Monroe, Marla - Escape to the Border Lands [Men of the Border Lands 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Men of the Border Lands 8

  Escape to the Border Lands

  When things get too dangerous where she lives, Rachael hitches her way to the Border Lands looking for a home. Jeremy and Micah find Rachael in a ditch, unconscious and wet. They take her home to look after her. When she wakes up, she is sure they are good men and contemplates staying with them.

  Jeremy is ready and willing to give her a home forever, but will Micah get past the death of his wife and child to accept her in his heart? Is his bitterness permanent, or can he be saved? Jeremy wants to think so. Rachael is scared to believe.

  Rachael is sure that she can love Jeremy. He’s kind and giving, but what about Micah? He doesn’t seem to want her love. He’s just fine with sharing his body and keeping her safe. Can she live with that, or will she keep looking somewhere else?

  Genre: Futuristic, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

  Length: 45,433 words

  ESCAPE TO THE BORDER LANDS

  Men of the Border Lands 8

  Marla Monroe

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  ESCAPE TO THE BORDER LANDS

  Copyright © 2012 by Marla Monroe

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-821-0

  First E-book Publication: July 2012

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Escape to the Border Lands by Marla Monroe from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

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  This is Marla Monroe’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Monroe’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  ESCAPE TO THE BORDER LANDS

  Men of the Border Lands 8

  MARLA MONROE

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  Rachael Dyers crouched low in the back of the eighteen-wheeler headed for Barter Town out in the Border Lands. She and four other women had escaped their plights to take a chance at finding a decent husband in the back of nowhere. Anything had to be better than how they were living now. Their home had been a dilapidated trailer that barely kept the rain off of their heads, and their food was whatever could be scavenged at night. Surely something better awaited them outside of the cities.

  The truck seemed to hit every pothole and rock in the road, bouncing them around in the back. When they had picked this truck to stow away on, they thought it would be easier to get on and off of due to the lack of a lock. Unfortunately, farm implements weren’t the most comfortable things to be stuck with.

  Emma, Candy, Laura, and Brindle had all agreed with her that anything was better than living like lepers, staying out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind. Unfortunately, they hadn’t planned as far as actually getting away. Now they were on their way somewhere they knew nothing about. One thing they did know was that they had to get out of the truck before it actually made it all the way into Barter Town.

  Ever since the year of catastrophes where tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and tsunamis had ravaged the earth, people lived like animals trying to survive. Those few who remained were then thinned further by plagues that killed the elderly, women, and young children. Now there were so few women that men bought and sold them like cattle. They were chained and tied up to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Nine times out of ten, the highest bidder would be a brothel there in Barter Town.

  They knew that most of the women who lived essentially normal lives were married to two and three men each. It took more than one to keep them safe from the black-market dealers who thought nothing of stealing them away. Each had decided that anything was better than the life they had been living. They could handle two or three men.

  The truck slowed down and then turned off the road. Rachael took her post by the back doors and peeked through the hole in the side of the truck. They were pulling into a service station. A sign in front said Barter Town. Rachael scurried back to the other women.

  “We’re there. We’ve got to get out as soon as he slows down.”

  “We’re going to jump?” Brindle’s voice cracked.

  “Just remember to roll when you jump then hide until the truck is gone.” Emma checked her hair and made sure it was tied back.

  “He’s slowing down now. Time to go.”

  Rachael opened the back door wide enough for the women to jump off to the passing ground below them. On a count of three, each of them jumped and rolled once they hit the ground. As soon as Emma was clear, Rachael jumped and hit the ground with a hard thump. She curled up and rolled with the momentum until she landed off the side of the road in a ditch. It was a muddy ditch at that.

  She didn’t move until the truck was long gone. She looked up over the edge, but she didn’t see any of the others in sight. She worried that they could have been hurt jumping from the truck, but then a pickup truck roared by with Emma sitting between two men. She had a smile on her face. Rachael hoped they were good men. Now she needed to find the others.

  After searching the area for over an hour, she admitted defeat. She couldn’t find them anywhere. Granted, they had jumped
several minutes apart, but she hadn’t thought they were that far apart at the time. Worry crept in. How would they make it alone out in the open? For that matter, what was she going to do? She wasn’t in any better shape. It looked as if Emma had lucked out in finding men almost as soon as she landed.

  Rachael picked a direction and began to walk. Each time she heard a motor, she climbed back down into a ditch and lay flat until it had passed. She had no idea if she were letting an opportunity pass by or if she were avoiding something much harsher.

  Night fell, and the air grew much cooler. She had on a sweater, but it wasn’t much protection against a night sleeping on the ground. She had managed to bypass Barter Town by avoiding the main road. She was following a rarely used country road that seemed to be taking her at a right angle from the dirty town.

  I screwed up thinking we would be better off out here than back in the city. If I do manage to live through the night, I’ll probably die tomorrow.

  She shivered then continued walking. As long as she was moving, the cold didn’t burn quite as badly. Once she gave up, she was probably going to die. She promised herself that she wouldn’t give up. She hadn’t survived everything that had happened, all the disasters and disease, just to die now. She’d be damned if she would die on a back road all alone. She took one more step in the dark, but there was nothing there.

  * * * *

  Jeremy Holt and Micah McDaniel left Barter Town just as night was closing in. They didn’t normally run this late, but they were waiting on the truck with the farm implements to make it in before they did. It had parts on it for their tractor.

  “Damn truck. Took his own sweet time coming. You’d think he wouldn’t want to be caught at night in that place.” Jeremy tended to talk when he was pissed.

  Micah didn’t. They complemented each other as partners went, but there were few similarities between them. They worked a small farm about four hours from Barter Town. It would be pushing midnight before they made it home. He didn’t much care one way or the other. Life was simple. You got up, you worked your ass off, you ate, and you went back to bed to repeat the entire sequence all over again. Simple suited him.

  “Are you even listening to me, Micah?”

  “Nope.”

  “I said that I’ll fix us something to eat when we get back if you’ll check the animals.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Micah knew that Jeremy was used to his silences and would just continue driving. Jeremy was younger by two years and had been his brother’s best friend when everything had been normal. Now his brother and his entire family were gone. To be fair, all of Jeremy’s was dead, too. He hadn’t gotten bitter over it like Micah had. Micah probably would have survived it all much better if he hadn’t lost his wife and their two-week-old baby as well. He’d finally made it home from work after the devastating tornadoes to find the house they had rented gone and his family dead.

  “What’s that over in the ditch, Micah?” Jeremy pulled over.

  “Don’t stop the damn truck. There’s no telling what it is. Probably a fucking wolf waiting to eat you up.”

  “It doesn’t look like a wolf. It looks like a person. I’m going to get out and check and see if they are alive.”

  “Damn it, Jeremy. Let me get the gun before you go poking at something.” He reached behind them and pulled the rifle from the backseat.

  Stepping out on the running board, Micah nodded at the other man and aimed the gun at the figure curled up in the ditch. It didn’t move when Jeremy kicked at it with the toe of his boot. Looking back at Micah, Jeremy shrugged and climbed down into the ditch. Micah wanted to strangle the other man. He couldn’t see well enough in the dim light to make out who was who if he needed to use the gun.

  “It’s a female, Micah! She’s in bad shape.”

  “Aw, hell. Bring her up and let’s get a look at her.”

  He climbed down from the truck and walked around in front of the headlights where Jeremy was carrying the unconscious female. She was covered in mud from head to toe. Her hair was so matted that he couldn’t tell what color it was, let alone how long it would be. Scratches and cuts adorned every uncovered patch of skin. Jeremy was right. She was in bad shape.

  “Put her in the backseat and throw the blanket over her. We’ll do what we can when we get back to the farm.”

  “You drive, Micah, and I’ll try to get her warm.”

  “Hellfire.” Micah walked around to the other side of the truck and climbed into the cab on the driver’s side. He waited until Jeremy had the woman settled before pulling back on the road.

  Jeremy kept up a soft one-sided conversation with the woman all the way back. Micah might have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad. His friend needed a female of his own. He felt bad because the one time they’d had a chance with a pretty one, his wife and baby’s death had still been fresh in his heart. He’d vetoed giving her a home and helped her find one with the Thompson twins from several miles over.

  Now, time had hardened his heart and wiped the memory of his young bride and child almost away. He couldn’t even see her in his dreams anymore. Maybe it was time to move on. He doubted this one would make it, though. She really did look in bad shape.

  They pulled into the farm just after midnight. He stopped the truck as close to the front of the house as he could get and jumped out to unlock the door while Jeremy carried the female inside. He lit a lamp and led them upstairs to the master bedroom.

  “Carry her on into the bathroom. We need to clean her up to see what’s wrong with her.” He lit another lamp and set it along with the other one on the counter top in front of the mirror to reflect the light.

  In the soft glow of the lamps, her body looked broken and thin. He helped Jeremy remove her clothes and winced at how malnourished she actually was. Her ribs where showing. She had bruises all over her and was covered in mud.

  “Do you see anything major that needs tending to, Jeremy?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. She needs a bath for us to really see.”

  Micah adjusted the water temperature and ran the tub over half full before turning it off. Then he and Jeremy lowered her into the warm water and bathed the caked-on mud from her. Jeremy washed her hair under the running water when they had let the other water out. The ring of dirt in the tub would have to be dealt with later. Right now, the little female was shivering all over.

  “Get your clothes off and get in bed with her. Warm her up while I go check on everything and lock up. I’ll be back up in a while.”

  Jeremy didn’t say a word. He peeled off his clothes then picked up their lost waif and climbed into bed with her in his arms. Micah pulled the covers farther up on them before heading toward the stairs. He wanted to make some coffee, but that would only keep him up all night. He could make it long enough to check the animals and lock up the house.

  Once everything had been taken care of, Micah closed the barn up, set the latch, and headed for the house. He wondered if the little female had woken up yet or if she even would. There wasn’t a place on her that didn’t have some sort of bruise or scratch. She was badly undernourished and had still been unconscious when he had left to tend to the animals. He shook his head and locked up the doors before climbing up the stairs to see what he would find.

  The lamp’s light revealed Jeremy half covering the woman so that only her nose and the top of her head stuck out from beneath the covers. Jeremy was sound asleep. He watched for several seconds to see if the woman was breathing and sighed in relief to see that she was.

  Micah took a quick shower and dried off before joining them in the bed. The sheets were musty from lack of use. They had each taken a room down the hall and shared the bathroom. Neither one wanted to sleep in the big room alone. Now they had someone to share it with… Don’t go there, Micah. She may not live, and if she does, she may not want to stick around with the likes of you.

  He turned on his side so that his back was to them. Details of her sinc
e her bath made their way into his mind as he tried to sleep. Her honey-brown hair was shoulder length and appeared to have a natural curl to it. She couldn’t be more than five feet three inches, and he doubted she weighed more than a hundred and ten soaking wet. She needed fattening up. That was for sure. Her breasts appeared ample and a good handful, while her ass was nicely rounded. Thinking about her ass had his cock rising to attention.

  Since he hadn’t seen her eyes yet, he couldn’t tell what color they would be, but he figured brown. What sort of brown, he would have to wait and see.

  He thought he heard a whimper and stilled to see if it came again. When it didn’t, he relaxed and fell asleep.

  Chapter Two

  Rachael opened her eyes one at a time believing that she’d indeed died and was in heaven. Expecting to see angels and silver clouds, she was startled to find that she was lying on top of a man, a big man at that. She bit her lip to stop the automatic gasp that tried to escape. Where was she, and how had she ended up naked in bed with a man?

  A groan next to her had her amending that to two men. She frowned and thought back to the last thing she remembered. It didn’t include two men or getting naked or going to bed. She’d been walking along a country road and fallen again. Then she woke up with her body draped nonchalantly over a mountain of a man.

  “Micah? Are you awake?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Wake up, man. She’s still alive, and she’s on top of you.”