Sophie Oak - Three to Ride

Rachel was confused. She calmed down as she noticed Rye looked a little tormented. “Rye, we didn’t do anything we shouldn’t have. It was a mistake. I’m sure this isn’t the first time a woman got twin brothers confused and ended up seeing more than she should. It’s your house. I’m the one who should be more careful.”

Rye turned away from her. He placed both hands on the dresser. His head fell forward as though he was very tired. “We’ve shared a room all of our lives until a year ago. Even after our parents were gone and we could have, probably should have, taken our own rooms, we didn’t. We just moved in here and, when we had the money, renovated to suit our needs. We built this room and that bathroom for the future. I don’t know, Rachel. I just always expected him to be there.”

“I am not trying to take your brother away from you,” Rachel said quietly. She wondered if all the drama was worth it. Her heart hurt a little at the thought, but sooner or later, she would have to move on. Until Tommy was caught, she was in danger and so was everyone around her.

Rye sighed. “Oh, Rachel, I’m not jealous of you.” He turned to her, and the intensity in his blue eyes made her heart speed up. “I’m gut-churningly jealous of Max. All of our lives, I’ve been the one to find our women. He’s a charmless bastard who just went along for the ride. I’m the one who wanted to get married. I’m the one who wanted to have kids. He just wanted to fuck. Now, he’s the one who finds you? How the hell is that fair?”

Rachel stood there, watching him at war with himself. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and soothe him, but she didn’t have the right. From everything she knew, Max had decided to go straight. He wanted a normal one-on-one relationship. He would probably be very upset if he knew how attracted she was to Rye.

Rye just shook his head. “I’m leaving tonight. I’ll pack a couple of things and stay at Stefan’s until I can find an apartment.”

“Don’t.” Rachel was horrified at the thought. “I’ll leave. This is your home. I never meant to cause so much trouble.”

Rye smiled slightly, but it was a sad thing. “I can’t watch you and Max, Rachel. I’ll get to the point where I can be friendly, and we can pretend to be some sort of normal family, but I’ll never stop wanting you. I can’t live in the same house and watch you settle in with my brother. Do you understand the relationship I want?”

Rachel nodded. “You want to share me with Max.” The statement came out in a low, breathy voice. She had meant to sound matter-of-fact, not sultry.

“I want you between us, Rachel. I want you to be our wife and our lover and the mother of our children. I want you to sleep in between us. I want you screaming your pleasure when we take you at the same time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.” Her mouth was dry as she thought about it. She could have both of them. Two gorgeous men, loving her, wanting her. It was the fantasy of a lifetime.

“Max doesn’t want that anymore. I have to choose between pursuing the woman I think I was meant to be with and honoring the brother I’ve shared a life with from the moment we were conceived. Know this, Rach, if he weren’t already madly in love with you, if you hadn’t already chosen him, I would be all over you. That’s why I have to leave.”

“Rye,” she started, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He turned. His chest was still slick from the shower. “And change, Rachel. That’s my shirt. Max won’t like you running around in my shirt. He keeps his extra T-shirts on the right side of the dresser.”

He started to leave, but all of a sudden, he stumbled. His knees hit the wood of the floor, and he gasped. Rachel hurried to his side to try to help him up. He was shaking. His hands trembled slightly as he held his head.

“It’s Max,” he said in obvious distress. “Oh God, Rachel, he’s hurt.”

* * *

Max breathed in the early morning air, aware of a sense of contentment he’d never felt before. Rachel was still asleep in their bed. Her sweet, soft body was curled up under the quilts. He’d slept wrapped around that body. Their arms and legs had tangled in the night, and when he woke up, her hair was all over his face. He’d grinned and managed to find his way out of the web her strawberry blonde hair had woven around him. He’d watched her sleep for a while, then rose quietly to get his work for the morning done.

He had to pay attention to work. Before he’d met Rachel, work had been all that mattered. Now he had to tell himself to get his ass up. He had to make some money since he had a woman to support now. Rachel might not know it, but she was his top priority. He would get her comfortable living with him and then move her gently toward marriage.

Max made sure the saddle on Maverick was cinched tight, then mounted with the ease of a true horseman. The big horse beneath him nickered and waited for a command. Now that the morning’s maintenance was done, it was time for some exercise. The stall for Sunflower was ready. She would be arriving tomorrow, and Max was eager to get to work with her. For now, he would settle for riding the pasture and making sure the fences were solid.

Quigley followed the quarter horse as Max let Maverick trot out of the yard toward the big pasture where he’d be able to gallop. Max’s mind wandered as they made their way down the road.

He wanted to marry Rachel, but there was one thing marring the vision. It was hard for him to think of marrying a woman without his brother at his side. He knew Rye was attracted to Rachel, probably at least half in love with her. They had always wanted the same women. Perhaps, if they had grown up in a more conventional town, they would have been shamed into giving up their instincts. Everything in Max told him to share with his brother. They were happier that way. If they had been told how wrong and perverse they were, maybe they would have been able to deny that part of themselves.

But they had grown up in Bliss. Their mother had accepted them, and their father had been far too busy drinking to care what they did. The town itself was so full of hippies and free spirits that when Max and Rye asked one girl to be their date to the winter festival when they were sixteen, everyone had smiled indulgently and talked about how comfortable the boys were in their own skins.

Rachel hadn’t grown up in Bliss. Rachel had grown up in suburban Texas, according to her stories from childhood. She’d been raised conventionally, and she would probably walk out if he even suggested that they experiment. She would be shocked if she knew what he really wanted.

She wasn’t some girl Rye had picked up in a bar who wanted to have some fun and play out a few fantasies. Max had enjoyed the long-term relationships they’d had with women like that, but, unlike his brother, he’d known those relationships wouldn’t end in happily ever after. Max was more cynical than Rye. He knew there wasn’t a woman out there who wanted to put up with two men. They were too demanding.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t had sex separately before. They had both had many relationships that didn’t involve the other brother. It was just anything even vaguely serious had been a ménage. When Rye had really fallen for someone, Max had inevitably fallen a little, too.

Max thought about how tired Rye had looked this morning. He’d been up and drinking coffee when Max had come through the kitchen. Their conversation had been polite, but there was a distance between them that put Max on edge.

“You look like hell, brother,” Max said, pouring coffee into his thermos. “Late night?”

Rye shook his head. He was wearing a pair of sweats and his running shoes. Max knew that Rye ran off his problems. He would run for miles when he was upset. From the sweat covering his brother’s body, Max knew he’d been running all morning. “It was fine, but I think I’ll take off for a few days. Stef wants to go fishing before the Founder’s Day picnic.”

Max turned and studied his brother. “I don’t want to run you off. I want you to be okay with Rachel staying here.”

Rye’s laugh was short and sharp. “I’m okay with it. I just think the two of you need some time to yourselves, and then we need to figure some stuff out.”

Max found himself getting upset. He could sense Rye’s anxiety. “Figure out what?”

Rye looked frustrated as he dumped his coffee in the sink. “Well, I’m not going to be your and Rachel’s roommate. Do you really think I want to watch that? Do you think that’s how I want to spend the rest of my life?”

“Ryan,” Max said, trying to stop his brother.

“Don’t.” Rye put a hand out to stop him. “I’m happy for you, man. I really am. I just isn’t what I thought our lives would be like, and I need time to adjust. We’ll figure it all out in the end. Besides, you can’t really want me around. I make Rachel nervous.”

“She’ll get used to you.” Max needed to believe that.

“No, she won’t,” Rye replied sadly. “She’s not that girl, and maybe we were fooling ourselves. I can see now that Nina was never going to make both of us happy. Hell, she wouldn’t have made me happy. I proposed to her because I wanted to get married. She said yes because she didn’t have anything better to do. It was stupid. Rachel is the type of girl you marry and raise a family with, and she’s also the type who would never accept a ménage.”

“Come on, Rye.” He couldn’t think of anything else. Rye wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t thought of already.

“I’m going to take a shower. I’ll see you later,” Rye said in a voice that told Max he was done for now. Then Rye had disappeared down the hall, and Max had gotten to work.

Max tried to put his brother out of his mind as he turned Maverick down the short slope marking the change between yard and pasture. He could already see a place in the fence that he needed to fix. He would have to figure out how to fix the mess with his brother at a later date.

Max heard a sound like a car backfiring. For the briefest of moments, he felt his anger flare. Someone was up at the house at this time of the morning? It was Saturday. Couldn’t they be left in peace on a Saturday morning?

Then he felt the pain bloom along his left arm. He looked down. There was blood starting to spread on his shirt.

I’ve been shot, Max realized with shock.

It had finally happened. Some damn hunter had let a bullet go wild.

Max turned Maverick, who was antsy now, and started to move toward the woods. He would show that hunter a thing or two. Damn asshole probably didn’t even realize he’d hit someone.

The sound came again, and Maverick bucked wildly. Max had to pull hard on the reins and hunker down to stay on the horse. There was a third shot. Maverick took off as he completely panicked. Max was thrown to the side. His own panic set in as he realized his boot was stuck in the stirrup. He tried to pull free as he was dragged along the ground, but he couldn’t make it.

Max heard Quigley barking frantically. The dog raced to keep up with his master. Max gave his boot one last tug and then felt his head hit something hard. The whole world went black.

* * *

Rachel didn’t stop to think when Rye made the announcement that Max was hurt. She ran. She ran out the door and down the porch steps. She didn’t think about the fact that she was barefoot with only Rye’s T-shirt to cover her. All she could think about was Max. She suddenly knew that Rye was right, and he needed them.

“The stables.” Rye ran up behind her. He pointed behind the house and started sprinting.

He was barefoot, too, Rachel noted, but had slipped into sweatpants. He raced toward the back of the house. As Rachel followed, she saw something that terrified her.

Maverick was standing perfectly still in the yard. He looked down at Max, who was on the ground. His booted foot was still in the stirrup, and his big body was completely still. Quigley danced around him anxiously. The enormous dog whined.

Rachel’s heart seized. Rye made it to his brother’s side and felt for a pulse. Rachel got to her knees, reaching out for his still hand.

“Call an ambulance,” Rye said urgently.

She needed to touch him, to hold him, to assure herself that he was alive.

“Rachel, call 911 now!” Rye’s voice broke through her fear.

Rachel raced back to the house and called. Every second she prayed she hadn’t seen him alive for the last time.

The next several hours were the worst of Rachel’s life. She and Rye sat out in the waiting room of the hospital in Del Norte while Max was in surgery. The doctor told them he’d been hit by two stray bullets. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. There was a hunting rifle slug in his left arm and another in his leg. That was the easy part. The bullets hadn’t hit any major organs. His brain, on the other hand, had taken a beating. He had a concussion, and they weren’t sure about the severity of it.