by Tina Leonard
“It’s okay,” Jace said. “I can feel you thinking about it, but let it go, Sawyer. Nothing matters but the fact that we’re safe, we’re together.”
She snuggled up against him, grateful that he was there, that she wasn’t walking this road alone. “I’m glad you’re with me.”
“That’s right,” he murmured, nearly asleep. “Tell me I’m your Prince Charming.”
“You could say that,” she said, kissing him. “It’s most likely true.”
“I know. But it’s more fun when you admit it,” he murmured. “Now go to sleep, angel mama.”
“If I was an angel, you wouldn’t have gotten shot because of me.”
“Trust me, you’re an angel. It’s not your fault my uncle shot me. Wolf’s been trying to pick one of us off for a long time. I don’t know that him shooting me was payback for the little zap you gave him.” Jace kissed her hand. “I do know you’re the only woman for me. Now go to sleep.”
“Jace?”
“Hmm?”
“When you showed up with your truck, it really did feel like you were my Prince Charming. Fairy-tale ride-off-into-the-sunset and all that. I was so happy to see you.”
“Good princes have plans. And I planned on being your Prince Charming.”
She giggled, and he held her close, and for the moment, Sawyer felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
* * *
IN THE NIGHT, when the babies awakened for their feeding, Jace helped Sawyer diaper them, then rock them back to sleep. These were the moments she’d been missing, had been so afraid might never happen. She loved seeing her big strong husband hold Ashley and Jason.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her. “There’s nothing more beautiful to a man than watching a woman take care of his children.”
She smiled. “I was just thinking pretty much the same thing about you. I was so worried we’d never be together.”
“Nothing to worry about anymore.”
His mobile phone rang, and they looked at each other. “An odd hour for someone to get in touch,” Sawyer said. A call at 2:00 a.m. seemed like a bad omen, but she didn’t voice her worry aloud.
Jace grabbed his phone off the nightstand. “Ash? What’s going on?”
Sawyer put the babies gently back onto their pallets to sleep, and laid blankets over them. She rubbed their backs as Jace went outside to talk.
He came back in, began putting on his boots.
“What’s happening?” Sawyer asked fearfully.
“We’re going back home.”
“To Rancho Diablo? What’s happened?”
Jace walked around the room a couple times, stared down at his babies. Looked at Sawyer, seeming undecided. She held her breath, waited.
“Fiona’s had a heart attack.” His aunt needed him, needed all of them. “All I know is that right now, we belong at Rancho Diablo.”
Family meant strength, and no one had given them more strength than Fiona.
Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t want anybody fussing over me,” Fiona announced loudly to anyone within earshot, particularly medical personnel, and Jace thought his aunt had never been more stubborn.
“And I especially want to know why you’re back here, when you’re supposed to be in hiding,” she said, the last two words directed at him softly, urgently. “What do you not understand about your present circumstances? It wasn’t that long ago that you were in this hospital, in worse shape than me.”
He sat down next to his aunt, took her hand in his. “Sawyer said family’s all that matters. She said I should be here with you.”
“Doesn’t mean you had to bring her and the children back, too. We went through a lot of planning to get that mission just right.” She sniffed. “You don’t want to give me any peace in my old age? First you get shot and now you’re here.”
He knew he shouldn’t have brought Sawyer and the babies right back into the jaws of danger. He remembered the knife in the wedding cake, and every other warning Wolf and his men had sent his way. But he couldn’t leave Sawyer alone with the babies in an unfamiliar place—and Sawyer had told him if he tried to leave her, she’d follow him back in a taxi and run up such a bill on him he’d be paying for it until the next Christmas ball. Sawyer had also reminded him in no uncertain terms that she’d emptied her bank account to win him, and now that she had him, she wasn’t sending him into Wolf’s clutches without backup.
Which she considered herself to be.
Jace smiled at Fiona’s grumbling and rubbed her hand. “So how’s the ticker?”
“Better now that you’re here,” she said begrudgingly. “Family makes me strong. You are my greatest weakness.”
“It’s not a weakness,” he said fondly. “We’ll get you back on your feet, and then you can shoo us off again.”
“I don’t think it’ll work,” Fiona said. “Your parents stayed away. I also got my sister, Molly, and Jeremiah safely off. But my luck broke down with you, and I sense you’re probably here to stay under my feet for good.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could be,” Fiona said, closing her eyes. “Frankly, I think you took my heart with you and that’s why it broke. That’s probably the meds talking, though.”
“The doctors say you didn’t actually have a heart attack, more like a cardiac event that could have been triggered by some of your other meds. Nothing that will keep you off the ranch more than a couple of days. You’re strong as an ox, Fiona.”
“Stronger,” she said, her voice suddenly light and tired, and Jace sat rubbing her fingers until she fell asleep.
Fiona had a point, though. Sawyer and the babies shouldn’t be here. The thing was, he was pretty certain if he sent his wife and babies away, he’d end up like Fiona, with a badly broken heart.
* * *
JACE WALKED INTO the kitchen at Rancho Diablo, astonished to see his sister holding little Ashley and Galen holding Jason. “What are they doing here?” He took his daughter from Ash, who protested, then kissed her namesake on the cheek. “I thought I left my family at the duplex.”
“Through the wonders of automation,” Galen said, “they ended up here when their mother drove them to the ranch.”
“And where is my beautiful wife?” Jace asked.
“Cleaning out the far foreman’s bungalow,” Ash said. “Don’t worry, I sent help with her. But a woman has to put her house together the way she wants it to be, or it never feels like home, you know.”
This wasn’t good. Jace stared at his sister. “You don’t mean the foreman’s bungalow near the canyons?”
Ash nodded. “That was the one Sawyer chose. She said she liked the way the sun rose over the canyons there.”
It was also closest to Wolf and the tunnels and everything bad Jace didn’t want around her and his family. He handed Ashley back to her aunt. “Could you watch them for another thirty minutes? I need to speak to Sawyer.”
“Sure. No problem.” Ash greedily took her niece back in her arms, and Jace went out the door, jumping in his truck and speeding off to the bungalow like a madman.
He burst into the house, startling Mavis, Corinne and Nadine.
“Mercy!” Corinne exclaimed. “Do that again and we’ll all end up in the hospital with Fiona!”
“Very sorry, ladies.” He gave them his most apologetic smile and looked around for his wife. “Where’s Sawyer?”
“She went back to the main house,” Mavis said. “Didn’t you pass her?”
He looked around the bungalow, amazed by how fresh and homey everything looked. “You ladies have made this place look better than it ever has.”
“Oh, we just helped Sawyer put up curtains and the like,” Nadine said. “She called into town for what she wanted, while you were with
Fiona.”
“Go see the nursery,” Corinne said, her tone gleeful. “Sawyer said she’d had a long time to think about how she wanted the nursery to look, and we think it’s perfect!”
He went down the hall, his heart sinking. Sawyer didn’t understand—they weren’t staying here. Once Fiona turned the corner, they’d go back on the road. He shouldn’t have brought his wife and the children home, but he’d wanted them with him, couldn’t have borne to leave them alone in a strange place where they didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the town.
Although he knew Sawyer well enough to believe she would have done just fine.
He walked into the nursery, his pulse hitching briefly as he saw Sawyer’s dreams for their children expressed in the amazing decor. It looked like a real home, a place where children would be happy and secure in their world.
They would have nothing like this in hiding, and his heart broke a little. For the first time, he understood why his parents had chosen to leave them with Running Bear, among the tribe.
Because they’d wanted this—stability and comfort and continuity—for their children. Tears welled in his eyes as he recognized the full weight of their heartbreak.
He felt as if he stood at an intersection, with each road heading a different way, and he had to choose the right path for his family. Jace looked at the pink and blue painted signs, one reading Ashley and one Jason. He took in the plaid valances that hung over the white cribs, which had pink sheets for Ashley, blue for Jason, with knitted baby blankets to match. A portrait of black mustangs hung on the back wall, along with pictures of the babies and one of him and Sawyer. A photo of all the Chacon Callahans stood on the dresser. Each crib had a mobile with dainty stuffed animals hanging above it: puppies, kittens, giraffes and bunnies that danced when he touched them.
It was a room for babies to start out in, get their footing in life. And suddenly, he realized Sawyer had no plans on going anywhere.
She’d finally found her home.
* * *
SAWYER WENT INTO the attic at Rancho Diablo, sent by Fiona, because, as Jace’s “redoubtable aunt” said, her curiosity was killing her. So Sawyer went, slowly going up the fabled staircase to find the treasured wedding gown she never thought she’d wear.
But Fiona said she’d feel better—enormously better—if Sawyer tried it on. Sawyer had assured her that she was happily married, and there was no need for her to do so. At which point Fiona had said that only one Callahan bride hadn’t tried on the wedding gown, and that was a special occasion upon which no magic was needed.
“But you,” she’d told Sawyer over the phone, “could use a giant dose of magical assistance.”
So here I am, Sawyer thought. In the attic where all the magic gets stored for loading up the magic wand when necessary.
It must be necessary if Fiona’s sent me here.
She turned on the light and went to the closet, opening the door slowly. Just as Fiona had instructed, a billowy white bag hung there, the contents of which could only be the Callahan dress of dreams. Sawyer undid the zipper apprehensively, reminding herself that she was married with children, and no magic was needed.
Except that Fiona seemed to think Sawyer could use a sparkly dose of fairy dust. She opened the bag and drew out a lovely gown that seemed to shimmer as she held it against her. In the reflection from the cheval mirror, the dress glowed, inviting her to try it on.
What could it hurt? She’d be making Jace’s aunt happy when she most needed to be. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sawyer mumbled. “It’s just a dress, no different than if Fiona had asked me to run down to the store and try on a pair of jeans. She’s not asking that much.”
So she pulled off her clothes and stepped into the dress, drawing the twinkling bodice up, sliding her arms through the lovely lace sleeves.
The gown seemed to zip itself up, encasing her in a magical whisper of fairy-tale romance.
She’d never felt so beautiful, so at peace within herself. So Callahan.
Somehow she felt all the misgivings and worries slide away, never to return.
Jace walked in, put his hands on her waist. “You look beautiful, babe, but you always are to me.”
She smiled. She’d expected the vision; all the Callahan brides talked about them. Those were just tales they told each other, surely. Still, she felt Jace’s warmth and the strength of his hands holding her, and was amazed by how real the vision seemed.
“As beautiful as you are right now,” he said, kissing her shoulder, “I never thought you were more beautiful than when you had our children.”
“Jace,” she murmured, touched.
“It’s true. I’d always heard motherhood made a woman glow with inner beauty, but I fell in love with you even more the day I saw you pregnant. Which was the first day you came back.” He turned her and kissed her gently. Sawyer was shocked by how a vision could smell as delicious as her husband did in her arms, feel the way her husband felt when he held her. If this was a dream, she needed to wake up soon, or she was going to end up like the other Callahan brides, chattering and giggling over her own special “vision.”
“The best part is we’re together forever,” Jace said. “I knew that when I saw the nursery at the bungalow. You’re not hitting the road. You’re not going into hiding.”
“No,” Sawyer murmured. “I belong here, just as much as you do.”
He smiled, sexy and handsome. “I’ve waited a long time to hear you say that, babe.”
“It’s true. Wherever you are, that’s my home. I love you, Jace.”
Happiness lit his eyes, and Sawyer expected him to disappear, to evanesce with the fading light that was streaming in the windows. But he stayed strong in her arms, holding her, his touch warm and strong. And magical.
Because it was magic. And no matter how hard the road had been, no matter how hard it would be in the future, they were together.
Forever.
“Can I help you out of this gown before it disappears?” Jace asked, kissing her again. “I’ve heard a rumor that it vanishes when the fancy takes it.”
Sawyer smiled. “I think that’s just a fairy tale, a Fiona legend.”
And maybe it was a legend. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had her Callahan.
And wasn’t that the stuff of dreams?
“Disappear, husband, so I can change,” she said, and Jace grinned.
“I’d offer to help, but I know you’d like to be alone to enjoy the bibbidi-bobbidi-boo awhile longer.” He kissed her again and headed down the attic stairs, and Sawyer turned back to the mirror, hardly able to believe the enchanting loveliness of the fabulous wedding dress.
To her surprise, the gown suddenly tightened, warmed a bit, then felt as if it was falling away. Sawyer stared at her image in the cheval mirror, absolutely stunned when the gown evanesced and reshaped itself into an entirely new garment.
She was wearing black leggings and a bulletproof vest, with a black, long-sleeved T-shirt overtop.
And that’s when she knew the fairy-tale happy ending wasn’t yet hers.
Chapter Eighteen
Reality brought Jace crashing to earth the next day when he paid a visit to Wolf. Jace didn’t tell Sawyer when he left. He knew she would either send a team along or insist on coming with him herself. Probably would have ripped up the magic wedding dress and burned it in a blazing bonfire in the canyons if he’d tried to leave her behind.
After seeing his wife wearing the splendid dress, he fully intended to allow her the magical moment of which all Callahan brides dreamed. He wouldn’t take that from her.
But first things first, and he had a bullet and a scarred lung to thank Wolf for—not to mention a warning to deliver, since Sawyer was absolutely determined to stay at Rancho Diablo with him and the babi
es. She said he was a family man, and that was what she loved most about him, and that he wouldn’t be happy living out of duffel bags and backpacks. That he was more the soccer coach and ballet recital kind of dad.
He loved her all the more for knowing him as well as she did.
“Wolf Chacon!” he yelled when he got to the stone and fire ring. Many moons ago Running Bear had brought all the siblings here to meet their Callahan cousins. He’d told them this was their home now, that they would hold Rancho Diablo in their hearts. Their parents’ mission had become theirs.
This was the perfect place to face his uncle. Jace figured that as soon as he’d left the ranch and ridden toward the canyons, his progress had been marked.
When his uncle appeared at the fire ring, Jace knew he’d been right.
“You want to see me?” Wolf demanded.
“Damn right I do.”
“Come for another bullet, nephew?”
Jace smiled grimly. “Where are your bodyguards? The minions who put knives in wedding cakes and do all your dirty work?”
Wolf laughed. “Don’t worry. They’re never far away.”
Jace thought about the secret passage in Rancho Diablo’s kitchen he’d never known about, the missing Diablos and the silver treasure, which was supposedly hidden on the ranch. He thought about the kindness and gentleness of the people of the town of Diablo, who were always willing to help, and he thought about his family, every last one of them committed to the heartbeat of Rancho Diablo.
“You really don’t understand, do you?” Jace said. “You can’t ever win, Wolf. You can’t possess Rancho Diablo. It’s a spirit, a spirit wind that can’t be held by anyone.”
“You’ve been listening to Running Bear’s nonsense far too long. Trust me, land is easily held. I won’t have any problem doing it.”
“You will,” Jace said. “You will because you don’t understand the land. To you it’s a thing that can be bought and sold, drained of its resources and life.”
“It’s called making money, son. If you hadn’t fallen for Running Bear’s fairy tales, you’d be making money instead of working for your cousins for nothing.”