Monroe, Marla - Belonging to Them [Men of the Border Lands 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (16 page)

“I need some room. Please,” she panted.

They backed up, but didn’t leave her. Brandon grabbed a bath cloth and dampened it before handing it to her.

“Wipe your face and cool off. You’ll feel better.”

Bolton looked as if he didn’t know what to do. Heather felt sorry for him. None of them had been sick since she’d been attacked by the wolf. He didn’t know how to handle it. She tried a smile, but even that much movement churned her gut. She wiped at her mouth and face and then leaned back against the wall for support.

“What can we do for you?” Brandon asked. He had a strange look on his face.

“Nothing. I just need to rest a minute. I must have a virus or something.” She already felt a little better, but really wanted to lie down again.

“How about if we carry you to bed? Do you think you would feel better lying down?” Bolton asked.

“Yeah, that would be nice. Help me up. I can stand now, I think.”

“Don’t move,” Brandon said. “Let Bolton carry you back to bed. I’m going to go get you some crackers.”

She frowned at him. Why would she want crackers when she’d just thrown up? She let Bolton pick her up and carry her back to bed. He climbed back in bed with her and cuddled around her. It felt good to feel his warmth at her back. She no longer felt nauseous, but didn’t feel up to getting up yet, either.

Brandon walked back in the room carrying a glass of water and a sleeve of crackers.

“Here, try a cracker. It will settle your stomach.” He handed her a cracker and held the glass of water for her.

“Brandon, I don’t think I can manage to eat anything.”

“Just trust me and try one.” He waited while she took a small bite, then handed her the water to wash it down.

He nodded for her to take another bite. Before long she had finished the cracker and half of the water. She felt fine, but sleepy. Maybe there was something to the cracker after all. He folded the paper around the crackers and left it on the bedside table on his side. Then he climbed back in bed. Heather snuggled up to his warm belly and dozed lightly. She knew when they got up to go to work, but decided to stick to the bed for a little while longer. She felt okay, but was tired.

Finally, she realized she needed to get up and get dressed. She felt fine now. No more upset stomach. She wasn’t sure what had been wrong, unless it had just been a fluke. She hated that she hadn’t gotten the men their breakfast, but she would have lunch ready for them.

She had just put the sandwiches on the table when Brandon and Bolton walked through the back door laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

Brandon looked over at Bolton and started laughing again. Heather put her hands on her hip and gave them both a stern frown.

“Nothing really. We’re just laughing about some of the things we used to get into as kids.”

Heather smiled and shook her head. They didn’t talk about their pasts much. She didn’t, either. It hurt to remember her family and friends were all gone. She preferred to think about her future with her men.

After lunch, they both hugged her and left her to work in the garden while they returned to the field.

“Don’t get too hot out here.” Brandon warned her. “Maybe you got too hot yesterday, and that’s why you were sick this morning.”

“Maybe so. I didn’t feel sick when I went to bed, though.” She shrugged and grabbed her things to go outside. She stuck her gun in the waistband of her jeans and closed the kitchen door behind her.

That night they talked about plans for the farm over the next year, and how they could improve things around the house. She got so hooked up in hearing their plans, she didn’t even think about having been sick that morning. They headed to bed and she fell right to sleep.

The next morning, Brandon woke her up and made her eat a cracker. She felt a little icky and wasn’t sure about eating, but figured it had made her feel better the day before.Maybe she wouldn’t get sick this time at all. She drank the water and fell right back to sleep.

* * * *

“Told you,” Brandon said as he and Bolton ate their breakfast later that morning.

“She’s going to flip when she figures it out,” Bolton said.

“I don’t think we need to let her go too long without suggesting it to her. She needs to take things slower and get plenty of rest. You know how she pushes herself to work in the garden.” Brandon didn’t want her to run herself down.

“How do we tell her though?”

“Tell me what?” Heather stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips and a worried expression on her face.

Brandon jumped up and pulled her into his arms. “How are you feeling this morning?”

She frowned at him and pulled away to glare at them. “Tell. Me. What?”

“Don’t look at me. You’re the boss. You tell her.” Bolton threw his hands up in the air.

Brandon frowned at him then turned back to face Heather with her now angry expression. How was he supposed to say it? Maybe the direct approach was the best one.

“Heather, baby. We think you’re pregnant.”

Bolton was the one who caught her before she hit the floor in a dead faint.

“Well, I guess that was one way to tell her,” Bolton fussed.

“Let’s get her on the couch.” Brandon led the way to the living room.

By the time Bolton had her tucked on the couch, she’d come to and was staring at them as if they’d gone crazy.

“Did you say you think I’m pregnant?”

“You’ve been sick the last two days. If I’m thinking right, you haven’t had a period in a couple of months, either.” Brandon waited for her to think it through.

“I guess I didn’t know you kept up with my periods.” She turned red at the mention of it, then shook her head.

“What, baby?” Bolton asked.

“What am I going to do if I am? I don’t know how to take care of a baby.”

“I guess we’ll learn together.” Brandon sat on the couch and pulled her back into his arms. “We’ll do fine. You’ll have both of us to help with everything.”

“Oh, God!” Bolton exclaimed.

“What?” Brandon asked, wishing his brother hadn’t scared Heather.

“Who’s going to deliver the baby?”

“I guess that will be Brandon, since you look like you’re going to faint,” Heather said.

“Well, everyone, looks like we need to plan another trip to Skyline. We need baby supplies and to raid a bookstore on babies and birthing.” Brandon figured being prepared was their best bet. Besides, he needed to keep Bolton busy, or his brother was going to have a heart attack thinking about it.

“There’s a mall there,” Bolton pointed out after drawing in a few deep breaths. “I bet there’s everything we need there for babies and maternity clothes and books.”

“We’ll need to get diapers from Walmart though.” Heather seemed to be getting past her initial shock.

“Okay, let’s make a list of things we need to get and where to get them. Then we’ll plan a trip for the end of the week. That should give us time to finish what we’re working on. It’s still light at eight, so we’ll have plenty of time if we get an early start.” Brandon eased Heather off his lap and stood up.

“I’ll make a list and then you two can look over it and add whatever I’m missing.” Heather sat up.

Bolton quickly moved to help her stand. She laughed.

“I may be pregnant, but I’m not helpless. I can still do things. I’ll just eventually get slower at it,” she said.

“Brandon, she doesn’t need to work in the garden anymore. We’re going to have to divide our time between it and the fields.”

“Brandon, stop him before he says something he’s going to regret.” Heather frowned at Bolton.

“Bolton, let’s go on out to work. She’s fine right now. We need to talk, brother.”

* * * *

It took a few weeks, but Heather finally convinced Bolton she wasn’t going to break either working in the garden or in the bed. They pored over the baby books they’d gotten in Skyline along with all the baby stuff they could haul. They were setting up a nursery in the bedroom next to theirs, but the baby would sleep in their room to begin with.

“I swear, it didn’t look that hard to put together in the instructions,” Bolton fumed.

He and Brandon were putting together the baby bed and other furniture they had gotten from the baby store in the mall.

“I told you to get the ones already put together.”

“There wouldn’t have been as much room, and we needed the room, baby.” Bolton looked at the directions again and shook his head.

“I’m going downstairs so I don’t have to listen to all the cussing you two are doing. It’s not good for the baby to hear it at this stage in development.”

Brandon snickered. Bolton looked as if he believed her. She shook her head and carried the books she was reading downstairs to the living room. They were enjoying the rainy afternoon together for a change. She enjoyed having them around her even with their cussing the baby bed with every curse word they could make up.

Bolton had a lot of adjusting to do. He still worried every time she groaned or walked outside. He fussed at her for climbing on the ladder in the pantry and for working in the garden. Brandon stood back and let her do whatever she wanted within reason. He put his foot down at riding horses while she was pregnant. It was fine. She didn’t really want to ride them anyway. She’d just wanted to see where he would balk.

They treated her like the most important thing in their lives. She made little changes to the house here and there. It felt so good—like a real home. She wanted everything to be perfect for when the baby came because she knew once they had a baby to deal with, everything would change for all of them.

Brandon walked down the stairs to where she was standing looking out the window. He pulled her back into his arms and placed a hand over her little belly.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking about how far we’ve come since I hitched a ride with you.”

“Do you regret you hitched your wagon to ours?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Brandon rubbed her belly. “I’ll be glad when you get a little baby bump I can rub and talk to.”

“Yeah, you say that now, but wait until it’s big enough I can’t see my feet, and I’m moody and cry all the time.”

“Is that what that book is telling you?” he asked.

“Yep. Being pregnant is going to be just as hard on you two as it is on me.”

“I already figured that out.”

She elbowed him in the stomach, and he chuckled. Bolton stomped down the stairs, muttering to himself.

“Here you are. I thought you were coming back up to help me.”

“Got sidetracked,” Bolton said, nuzzling the side of Heather’s neck.

He walked over to where they were standing looking out the window. “What are we looking at?”

“Our lives in a few years,” Heather told him.

“How do you mean?”

She grabbed hold of him and pulled him over next to her. The three of them looked out the window at the flowers in the front bed and the drive heading out toward the road.