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A Callahan Wedding
Tina Leonard


“Holy Smokes. I'm A Father.”Sabrina McKinley broke Jonas’s heart when she left him for another man. Then the eldest Callahan brother gets the surprise of his life when he sees her again…holding his son. Even at six months, his bouncing baby boy was wearing the legendary Callahan smile!Which means Sabrina has got to marry him, even if Jonas has to drag her to the altar. Sabrina’s been head over heels for the hunky cowboy doctor since the day she first came to Rancho Diablo, but it’s always been Jonas keeping her at arm’s length.She won’t settle for anything less than the real deal—the love and happiness that Jonas’s five brothers have found. But when a revelation about a family secret comes out, Sabrina can see Jonas is ready to look toward the future. He won’t be the last bachelor on the ranch. After all, he’s a Callahan!










“Holy smokes. I’m a father.”

Sabrina McKinley broke Jonas’s heart when she left him for another man. Then the eldest Callahan brother gets the surprise of his life when he sees her again…holding his son. Even at six months, his bouncing baby boy was wearing the legendary Callahan smile!

Which means Sabrina has got to marry him, even if Jonas has to drag her to the altar.

Sabrina’s been head over heels for the hunky cowboy doctor since the day she first came to Rancho Diablo; it’s always been Jonas keeping her at arm’s length. She won’t settle for anything less than the real deal—the love and happiness that Jonas’s five brothers have found.

But when a revelation about a family secret comes out, Sabrina can see Jonas is ready to look toward the future. He won’t be the last bachelor on the ranch. After all, he’s a Callahan!


“Is this my son, Sabrina?”

So this was how it was going to be. She hadn’t planned to tell him on a beautiful, sunny May day in front of the hometown crowd, but he’d asked. “Yes. Joe is your son.”

Jonas studied the baby, and Joe seemed to study him in return. “I assume my name is listed as the father on the birth certificate?”

“Yes, it is. Of course it is.” Sabrina took Joe back from his father, who seemed reluctant to part with his newfound son. “We have an appointment, Jonas. I’m sorry.”

“What kind of appointment?”

“Six-month checkup and shots.”

“I feel I should be there.”

Sabrina stopped and looked up at the tall, handsome man whom she’d once loved with all her heart.

“I’m not trying to butt into your life, Sabrina. When Joe sees the doctor, I want to be there. Every time.”

“Fine. You can hold him when he cries.”

“He won’t cry. He’s a Callahan.”


Dear Reader,

Jonas Callahan doesn’t settle down easily! None of the brothers have, but Jonas is determined that he’s meant to walk alone in life. Until he finds out that his longtime love is carrying his child—not another man’s—and Jonas’s world is forever changed. In the painted canyons of Diablo, New Mexico, Jonas is going to have to allow the magic that has swept the other brothers to finally find him. It’s up to Jonas to change his own destiny and be the husband, father and Callahan he’s meant to be. Fortunately, Sabrina McKinley is more than up to the challenge—this stubborn cowboy doctor is her dream come true!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series. My editor and I spent many hours putting it together. It was so much fun writing about these wily brothers and their cagey counterparts—not to mention their crafty Aunt Fiona. Family is fun and magical in its own right, and though it takes the brothers some time to find their own true loves and families, the magic of Rancho Diablo eventually tames them all. It’s my heartfelt wish that some of that special magic finds its way into your life, and as the Callahan cowboys ride into the New Mexico sunset, here’s hoping they leave you with many smiles and much happiness.

Best wishes always,

Tina Leonard

www.tinaleonard.com

www.facebook/tinaleonardbooks

www.twitter/tina_leonard




A Callahan Wedding

Tina Leonard







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tina Leonard is a bestselling author of more than forty projects, including a popular thirteen-book miniseries for Harlequin American Romance. Her books have made the Waldenbooks, Ingram and Nielsen BookScan bestseller lists. Tina feels she has been blessed with a fertile imagination and quick typing skills, excellent editors and a family who loves her career. Born on a military base, she lived in many states before eventually marrying the boy who did her crayon printing for her in the first grade. Tina believes happy endings are a wonderful part of a good life. You can visit her at www.tinaleonard.com.


The Callahan Cowboys series has been so much fun to write! I have enjoyed every minute of these brothers’ adventures, and for those moments of joy I must shower my gratitude on the following people: my editor, Kathleen Scheibling; all copy editors and other gurus of magic at Harlequin who are responsible for making my books the best they can be; my children, Lisa and Dean; my husband, Tim; agent Laura Bradford for negotiating this contract; and most of all, the readers who have loyally supported my work all these many years. Thank you so much.


Contents

Chapter One (#u49dc9b79-0cca-5377-800a-22737da967f6)

Chapter Two (#u1f9574ca-500d-57a9-bb2e-e31248c58975)

Chapter Three (#ue6a0db7b-a4ba-5664-88ee-a1b2adadda74)

Chapter Four (#u93d18528-61ca-5c3b-8f04-381e3231dc5d)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One

“Jonas is an old soul.”

—Molly Cavanaugh Callahan, observing her

toddler as he tried to read the newspaper one day,

imitating his father, Jeremiah.

Jonas Callahan realized at once that the music he heard on the breeze was the lilting strains of a wedding march, beautifully played as always by the town of Diablo’s string quartet.

It had to come from Sam’s wedding. Though Sam had already married Seton McKinley once, they’d probably decided to make the leap from marriage-by-design to marriage-by-dream-come-true. Sam was sentimental like that. Oh, Jonas’s loony lawyer brother would claim he was a hard-boiled realist, but Sam was the biggest, cheesiest romantic of the entire Callahan clan. And a May wedding at Rancho Diablo was probably a dream come true—if one had romantic tendencies like that. Sam did. Jonas didn’t.

He dared not intrude on the magical moment between his brother and Seton. Jonas knew full well how Sam had longed for her—as Jonas did for her sister, Sabrina.

While it was hopeless for him, Sam looked to be making everything happen for himself. Jonas was happy for his youngest brother, thrilled, in fact.

So Jonas stood near the English-style house with seven chimneys, where no one could see that he had come home to Rancho Diablo—and that he’d brought with him a visitor of the female variety.

“It’s a wedding!” Chelsea Myers exclaimed. “I wouldn’t mind getting married here—this place is gorgeous. Did you know there was a wedding today, Jonas?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been keeping in touch with my brothers as much as I should have. I sent an occasional email to let them know I didn’t find our aunt and uncle, but that was about it.”

Jonas craned his neck to see who was at the altar. It was Sam! For a man who’d run as hard as Sam had from the bonds of matrimony, he’d gone down like a sleepy baby when he’d met the right woman.

I’m too logical and practical to be led around by my heart. I intend to make my decision on cold, hard facts. Are we compatible? Does my future wife understand that I need an assistant in my life? I don’t want romance and fairy tales and magic wedding gowns that can’t possibly be magic. Sabrina and her load of clairvoyant, out-of-this-world supernatural charm.

Hooey!

Jonas, too, had met the woman he had once hoped might be the “right” one—but Sabrina McKinley had fallen for someone else. To say that his heart had broken upon learning that she was pregnant with another man’s child would be grossly understating his devastation.

He’d had no option but to hightail it away from Rancho Diablo. He’d headed to Ireland on the flimsy excuse that he was going to locate their aunt Fiona and uncle Burke. When Jonas couldn’t find them—it seemed they’d gotten a traveling yen and gone off on the extended cruise of their dreams—he’d hung around Ireland to take in the sights.

And then he’d met Chelsea Myers, a calm, steady redhead nothing like Sabrina McKinley—except for the flaming hair. Jonas had told himself she would make a suitable surgeon’s wife. Moreover, she wasn’t opposed to leaving Ireland and seeing America.

So, realizing that with Sam off the market, he’d be the only brother at Rancho Diablo who hadn’t succumbed to Aunt Fiona’s Secret Plan to get them all married with families, Jonas had surveyed his life goals. Now, he thought marriage might dovetail with his desire to not be the leftover Callahan, hankering after a woman who had borne another man’s child.

What else could a guy with a broken heart do?

* * *

AFTER THE I DO’S WERE SAID and the champagne was flowing, Jonas stepped forward with Chelsea to join his brothers and congratulate Sam and Seton for finally doing things right this time.

“Jonas!” he heard over and over, glad cries of astonished welcome ringing in his ears. A burn of embarrassment crawled up the back of his neck. Sam’s and Seton’s big day was suddenly turning into a welcome home party for him.

“Brother,” Sam said, hugging him and pounding him on the back. “Welcome home!”

“Congratulations, Sam. You’ve married a great gal. Again.”

Seton threw her arms around Jonas and kissed him on the cheek like a long-lost brother. “You were gone too long! What a nice wedding gift to have you back!”

He suddenly realized he was staring at the maid of honor and the reason he’d left town: Sabrina. No longer pregnant, of course—he estimated her baby would be about six months old—Sabrina was dressed in a beautiful long, strapless, turquoise-blue dress that complemented her petite frame. Her burnished red hair was styled in a pretty updo, and her big eyes sparkled at him before her eyelids lowered.

Everything hit him all at once, a hard smack to the chest: He had never gotten over Sabrina. He was madly in love with her. And no matter how long he stayed away, no matter how many countries he traveled to, she was always going to be the one woman who set his soul on fire.

“Hi, Jonas,” she said, and he felt himself melting at her feet.

“Hello, Sabrina. You look…nice.” He’d started to say beautiful, but awkwardly stopped himself in time. “Congratulations, Seton, Sam.”

“You ol’ dog,” Sam said. “We thought you were going to turn out to be the most footloose one of us all, going off like that. It’s about time you came home!”

Jonas cleared his throat, knowing the moment had come. “I’d like everyone to meet my fiancée, Chelsea Myers.”

For ten feet around him, it got so silent not even a grain of dirt shifted underfoot, or so Jonas’s imagination feverishly claimed. He saw a flare of surprise in Sabrina’s eyes that she quickly masked.

The moment was more painful than pleasant. Definitely not the self-serving, face-saving moment he’d hoped for.

It occurred to him belatedly that he wasn’t as good at plotting as his aunt Fiona was, because at the moment, he felt anything but happy. Looking at Sabrina, he was pretty certain he’d made an error of epic proportions.

“Hi, Chelsea,” Seton said. “Welcome to Rancho Diablo.”

Sabrina moved forward to shake Chelsea’s hand, but her aunt Corinne stepped in front of her, placing a baby in Sabrina’s arms.

“I don’t know why Joe’s fussy,” Corinne said, her voice merry. “Must want his mother.”

The baby wasn’t fussing. Jonas didn’t think he’d ever seen a happier child. The infant had chubby cheeks, big blue eyes, a shock of black hair and a generous mouth that seemed to smile at everyone. Jonas chuckled. People said that babies smiled when they had gas, but this one just looked content. In fact, he’d seen a similar goofy, delighted smile on a baby before. Sam had grinned like that when he was an infant. Jonas remembered it clearly, because he’d been so shocked when a new baby appeared on the ranch after their parents had “gone to heaven.”

Jonas had been old enough to know that a baby shouldn’t come after parents died. Nevertheless, Sam had arrived one day, carried into the house by Fiona. The new baby had been the happiest kid on the planet. He’d smiled all the time, and the five brothers had been quite taken by what Fiona announced was their new brother.

Jonas found himself smiling back at Sabrina’s happy baby in spite of himself—and then, like a lightning bolt sent from above, his brain cleared.

That was a Callahan smile. Those were Callahan navy-blue eyes. That was the black-as-night Callahan hair.

He looked at Sabrina, who was watching him with wide eyes. He glanced at Sam, then at Seton, then at his brother Rafe, who was playing best man. They all stared back at him in silence, and the curtain lifted on his self-denial.

This was his child.

The realization staggered him.

He had a son. A beautiful son. Jonas swallowed hard.

He couldn’t help himself; he reached out to take the baby. The child came to him willingly, and Jonas felt unbidden tears jump into his eyes.

Holy smokes. I’m a father.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“I call him little Joe,” Sabrina answered.

Jonas studied her, then looked down at the child in his arms. “Hi, little Joe.”

The baby put a curled fist on Jonas’s chin.

“He’s a darling,” Chelsea said. “Such a happy baby!”

Tears swam helplessly in Jonas’s eyes. To cover his emotion, he handed the baby back to Sabrina. He realized that guests were milling around them, trying not to listen in, but this was Diablo, after all. Folks were curious about what was happening.

Jonas felt weak and somehow stupid. Poleaxed. “Congratulations,” he said to Sabrina. “He…”

He started to say doesn’t have your beautiful red hair, he got my ordinary black, and then choked back the words. Finally, he just nodded to his brothers and Seton and Sabrina, and hauled ass to the punch table.

Chelsea followed him. “Are you all right, Jonas?”

He worked to take in the deepest breath he could. “Yeah.” But he didn’t glance at her.

“Look, Jonas.” She put a gentle hand on his forearm, and he turned to face her. “Under our agreement, which was nonbinding, all you asked for was a fiancée to help you save face. I agreed to that because I wanted to come to America, but I don’t think it’s working out the way you hoped it would.”

He definitely hadn’t saved any face. “Maybe not.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Jonas.” Chelsea’s eyes were soft. “It wasn’t like we had a grand love affair. You’ve never even kissed me, other than as a sister.”

“You’re a nice woman, Chelsea. I like that about you. You’re calm and steady, not like…” Her. Not like Sabrina, who kept him churned up, not knowing if she was a gypsy or a spy or a woman on a mission to destroy his heart.

“You’re in love with her, Jonas. Anyone can see that.” Chelsea smiled at him. “It looked like Cupid smacked you right on the nose with his quiver when you saw Sabrina. And when you held that baby—”

“Let’s go for a drive,” Jonas said. “I can’t think about it. I want to get a whiskey at Banger’s.”

Chelsea shook her head. “Running off is not saving face. As I recall, that was your primary goal.”

“You’re right.” He shook his head, trying to clear it from the mist of emotions clouding his brain. “Did you see that baby?” he asked, unable to believe his denseness. How could he not have ever suspected that Sabrina was pregnant with his child?

And everyone had known but him.

“I did see little Joe,” Chelsea said dryly. “He looks just like you. How much you want to bet that Joe is short for Jonas?”

He blinked. “I doubt it.”

She laughed. “Jonas, as the daughter of your aunt’s neighbor in Ireland, I feel I have a little leeway to tell you not to be such a hardhead. Why were you so intent on believing she wasn’t having your baby? I distinctly remember you saying that it nearly killed you when you came home for your brother’s last wedding, and she was sticking out like a house. That’s what you said—that she was sticking out like a house. Did it never occur to you to simply ask her?” Chelsea asked softly.

“I didn’t want to hear the answer,” he said. “I was so sure she’d found someone when she moved to Washington, D.C. Chelsea, I’ve done you a terrible disservice.”

“Not me,” she said, laughing. “I’m having a great time. I’m sorry you’re suffering, though. Listen, I hate to leave you moldering here at the punch bowl, but I’m starved. Will you mind if I head over to the buffet table and grab a plate?”

He shook his head, feeling lost and thick. Really thick. When Chelsea left his side, Jonas glanced up to the New Mexico sky, wide and vast and endless. I have really blown it. Why didn’t I just ask Sabrina if Joe was mine?

But Jonas knew why. At the time, he’d been terrified he’d spent over three years mooning after a woman he knew was way out of his league. She was wilder than him, she had more personality. She was a gypsy and Jonas was a heart surgeon—how was that going to work? A big part of his cowardice was not trusting the sexual attraction they shared. He’d never met a woman who could make him feel like a king and then a flunky at her feet. She’d turned him inside out from the day Jonas had met her. In fact, he remembered fainting. He’d thought he’d eaten something bad, but when he came to, she was standing over him in the living room. Jonas thought she was an angel staring down at him.

A very wild, very bad, superhot angel.

It had been all he could do not to look up her skirt.

Now my son is not wearing my name, the Callahan name. His birth certificate probably says Father Unknown on it, and—

“Damn it!” Jonas said, then cursed some more, electrifying the guests who’d ventured too close to the punch table.

This Father Unknown business was going to have to be fixed—pronto.


Chapter Two

“As far as I can see,” Sam said the next day, when his five brothers had corralled Jonas in the upstairs library where they held their weekly meetings, “you have some ’splaining to do. Where the hell have you been for all these months?” Sam shook his head. “You are not the one who was supposed to go off on a major soul-seeking mission.”

“That’s right,” Pete said. He lounged in one of the wingback leather chairs, comfortable in his position as the first-married of the Callahan clan. “I always felt you scoffed at those of us who were less settled than you. You’ve always been so…well, stodgy is the word that comes to mind.”

“Not too stodgy to fall for a gypsy,” Creed said gleefully. “Remember when Sabrina was in her Madame Vivant days?” He shook his head with a grin and held up a cut crystal glass. “Here’s to the joy of watching big bro go down like a sack of bricks.”

“That’s not fair,” Jonas protested. “The whole Madame Vivant escapade is exactly what threw me. None of us knew at the time that she and Seton were Corinne Abernathy’s nieces. It felt like some bell-wearing, exotic shyster had been let into our home by our fey little Aunt Fiona.”

“Speaking of, we still have no coordinates on Fiona’s whereabouts,” Judah pointed out. He shrugged. “I guess she’ll show herself when she wants to tip her hand.”

Judah didn’t seem too worried. As the father of twins, he had plenty of other things on his mind.

“I tried my best to find her and Burke,” Jonas said, feeling defensive as he glared around at his brothers. “You have to understand, Fiona is not an easy woman to outthink.”

“That’s for certain.” Rafe, the father of triplets with Judge Julie Jenkins, looked smug as he leaned against the fireplace. “And you were probably not the scout to send after her, bro. Not that we had much choice in electing you, as I recall. One day you were at Sam’s first wedding, and then poof! You took a look at Sabrina’s belly and off you went. It was an amazing thing to watch the studious, life-by-numbers-and-books guy go off on a major toot.”

Jonas wasn’t certain he felt a lot of sympathy in the room. Some gentle ribbing, perhaps, and maybe even a bit of pull-your-head-out-bro! He bristled. “Any one of you would have thought the same thing I did if the woman you loved was in a family way and hadn’t told you. What was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. He was enjoying his newfound happiness with his wife, Seton, and their quadruplets. Jonas was still shocked that his younger brother had married before him. That was really almost the sole reason he’d brought Chelsea home with him. He didn’t want to be poor Uncle Jonas, the doddering leftover to his many nieces and so far only nephew.

“Now that you’ve admitted Sabrina is the woman you love, what are you going to do about Chelsea?” Sam asked.

His brothers gazed at him silently. Jonas’s heart pounded a ridiculous tattoo that a cardiac guy like him knew meant his body was in fight-or-flight mode. Blast. “Let’s not go getting crazy here.” He gulped his whiskey and looked at them mutinously. “I have not yet asked Sabrina if that is my child, and you don’t know for certain, either, do you?”

They shrugged to a man. Either they weren’t going to enlighten him, or they didn’t know.

“Second, do you realize I was thirty-three when I first met her? I’m now going on nearly thirty-damn-seven. How long was I supposed to wait on her?” He sent a mulish glare around the room, pinpointing each brother. “Look, the common theory is that if a man isn’t married by thirty-five, there’s something wrong with him. I was beginning to wonder about myself!”

“We all were,” Creed said easily. “You’re not the quickest runner in the field, bro.”

Jonas ignored that. “How long was I supposed to hope that she’d crook her little finger and let me know she felt the same way about me as I did about her?” He shook his head. “All you guys went whango-bango! off the market. You jumped into sacks like you were potatoes, and suddenly started sprouting spuds all over the place. Me, I like to be a bit more measured about things.”

“And yet what about little Spud Joe?” Judah asked dryly. “Seems when you were doing your measuring, you forgot to measure for condoms.”

Jonas leaned back in his chair, not about to dignify that with a return shot. How in the world could he have ended up with a baby who wasn’t wearing his name?

It had happened because he couldn’t stay away from her. Sabrina had made him crazy from the day he first saw her. He’d heard bells tinkling and stars falling to earth, and he’d never believed he could fall in love at first sight.

Yet I did.

* * *

“A FIANCÉE!” SABRINA changed into worn gray warm-ups and flopped onto the bed. “Of all the souvenirs I thought Jonas might bring home, a fiancée was not one of them.”

Aunt Corinne shook her head. She sat in the white wicker rocker in Sabrina’s upstairs room, looking as unhappy as Sabrina felt. “That was a shocker, I’ll freely admit.”

“I should never have come back to Diablo.”

Corinne sighed. “Selfishly, perhaps, I like having you here. And while it will be awkward running into Jonas and Chelsea occasionally, you really won’t see them that often.”

Sabrina thought that unlikely. This was Diablo; what wasn’t seen was talked about constantly. “We all live in each other’s business here, Aunt Corinne, you know that. The thing is, I really like Chelsea, so I can’t muster up any jealousy or bad feelings toward her. She seemed kind and interested and…” Sabrina frowned, hunting for the word she wanted. “She seemed like she wasn’t in love with Jonas, actually.”

“I picked up on that myself,” Corinne said cheerfully. “Maybe this engagement isn’t set in stone.”

It was wrong to hope for Jonas’s relationship to fall apart just because Sabrina had had a baby by him. “We’re all adults. We can do the right thing for Joe without hoping for other people’s unhappiness.” Still, her aunt Corinne was right: Jonas and Chelsea hadn’t seemed that gaga over one another. More like “just friends.”

“Oh, I don’t want them to be unhappy,” Corinne said. “It just wouldn’t bother me if the engagement got called off.”

Sabrina rolled over to send her a pointed stare. “Aunt Corinne, you are not to meddle in any way.”

Corinne’s eyes sparkled behind her polka-dotted glasses. “I wouldn’t think of such a thing!”

“And you are not to set the Books’n’Bingo Society, nor anyone else, to interfering with Jonas’s choice,” Sabrina said.

Corinne smiled fondly at her niece. “Well, I can’t promise not to hope that all of you get your heads straight on what needs to happen. I believe in true love, after all.”

Sabrina decided her aunt wasn’t planning to do anything nefarious. “It’s up to Jonas to be happy with his choice, so if he’s happy, then I’m happy for him.”

“That’s very mature of you, dear. I commend you.” Corinne looked down into Joe’s portable crib, where he was sound asleep, undisturbed by their conversation. “A busy time of being passed around by half of Diablo yesterday has tuckered our little man out still. I should let the two of you rest.”

Suddenly, Sabrina felt tired herself. “Good night, Aunt Corinne. Thanks for everything.” She settled her head on her pillow and smiled at her aunt. “It’s all going to work out. I have a feeling about these things.”

“So do I,” Corinne said. “Good night, Sabrina.”

Sabrina closed her eyes, only to start thinking about Jonas. How handsome he’d looked at the wedding! Better than she’d remembered, which was hard to top. The last time she’d seen him had been at Seton’s first wedding.

Several months in Ireland had done nothing but improve him in some way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He seemed more mysterious, somehow more wise.

Definitely more hunk-hot in the way that only Jonas was to her.

Pooh. I’m not going to think about him anymore. Obviously, what we had wasn’t all that special if he’s put a ring on another woman’s hand.

In fact, he’s not hot at all. He’s cold.

* * *

SABRINA WAS SHOCKED when she ran into Jonas bright and early Monday morning while taking Joe to the pediatrician. “Hi, Jonas,” she said, walking past him as nonchalantly as possible. She’d wondered over and over what he thought about her baby—and when she should tell him the truth about little Joe.

“Wait, Sabrina.” He caught up with her, matching her stride. “Can I carry something for you? You look pretty loaded down.”

She had Joe’s diaper bag, her purse and Joe. “No, thanks. I carry this all the time by myself.”

“Well, it’s too much gear for a petite thing like you. Let me take the baby,” Jonas said, reaching for little Joe.

Sabrina gave him up reluctantly, watching Jonas’s expression as he held his son. Interested faces peered out of shop windows, and their friends and neighbors who were walking along Diablo’s sidewalks stopped to watch, even though they acted as if they weren’t. Sabrina felt like a fish in an aquarium. Still, she waited as Jonas carefully studied little Joe.

Finally, Jonas glanced at her. “Is this my son, Sabrina?”

So this was how it was going to be. She hadn’t planned to tell him on a beautiful, sunny May day in front of the hometown crowd, but he’d asked, and she wasn’t going to prevaricate. “Yes. Joe is your son.”

Jonas closed his eyes for a moment, pressed the baby close to his cheek. “What is his full name?”

“Jonas Cavanaugh McKinley. He was born on November 20.”

He studied the baby, and Joe seemed to study him in return. “I assume my name is listed as the father on the birth certificate?”

“Yes, it is. Of course it is.” Sabrina took Joe back, though Jonas seemed reluctant to part with his newfound son. “We have an appointment. I’m sorry.”

She started walking at a brisk pace. Jonas kept up with her.

“What kind of appointment?”

“Six month checkup and shots.” She didn’t mean to be curt, but this was so awkward, so unplanned, that Sabrina didn’t know how to do anything else but put up her defenses.

“I feel I should be there.”

She stopped and looked up at the tall, handsome man she’d once loved with all her heart. “Jonas, I appreciate that you’re going to want to be active in Joe’s life. But not today. I need…time.”

He glowered. “I’m not trying to butt into your life, Sabrina. When Joe sees the doctor, I want to be there. Every time.”

She sighed. “Fine. You can hold him when he cries.”

“He won’t cry,” Jonas said. “He’s a Callahan.”

“He’ll cry,” Sabrina said, “because he’s a baby. And it’ll be loud and unpleasant, and you’ll want to cry, too. But I can’t take care of both of you, so you’ll have to refrain.”

He touched her arm to stop her dash toward the doctor’s office door. “Sabrina, I can tell you’re upset. I’m sorry. This isn’t the way I wanted anything to turn out between us.”

She didn’t want pity. “Jonas, we never had a plan, so there’s nothing to apologize for.”

He nodded. “Still, I think you and I should talk.”

“We will one day. I just don’t know when.” She stepped inside the office, glad that Jonas would have to stop talking to her about Joe now. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. She’d never envisioned him marrying someone else.

Joe squirmed in her arms, getting restless, and Sabrina searched for a bottle.

“Want me to hold him?”

“Sure.” She handed Joe off to his father and kept rummaging until she found what she needed. “I suppose you’ll want to feed him, too?”

“Can I?” Jonas’s face lit up.

She sighed. “The nipple goes in his mouth.”

“Sabrina,” Jonas said, “I know how to feed an infant.”

“Good. Here’s the burp diaper.” She flung a beribboned cloth over his shoulder. The six other mothers in the waiting room smiled at Jonas as he held the baby. He didn’t notice the beams of approbation.

“Hi, Joe,” he said to his son.

“I’m going to check in.” Sabrina walked to the office window, signed in, then turned around, her heart catching as she looked across the room at Jonas.

This is what I came back to Diablo for.

Not that it was going to do her any good. “Jonas,” she said, walking back over to sit beside him, “where’s Chelsea?”

Jonas didn’t take his eyes off his son. “She said now that we aren’t getting married, she’s going to try to find a job in Diablo.”

“What?” Sabrina stared at him, astounded.

He shrugged. “She said she couldn’t marry me now. That it would be a dumb thing to do, because we’re just friends, anyway. She said I had a son I didn’t know about, and I needed to get things straight in my life. I agreed with her.”

Sabrina blinked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come between you.”

“You didn’t. There was nothing between Chelsea and me to start with.”

Sabrina thought that was unlikely, given Jonas’s sex appeal. But she didn’t ask any more questions, deciding that digging for more information wasn’t really her place. “Do you want me to feed Joe now?”

“I think I’ve got the hang of it, thanks.” Jonas stared down at his baby. “You just concentrate on picking out a date to marry me, Sabrina McKinley, because this boy’s name isn’t going to be Jonas Cavanaugh McKinley. It’s going to be Jonas Cavanaugh Callahan, so we might as well get that understood between us right now.”


Chapter Three

His brothers would probably say he was a dunderhead for blurting out his feelings—a bad proposal if there ever was one—in a pediatrician’s office. And they’d be right. But holding little Joe sent such emotions washing over Jonas that it was all he could do not to throw Sabrina in his truck and drive off with the both of them. He could convince her on the road—he did his best work on the road.

That was something his brothers had never understood about him. They thought he was just an old fuddy-duddy, steadfast and boring Jonas the heart surgeon. He was that, in some ways, because he was the eldest and he’d felt a strong sense of being a role model when they were growing up. But there was nothing he loved more than to cut loose from the office and hit the road, experiencing the variety life had to offer.

“I can’t marry you, Jonas,” Sabrina said, interrupting his scattered thoughts. He was nervous—nerves akin to waiting for a bull to leave the chute—as he waited for her answer to the proposition he’d blurted.

“Sabrina,” Jonas said, ignoring her statement. She was an adorably prickly little thing, but she didn’t understand that a boy needed his father. A girl did, too, but Jonas had a boy, and right now he was dealing with the obvious. A girl could come later, if he played his cards right. “While you consider what I said, which is really not open to debate because Joe absolutely has to have my name, I want to show you what I just bought.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “What?”

“It’s not here. I’ll have to drive you there to show you. Would you mind taking a two-day jaunt with me?”

“I’m not sure. Based on the marriage proposal you seem to be offering in a rather chauvinistic way, I don’t know if I want to spend much time alone with you.”

He nodded. “You owe it to yourself to find out. We belong together as a family, and that’s the goal we need to work toward.”

He’d hoped to see the light of joy in her eyes, but Sabrina’s brows pulled farther together. “We don’t have any goals, Jonas.”

“I’m aiming to fix that.” Jonas stood up with the baby when the nurse called little Joe’s name. “What the three of us need is time away. See if you don’t agree.”

Sabrina followed him silently, which was unusual for her, because she was a firecracker and given to both opinions and the occasional explosion when put upon. He liked the fire in her. Funny that I ever thought she was all wrong for me. It must have been the gypsy bells and the clairvoyant oogie-boogie that made me think she wouldn’t be happy married to Steady Eddy.

He could fix all that.

“You’re crazy,” Sabrina told him as they put Joe on the scales, and the nurse smiled.

“Big boy,” she said, and Jonas smiled.

“Yes, ma’am. Just like his dad.”

“Oh, brother,” Sabrina said.

Jonas beamed hugely. Now that sounded more like the gypsy who’d rocked his world.

He was so glad to be with her.

He’d have to work on the relationship part. But he remembered how good “Yes, Jonas” sounded, and he was willing to try his darnedest.

* * *

IT TOOK TWO DAYS OF wondering how to politely do it, but Sabrina finally got up the courage to investigate her very attractive rival. “Excuse me,” she said, walking up to the Diablo library desk with little Joe.

The redhead at the counter sent her a wide, welcoming grin. “I know you. You’re Sabrina McKinley, and that’s Joe. Hi, Joe,” Chelsea said, giving his cheek a slight caress. “He sure is a happy baby.”

Sabrina was warmed by Chelsea’s Irish accent and the fact that the woman honestly seemed pleased to see little Joe. She couldn’t pick up any animosity or jealousy from her, either. Sabrina’s curiosity was killing her. Before she accepted Jonas’s invitation to visit what he’d bought, she meant to speak with his supposed ex-fiancée.

Once burned, twice shy… .

“Hi, Chelsea,” she said. “You found a job so quickly.”

“Yes.” Chelsea smiled again. “I’m fortunate. Word got around that I was looking, and someone called me. I’ve got my passport, of course, and I applied for a visa. Then, one day, maybe a green card.”

“That’s a lot of plans,” Sabrina said, holding Joe as he squirmed, trying to reach for a book. Chelsea handed him one, a children’s picture book, and he instantly tried to gnaw on it.

“No, honey,” Sabrina said absently, putting him into his stroller so he could “read” the book. “This is for higher education, not nutrition. You turn the page like this. See?”

Joe observed, but didn’t quite have the motor skills to figure out page-turning. Still, he was happy to pat the page for a moment. “So,” Sabrina said, “I guess what I really want to know is if you…if you’re—”

“If Jonas and I are still engaged.” Chelsea nodded. “No. We’re not. It was Jonas’s plan, to keep him from being embarrassed that he was the only brother without a woman. He was pretty devastated when he thought you’d gone to Washington and met another guy.”

“Oh,” Sabrina said. “That’s not what happened at all.”

“And any woman could have figured that out.” She nodded again. “But Jonas was in full protective mode. I figured the two of you had to work things out eventually.”

“So why did you come to Diablo?” Sabrina asked, wondering what Chelsea’s angle was, if not marrying Jonas.

She began checking in some books that were in the bin. “I’ve been taking care of my mother for a few years. She’s much better now. She told me to go see the world.” Chelsea glanced at Sabrina. “Mom lives next door to Fiona, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Mom’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Fiona and Burke’s place until they get back. Who knows when that will be?”

“They’re elusive,” Sabrina murmured. “So did you tell Jonas you wanted to see the world?”

“Mmm. And he said New Mexico was a great place to begin. That if I’d pretend to be his fiancée, he’d fly me over here and help me get started.” The redhead grinned at her. “I want to do a lot of traveling, but I can tell Diablo is a great place to live. I may stay here for a while. I like family places.”

“Diablo is certainly that.”

Chelsea stopped checking in books for a moment to consider Sabrina. “You know, men think with their hearts more than we give them credit for. And Jonas really was freaked out that you were having another man’s baby.”

“It never occurred to me that he would think that,” Sabrina said.

“There’s the trouble,” Chelsea said cheerfully, going back to her work. “We never know what they’re thinking, and it’s usually nothing that we’d think at all.”

“Thanks, Chelsea,” Sabrina said, feeling immensely relieved. “I really appreciate you telling me all this.”

“Jonas can’t be annoyed with me for telling you the truth, can he?” She winked at her. “Anyway, he’s a nice guy and all, but I’m looking for adventure.”

“You’ll find it here.” Sabrina handed the picture book back to Chelsea, and little Joe let out an indignant squawk. “Oh, Joe, honey…all right,” she said, giving in. “I think he’d like a book to read, Chelsea.” She found her library card and checked the book out, then gave it back to him.

Chelsea looked over the counter at Joe. “Maybe he’s going to be book-smart like his dad.”

Sabrina laughed. “Maybe he’ll get some other kind of smarts from his mother, too.”

“Goodbye, Sabrina. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

She nodded. “I hope so. Goodbye, Chelsea.”

Sabrina went out, feeling much better now that she had some answers—and still not certain what to do about Jonas’s invitation.

* * *

“SO THIS IS IT,” JONAS SAID proudly the next day, when he’d finally dragged a reluctant Sabrina and little Joe away from Rancho Diablo for what he called “new family togetherness.”

Sabrina wasn’t certain what she thought about “family togetherness” time with Jonas. After her chat with Chelsea, though, she’d decided to give it a shot. Something was bugging her, though she couldn’t put her finger on it. The old “tickle” was back, warning her that something wasn’t quite as it should be.

Jonas was handsome as ever, gorgeous, in fact, yet she couldn’t allow herself to focus only on her emotions. But it was hard to forget what they’d shared, and how wonderful Jonas made her feel when she was in his arms. “What is it?” she asked, caution dampening her enthusiasm.

“This is Dark Diablo,” Jonas said, parking his truck in front of a small, spare farmhouse set among hardy junipers and spiny cacti, and framed by dusky canyons and arroyos. “This is my new home.”

Sabina blinked. “Home?”

“Yep.” He came around to help her out of the truck, then took Joe from her arms when she’d released him from his car seat. “This is Daddy’s new house, son. You get a swing set here, and a pony.”

“Wait,” Sabrina said, following them. “This isn’t home. You live in Diablo, at Rancho Diablo.”

“I’ve always wanted my own place. This is that place.” Jonas glanced around, pride evident on his face. “It took me almost four years to finally pull the trigger and buy this from the owner, but I did it.”

Sabrina looked around at the vast emptiness, her heart sinking. Of course, they were only a few miles from Rancho Diablo, but this wasn’t home. Home was with the people she’d come to know and love. She didn’t want Joe growing up alone.

She shivered. “There’s nothing out here.”

“I know. But I see cattle breeding and horses, and maybe something else. I’m not sure what.” Jonas smiled at her. “I can tell you’re not crazy about it.”

“It doesn’t matter how I feel,” Sabrina said quickly. “It’s your place. But it just seems so lonely.”

“The previous owner was old. He’d sold off most of his equipment and buildings, intending to sell the ranch to a corporation, I think. But when I heard that we might lose Rancho Diablo, I began to think seriously about this place. I knew we could move our operations here, if we had to.”

Sabrina nodded. “That makes sense.”

“So now it’s mine. Come on inside.”

The small farmhouse, with its weather-beaten paint and dust-laden windows, was so different from the seven-chimneyed, English-style manor house at Rancho Diablo. Sabrina walked into a wallpapered kitchen that was large and bright, if not updated. “Where does the water come from?”

“Here we’re cistern. For the cattle, luckily, there’s a couple of good creeks and streams you can’t see from the house, but which I think I can run pipe to.”

She kept walking around the house. “It feels like Auntie Em’s home in The Wizard of Oz.”

“I plan to build my own place one day. This isn’t big enough for a family. And I like what I had growing up.”

“Where are the closest neighbors?”

He looked at her. “I think there’s some a few miles away. This is ten thousand acres, so it’s pretty private.”

“I’ll say.” She went up the staircase, finding three small bedrooms laid out at the top, with one bathroom in between. “All the bedrooms are upstairs.”

“Yes.” Jonas came to stand beside her, carrying little Joe. “Sabrina, everything can be changed.”

She swallowed. “I’ve lived in a lot of places, Jonas, so I think I’m pretty good at adapting. But I suspect you’re going to be very lonely out here. I know I would be.”

He blinked. “Lonely? I was thinking how great the peace and quiet would be. I had five brothers growing up. Solitude sounds like heaven.”

She shook her head. “I only had Seton.”

Sabrina went back downstairs, and Jonas followed her.

“I don’t want to be a wet blanket,” she said, “so congratulations. I’m glad you got what you wanted.”

His proud smile dimmed. “Thanks.”

She nodded uncomfortably. “I guess we’d better head back. Thanks for showing me your new place.”

Jonas looked at her for a long time before slowly nodding in turn. He led her to the truck, handed Joe back to her to put in his car seat, then drove away in silence.

Sabrina looked back at the small farmhouse set in the vast acreage, and wondered why Jonas wanted to be alone so badly.

“Jonas,” she said slowly, “why do you want to run away from your family?”

“I don’t.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure? Because you couldn’t have picked a more isolated place to live.” She looked at him curiously.

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s not for everyone. It’s great for me, though. Nobody around for miles, until you get to the town of Tempest. I don’t go there often. It’s too much like Diablo. Full of well-meaning folk.”

Intuition hit her. “Jonas, you sold your practice. You got a fake fiancée. You’ve bought a property where there’s no one around to bother you.” She gave him a steady stare. “You’re hiding.”

“Hiding?”

She nodded. “It’s your typical pattern. You know what you need to do, but you stick your head in the sand instead.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jonas said. “It’s a piece of land, Sabrina, not a crystal ball.”

She wrinkled her nose at his retort and decided to ignore it. “Perhaps I’m trying to say that I suspect you still have a lot to figure out in your life, Jonas.”

“I’m doing fine. And when you’re not busy trying to make my life a piece of your investigative reporting, you’ll probably notice that I’m doing very well, thanks.”

“You are.” Sabrina knew she was hitting very close to whatever was really motivating Jonas, or he wouldn’t react so sorely. “But you’d do better if you’d finish what your brothers have started.”

Jonas took a long time to answer. “Maybe,” he said softly, “but I’m not going to.”

Not surprised by his answer, Sabrina turned to look out the window as the dry, almost barren-looking land rushed past. “There’s something bugging you at Rancho Diablo, or you wouldn’t be trying to hole up out here.”

“Nope.”

“You thought I was pregnant by another man,” Sabrina said with some heat, “though I can’t imagine what that says about how you really see me—”

“I see that you’re a little different from other women, Sabrina, which I happen to like. It scares me, but I do like it.”

“When you’re not scared.”

“Nervous is a better word. Some people are afraid to try new foods. I’m not. You’re a different kind of female than what we have on the ranch right now. But I need spice in my life, and you’re the cayenne pepper in my chili.” He ran a palm over Joe’s small head, where he was strapped in his carrier between them. “And this is my tiny jalapeño on top,” he said. “Good for me I’ve got the stomach for all this new fire.”

Sabrina wasn’t about to let Jonas pacify her with what he likely thought were compliments. “You went and found someone—”

“More calm, more sedate,” Jonas supplied helpfully.

Sabrina was outraged. “Chelsea jumped on a plane with you to fake an engagement. How sedate is that?”

He laughed. “Okay.”

“Anyway, don’t get me off the subject. What I’m trying to point out is that you run off when you want to avoid things. Just like you ran off to Ireland.” She glared at him. “How would you have felt if, upon seeing Chelsea, I’d jetted back to D.C.?”

“I’m glad you stayed. I’m hoping to talk you into living at Dark Diablo with me.”

“If you don’t put all your skeletons to rest, they’ll pop back up. Contrary to me being the wild and unsettled one, you wear that badge, Doctor.”

“Not me,” Jonas said. “Surgeons do not have a wild bone in their body.”

“Right,” Sabrina said. “Anyway, that’s what I think.”

He sighed. “I won’t deny all of what you say.”

“Good.” She popped the top off a bottle and began feeding the baby. “It’s very important for little Joe to know that his father is a man of deep character, not given to wayfaring.”

“Wayfaring.” Jonas laughed. “Ha-ha-ha. I don’t think I’ve wayfared in my life.”

“Except to Ireland, and you brought back a pretty fancy souvenir.”

“Okay,” Jonas said again. “So what do you suggest?”

“That you do what you’re meant to do.”

He scratched under his hat, then shook his head. “What if I told you that the questions don’t bother me as much as the answers might?”

“I would probably say the monster in the closet isn’t usually what you think it is once you open the door.”

“Ah-ha!” Jonas wagged a finger. “But sometimes it is.”

“The good part is you’ll be rattling those skeletons for little Joe’s sake, and all your nieces and nephews, as well as your brothers. You want to be a hero for Joe, don’t you?”

Jonas sighed. “I’d like to say not especially, but I don’t think you’d believe me.”

Sabrina smiled. “I probably wouldn’t.”

He glanced at her. “Would you be willing to be my shotgun rider if I start opening those doors?”

Sabrina looked into his navy eyes. “I’ll ride shotgun.”

“And then you’ll marry me.”

She blinked. “Was that a proposal or a typical Callahan pronouncement? I always thought if you ever asked, it would be a lot more romantic.”

“Have I not asked you before? Because I have about a thousand times in my mind.”

“You see, Joe,” Sabrina said to the baby, who was contentedly sucking on his bottle and watching her face, “your father just delivered a half-baked proposal because he was afraid I might say no. Your dad protects himself.”

“Not true,” Jonas said. “I assume that a woman wants to marry the father of her child.”

“I might marry you,” Sabrina said, “but with a proposal like that, you can be certain you won’t make it back into my bed.”

“Oh,” he said. “I better up my game.”

“All of it, Doctor,” Sabrina stated. “I hope you can.”

“We’ll see,” Jonas said.

* * *

“SO, BASICALLY,” JONAS told Sam that night, “Sabrina hated Dark Diablo and didn’t accept my proposal. My big moment and I came up zeroes.”

“Not surprising,” his brother mused. “You did kind of half bake the thing. Sabrina’s right about that.”

“Yeah.” Jonas sat in the library drinking a whiskey with Sam, wondering how he’d ended up like this.

“The problem,” Sam said, “is that you always underestimated Sabrina. She’s way too good for you, for one thing.”

“This is true,” Jonas admitted. “She says I have to amp up my game, and I’m not sure how much amp I’ve got.”

“You want her, don’t you?”

“Hell, yes.” Jonas stared at the whiskey in his glass as if it held answers. “But she’s not a gentle and shy dove like your wife.”

Sam hooted. “Seton is not gentle and shy. She’s more like fireworks in my sky, trust me. Let’s do a further checklist. Judge Julie is a smokin’ pistol set to fire. Jackie was a nurse and keeps order like a general. Darla is a businesswoman, and there are days when I can hear the grocer grinding his teeth from the deals she makes him give her. Aberdeen may be a preacher, but she’s got a soul of iron, don’t let that sweet face kid you. Where are the retiring wallflowers in this family?”

“This is different,” Jonas said.

“Only because it’s happening to you this time, you big wienie,” Sam shot back. “Believe me, we all suffered when we fell in love, though we mostly suffered because of our egos. You’re just going to make more noise about it, I’m afraid. We’ll have to resort to earplugs.”

Jonas snorted. “Sabrina says I have to find myself first. She says I run away from what I don’t want to deal with.”

Sam snickered. “Guess she didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that.”

Jonas looked at his youngest brother. “It’s not true.”

“Of course it’s true. Every word. Did she set a goal for you, a dragon for you to conquer, in this quest for yourself?”

Jonas thought about it. “She says that until I’ve figured out the answers in our family, I likely won’t be ready to make a good husband and life partner. Sabrina says that I’ve been avoiding my responsibility for years, and that it probably all goes back to the fact that I was the oldest. She says her hunch is that our parents leaving affected me the most. It’s all a bunch of psychological nonsense, but I’m humoring her. It’s best to let women think they’re figuring us men out, you know.”

Sam sighed. “That is not a good attitude to take.”

Jonas was satisfied with his non-emotional approach to his chosen lady. “How would Sabrina know what I need to do to make myself into a good life partner?”

“Well, you ran off and got engaged to a woman you didn’t love because the woman you did love was pregnant with your child. Call me crazy, but you may have some issues to iron out, bro.”

He scowled. “Even if I did—and I’m not saying I have any issues at all—I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Sam raised his glass. “We did the spadework for you. All you have to do is put it all together.”

Jonas stared at him. “Not that easy, when you consider that it’s taken all five of you to get this far.”

“Well,” Sam said, easing back into the leather chair more comfortably, “if it’s true what Seton discovered, and our parents are still alive, you have to find out where they are. And why they went away. They had to have left us for some real good reason.”

“They went into witness protection because they’re hiding from a cartel they turned over to the various authorities involved. You can’t find someone in witness protection, no matter how much you might want to.”

“Yeah.” Sam scratched his chin. “But someone knows something.”

Jonas shook his head. “That could only be Fiona—and she would absolutely never tell—only Chief Running Bear might know.”

Sam nodded. “Bingo.”

“But so what if we did find our parents? If they wanted us to locate them, they would have given us a signal, a clue.” Jonas wasn’t sure this particular holy grail had a desirable outcome. “The bad guys, whoever they are, might find our parents, too, then. I don’t think it’s worth taking a risk.”

“You make several good points. Did I tell you, by the way, that Sheriff Cartwright had to release the guy he’d arrested? The one who was living in the canyons, and who rigged Seton’s laptop?”

“No,” Jonas said slowly. “Why did they release him?”

“He got bail from someone. A cash bond. And there wasn’t enough to hold him on.”

Jonas remembered how much trouble the rat had managed to cause over the years for their family. He’d bided his time, waiting for Jeremiah and Molly Callahan to contact the children they’d left behind. “It’s not safe to find them, Sam. We could lead danger right to their door.”

“I think you may be right.” Sam looked at his boots, then crooked a brow at his brother. “So you’ll just have to tell Sabrina you’re probably never going to find yourself.”

“Maybe.” Jonas thought it was a real possibility, anyway. He didn’t have the fire in his belly to know more than he did. Were they really alive?

Maybe finding out more about myself isn’t what I need to quit avoiding the big issues. I’m a surgeon, for God’s sake. I made life-changing, lifesaving decisions, every day of my life. What the hell am I afraid of?

It was simple enough. He was afraid of being abandoned, left behind once again. What had happened to drive his parents away?

As a child, he’d figured he must have done something bad. Something horrible, to make his parents leave and go away forever. God wouldn’t take parents away from a boy who was good.

It had been years before Jonas had understood he had done nothing wrong, that death had come unnaturally early to his parents. The learning process of grief and abandonment might have even stirred his desire to be a saver of lives.

But the habit of backing away from emotional moments stayed with him. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, hurt anyone, because he or she might leave.

So much easier just to avoid the big issues.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about Sabrina,” he said. “She doesn’t think I’ve got the ability to stick with it for the long haul.”

“She has a right to be a little antsy,” Sam said. “You pretty much shocked the entire town when you brought Chelsea home. And now what are you going to do with her?”

“Nothing. She seems happy working at the library and doing her own thing. She’s making lots of friends. I told her I’d send her back to Ireland anytime she wanted to go, on my nickel, but she said she’s having a blast.” Jonas shrugged. “She and Sabrina seem to get along, too. So I guess I just don’t think about her much.”

“You realize that, out of all of us, you made the biggest boneheaded error of courtship? Bringing another woman home,” Sam said, disgusted. “I didn’t dare even look at another woman when I was trying to catch Seton. I was too afraid she’d head back to Washington. I’m kind of surprised Sabrina hasn’t, actually.”

Jonas sat straight up. “She wouldn’t.”

“She might.” His brother shrugged. “She still keeps an apartment there, and you’re the world’s slowest Romeo. She may get impatient with you. I would.” He drank his whiskey and closed his eyes with sheer contentment. “I think she’s spotted you a couple of forgiveness points because everyone recognizes you’re a little impaired in the love arena, but I wouldn’t push my luck.”

Jonas felt himself go pale. Sabrina was a traveler, and fiercely independent. She did have a job in D.C., but she was on maternity leave.

He had to make like a retrofitted Romeo—fast.

“Anyway,” Sam continued, “Sabrina’s right. You do have a pattern. You would never have bought Dark Diablo if you weren’t looking to get away from all of us. It’s called shirking your responsibilities. How did Sabrina know you’d never change?”

Jonas gawked at his brother, wondering when having a dream had become shirking his responsibilities. “You know, I’m not the bad guy you paint me as.”

“Nothing bad about being terminally uncommitted and unable to participate in a family.” He shrugged. “We got used to it after you went off to college, then med school, then Dallas. But as far as a woman goes, Sabrina in particular, does she have any reason to expect much from you?”

Jonas didn’t reply. What the hell did his brothers know about anything, anyway?

He could be Dr. Commitment.

He could fix everything.

* * *

“I THINK MATTERS ARE pretty much as you’d want them to be, Fiona,” Chelsea said on the phone that evening as she relaxed in the Callahan guesthouse. It was comfortable here. The Callahans were nice, and they never bothered her, just seemed determined that she eat with whatever Callahan brother’s family had an extra seat that night. Altogether, being here was an enjoyable adventure, and the experience would give her a lot of material for the next mystery she was writing. “Jonas has a new baby—”

“A baby!” Fiona’s voice was like an explosion in her ear.

“Yes. His name is Joe. Sabrina’s the mother—”

“Sabrina McKinley!” Fiona chortled. “That is going to be one wily child. I wonder which parent he’ll be most like? Jonas is slow and studious, and Sabrina is quick-witted and adventurous.”

“He looks like Jonas,” Chelsea said thoughtfully, “but I do think he has some of his mom’s mannerisms. Sometimes when he sits in his carrier looking out at the world, I could swear he knows exactly what’s going on.”

“Tell me more,” Fiona said.

“Well, there was some guy here who apparently hacked into Seton’s computer in his effort to find your sister and her husband—”

“What?” Fiona’s voice over the phone sounded strained. “They caught him?”

“I heard they did.” It was hard to listen in on conversations around the ranch and not ask questions. Chelsea tried not to arouse suspicions. The last thing she wanted anyone to know was that Fiona had put her up to coming over with Jonas to “report” on the family. When he had proposed, it had seemed to Fiona like a golden opportunity, and she’d hatched this plan. Chelsea had been fine with it, excited to come to America, but she’d quickly figured out there were a lot of deep currents under the seemingly placid Callahan waters. “They had to release him, though.”

“That worries me.”

“It was strange, because the guy had been living in the canyons for years, biding his time. Sort of a secret cell, waiting for something to come to light.”

“Hmm. I don’t like the sound of this. Chelsea, are you all right in Diablo, or do you want to come home?”

“I’ll be fine for another week or so, I think.” It really was pretty in Diablo, so different from Ireland. Her mother was in good hands at the moment, so an adventure was probably best for all of them.

“Thanks. I’ll talk to Burke and see what he thinks we should do. Call me soon, all right?”

“I will.” Chelsea hung up the phone and looked out the window, where she could see Sabrina and Jonas with little Joe. She smiled at the picture the three of them made. Never had she seen a man more gaga for a woman than Jonas. He really had been fooling himself about not marrying Sabrina.

I’d like having a man so crazy about me. The problem is, I’m too picky for my own good.

* * *

“I CAN’T DO IT,” JONAS told Sabrina as they took a stroll around the ranch that night. Little Joe dozed in Jonas’s arms. “I can’t find myself. You’ll have to choose some other Herculean task for me to perform.”

Sabrina stared at the man who’d fathered her child, and shook her head. “What spooked you?”

“I’m not sure. It was a combination of things. You’ll have to choose a different test.”

Sabrina watched the moon glowing in the New Mexico sky, and thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen besides little Joe. “It’s not a test, Jonas. It’s just giving you time to figure out what you really want in life. And you can’t do that until you know what happened in your past. I think the past determines the future.” She reached up to run her hand across his cheek. “When I first met you, your aunt had hired me to tell you a yarn. I did that, only because I knew Fiona had her heart in the right place, that she was trying to help you Callahans, and not hurt you. I just don’t want you to ever regret that you married a woman who was out to trick you. Remember when I told you that the ranch was in trouble?”

“Yes,” Jonas said, “and it was.”

“Well, that’s the point. It still is.”

He rubbed his chin. “Just from a different source.”

“Exactly.” She knew the sheriff had released the man Sam had caught snooping around Rancho Diablo. And why wouldn’t the spy go right back to doing what he’d been doing—trying to find their parents? After all, that’s what he’d been hired and trained to do. “Maybe you should talk to him again.”

“I don’t think so. He’s not going to give up any more information. Anyway, you’re going about this all wrong. You should marry me, and then let me solve all these issues as they become solvable.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Sabrina said. “But you have a lot to do. You don’t need to be sidetracked right now.”

“There are more important things in life than worrying about the ranch, or about the past. Like watching little Joe pull himself up today. I’d rather focus on the good things.”

“I know,” Sabrina said, “but every marriage has rough patches. Take care of this rough patch first. You’ll thank me later.”

“I don’t know,” Jonas said. “I feel strangely compelled to get into bed with you instead of playing Sherlock Holmes.”

Sabrina smiled. “I never said you couldn’t seduce me, cowboy.”

Jonas’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t?”

She shook her head slowly. “No, but maybe I should. You’ll work harder.”

“I was always the guy who worked best with incentives,” Jonas said, pulling her close with his free arm. “Try me with the carrot-and-stick approach and see what happens, beautiful.”

“Jonas!” Sabrina giggled and put up no fight as they stepped through the door of the main house.

Five pairs of eyes stared at them.

“Hi, Jonas,” Rafe said. “Did you forget it’s time for the weekly meeting?”

“Uh…” Jonas carefully untangled himself from Sabrina and looked around at his brothers. “Can I skip this one?”

“Jonas,” Sabrina said quickly, “you have your meeting. I’m going to go give Joe his bath. ’Bye, guys.” She gathered the baby into her arms and stepped back into the night air, taking a deep breath as she went.

It had been a long time since Jonas had held her. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him.

Yet rushing things wouldn’t help anything.

She drove to Corinne’s and went up the stairs to draw a nice bath for Joe. The house was dark and empty, and Sabrina wondered where her aunt was. She set Joe in the tub, washing him with a mild, lavender-scented shampoo. He splashed in the water, delighted with this playtime.

She didn’t want to rush Jonas, but moments like these were so sweet they were meant to be shared with the father of her child. He’d lost six months of Joe’s babyhood.

It would be easy to accept Jonas’s proposal. But if she hadn’t had Joe, maybe Jonas would have married Chelsea, or some other woman. What did marriage mean to Jonas? Partnership? Companionship?

Sabrina wasn’t certain.

For her, it had to be true love. That’s all she planned to say yes to—true love, the real deal.

“Or it’s just going to be me and you, babe,” she told little Joe, rinsing his hair carefully. “And we’re a pretty good team, anyway.”

Joe looked up at her and splashed the water again. Droplets flew, and Sabrina smiled. He was such a good baby, such a sweetheart. Being a mother was the best part of her life now, even though she’d never imagined how much having a child would mean to her. Motherhood had changed her in so many wonderful ways.

Being a father was going to change Jonas, too. It already had. She could feel him yearning to be with his son, so much so that she wondered if his feelings for her really were all about her being the mother of his child.

Only time would tell. Going slowly would give them both time to be sure, especially Jonas. If she never got to share parenthood with Jonas, that was the way it would have to be.

Life wasn’t always perfect, even if she wished it so.


Chapter Four

One week after Jonas had nearly managed to get Sabrina into bed with him—almost!—he sat in the tearoom and bookstore of the Books’n’Bingo Society shop, staring at the three women who were determined to buttonhole him into civic responsibility.

Nadine Waters, Corinne Abernathy and Mavis Night wore smiles on their small, doughy faces that he just didn’t trust. He sipped the tea they’d offered him, and waited for the zinger.

It came with typical directness.

“As you know, Jonas, your aunt Fiona was president of our society for many years. In her absence, I’ve taken over the reins as interim president. However,” Corinne said, stopping for dramatic effect, “we think you should pick up where your aunt left off.”

Jonas set down his teacup. “Ladies, I don’t know the first thing about what this Society does. Nor do I have my aunt’s finesse in whatever it was she did, which mainly appeared to be—” He started to say “being a busybody,” but stopped himself.

“Running this town,” Nadine said, finishing his sentence. “And an admirable job she did of it, too. How Diablo misses Fiona’s sure-handed—”

“Interference,” Jonas said, not realizing he’d spoken aloud.

“Yes,” Mavis said. “There have been times when interference was called for. We could always count on Fiona to have the guts to make the calls that needed to be made, and to take responsibility for the issues that count most to this town.”

“Damn it!” There was that responsibility word again. Why was everyone determined that he was Mr. Fix-It? “I mean, darn it,” Jonas amended, and the ladies’ feathers seemed a bit less ruffled. “While I appreciate your generous offer—it’s quite humbling—I am just not your man.”

They looked at him, downcast.

“Well, I’m not.” Jonas met each gaze with as much diplomatic aplomb as he could muster. “I’m no good at busybodying—let’s call a duck a duck here. That’s what Fiona did. We all jumped to her puppet strings. But I’d make the world’s worst puppeteer.”

“You’d be an excellent ventriloquist,” Nadine said dryly. “A lot of yakking is coming from your mouth right now, Jonas.”

Their expressions seemed to say, Shame on you for shirking your duty!

Jonas sighed. “Really, ladies, I’ve got my hands full. I’ve bought a new ranch—”

“This is your home, whether you ever want to face that or not,” Mavis said. Her silver hair shone in the soft light of the tearoom. “We understand you wanting to separate yourself from your brothers and stake your own claim, but Diablo is where your heart is, Jonas. Even if Fiona did say you had wandering feet.”

He frowned. “We all did.”

Corinne shook her head. “No, Fiona specifically said you were the one who ran from home the minute you could, but unlike most wayward sons, you stayed gone. The only reason you’re here now is probably Sabrina.”

He brushed off his hat. They were right, blast their bright eyes and busy minds! If Sabrina wasn’t here, he’d be at Dark Diablo right now.

But he’d never considered himself a wanderer. “You know, I’d built a very successful practice in Dallas.”

“We know.” Nadine nodded. “And you can do that here.”

He stared, the notion crashing in on him like unwelcome waves. “Here? I don’t want… That is to say—”

“We know,” Mavis said. “You don’t want to live here. You don’t want to take care of the many elderly folk in this town who have tickers that need help just as much as those in the big city. Folks who helped raise you and kept an eye on you since you were in diapers.”

The guilt trip. It was a skillful ploy when used by the right people, and these three were pros. “I never thought about opening a practice here.”

“We know.” Corinne blinked at him. “We think taking this position as president would be a first step in getting your priorities straight.”

Mavis nodded. “Civic duty is a sign of maturity and commitment to community.”

Jonas flattened his mouth. In their minds, this position would begin to solder him to the town and community. But that wasn’t going to help him get his life back on track. Still, a little glad-handing and tea-sipping wouldn’t kill him.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

Corinne clapped her hands. “I told you he would!”

Mavis sniffed. “Congratulations, president of the Books’n’Bingo Society and interim mayor of Diablo.”

“Wait,” Jonas said. “You said nothing about a mayorship.”

“Yeah, but it’s past time we had one,” Nadine said. “We appoint you until you can be duly elected.”

“I don’t want—”

“Civic duty,” Corinne said.

Jonas sighed. “Fine. Do you want me to watch the jail or build on to the elementary school or perform any other civic thing while I’m here?”

The ladies smiled at him with approval. “You just help us get Diablo on the map, and you can do anything you want.”

Jonas scowled. He had a new baby to take care of and parents to find. A ranch to get off the ground. Somehow these ladies had caught him in their cookie-baited trap.




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