HER CALLAHAN FAMILY MAN (3 page)

* * *

S
AWYER
WAS
SO
annoyed with herself for giving in to Jace’s charm that she sat stiffly staring out at the landscape rushing past. He’d caught her off guard, that was all. If she’d had a second’s notice of his intention, she could have controlled her reaction better.

Jace drove down the road with a sexy, confident, “I win” curve to his lips, a true cat that ate the canary. Sharing that kiss was a huge setback to her plan, and devastating to her heart.

I promised myself that wouldn’t happen. No more falling under his spell. Not one woman who married a Callahan kept her independence. It was as if they got their wedding ring and poof! instant Callahan copy. Babies and bliss.

Babies and bliss in every corner.

“I’m renting a room from Fiona because I’ll be in Diablo only until the babies are born. Four months after that I’ll be living in New York,” Sawyer said.

That wiped the smirk off his face. “New York?”

“Yes. I’ve taken a job with a firm that provides security for high-profile clients.”

“You’re going to be a bodyguard while you should be staying at home with my children?” Jace shook his head. “I can see two big problems with your plan, doll face. One, my children aren’t going anywhere without me. Two, it’s going to be terribly hard for you to be a homeroom mother and a bake sale coordinator while you’re working. My children need you more than high-profile clients do.”

She stiffened. “I’m sure you’re hoping I’ll thank you for your opinion. However, I’m fully capable of making my own decisions.”

“Yes, you are. And I trust you’ll make decisions that are in the best interest of our family, not harebrained ones that are purely designed to keep you and me from sharing a bed.”

He’d gotten pretty close to the truth. “That’s not the reason I took the job, Jace. I’m a very good bodyguard, and there’s still a lot I want to do and learn.”

“Yes, but your days of living on the edge are over. You can get your fill of that at Rancho Diablo.”

“So you’d be all right with me and the children living at Rancho Diablo?”

He hesitated. “I didn’t exactly say that.”

“Then we have nothing to discuss.”

“We have plenty to discuss. And now that we’ve just passed the Nevada state line, we’re getting closer to our destination, so I won’t hesitate to mention that this is the happiest day of my life.”

She gave him a curious glance. “Why?”

“It’s not every day a man finds out he’s going to be married and a father.” He glanced at her. “Even better, that the woman who’s providing all this excitement wanted him badly enough to pay five grand for him, thereby scuttling all other females’ chances. Just so very cute of you.” He laughed out loud, pleased with himself. “You put up stop signs, but there’s lots of green lights flashing all over you, Sawyer Cash.”

He was angling for a good hard takedown to his ego. Sawyer told herself Jace had always been a goofball, and ignored him.

“Have you asked Galen to hire you on again at Rancho Diablo?” Jace asked, stunning her.

“No.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug.

“We’re always looking for staff we can trust.”

“Are you saying you trust me?” Sawyer asked.

“Are you insinuating I can’t? Or shouldn’t?”

His gaze met hers, and she found herself drawn in, the way he’d always drawn her in. With the memory of his hot kiss still warm on her lips, she’d be lying to herself if she tried to pretend she didn’t want to experience once again what he could do with those wandering hands of his. Experience the sweet satisfaction of what miracles he worked with a mouth that never ceased talking smack, and the to-die-for sexy things he whispered to her during lovemaking.

But she couldn’t allow herself to get caught in the snare of sex. The goal was far more important than the pleasure.

“I’m not insinuating anything. I don’t want you and your family to give me busywork.” Sawyer knew how this story would play out. The moon would be promised—and she’d wind up with nothing but a crash to earth. “I’m not the kind of woman who’ll be happy staying home to wash your socks, Jace.”

He laughed, and Sawyer favored him with a frown.

“My socks?” Jace chuckled again. “You have a problem with my socks?”

“I don’t want to be a Callahan housewife. I intend to keep doing what I do.”

“You’re jumping the mark, sister. No one ever said you can’t work. I encourage it.”

“You do?”

“Sure thing.” He grinned. “In fact, I’ll stay home with the babies. How’s that for a compromise?”

She blinked, not certain where he was going with that. While all the Callahan men stayed close to home once married, she didn’t think Jace would be happy as a Mr. Mom while she earned the family bread. “You’ll do diapers and bath time?”

“Sure.” He shrugged, not fazed at all. “The babies will have organic food I prepare myself, too—none of that jar stuff. Baths with lavender oil, and a nightly de-stress rubdown. I’ll sing lullabies and tell them stories I heard when I was a child in the tribe.” He looked satisfied with that plan. “I’ll have to see if Grandfather Running Bear can add to my collection.”

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

He picked her hand up, brushed it against his lips. “Believe it. You work, and I’ll be the best stay-at-home dad you ever saw.”

“You’re too much of a chauvinist, Jace.”

“I resent that remark, darling. Don’t you worry about a thing. This is going to work out so well, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without me. Be the best five grand you ever spent.”

She raised a brow. “That really wound your ego up, didn’t it? Me spending that kind of money for a date with you?”

“Oh, angel.” He kissed her hand again. “You paid that kind of cash for exactly what you’re getting—a husband.”

She sucked in a breath. “Jace, honestly, I don’t know how you fit in this truck with your ego.”

He laughed. “I bought the biggest truck I could.”

There was nothing else to say to such enthusiastic patting of his own back. Anyway, she’d already gotten two concessions out of him: she could live at Rancho Diablo and she could keep her job.

His ego could take a flying leap.

Jace’s phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” he told Sawyer. “I have to take this.” His gaze slid over to her as he pulled off the road so he could talk on the phone. “Hello, Grandfather.”

Whenever Chief Running Bear spoke, everybody listened. The man said almost nothing unless it was important. Sawyer couldn’t tell much of what was being communicated, but it was clear Jace’s attention was clearly engaged.

“That’s interesting news. I’ll see what I can do.”

He hung up, then steered the truck back onto the highway again. “Running Bear suggests we go into hiding immediately.”

Sawyer gasped. “Hiding! Why?”

“Apparently Wolf’s right-hand man, Rhein, was arrested today on suspicion of smuggling. This means the Feds have decided to clamp down on the illegal operations that are being run across the canyons. Running Bear says this will have the effect of ramping up Wolf’s goal of taking over Rancho Diablo. He says that because of your pregnancy, it would probably be best. Wolf will post bail for Rhein soon enough, and no doubt the sheep will hit the fauna.”

Sawyer shook her head at his attempt to be lighthearted about something that wasn’t funny at all. “I’m not going into hiding.”

“I thought you’d feel that way,” Jace said. “We have another option.”

She didn’t smile at the devilish wink he sent her. “What option?”

“I’ll guard you.”

“You mean
I
would be assigned to you as a bodyguard,” Sawyer said. “You have no experience.”

He grinned. “However you want to play it, babe. I’d let you guard my body any day.”

“It won’t work. You wouldn’t take it seriously.” She shook her head. “Once I’m on bed rest, you’d drive me insane. The two of us working together would be an unfocused assignment.” She thought about the babies, and what she would do once they were born. They’d be targets; they’d need special protection. She’d worked for the Callahans long enough to know that Running Bear’s words were worth heeding. If he said that Rhein’s arrest would add to the heat at Rancho Diablo, it couldn’t be ignored. “If that was your only option, it wasn’t a serious one.”

“We’re either on the road in hiding, or we stick together like glue. I guess it’s going to depend on how you feel. When will the babies be born?”

“I’m five and a half months pregnant. I’m hoping to make it at least as far as April. But I know your sisters-in-law didn’t carry their twins and trips quite as long as they would have liked. I’m in good shape, and the doctor says I’m on track for a normal pregnancy. So we’ll see what happens.”

“Okay. The goal is keeping you stress-free and resting. Hard to rest if you’re on the run.”

“Are we seriously talking about this?” She looked at him. “It’s not in me to be afraid.”

“I’ll do it for both of us.” He glanced at the rearview mirror. “In fact, we’re being followed, and it’s not by a Callahan. Aren’t you glad you won me now, beautiful?”

Chapter Three

Jace didn’t want to scare Sawyer, but she’d been around Rancho Diablo long enough to know the odds against them were long. There wasn’t time to coddle her into seeing things his way. He was going to have to give her a push; Sawyer and the babies were his number one priority right now. “How are you for train travel?”

“I’m not,” Sawyer said, “going into hiding. I’m not running.”

“We are going into hiding. Take your pick. It’s either a sunny locale or the mountains. What’s your preference?”

“My preference is that you take me home right now. I’ll stay in the house my uncle is selling your family, so I’ll be close enough for you to keep an eye on.”

“This isn’t a game,” Jace said quietly. “You know that, Sawyer. You know what Wolf is capable of. He means business. I’m not going to risk anything happening to you and the children.”

The thought filled him with dread. There was good reason to worry. Taylor, his brother Falcon’s wife, had been kidnapped and taken to Montana for months during her pregnancy. Aunt Fiona had been kidnapped, and she’d burned down Wolf’s hideout during her rescue. The memory made him smile—but it was also a compelling reason to treat this newest threat seriously. Wolf had a long memory.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’re driving to Texas,” Jace said. “We’ll get married, and we’ll call our long road trip a honeymoon.”

“You’re not going to whitewash us going into hiding by calling it a honeymoon.”

He had one unhappy lady on his hands. But what else could he do?

In Texas he had family. He couldn’t go to Hell’s Colony—it was too hot right now with the Wolf situation, and there was no reason to bring the heat to his Callahan cousins. But they could find a nice, out-of-the-way cabin deep in the piney woods of East Texas that would be really hard for Wolf to find.

If Jace had learned anything from the past few years of being hounded by Wolf, it was that caution was as important as bravery.

His mind made up, Jace sped toward Vegas and, hopefully, a slew of Wedding Elvises eager to say wedding vows as quickly as possible.

* * *

“I
ABSOLUTELY
AM
not going to marry him,” Sawyer told Ashlyn Callahan when they met at the chapel in Vegas. The place was white, but that was its only concession to being a wedding stop.

Ash glanced at the pastor and his doughy little wife. The man had on a tall top hat and wore a white satin suit. His wife was arrayed in a vintage period gown, purple with red feathers. “Maybe it wouldn’t be my first choice, either. But it’s a good first start.”

“First start?” Sawyer stared at Jace’s silver-blond-haired sister. Ash had always seemed like an ethereal fairy to her—and yet it was said that of all the Callahans, she was the most dangerous. “A marriage only gets started once, doesn’t it?”

Ash shrugged. “Where you say the words isn’t important. Getting you and my niece and nephew safe is.”

A chill swept Sawyer. How did Ash have so much information about her pregnancy, so soon? Callahan gossip always spread like wildfire.

“I just figure it’d be like Jace to split the deck. No commitment.” Ash looked at her. “Except to you, it seems.”

Sawyer shook her head. “Jace isn’t committed to anything except his children. And Rancho Diablo.”

“Don’t go on what he says, is my advice. My brother never really was much of a talker, not about anything that made much sense.” Ash smiled, looking pleased with herself when she realized Jace had caught her jibe. He came over to ruffle her hair.

“Jace, if you mess up my hair, you’ll have a scary sister in your wedding photos,” she complained. “Your bride thinks you have commitment issues.”

He looked at Sawyer and grinned. “I do. But not to the degree that Sawyer does.”

She met his gaze. “I’m not marrying you here.”

“Well, you have to,” Ash said. “At least, you have to try on the magic wedding dress. Fiona sent it with me, said you should try it on. I always think my aunt’s advice should be heeded,” she said, tugging Sawyer away from Jace’s suddenly interested gaze.

Sawyer made herself follow Ash down the hall and into a private room. “I don’t want to try on a dress.”

“This one you do,” Sawyer said. “It’s magic.”

“That’s a myth, a fairy tale.” She’d heard about the dress’s supposedly supernatural qualities and didn’t believe it. “There’s nothing wrong with the dress I have on.”

Ash glanced back at her before opening a closet where a long, white bag hung. “If you’re going to be a runaway bride, at least do it in style. This dress,” she said, pointing to the bag, “exudes style. High fashion, even.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Sawyer said. She wasn’t getting near it, wouldn’t be enticed to even take a peek. “I saw the dress on Rose when she and Galen were married. It’s beautiful and traditional, but not high fashion.”

Ash stared at the bag. “I thought a gown that made every woman beautiful would be considered high fashion.”

“No. It would be considered lucky.”

“Oh,” Ash said, recoiling. “We don’t do lucky in our family. Mysticism and respect and ancient lore, and perhaps a little supernatural wonder, but never luck.”

Sawyer shook her head. “I’m fine wearing what I have on.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll regret it?” Ash asked. “You’ve been rendezvousing with my brother secretly for a long time. You might as well admit you’re in love with him. And when a woman’s in love, she wants to be beautiful on her wedding day.”

Sawyer didn’t know what to say to that outrageous statement. Down the hall, a wedding march played—probably for the couple who’d been waiting in the hall nervously when she and Jace had walked into the chapel.

“I’ll leave you alone,” Ash said. “Give you a chance to collect your thoughts. I won’t be far if you want to do some more sisterly bonding. Feel free to call me if you do.”

She went out, closing the door behind her. Sawyer glared at the garment bag. It wasn’t going to work. She wasn’t going to try on the gown, which was exactly what Ash wanted. Temptation—the Callahans were very good at temptation.

* * *

“I
T
MAY
BE
mission failure,” Ash said, coming to stand next to Jace as he waited anxiously for whatever his bride and sister decided. He was well aware that Sawyer would need to be coaxed into marrying him. He’d seen some reluctant brides in his time, but she seemed to take reticence to a new level. He shook his head as his sister patted his back in sympathy.

“It’s not mission failure. She wants to marry me.” He refused to believe that after all they’d shared, Sawyer didn’t want him. She had to know it wasn’t just sex for him—and yet he was pretty certain that’s what she’d say if he asked her what she thought it was the two of them had going.

He wasn’t about to ask how she defined their relationship.

“She probably thinks you were sowing your wild oats, brother,” Ash said cheerfully. “After all, you never stepped up to the plate meaningfully.”

“Thank you,” he said, “I think I had that much figured out. Now if you can wave your magic wand and tell me how to fix it, I’d be happy to listen to that advice.”

She fluffed her silvery hair, glancing in a mirror that was hanging in the foyer. “You and I may be doomed to never ease our wild hearts.”

He refused to accept that. Sawyer and he had been seeing each other a long time. It had been wild and passionate in the beginning, but then she’d left, and he’d had way too much time to think. To miss her. “What’s she doing? Is she ever coming out of that room? Did you make sure there were no open windows?”

Ash looked at him. “I was trying to talk her into trying on the magic wedding dress.”

He felt his stomach pitch. “Sawyer won’t wear Fiona’s magic wedding dress.”

Ash gave him a look that said he was crazy, and maybe he was. “Of course Sawyer should be married in the Callahan tradition!”

“I can’t believe you dragged that thing all the way here.” Struck by a sudden thought, Jace glanced wildly at the door. “You have no idea the trouble it caused our brothers. In almost every single case, that gown tried to wreck everything.”

Ash gasped. “Jace! That’s not true!”

“It is true.” He remembered tales from their brothers with some horror. One bride hadn’t seen her one true love—as she’d believed she would, according to Fiona’s fairy tale—and had taken off running out the door. That brother had barely been able to get his chosen bride to give the gown a second chance.

Jace had heard other tales, too, and they all made his blood pressure skyrocket with an attack of premonition.

“What about River? The gown saved her in Montana.”

“It’s a trick, a dice roll. A man doesn’t know if the dress is on his side. I don’t need that kind of help.” Jace looked at the door again, debating knocking on it and demanding that Sawyer come out. She’d been in there far too long. “Are you sure there were no windows in there she could open?”

“There may have been one,” Ash said, “but Sawyer isn’t the kind of woman who would ditch you in Vegas.”

“She ditched me, as you say, for the past several months.” His chest felt very heavy with sadness. “You have no idea what I’ve been through with that woman. And now you put her in a room with a diabolical magic wedding dress, and I’m supposed to—”

He glared when the door opened. Sawyer came out, wearing the same clothes she had been before. He looked at her, his breath tight.

“Is it time?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Time?”

“To do this thing.”

Jace swallowed. “Sure. If you’re ready.”

“Are you?”

He’d been ready far longer than he’d realized, but he didn’t want to seem overeager and scare her off. “Better now than never.”

She didn’t look certain, and he shrugged, wanting to give her as much space as possible. With the way she clearly felt about getting married, it could do no good to keep pushing her. They said you could lead a horse to water but not make it drink, and Sawyer was as untamed as the black Diablo mustangs in the canyons around Rancho Diablo.

“I am ready,” she said. “As long as we agree that we’ll revisit this marriage after the babies are born.”

“Revisit it? I’m fine with what we’re doing.” He didn’t like the sound of that at all. He’d heard those cold-footed-bride tales from his brothers, too—and a very merry chase some of their women had led them on.

“I’m well aware that your interest in marriage is purely because of the children, and I understand that.” She looked at his sister. “Thank you for bringing the dress, Ash. I appreciate the effort you made to get it here, I really do. More than anything, I’m honored that your aunt Fiona was willing to share a favorite Callahan tradition with me.” She looked back at Jace. “But I don’t feel like a real Callahan bride, and I don’t think I ever will.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the small waiting area suddenly filled with Callahans and Cashs, all loud and happy, and perplexed to see Sawyer wearing a hot pink dress and not a magic wedding gown. Storm carted in a bridal bouquet for his niece, kissing her before glaring at Jace.

“It’s a happy day!” Fiona exclaimed. “The last Callahan bachelor getting hitched!” She beamed with delight. “Come on, dear. Ash and I will help you change.”

Jace raised a brow, watching Sawyer sputter her way out of Fiona’s clutches. He smiled, seeing his family envelop his bride-to-be with their overwhelming presence. No one irritated him more than his relatives at times, but it was great to have them at his back.

The cake was delivered by two uniformed men who looked a bit seedy to Jace.

“You’re putting that there?” Fiona demanded, as they set the cake down in the foyer. “Do we look like we eat wedding cake in doorways?”

They shrugged, and Jace had an uncomfortable feeling he’d seen them before. “Aren’t you going to take it out of the box?” he asked.

The men left without saying a word.

“That was odd,” Sawyer said.

“Very odd.” Ash went to undo the white box. “That bakery came highly recommended, and I’m going to give them a piece of my mind about their delivery service.” She peeled the sides of the box down and gasped.

Instead of a plastic bride and groom there was a butcher knife, splendidly tied with satin ribbon, sticking up out of the top of the beautiful cake.

* * *

T
HE
WHOLE
THING
was a disaster as far as Jace was concerned. Married hurriedly by a satin-wearing pastor who wanted them gone as fast as possible once he saw the butcher knife in the wedding cake—and wed apparently in name only to his pregnant love—Jace found it wasn’t a happy-ever-after type of event.

And they’d slept in separate beds after his late-night partying family finally went to bed.

“Very sad state of affairs,” he told Sawyer as they drove back toward Rancho Diablo the next day.

She didn’t spare him a glance as she looked out the window. “What’s a very sad state of affairs?”

“You. Me. That stupid wedding.” He gulped, certain that dire consequences might lie in his future. “The whole thing was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Not traditional.” Not done right, not written in stone, the butcher knife notwithstanding.

Traditional was the way he wanted his relationship with Sawyer to be.

“Stop thinking about the cake. It was an accident, like your aunt said. The delivery drivers were new, they didn’t know not to put the knife in the same box as the cake, and it somehow got stuck in it. These things happen at weddings.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Anyway, it was delicious. You said so yourself. And the bakery gave Ash a 50 percent discount and told her that if she ever got married, they’d do a cake for her for free.”

He wasn’t calmed by his bride’s attempt to soothe him. Jace was sure he’d seen those delivery guys somewhere, and trying to remember where nagged at him. The bakery had said they’d sent two men to deliver the cake, and the Callahans hadn’t thought to ask for ID or names in the shock of the moment. “You could have at least pretended to want to wear the wedding dress Ash went to the trouble to bring you,” he groused, thinking he should probably be happy Sawyer had at least said I do. That was something.