by Tina Leonard
“What if I decide to bail?” He grinned at her and pulled her into his lap. “Lady, you’re just going to have to stick around to find out.”
She looked down at him from her perch. “I’m way over my head here, cowboy. Just so you know.”
“Nah. This is going to be a piece of cake. Fiona can help you plan a wedding. Or we can elope. Whichever you prefer.” He nibbled on her neck. “Personally, I’d pick eloping. We’ll get to sleep together faster. And you’ll make a cute Mrs. Callahan. I’m going to chase my Mrs. Callahan around for the rest of my life.”
“I can run fast.”
“I know,” he said, “but I think we just learned that I run faster.”
She laughed, and he kissed her, glad to see the waterworks had shut off. She’d scared him! No man wanted to think that the mother of his child didn’t want him. But he was pretty certain Aberdeen did want him, just as much as he wanted her. It was just taking her a little longer to decide that she wanted him for the long haul.
He wasn’t letting her get away from him. “When are you going to make an announcement?”
She sighed. “I think something was foreshadowed when you ran in here with a paper bag from the drugstore. I won’t be surprised if Fiona has already ordered a nursery. And I don’t even know anything about you.” For a moment, she looked panicked. “You know more about me than I do about you.”
He shrugged. “No mysteries here. Ask a question.”
“Okay.” Aberdeen pulled back slightly when he tried to nibble at her bottom lip. Maybe if he got her mind off the pregnancy, he could ease her into bed. He did his best romancing between the sheets, he was pretty certain. Right now, her brain was on overdrive, processing, and if she only but knew it, he could massage her and kiss her body into a puddle of relaxation. He felt himself getting very intrigued by the thought.
“Who’s the scary guy who visited?” Aberdeen asked. “That Bode guy?”
Uh-oh. It was going to be hard to lure her into a compromising position if she was up for difficult topics. “He’s just the local wacko. No one special.”
“I felt like I’d been visited by the evil Rancho Diablo spirit.”
He sighed, realizing he was getting nothing at the moment—even his powers of romance weren’t up to combating a woman who was still trying to figure out if she wanted to be tied to his family, friends and enemies. “I’m a very eligible bachelor,” he said, “you don’t have to examine the skeletons in my closet. Why don’t we hop down to Jackie’s bridal shop and look at dresses?” he said. Surely if romance wouldn’t do it, shopping might get her thinking about weddings—and a future with him.
“Bode Jenkins,” she said. “Was he threatening me?”
“He was being a pest. We’re used to him showing up uninvited, trying to throw a wrench into things. Don’t take it personally.”
“He wants your ranch.”
“Yep.” Creed shrugged. “I think he may be delusional. He doesn’t really want the ranch. He just wants to stick it to us. That’s my personal assessment.” He nuzzled at her cheek. “I’ll be a lot stronger in my fight against evil and doom if I’m married. Let’s talk about our future, all right?”
She moved away from his mouth. “Quit trying to seduce me. You’re trying to get me off topic, and it isn’t going to work.”
He sighed. “Most women in your shoes would be more than happy to talk about tying me down, sister.”
She took a long time to answer, and when she did, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I can’t get married at the snap of a finger, Creed. Mom and Dad would want me to get married at home—”
“We can fly them here.”
“They would want me to have a church wedding—”
“But what do you want?” he asked, wondering why she was suddenly so worried about her parents. Her folks didn’t seem to be all that interested in what she did. He moved his lips along her arm, pondering this new turn of events.
“I don’t know. I just found out I’m having a baby. I can’t really think about a wedding right now.” She slid out of his lap and walked over to the window. “I’d better get back to the girls. I’ve left them alone too long.”
“They’re not alone,” Creed said, surprised. “They’re with their mothe—”
The glare she shot him would have knocked him back two feet if he’d been standing. She went out the door like a storm, and Creed realized he had a whole lot of convincing to do to get his bride to the altar.
In fact, it was probably going to take a miracle.
“I NEVER THOUGHT it would be so difficult to get a woman to jump into a wedding gown,” Creed told his twin a few minutes later, when Rafe sat down next to him in the barn. Creed still felt stunned by the whirling turn of events in his life. “I’m going to be a father. I want to be a husband. I don’t want my son coming to me one day and saying, “Mom says you were half-baked with the marriage proposal.” He looked at Rafe. “You know what I mean?”
Rafe shook his head. “Nope.”
Creed sighed, looking at the bridle he was repairing. Trying to repair. This should have been mental cotton candy for him, and he was muffing the repair job. His concentration was shot. “Imagine finding out the best news in your life, but the person who’s giving you the news acts like you’re radioactive. You would feel pretty low.”
“Yeah. But I’m not you. I’d just make her say yes.”
Creed looked at Rafe. “Thanks for the body-blow.”
Rafe grinned and took the bridle from him. “Give her some time, bro. She’s just beginning to figure out that you’ve turned her life inside out. She needs some time to adjust.”
“Yeah,” Creed said, “but I want her to be Mrs. Callahan before I have to roll her down the aisle in a wheelbarrow.”
Rafe looked at him. “And you wonder why Aberdeen isn’t running a four-minute mile to get to the altar with you. Is that the way you romance a woman? ‘Honey, let’s get hitched before my brawny son expands your waistline?’”
“I never said a word about that. I just want sooner rather than later. I don’t really care if she’s the size of an elephant, I just want her wearing white lace pronto.” Creed scratched his head, and shoved his hat back. “Truthfully, I think I wanted to marry that gal the moment I laid eyes on her. Even in my debilitated state, I knew I’d stumbled on something awesome.” He looked at Rafe. “Aberdeen is awesome.”
Rafe considered him. “You really are crazy about her, aren’t you? This isn’t about the ranch for you.”
“Nope. I’ve tried every song-and-dance routine I know to get her to take me on. I’ve offered short-term marriage, marriage-of-convenience, and the real deal. She just doesn’t set a date.” He sighed, feeling worn down. “It’s killing me. I really think I’m aging. And I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be the woman who plots to get the guy to wedded bliss. She sure can drag her feet.”
“I don’t know, man. All I know is you better shape up before the big dance tomorrow night.”
Creed straightened. “That’s not tomorrow night, is it?”
Rafe nodded.
“Oh, hell. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Aberdeen already seemed overwhelmed by the ranch, by Rancho Diablo, by him. How would she feel about a bachelor rodeo? He already knew. She would see his brothers hooting and hollering, trying to catch women and vice versa, and figure that he was no different from those lunkheads. That’s how a woman thought. “I bet pregnant women probably jump to conclusions faster than normal, because of their hormones and stuff.”
Rafe smacked him on the head. “Of the two of us, you are definitely the dumbest. Why do you talk like Aberdeen has no common sense? When beautiful, husband-hunting women are throwing themselves at you tomorrow night, she’ll totally understand. It’ll probably make her want you. Jealousy is catnip to a woman.”
Creed groaned. If he knew Aberdeen the way he thought he did, she was going to run for the mountains of Wyoming. She was like a piec
e of dry tinder just waiting for a spark to set her off. He could feel her looking for reasons not to trust him. Damn Re-ride, he thought. He’d convinced her that all men were rats.
“Most men are rats,” he said, pondering out loud, and Rafe nodded.
“Very likely. And women still love us.”
Creed didn’t think Aberdeen was going to love him if she could convince herself that he was a big stinky rodent. “I’ve got to get her out of here,” he said, but his twin just shrugged.
“Good luck,” Rafe said, and Creed figured he’d need a turnaround in his luck pattern if he wanted his bride.
He knew just who could advise him.
DIANE SAT ON A PORCH SWING, watching her daughters play in a huge sandbox the brothers had constructed for all the new babies at Rancho Diablo. Maybe it was dumb, Creed thought, to make a sandbox when the babies were all still, well, babies. Ashley and Suzu were big enough to play in the soft sand dotted with toys, but Lincoln Rose would catch up in time, and so would Pete’s daughters.
Creed couldn’t wait to see all the kids playing together one day. The vista of Rancho Diablo land made a beautiful backdrop for children to view, panoramic and Hollywood-like. Burke had helped, drawing off precise measurements and finding the best type of sand to make wonderful castles.
And now Diane sat on the porch swing alone, watching her two oldest, and holding her baby. He watched her for a second, and then went to join the woman he hoped would be his sister-in-law one day.
“Hi,” he said, and Diane turned her head.
“Hello.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all. Please do.” She smiled when he sat down. “My girls really like it here. There’s something about this ranch that seems to agree with them.”
He nodded. “It was a pretty great place to grow up.”
Diane looked back at her girls. Creed realized her gaze was following her daughters with interest, not the almost cursory, maybe even scared expression she’d worn before.
“Are you comfortable here?” Creed asked.
“I am.” She nodded. “Your aunt and uncle have been very kind.”
Creed started to say that Burke wasn’t his uncle, then decided the tag was close enough. Burke was fatherly, more than uncle-like, and a dear friend. “How long are you staying?”
She smiled, keeping her gaze on her daughters. Creed mentally winced, his question sounding abrupt to him. He sure didn’t want Diane to think he was trying to run her off.
“Your aunt has offered me a job,” Diane said, surprising Creed.
“She has?”
“Mmm.” She turned to look at him, and he saw that her eyes were just like Aberdeen’s and Johnny’s, deep and blue and beautiful. But hers were lined with years of worry. She’d had it hard, he realized—no wonder Aberdeen and Johnny were so bent on helping her. “She says she needs a housekeeper/assistant. She says all her duties are getting to be too much for her. Yet your Aunt Fiona seems quite energetic to me.”
Creed shrugged. “I wouldn’t blame Fiona a bit if she felt like she needed some help. She’s got an awful lot she does on the ranch.”
“So it wasn’t just a polite invitation?” Diane looked at him curiously.
“I doubt it. While my aunt is unfailingly polite, she’s never offered such a position to anyone else that I’m aware of, and she wouldn’t fancy giving up any of the reins of the place if she really didn’t feel the need.” He smiled. “She’s pretty fierce about doing everything herself.”
“So why me? Because I’m Aberdeen’s sister?”
He shrugged again. “Probably because she likes you. Fiona prefers to run her own business, so if she offered, she must have felt that you’d be an asset to the ranch.”
“She doesn’t discuss hiring with you?”
He laughed. “She may have talked to some of my brothers. I can’t say. But Fiona’s business is her own. So if you’re interested in a job with her, that’s a discussion between the two of you. The only tip I could positively give you is that if you accept her offer, you will work harder than you ever have in your life. Ask Burke if you don’t believe me.”
She finally smiled. “I’ll think about it, then.”
“Yeah. Well, glad I could help. Not that I have any useful information to impart.” He grinned at the pile of sand the two little girls were pushing around in the box with the aid of a tiny tractor and some shovels. “So now I have a question for you.”
“All right,” Diane said. “You want to know how I can help you to get Aberdeen to marry you.”
He blinked. “Well, if you could, it would help.”
She smiled. “Look, Creed. I’m going to be just as honest with you as you were with me. Aberdeen doesn’t always talk about what she’s thinking. If she does, she’d go to Johnny first, and then maybe she’d come to me. I’m a lot older than Aberdeen, in many ways. But I can tell you a couple of things. First, she’s afraid she’s turning out like me. The fact that she’s pregnant makes it feel real unplanned to her, for lack of a better word, and Aberdeen is all about planning everything very seriously. People who plan are responsible. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She gave him a long, sideways look.
Creed nodded. “Thank you for your honesty.”
She went back to watching her daughters. “It’s good to self-examine, even when it’s painful. I know who I am, and I know what I’m not. I’m not a good mother, but I know I’m a good person. That probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I know that in the end, the good person in me will triumph.”
Creed thought she was probably right. There was a kind streak in Diane, a part of her that acknowledged strength in family, that he’d already noticed. “No one’s perfect,” he said. “Neither my brothers nor I would claim we’ve come within a spitting distance of perfect. So you’re probably amongst like-minded people.”
Diane placed a soft kiss atop Lincoln Rose’s head. Creed wondered if she even realized she’d done it. “Back to Aberdeen. The B-part to my sister that I know and understand—though I’m not claiming to be an expert—is that there will never be another Re-ride in her life.”
“I’m no Re-ride,” he growled.
“I mean that, even if she married Re-ride again, it would be no retread situation. Aberdeen is not the same shy girl who got married so young. She would kick his butt from here to China if she married him and he tried to do the stupid stuff he did before.”
“She’s not marrying Re-ride,” Creed said decisively, “and I’m no green boy for her to be worrying about marrying.”
Diane sighed. “I’m sure Aberdeen is well aware that it was a real man who put a ring on her finger this time, cowboy. All I’m saying is that she’s going to make her own decisions in her life now. She’ll do things when she’s comfortable and not before—and right now, I’d say she’s not totally comfortable. Some of that is probably due to me, but—” She gave Creed a long look and stood. “I feel pretty comfortable in saying that most of her indecision is due to you,” she said, kissing him on the cheek, “future brother-in-law.”
He looked at her. “I don’t wait well.”
She smiled. “I guessed that. You may have to this time, if you really want your bride.” Diane went to the sandbox and said, “Girls, we need to get washed up now,” and they dutifully minded their mother. Creed watched with astonishment as they followed Diane like little ducklings. It was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He wondered if Diane had yet realized that she had no reason to be afraid of being a mother—she seemed to have all the proper components except confidence. He watched the girls go with a little bit of sentimental angst, already considering himself their father in his heart, knowing that they needed their mother, too. He’d have thought Lincoln Rose would have at least reached for him.
But no. They’d been content to spend time with their mother, an invisible natural bond growing into place. Creed wished he could grow some kind of bond with Aberdeen. She seemed dete
rmined to dissolve what they had. “I’m not doing this right,” he muttered, and jumped when Burke said, “Did you say something, Creed?”
Creed glanced behind him as Fiona’s butler materialized with a tray of lemonade and cookies. “Are those for me?”
“They’re for the little girls and their mother.” Burke glanced around. “Are they done with play time?”
“I’m afraid so. Bring that tray over here to me. I need fortification.”
Burke set the tray down on the porch swing.
“There’s only one glass,” Creed said.
“Yes. The lemonade is for you. It has a little kick in it, which I noticed you looked like you needed about twenty minutes ago when you ran through the house.”
Creed looked at Burke. “Okay. Tell me everything you’re dying to say.”
“I’m not really an advice column,” Burke said. “I see my role more as fortifier.”
Creed waved a hand, knocking back half the lemonade. “You’re right. That does have a kick. And it’s just what I needed.”
Burke nodded. “The cookies are for the girls. They get milk with theirs, usually.”
Creed blinked. “Well, my ladies have departed me. All of them, I fear.”
Burke cleared his throat. “If you don’t need anything else—”
“Actually, I think I do.” Creed looked at the butler, considering him. “Burke, your secret is out. We all know you and Fiona are married.”
Burke remained silent, staring at him with no change in expression.
Creed let out a sigh. “I guess my question is, how did you do it?”
“How did I do what?”
“How did you convince my aunt to get to the altar?”
Burke picked up the tray. “I sense the topic you’re exploring is Miss Aberdeen.”
“I could use some advice. Yes.” Creed nodded. “Wise men seek counsel when needed, Burke, and I know you have some experience with handling an independent-minded female. My problem is that I’ve got a woman who seems a little more cold-footed than the average female, when it comes to getting to the altar.”