HER CALLAHAN FAMILY MAN

by Tina Leonard

  “Running Bear says Wolf was always different. That of his three sons, that one was a bad apple. The other two understood service and the spirit of a life bigger than themselves. They understood they were strong and blessed, and they could share those gifts with others.” Ash shrugged. “Wolf, Grandfather said, was stubborn and jealous from early on. No matter how he tried to help his son, he couldn’t get him to understand that the spirit inside is the real treasure. That a person can nourish their soul with good, or succumb to the darkness of negativity and envy. Wolf wanted things to be easier than they could be.”

  Jace grunted. “I’m going to be an excellent father to Jason and Ashley.”

  Ash perked up. “Ashley?”

  “Yes.” He grinned at her hopeful look. “That was Sawyer’s choice. She wanted to name our little girl after you.”

  A grin split Ash’s face. “I always knew I liked Sawyer!”

  He laughed at his sister’s change of tune. “I like her, too. I’d better go see if I can convince her that she likes me back.”

  “Yes, you should. You were pretty hard on her, you know,” Ash said, heading inside the house. “I’m going to go tell everyone that I have a namesake. It’s called bragging, and I have it coming to me.”

  “Ash.”

  She turned around at his call. “Yes?”

  “Don’t confront any more trespassers in the canyons by yourself.”

  She raised a brow. “Brother, I’m never alone.”

  “You were by yourself. Something could have happened.” He hated to think of his little sister alone in the canyons. “You’re not even supposed to be out there by yourself, as you know. Galen’s orders.”

  “Galen is wonderful about throwing orders around, as are you.” Ash blew him a kiss. “No worries, brother. Like I said, I’m never alone.”

  She went inside, and Jace sighed. “She doesn’t listen,” he muttered. “It’s like talking to the wind.”

  He hoped Sawyer would listen better.

  * * *

  TO JACE’S DISMAY, Sawyer was being trundled off by an EMT when he returned to the house next door. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded, fear leaping inside him.

  “Her blood pressure is high, and her vital signs worry me. She’s cramping again,” the visiting nurse informed him.

  He knew Sally Clausen. He’d met her at some of Fiona’s Books’n’Bingo soirees and charity functions. Sally was gray-haired, practical and thorough. If she’d reported her concerns to the doctor and had been told to send Sawyer to the hospital, something was dreadfully wrong.

  He strode to Sawyer’s side. “What can I do for you, babe?”

  She was so pale, lying there on the gurney. “I don’t know. The cramps came back after you left. Fortunately, Sally was scheduled to come by and check on me.” Sawyer’s blue eyes stared up at him. “I’m so scared, Jace.”

  He understood. He was terrified. “You’re going to be fine. The babies are going to be fine.” This was his fault, of course. He’d upset her, raised her blood pressure, when she was supposed to be resting.

  What a crappy husband he was turning out to be.

  “I’ll ride with you.”

  Sawyer barely nodded. “Thank you.”

  He texted Ash. Follow me over to the hospital with a truck.

  Instantly, his phone buzzed back. Are we having babies today? read her text.

  He hoped not. The babies needed more time. He swallowed hard and followed the EMTs as they took Sawyer to the ambulance. He got in, held her hand and told himself everything was going to be just fine.

  Somehow.

  Chapter Eleven

  “My poor brother!” Ash rushed into the hospital thirty minutes later, hugging Jace when she found him in the waiting room. They wouldn’t allow him to go back to see his wife—not yet.

  Apparently, Sawyer had told the doctor she wanted to be alone for now.

  He couldn’t blame her—but he was dying inside.

  “I’ll be all right.”

  Ash’s eyes were wide. “It was bad juju to ask about her uncle.”

  “Ash, it wasn’t bad juju. It’s just going to be a tough pregnancy for her, I suppose. It will all work out.” He hugged his sister tighter, trying to alleviate her worries.

  “You don’t have a nursery set up.”

  “This is true. If the babies come early, we’ll be in a bit of a hurry to get things done. But we’ll do it.” He wasn’t really worried about that, though. They had enough family around with cribs and baby paraphernalia they could borrow.

  The thing was, he and Sawyer didn’t have a home for them and their family.

  “Where will you live?” Ash asked.

  “That’s a question for another day.” He swallowed hard, wondering how he could talk Sawyer into living with him.

  Ash slumped in a chair. “I feel so guilty.”

  “That’s not like you.” He sat next to her. “No negative vibes.”

  “It’s not doing me much good,” she admitted. “I’m never having children.”

  He laughed out loud. “Ash, you’ll have children. And no doubt they’ll be the toughest kids around. They’ll be born untamed, like their mother.”

  “I think I’d make a better aunt than a mother. And besides, my children would be plenty tame. They’re not going to live like we did,” she said, her voice turning a bit dreamy. “If I had children, they’d have ballet lessons.”

  “Even the boys?” he teased.

  “If they want,” she said. “And my girls will have long, silky hair that I put lots of bows in.” She ran her fingers through her hair, which had grown from a short boy cut convenient for military life to a shoulder-length fall of silvery-blond strands. “And they would always have a store-bought birthday cake. Unless Fiona’s around to make it. I’m no good with baking.”

  He listened to his sister’s dreams, letting her voice soothe him, keep his mind off what was happening with Sawyer. His gut wouldn’t unknot. He’d never been this scared in his life, not when he was deployed, not even when their parents had gone away.

  That had been a terrible day. But just like Ash, he had dreams for his children.

  He dreamed that his two babies would live in a house with their mother and father, who would never have to leave. They’d always be together, a family.

  Those were his dreams.

  * * *

  “IT HAD NOTHING to do with you, Jace.” Sawyer hated the fearful look on her husband’s face. After the doctor had ordered extra medication for her, she’d allowed Jace to join her. The nurse had said he was like a caged panther in the waiting room, and Sawyer had taken pity on him. “I guess I have a small frame. There’s not much room. Or it’s just my body’s reactions. But I wasn’t stressed about you and Ash asking me those questions. Irritated, but not stressed.”

  “Let’s not talk about that anymore.” He paced around the room, unable to relax. “You just rest.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, too keyed up to relax. The whole incident had been so frightening.

  Sawyer opened her eyes again. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to carry to term. Not even until April.”

  “I’ll hire on extra help. I don’t want you to lift a pinkie.” Jace sat on the bed next to her and took her hand. “If you could have anything on the planet that would make your pregnancy easier and better, what would it be? I want you to have everything you need.”

  She looked at her husband. That was an easy answer. She wanted him. But if she said that, Jace would say she had him.

  Yet she didn’t, not really. And she knew that. No relationship could survive the way theirs had begun, with all the trouble that had followed their impetuous wedding.

  “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for yo
u,” he promised. He put a hand on her tummy, smiled when he felt the babies jostling for space. “Clearly, they’re not fazed by the day’s events.”

  “They’re always active. They use my body as a trampoline.”

  “You’re beautiful,” Jace told her, sweeping her hair away from her face and kissing her lips. “I know you probably don’t want me kissing you. I know you think I’m the world’s biggest louse, or a traitor, or something.”

  “Not the world’s biggest louse.” She smiled, but he didn’t smile back.

  “We’ve got to have a home, babe.”

  She blinked. “I can’t think about that right now.”

  “I know you can’t. Let me think about it for you.”

  Suddenly, she liked the idea of Jace making the decisions—anybody making the decisions. It wasn’t in her to be passive, but she suddenly felt so tired. Too tired even to hold him on the opposite side of the fence she tried to keep up between them. “We’ll never be safe, wherever we go. It’s never going to feel like a real home.”

  His hand tightened on hers.

  “The thing is,” she said softly, “we’d probably be better off with a divide-and-conquer strategy. Then the babies would be safer.”

  “Divide and conquer?” He sounded doubtful.

  “Yes. We could have two houses, so no one can monitor the children easily. We won’t keep to a steady routine that could be noticed.”

  “Don’t think about it, Sawyer.”

  She looked at him. “My uncle became afraid of your uncle, Jace. He said he threatened him. How can I not think about my children being a kidnapping threat when it’s happened in your family before?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I’ll place a bodyguard outside your room.”

  “Oh, I’m not scared,” Sawyer said. “Not now. I’m big as a house. I couldn’t be moved unless someone brings a van and a pulley.”

  He smiled. “I’m going to lie next to my wife and scandalize the nurses.”

  She wriggled over. “There really isn’t much scooting I can do. I’m almost bigger than the bed.”

  “Bet I can find some room.”

  She giggled when he squeezed up next to her, put a comforting hand over her stomach. “That feels wonderful,” she said, sighing.

  “That’s right. Just call me Wonderful Callahan. Now go to sleep. As soon as the doctor springs you, I’m taking you back to Rancho Diablo. And you’re not getting out of my sight again, little fireball of a wife.”

  “Hardly little.”

  “You’re sassy and fun-sized in my book. I find the extra curves enticing. In fact, it’s killing me not to explore them.”

  He was trying to make her feel better, and for that, he was a hero. There was nothing sexy or “fun-sized” about her now, but it was sweet of him to say so.

  Sawyer rested her head on Jace’s shoulder and tried not to think about the fact that Wolf had called her today. Right after that awful conversation with him, she’d begun cramping. Had felt terrible. Fear such as she’d never known had sliced into her.

  Wolf had told her she was going to be sorry she’d ever worked for the Callahans, married one, was having Callahan children. He’d spent years making the Callahan parents disappear, and he could do that with her and her children, too.

  Unless she told him everything she knew about the Callahans.

  He’d even silkily threatened Uncle Storm and Lu, making sure she understood just how much was riding on her decision.

  She shivered, and Jace held her tighter.

  “What’s wrong? Is it the babies?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing. I was cold, but now I’m not.”

  His arms felt good, wrapped around her. Right now she could believe that she was safe, and that her children were safe.

  Just for tonight, she’d let herself cling to that dream.

  * * *

  JACE’S WORLD TURNED upside down when Sawyer insisted on being moved to a small duplex in town, conveniently located next to the main street of Diablo, not much more than a block from Sheriff Cartwright’s jail and the courthouse. The other side of the duplex was rented by Storm and Lu.

  Apparently, the three of them had been in cahoots. Jace sensed that a plan had been forged, one that didn’t include him.

  He realized he wasn’t far off when his wife told him he wasn’t moving in with her.

  “Yes, I am,” Jace said. “Where you and my children go, I am. Pretty much like your shadow.”

  “No, Jace.” Ensconced on a pretty floral sofa Lu had ordered for her while Sawyer was at the hospital, she gave him a look that didn’t seem exactly welcoming. “I need to be alone.”

  “Being alone is the last thing you need.” He frowned and went to perch on the edge of the sofa, so he could read her eyes as she talked. He could feel her trying to put distance between them, but he was a master at putting distance between himself and things that made him uncomfortable, so he knew exactly what his little fireball was up to. “It’s no good. I’m staying right here in this tiny domicile with you.” He glanced around. “The four of us will be nice and cozy.”

  “Jace, listen to me.” Sawyer took a deep breath, holding her hand against her stomach for a moment. “You need to be at the ranch. I need to be closer in town, where Sally doesn’t have to drive out so far to check my vitals and give me my drip. I’m absolutely determined to do this exactly by doctor’s orders, and by being here, I’m nearer to everything.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll drive in.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  He looked at his stubborn wife. “What is going on with you, beautiful?”

  “Exactly what I told you. It’s better for me to be in town.”

  He got up, looked out the window. “Are you renting this place, or did you buy it?”

  “You’d have to ask Uncle Storm. He took care of everything. I just told him I wanted to live in town. He and Lu decided it was best if I had family staying with me, and this duplex keeps us close, yet with privacy, according to him.”

  “I’m your family,” Jace said, an uncomfortable prickle teasing his senses. He couldn’t say that Sawyer had ever been an enthusiastic bride—he’d practically had to drag her to Vegas—but he began to wonder if she planned on keeping him as far away from her and the babies as possible. “I’m your family, and I can care for my wife just fine. Although Lu and Storm are always welcome, I plan on taking very good care of you.”

  “That’s nice,” she said, her tone careful, “except I don’t want that, Jace.”

  She hadn’t protested his presence when she’d been at the hospital. He combed his mind for anything that might have happened between then and now, only a few days later. “Look, I know you’re worried—”

  “Yes, and having time to myself is the best way for me to relax.” She looked at him. “I’m going to live alone.”

  “It’s Wolf, isn’t it?” Jace asked, hit by a sudden thought. “You’re afraid to stay at the ranch or Storm’s. If you’re here in town, you think you’re safer. You’re practically within shouting distance of Sheriff Cartwright’s office.”

  She looked away. “I’m a little tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

  She was shutting him out. He could feel her withdrawal from him so clearly. “It doesn’t feel honest,” he said, leaning against a wall.

  Sawyer looked up at him warily. “What doesn’t feel honest?”

  “You trying to run me off, when you spent so many months—more than a year, if we want to get technical—chasing me.” He crossed his arms, stared at his wife, a little amused. “It’s dishonest.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” She sent him a glare to show him she wasn’t sorry at all, but he wasn’t buying any of her story.

  Yet he didn’
t want to push her, not when she was home from the hospital after a scare. Whatever was bugging his little wife would have to wait. Jace studied her, thinking how pretty she looked in a rose-colored maternity dress, snuggled on the floral sofa with a soft white throw across her lap. She looked like a princess—even though she said she was as big as a house.

  Something didn’t make sense. “I’m going to go. I need to get back because I’m riding canyon tonight, but—”

  “Canyon!” Sawyer stared at him. “You have canyon duty?”

  He shrugged. “We all take turns doing it. All seven of us, and Xav Phillips when he’s around, keep an eye on what’s going on over there, especially now that the new land purchase is pretty overrun with strangers and law enforcement.” Jace looked at his wife curiously. “Why?”

  “It just surprises me.”

  “You know Wolf’s been trying to get onto the ranch for a long time. We’re making sure that Rancho Diablo stays secure, but it’s not easy now that there are reporters and Feds everywhere. We’re constantly looking to make certain that none of Wolf’s people manage to sneak onto Rancho Diablo under the guise that they’re with the law or reporters.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past them to try.”

  “I really wish you didn’t have to do canyon duty.” Sawyer looked out the window, to all appearances unperturbed. Yet he sensed she wasn’t as casual as she appeared. “Maybe Ash could go with you.”

  “Ash is hanging out with Fiona and Burke. They wouldn’t like to think that they’re part of the coverage, but we all agree Fiona’s always going to be a target. She’s pretty much the proverbial rock in Wolf’s boot.”

  Sawyer didn’t look at him. Jace was having trouble reading her. “I’ll text you later, check in on you.”

  “Not if you’re in the canyons. You won’t have cell service.” She finally looked up at him. “Trade off with one of your brothers tonight, Jace.”

  “Why?” He was completely surprised by her request.

  “The canyons are dangerous.”

  “No more than the rest of Rancho Diablo.” He opened the front door. “I’ll text you in the morning. I don’t want to call in case you’re asleep.”