The Cowboy's Triplets

by Tina Leonard

  To hell with it. “Pete!”

  He turned, grinning at her, his brows raised as she made it to him slightly out of breath. “You shouldn’t be running like that, angel cake. You might pull a hamstring.”

  She wanted to punch him. He looked so smug, so proud of himself, and he was even more handsome, if that was possible.

  “Did I forget something in the store?” he asked, clearly enjoying his big moment of being the pursued.

  “No,” Jackie said, “and you’re not making this easy on me.” Out of the corner of her eyes, she could feel the faces peering out of windows watching her and Pete.

  “I’m enjoying your eagerness, my pet.”

  “I simply wanted to tell you,” Jackie said, her teeth starting to grit, “that maybe I’d feel better if you were staying with me.”

  “Oh, you’re worried about me.” He swept her into his arms, leaving no one in any doubt about the status of their relationship. If he’d shouted I’m the father to the rooftops, he couldn’t have been more clear. Part of Jackie rebelled at his chauvinism, but a bigger part of her snuggled against his chest. She felt the smile stretch on her face.

  “Yes. I’m worried about you, you ass. You shouldn’t be in a house where there are creepies hanging around.”

  “I can’t leave Burke and Fiona.”

  Clearly he wanted her to beg. “Leave them a shotgun.”

  “Jackie!” He turned her face up so he could look down into her eyes. “Do I actually hear welcome and anticipation and—”

  She pulled away. “Don’t overdo it, Pete Callahan.”

  He laughed, sweeping a finger down her nose. “I’ll be there for dinner, pumpkin pie. Don’t you miss me too much between now and then. And I’ll take very good care of you.”

  She couldn’t miss his meaning. Nor could about twenty people milling around nearby, acting as though they weren’t listening to every word. Jackie’s face flamed. She was going to flee, until she caught sight of some of the town’s more eligible females eyeing her with envy, so she rose on tiptoe and kissed him right on the mouth.

  “If I’d only known how much you like an audience, my sweet, I would have insisted on our relationship being out in broad daylight a long time ago.” Pete laughed, saluted her with a devilish wink in his eyes, and walked off.

  Jackie stared after him, her blood pounding in her ears. Okay, she looked like she was pursuing him. She was pregnant, she was running after Pete and she didn’t care who saw.

  She’d caught him. And she couldn’t wait until tonight.

  She went to buy some candles. And then, for good measure, she bought a lacy pink and white nightie, not caring at all that the whole town would know how crazy she was about Peter Dade Callahan.

  JACKIE FELT PRETTY BRAVE about her plan until Pete strolled into her house that night. He looked tall and long and lean, and raffish with his rumpled dark hair, a devil-may-care bachelor if there ever was one. And she felt frumpy.

  “I brought steaks,” Pete said, laying a grocery sack on the table. “But I vote we have dessert first.”

  “Wait, Pete.” Jackie tried to avoid his hands, but he was too fast for her. She didn’t have on the sexy nightie, which she was hoping would deflect the eye and make him concentrate on anything but her big tummy and boobs that would no longer fit into her bra without spilling out the top. The candles weren’t even lit yet, and she needed the cover of candlelight.

  “I’m done waiting.” He carried her into her bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. He laid Jackie on the bed, his mouth claiming hers, but Jackie gave him a halfhearted push. “Pete, let me get you dinner first. You must be starved.”

  “You guess correctly.” He buried his face in her neck, nibbling kisses as he unbuttoned her dress. “There is far too much material here. You’re wrapped up like a mummy. I know it’s thirty-two degrees outside, but too much dress conceals the good stuff.” He slipped it off her shoulders. “Jackie,” he said, grinning at her, “you’ve been keeping things from me.”

  She laughed as he undid her bra. “Pete,” she said, trying to hold on to her bra. He was having none of that.

  “Goodness,” he said, his tone admiring, “come to daddy.” And then his mouth was on her breasts, and Jackie forgot to be embarrassed about the size of them. Her dress seemed to melt off her, and Jackie clutched Pete to her, pulling off his shirt, shoving his jeans down, craving his warmth.

  “Hi, boys,” he said to her stomach, kissing the whole rounded size of it, and the last worry Jackie had floated away. “If they’re napping,” he told Jackie, “I’m about to wake them up.”

  “Pete!” Jackie tried not to laugh, but his playful spirit washed away her insecurities. All she wanted was him. “We don’t know that we’re having twins.”

  “It’s either that, sweetie, or a linebacker. Or you swallowed several pumpkins.” He kissed her stomach again. “I’m going to have to turn you around so I don’t hurt you.”

  “Why?” Jackie put her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her so she could kiss him. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

  “I don’t want to jostle them.”

  “Let’s find out if they like being jostled.”

  “I don’t know,” Pete said, “you were hiding a lot under those baggy clothes, Jackie. I don’t want to press my boys flat as pancakes.”

  “Either you get inside me right now,” Jackie said, “or there will be hell to pay.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, sliding between her legs. And then he was inside her, and Jackie gasped as he kissed her hard, driving her mad with feeling him again.

  He only hesitated once. “Am I hurting anything?”

  “For the love of Mike,” Jackie said, practically growling, wanting him never to stop doing what he was doing to her.

  “Pete,” he said, “I prefer for the love of Pete.” And then he found the sweet spot, and Jackie forgot to be mad. Closing her eyes, she let the sweet waves of pleasure claim her, going boneless and mindless and utterly content to be in Pete’s strong arms. She felt him stiffen, heard him cry out, and holding him close to her, finally allowed the pleasure she’d held back to wash over her like rain.

  “Pete,” she murmured, “I missed you.”

  “Say it,” he said, rising above her, still inside her, “go ahead and say you can’t live without me.”

  She slapped his rump smartly. “I can’t live without you.”

  “Good,” he said, groaning, “because I’m pretty certain I can’t live without you, either. I don’t get munchies like my brothers. I get the Jackies, and I just have to have you.”

  She giggled as he buried his face in her neck, nibbling on her. It was so hard to be mad at Pete that it wasn’t worth the effort.

  I just love him too much. And I don’t know how to fix that.

  A HALF HOUR LATER, Pete realized he’d fallen asleep. “Oh, hell,” he said, pushing himself up on an elbow so he could look down into Jackie’s face, “I think I short-circuited.” He kissed her to make up for the lack of pillow talk.

  Jackie giggled. “You have been acting strange lately.”

  “It’s sympathetic pregnancy pangs. They’re blowing all my fuses. Are you hungry?” God, he was a louse. He shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that. All his good intentions flew out of his brain when he got in Jackie’s bed. He didn’t think he needed food, even. He could probably just live on sex with Jackie for the rest of his life. “Starving.”

  “I’ll get the steaks on.” He hopped up, grabbing for his jeans.

  “Pete?”

  He turned to look at Jackie. “Uh-huh?”

  “About that other position you mentioned we might try.”

  Had he hurt her? He felt his heart rate jump. He’d never touch her again—at least not until his little guys were born—if he’d caused her the slightest bit of pain. “What about it?”

  She crooked her finger at him.

  “Oh, boy,” Pete said, throwing his jeans back on the flo
or.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Forty minutes later, Pete knew he was wearing a very self-satisfied smirk. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  Jackie giggled. “Naked?”

  “Once a month. Let’s go back to our old routine, at least.” Pete wondered how he could convince her that they needed to meet like this every night—married. “We have to buy a bigger house.”

  “We have to buy a bigger house?”

  “Mmm.” He kissed down her neck to her collarbone, lingering at the spectacular view. Pregnancy certainly brought out the best in his turtledove. “Now that the whole town knows we’ve been living in sin, we might as well go ahead and do it.”

  “The whole town doesn’t know it.”

  He grinned, running a palm over her tummy. “Even if you hadn’t branded me in the middle of the street today, my love, I think they suspected. It’s time you make an honest man of me.”

  Jackie tried to roll out of her bed, but he caught her and brought her back, sneaking a hand between her thighs. He heard her breath catch, and grinned. “Say yes.”

  “To what?”

  She sounded like she might be relaxing to the point of mindless, so he decided to press his advantage. “To the bigger house, for starters.”

  “Pete,” she said, moving away from his hand and pushing him down on the bed so that she straddled him. He grinned at her serious expression. She was going to try to read him the riot act, and it was so cute when she tried to do it naked. It took all the seriousness right out of it. He could feel her warmth and wetness on his stomach, and if she only but knew it, his soldier was standing at attention right behind her. Waiting patiently for her to finish.

  “If I’m having one baby, and that’s what I think, there is no need for me to move. This house is plenty big enough. And I never said I’d share a house with you.”

  “This is a two-bedroom, one-bath house. We need a bigger house, Jackie, one that’s far out in the country. You yell loudly when you’re aroused.” He kissed her fingertips, nibbling at them and then up her wrist. “You came so loudly Fanny ran under the bed. She may never come back out.”

  Jackie took her hand from him and crossed her arms, which did nothing but stiffen parts of him that were already at attention. He put his hands behind his head, enjoying the delicious sight of rounded, nude Jackie.

  “I did no such thing. I made barely any noise.”

  “My sweet.” He gave her a mock-ashamed look. “You’re so loud that the chandelier is still swinging in the living room. I think the house moved on its foundation.”

  He lifted her hips and sat her on himself, grinning at her gasp. He reached up to tweak her nipples as she moved on him, enjoying watching her find the spots that pleasured her. But then she leaned over, and her breasts fell into his face so he could lick and suck on her nipples, and all Pete could think of was how much he loved Jackie Samuels, no matter how hard she tried to run away from him.

  He was fast. He’d catch her yet.

  “I ADVISE COMPLETE BED REST,” Dr. Snead said on Monday, turning to glance at Jackie and Pete.

  Pete didn’t think Jackie on complete bed rest sounded all that bad. Bed was exactly where he wanted her. But Jackie looked concerned, so Pete said, “Is there a problem with the pregnancy?”

  Pete had driven Jackie to Santa Fe Monday morning after the longest weekend of lovemaking he’d ever enjoyed. He thought he just about had her under his spell. Things were looking positive, anyway, since she used to shoo him off on Sundays and not open the door again until the next Saturday.

  He looked at the screen the doctor had returned his attention to, and held Jackie’s hand. She was squeezing him until his fingers were numb, and he squeezed back, letting her know that everything was going to be fine.

  “No problem,” Dr. Snead said. “It’s just that the three babies are taking up a lot of space inside Jackie. And she’s already mentioned having spasms. We need to keep the babies in as long as we possibly can.”

  The room swam around Pete. Now he was clutching Jackie’s hand. The nurse pushed a stool underneath him. “Three?”

  Dr. Snead nodded. “Three heartbeats. Three well-established babies. It’s hard to make out the different bodies because they seem to be tangled up in there. But here’s an arm.”

  Pete brightened. “Can you tell the sex?”

  “Girls,” Doctor Snead said. “It’ll be clearer later on, but unless someone’s got a thumb down there I can’t see, you’re having three girls, Jackie.”

  Jackie’s face was ashen. Pete rubbed her hand in his. “I always knew you were an efficient woman, Jackie. We’re going to have an entire family.”

  “I never even thought I could get pregnant,” Jackie said, sounding close to tears. But she was smiling, and Pete realized she was pretty much in shock. “But I can’t be on bed rest,” she told Doctor Snead. “I have a shop to run.”

  “Get a recliner and a portable phone,” the doctor said. “I’ll send a nurse out once a week to check on you. And I suggest you, Mr. Callahan, learn how to cook and clean.”

  Pete grinned at Jackie, his face creased with mischievous laughter. “I can cook and clean, Doctor.”

  “And I’m afraid no marital relations,” Dr. Snead said.

  Pete patted Jackie’s hand. “There goes your plan of driving me mad with sex, sweetheart. You’ll have to do without the pleasure of me until after the children are born.”

  Jackie looked as though she had plenty to say but was refraining until the doctor and nurse had left the room. Pete was so happy he couldn’t stand it.

  He was having three little girls. All those squiggles and lines he couldn’t make sense of on the screen were three little Callahan cowgirls.

  After having nothing but brothers, he was looking forward to being the only man in the house.

  “Jackie,” Pete said, “it’ll be hard on me to wait on you hand and foot, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for the cause.”

  She looked as though she was about to kill him as he helped her up from the table. “What cause is that?”

  “You, darling,” he said. “You’re my new cause in life.”

  “Great,” Jackie said. “I’ll only be half insane by this time next month. By the time the babies are born, I’ll be stark raving mad.”

  “I’ve got to buy a baby name book. And a house. And baby furniture. Have you even been thinking about all this, Jackie Samuels, or has your mind only been on your new business?” Pete gave her a light pat on the rump as she bent over to slip her shoes on.

  “Ugh. The next several months stretch before me endlessly.” Jackie let Pete give her his arm.

  “Just because you can’t have sex with me,” he said. “Good thing you had a lot of me this weekend.”

  Jackie sighed and Pete grinned. “We have to get married. We don’t have a second to wait. You’re not going to want to get married in a recliner, Jackie. Let’s let the romance of Santa Fe lure us in to just doing it. Spontaneously.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Pete, I can’t.”

  “We’ll redo the vows later, if you want, after the babies are born and you’ve got your figure back. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? Your sexy little body fitting into a wedding gown?”

  “No,” she said, and he could practically hear her teeth grinding. “I just found out I’m having triplets. And I’m in love with a numbskull. That’s what is worrying me.” She sailed off toward the truck, and Pete followed, happier than he’d ever been in his life.

  She’d said she loved him. Maybe that had just slipped out from between her pretty little tightly clenched teeth, but he’d heard her. And he wasn’t going to let her forget it, either.

  Whistling, he followed her, feeling like a king. It was a beautiful day in Santa Fe, and he was going to be a dad—he was a dad—and he had a woman who loved him. All was well until he realized Jackie was raining tears like a leaky faucet.

  “What is it? Ar
e you in pain?” He leaned across the seat to look into her face.

  She shook her face and blew her nose. “I wanted change. Have I ever gotten change.”

  “Yes, we have. Isn’t change awesome?” He wanted her to cease the waterworks, though. He didn’t want his little girls getting scared by all the noise their mother was making. “Change is good, right?”

  “Change is great, but too much change is scaring me.”

  He pondered that. “Will it help if I tell you I have a surprise for you?”

  She looked up at him through beautiful, watery brown eyes. His love had such limpid pools of suspicion beaming at him that all he could do was smile at her. “You look like I’m about to give you a vacuum cleaner.”

  “Not if you want to keep your handsome face on your block-shaped head.” She sniffed.

  He laughed. “Here.” Reaching into the backseat of the double cab, he handed her a bag from her own wedding shop. “Be very careful how you open it, my love. My heart is in that bag.”

  She stared at him, more cautious than ever, and slowly pulled his gift from the bag.

  “The magic wedding dress,” she said, her voice awed, and Pete grinned.

  “Darla said it was your dream come true. So I sneaked off with it.” Pete kissed Jackie, and swept her hair back from her chin so he could see her face. He hoped to see a smile.

  Instead, Jackie cried harder.

  “Oh, crap,” Pete said, “I knew I didn’t believe in magic.”

  “No,” Jackie said, trying not to cry, “it’s sweet. You’re sweet. It is my dream come true. I’m just not sure I’ll ever fit into it now.” Tears ran freely down her cheeks. Pete dug into the glove box for tissues. “I hate being all hormonal and emotional, especially when you’re being so romantic and princely.”

  “You might fit into it if we hurry,” Pete said, trying to tease her but really meaning it. “There’s a chance you’ll only grow another inch by the time we make it to a drive-through wedding chapel.”