out. Everything that had happened came crashing down and all my insecurities gone in that one beautiful, loving statement. I didn’t know it was possible to love these men any more than I already did, but with all of the soft touches, and lo ving words spoken had proved me wrong. I loved them more and more every day, and I was so blessed to have them love me back and to be back with me.

After my tears stopped, Tory wiped remnants away with the back of his fingers, and put his arm back over my shoulder , kissing my temple. He was putting a good amount of his weight on me , but I bore it because I knew with as much standing and walking he’d been doing that he was getting tired and his legs wer e more than likely weak from disuse. Even though he’d been having the physical therapy since he’d been in a coma, it’s not the same as using them, but he’d never say anything, especially to, or in front of, me.

I got him to the kitchen and into a chair. The guys were waiting on us to eat, so I fixed everyone’s plates and sat down to eat. They all chatted about things, still trying to get Tory up to date on things that were going on with the ranch, and my brothers were telling him about their businesses.

After breakfast, Jordan and James helped me rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and I gave them the hint that I wanted to talk to the trips, so they took off to our house to pick up some supplies we needed.

I sat back at the table between Toby and Tory, with Troy on the other side of Tory.

‘
Okay
.’
I signed with a look on my face that better had told them I meant business.
‘
I’ve heard several things that you all have said about someone, and I have a feeling it has to do with me, so somebody better start talking.
’

By the looks on all of their faces, I knew I had hit the nail on the head. They knew something, and I didn’t think I was going to like it.

“Princess, we know who Blain is.” Tory said, grabbing my hand. He looked at my face, I guess he was waiting for a reaction.

I was in shock. How did they know? The police, even looking all this time, couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the other two. There was a mixture of anger and sympathy on both of their faces.
‘
How do you know? Have you seen him? Is he here?’
I signed rapidly. I was starting to panic. I couldn’t go with him again. I wouldn’t survive all of that again. Tory brought my attention back to him.

“He is not here right now, but he has been.” He looked over to Troy, but he just shook his head, so Tory looked back at me. “While I was in the coma, there were periods to where I could hear you, or my brothers, but there was one time that I heard someone walking around the room complaining about the time you were spending with Toby and Troy. He said that it would have to stop, or he would stop it for you . He said he should have never let you go, and he wants you back.”

By this time I was shaking, but I wouldn’t let the tears fall. I had to toughen up. The only way he would think of stopping it would be to hurt, or worse, kill one of them. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Damn it, Tory, did you have to tell her like that?” Toby asked, getting up to come
kneel by me. He was visibly upset, and my reaction wasn’t helping anything. “Look at how much she’s shaking.” He picked me up off of the chair and sat down in my place, putting me on his lap, so he could hold me.

“I ain’t gonna keep anything from her. She needs to know, and she would get mad if we didn’t tell her. Now, are y’all gonna tell her the rest, or am I?”

“Before we left, you know we hired a foreman to keep up the ranch while we were gone, right?” Troy spoke up, and asked. I nodded, so he continued.
“We hired a man Roger Beckham. He lived alone, just having moved here from Texas, and had experience, so we hired him on. Whenever we would come home, things would look great, so we kept him on, thinking he was doing a good job. After your daddy died, we asked him to keep an eye on you for us, and to send word if anything happened , since you were taking it so hard .
We had been worried about you.
Well, Toby here was already pissed because he never sent word to us that you had been kidnapped, so of course we never knew anything bad had happened. He defended himself saying that he didn’t know until after you had been found, and then Jordan told h im not to tell us, giving your not wanting us to know. We confirmed that Jordan had told him that, so Toby let it go. Then, the more I explored the ranch and checked on things, the more I saw how he let things go, only keeping the surface chores done ; the things immediately noticeable. There are a lot of things in disrepair, so I decided to let him go. He fought it, but left in the end. Then, this morning, talking to Tory and filling him in on what was going on with the ranch, we talked about several things, like the roses. When he told me what he’d heard, we put two and two together.”

“It’s our fault.” Toby said into my hair. “We hired him. We brought him here. Hell, we even told him to keep an eye on you. It’s our fault he did that to you .” His voice broke at the end.

I jumped off of his lap at turned to face all three of them.
‘No! None of you are at fault!’
I signed rapidly , my hands still shaking.
‘I had already been in contact with him through the book club we were both a part of. Daddy died about a month after I signed up for that group, and we’d already discussed a couple of books and other things, so he had started before you even told him that. He is crazy, and nothing you did or said caused that, so I better not hear any of you blaming yourselves .’

“Princess, I’m sorry, but I agree with Toby. There are too many things we should have done differently.
We were finished with training and school; we just wanted to stay on each of our spec op teams for a while longer. Look how that turned out for all of us.” Tory said with such regret in his voice.

‘I’m happy that you all liked what you were doing. It’s awful being forced to do something you hate, and all of you feared that when you left; that you would hate it.’
They had each gone to college while training for their branch of the military so the government would pay for their education.
‘I don’t blame any of you. Do you want me blaming myself?’
I asked sitting back on Toby’s lap while rubbing the top of Tory’s hand.

“Why the hell would you blame yourself? You didn’t want any of that to happen.” Troy exclaimed, coming to take the seat on the other side of Toby.

‘You all keep telling me not to blame myself, but I’m the one who agreed to meet someone I had met on the internet. I had heard all of the horror stories, but stupid me thought it would never actually happen to me. Look how that turned out.’
Troy was about to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him.
‘My point is, all of us could say we should have done this, or what if I’d done that, but it’s too late. Things happened to all of us, and nothing can change it. All we can do now is figure out what the next step is. Am I scared? Yes, but I have to buck up, or someone is going to get hurt or worse.’

Toby turned my head to him and kissed me softly. “You are an amazing woman. Do you know that?”

“We all want to be with you,” Tory added.

“We can
’
t live without you anymore.” Troy finished.
“Will you be with all of us?”

‘I’ve been dr
eaming of this for so long, but…
is it right? I don’t want to do anything that will come between you three.’

“We know that you love each of us individually. We will all want to spend time with you alone, but most of the time it will be all of us together.” Tory said. “We all know there is no room for jealousy. All that matters to any of us is that you are happy.”

I leaned over to kiss him,
and then
turned to T
roy to kiss him. Finally I looked up at Toby. He smiled at me leaned down and kissed me. “This was how it was always meant to be.” He said.

Just then, James walked in. He immediately covered his eyes. “Ewe!! I do
not need to see my sissy getting all sweet with y’all.” He said as he was walking toward the refrigerator. He ended up running into it, falling back on his butt. We all started laughing at him.

He looked up at me with his puppy dog eyes and started whining. “Sissy, I hurt my butt.” He sounded like a five year old.
“Kiss it and make it better.”

I scrunched up my face.
‘No way! I’ll kick it though.’

The trips busted out laughing even harder than they had been while I
got up and went to help him up, but he pulled me down to the floor and started tickling me.

“I’ll show you who’s going to kick whose butt.” He said.

After a couple of minutes of torture, he finally let me up. It took me a while for my vision to clear and my breathing to regulate, but when it did, I lit into them.

‘You’
I pointed at James.
‘I am so not cooking for you for a week .’
I glared over at the trips, who all try to pull off an innocent ‘what did we do?’ look, but it didn’t work when they were all still holding back their laughter.
‘I see how it’s going to be. You are going to take their side on things, not coming to my rescue.’

“Come on, Pea. You were just too cute
over there
on the floor,” Toby said.

“We were too busy
,” Troy added.

“Admiring your beauty.” Tory finished.

I was so glad to hear them that way. I had missed their triplet thing to where they would finish each other’s sentences, like each knew what the other was thinking. I shook my head. I knew they had done it on purpose because I loved it.
‘Don’t think that you are going to distract me by doing that.’