(Calahan Cowboys 08) The Cowboy Soldier's Sons (8 page)

“Sorry to hear that. Didn’t you like it?”

“I liked it a lot. Turn around and take off your hat, please.”

She wanted to see his busted noggin. He wasn’t going to acquiesce. “That’s not one of your better come-on lines, Cupertino.”

“Probably not,” she said. “Let me see the damage.”

“No damage,” he said. “Barely a scratch.”

A truck rumbling up the drive caught Shaman’s attention. “Is that Jonas’s truck?”

“I think so—”

“Does he have Cat with him?”

Tempest stood. “It looks like he might.”

“This is great! You did not see me.” He raced inside, grabbed a water gun and ran back outside.

“Shaman!” Tempest exclaimed.

“Shh,” he said, hurrying around the side of the house. He squatted low, hidden from view. “Don’t rat me out.”

“You can’t squirt your niece!”

“I can. And I will. She has it coming to her.”

“You’re an unnatural uncle,” Tempest said under her breath, just loud enough so he could hear. “I don’t think I ever saw this side of you.”

“Hi, Tempest!” Cat exclaimed, rushing from the truck to hug her. “I didn’t know you were back in town!”

“Hi, honey.” She lowered her voice, as if whispering to someone stage right. “Your uncle is at the side of the house, ready to douse you with his water gun.”

“Okay. I’ll get him.” Cat went running back to Jonas. “Uncle Shaman’s hiding on the side of the house, about to ambush me with his soaker gun. Distract him, Uncle Jonas.”

“Easy to do.” He walked toward Tempest, who smiled at him.

“Hello, Tempest,” Jonas said. “So how’s the big city treating you?”

She watched as Cat got her water blaster from the truck, sneaking around the opposite side of the house so she could trail Shaman. Tempest grinned. “The big city’s nice.”

Jonas nodded. “Any truth to the rumor that you’re expecting a baby?”

Chapter Six

“What?” Tempest said, stunned.

“What?”
Shaman exclaimed—and then yelled as Cat fired. It sounded like a direct hit; Shaman’s roar brought an explosion of giggles from a delighted Cat. Tempest couldn’t help laughing, proud of Cat for getting to Shaman before he could get to her.

Fairly drenched and a bit wild-eyed, Shaman came around the house to stare at Tempest. His eyes went to her stomach, then to her face. He glanced at Jonas for confirmation. “Did I hear him right?”

His shirt was soaking wet, and water dripped from his hair. Cat had certainly won this battle. Tempest smiled. “Jonas was just trying to draw you off guard, Shaman. It was sneaky, but it worked.”

Cat came out of hiding, giggling. “Uncle Shaman, you should see your face!”

“Did I spill some beans?” Jonas asked. “Cat mentioned something about a baby, but I might have misunderstood.”

“Yes, I am expecting a baby,” Tempest said, sighing.

Shaman looked shell-shocked, and Jonas laughed out loud. “Congratulations,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Am
I
going to be a father?” Shaman asked.

She nodded, silently watching him. Tempest didn’t think she’d ever seen him look more handsome. It was the look of incredulousness on his face that stole her heart.

“This isn’t good,” Shaman said. “You’re not the marrying kind.”

“Uh, Cat, honey, why don’t we go check out Candy and see how Shaman’s doing with training my beautiful mustang?” Jonas suggested.

“Okay.” Cat happily followed him with her water gun.

“I might be the marrying kind one day,” Tempest said.

“You were supposed to marry me and then we were going to go for baby. This is all backward.” Shaman shook his head. “The baby was the hook.”

“The hook?”

“To get you to marry me. Now you’ve got the baby, you don’t need me.” Shaman sopped some water off his face with his sleeve. “Marry me, Cupertino.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me how it happened?” she said. “Aren’t you the slightest bit curious? You were so careful.”

“I
know
how it happened,” Shaman declared. “Tempest, I spent every second I could making love to you. Condoms are not one hundred percent effective.” He sighed. “I should have told you no.”

“Told me no?” Tempest was outraged.

He nodded. “I should have. The thing was, I couldn’t resist you. No man could.”

“Well.” She leaned back, not exactly mollified. “I don’t know about that. Anyway, you’re stalling. Let me see your stitches.”

“They took them out. There’s nothing to see.”

“That’ll teach you to climb up on roofs.”

“Probably not,” he said. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into marrying me when we only had one date.”

“Does seem a bit premature.”

“So does having a baby.”

Tempest shrugged. “True. You know, babies grow up to be little girls toting water pistols.”

“Are we having a girl?”

Tempest smiled. “Do you really want to know?”

He came and sat beside her. “You don’t even know, Cupertino. It’s too soon.”

“But will you want to know?”

He sighed. “Either way, the baby’ll probably learn practical jokes from the Callahans before it’s taller than my knee. Callahans are equal opportunity pranksters. You see what they’ve done for Cat.”

Tempest flicked his forearm with her finger. “I didn’t say the baby was going to be raised around here.”

He leaned back on his elbows, a raffish, handsome man not worried about anything in his world. “The baby will be raised, Cupertino, wherever I have a job. So go ahead and stew about that. You’ve got nine months to give me plenty of lip about it.”

She didn’t have to. She didn’t know Shaman well, but she’d seen him in action—and she’d known he was going to feel that way about his child.

It was one of the things she really, really liked about him.

* * *

T
HE EVENING WAS BEAUTIFUL
and crisp, and Shaman would have taken the time to enjoy the expansive quiet of Dark Diablo, but his twin siblings were staring at him, wanting him to play referee. It wasn’t going to do them any good, because there was no playbook as far as those two were concerned.

“I’m staying,” Xav said. “Jonas offered me a job, and I’m going to take it.”

Kendall sighed dramatically. Cupertino had left, leaving Shaman in a mess of conflicted emotions. Jonas had returned home with Cat, so Shaman had been sitting on the porch swing, staring up at the half-moon, trying to figure out what he was going to do about Tempest.

Then his sister and brother had driven up, their disagreement apparent as they walked up to the porch.

“Do something, Shaman,” Kendall pleaded. “I don’t know what it is about this place. You guys get out here and you lose touch with reality.”

Shaman grinned at his brother. “Liked Rancho Diablo, did you?”

“I never realized there could be so much silence,” Xav said. “No fax machines, no ringing phones, nothing. This is what I need in my life. I heard a coyote last night.” His face held a look of ecstasy. “The sound of the rat race is pretty deafening, bro.”

“What about the girlfriend?” Kendall demanded, her tone a little desperate.

He shrugged. “Shaman doesn’t have one. He’s not married. And he’s fine. Gage only just got married, and he’s four years older than me. I’ve reconsidered this marriage thing. I don’t want to jump too soon.”

“Well, about me having a girlfriend—” Shaman began.

“What about Mom? Who’s going to take care of her?”

Shaman and Xav both stared at Kendall. Even Shaman thought she was stretching the pity party.

“Millicent will be fine. She will outlive us all,” Xav said, “and that’s a good thing. You and Mom can run Gil Phillips, Inc., which will make you both happy. And I,” he said with a contented sigh, “am going to learn to build things, use my muscles and commune with owls. That’s what Jonas said. Spirit owls.”

“Oh, no,” Kendall moaned. “Look what you’ve done!” she told Shaman.

He shrugged. “You know, sis, he’s got a point.”

“He does not!”

“I do,” Xav said. “I’m going to cede all my shares in the company over to you, sis.”

“Moratorium on life plans, Xav,” Shaman said, “before your twin’s head pops off. Go easy, bro.”

“Xav, you and I have been running the company together for years,” Kendall said. “How would I do it all by myself?”

He kissed his sister on the forehead, drawing a frown from her.

Shaman grinned. “Kendall, there has never been anything in life you couldn’t face on your own.”

“That’s right,” Xav said. “Beautiful, smart—Gil Phillips in female form.”

“That’s just great,” Kendall said. “What if
I
decide to just take a midlife detour? Go off the deep end? Commune with spirit owls?” Her hands were on her hips.

“We’d sell the company,” Shaman said, and Kendall gasped. “Anyway, I’m having a baby. Let’s go celebrate my fatherhood and Xav’s decision to commune with nature.”

“A baby?” Xav and Kendall echoed, sounding like the twins they were.

“Apparently,” Shaman said, feeling really good about everything except how he was going to get Tempest to marry him. That would be a puzzle, a holy grail in itself. He couldn’t worry about that right now, though; he felt like he was walking on air and nothing could bring him down.

“Wow,” Kendall said. “With the big blonde?”

“I prefer to think of Tempest as delicate. Elegant. Just right.”

“Whatever,” Kendall said. “I guess your kid will always be chosen first for basketball.”

He laughed and shook from his hair the last drops of water that their wily niece had doused him with. “I am almost the happiest man on the planet.”

“You see what happens out here. Happiness,” Xav said to Kendall, and she groaned.

“Moratorium, bro,” Shaman said, but Xav had figured it out. Life was better away from The Family, Inc.

Now Shaman just had to figure out how to convince Cupertino that she needed him in her very independent life. “I’m going into town to try to drag Tempest out to dinner. Wanna ride shotgun?” he asked Xav. “I’ll introduce you around, since you think you might want to make this your home for a while.”

“Sure,” he replied. “I’m game.”

“Lovely,” Kendall said. “Guess I’ll come along and try to remind you two that life is always better with money. And a Nordstrom nearby. At least a Macy’s.”

The brothers laughed, then picked her up and carted her to Shaman’s truck. Just like old days, Shaman thought. Them against the world.

* * *

“I
DON’T THINK
I’ve ever eaten in a place called Cactus Max’s,” Kendall said as they seated themselves in a booth. “Quaint. When’s the skyscraper going to be here?”

“Easy, sis,” Shaman said. “That’s the woman who’s having your niece or nephew.”

“Yeah,” Kendall said. “So tell me what you decided to do about the wild-to-wed fiancée, Xav, while we’re waiting on Tempest.”

“I phoned her and told her I thought we should call it off,” Xav said, and Shaman checked his brother’s face for any signs of regret. There was none. “She was a gold digger, like you said, Kendall.”

“I knew you’d figure it out,” Kendall stated. “Women can be tricky.” She slid a glance at Shaman, who grinned at her.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “You’re not running Tempest out of my life like you ran Xav’s woman out of his.”

“I did no such thing,” she said haughtily. “Xav decided he loves the rural countryside more than he loves a trollop. Or his family, apparently.”

“Hi,” Tempest said, sitting down next to Shaman, interrupting Kendall’s complaining.

The dark, circular booth they were in was well placed and away from the late-day sunlight streaming in the windows, just right for the mood Shaman was in. He didn’t want people staring at them.

“Am I really going to be an aunt?” his sister demanded.

Tempest smiled. “Seems like it.”

Kendall looked as if she wanted to say something rude, then shook her head. “I guess only a pretty wonderful woman could get my brother to settle down.”

“I don’t want to settle him down,” Tempest said.

Shaman gazed at her. “Well, you have, sweetie. Get used to it.”

“Because of a baby?” she said. “Come on, Shaman. I have no father to take a shotgun to you, to make certain you marry me in the town square by sundown.”

Shaman nodded, and accepted a menu from Blanche when she came by to take their orders. “We’ll talk about wedding plans later. Blanche, do you ever not work?”

She put glasses of water in front of everybody. “Oh, the ice cream shop is all Shinny’s deal. I just hang around in there with him because I love him. This is my real job. What can I get you folks?”

They all ordered, then Shaman took a deep breath. “Cupertino, awkward as this may be, you’re going to have to marry me,” he said. “Believe it or not, you were meant to be my wife.”

“Not if she doesn’t want to be,” Kendall stated.

“Yeah,” Tempest said, glancing at his sister with a glare of suspicion. “A baby does not mean marriage. I have contracts I can’t get out of, Shaman, and dreams of my own. I don’t want to live in this backwater.”

“You see?” Kendall told Xav. “Most people can’t wait to get away from this place.”

“Oh, he’ll be happy here,” Tempest declared. “It’s the perfect place for a single man avoiding matrimony and commitments.”

“Oh, boy,” Shaman said, signaling for a bottle of wine. “I think those are words likely to start a debate.”

“No,” Tempest said. “Ask Kendall if she’d like to live in Tempest.”

“Absolutely not,” Kendall said, horrified. “I’m always delighted that my sojourns here are brief.”

“I like it,” Xav said, his tone sure. “Gage is going to teach me how to breed horses.”

“What’s to learn? You just need a syringe and a quick hand,” his twin said with disgust. “Tempest, please tell my brothers that they are being blinded by the lure of the unknown.”

“I don’t know,” Tempest said thoughtfully, staring Kendall down. “This town has a lot of charm.”

She frowned back at her. “That’s not what you just said.”

Shaman grinned, realizing Tempest was trying to get under Kendall’s skin, and was succeeding. His sister didn’t even realize that she was needling her.