The Cowboy's Triplets Read online

  Her nephews didn’t seem to share that opinion. They were more the type to fly the coop. Where had she gone wrong with them? Had she not been the best mother figure she knew how to be? And Burke…well, Burke had done as she’d asked. He’d remained a butler, not a stand-in father figure, which she thought the boys might have resented. They’d kept their marriage secret in order that the boys would always know that they were first priority for her, first in her heart. That she had done for her younger brother, Jeremiah, and his wife, Molly, a promise kept she’d never regretted.

  “Let’s renew our vows,” Burke said. “I ask you, my love, to marry me in front of the whole town. Your Books ’n’ Bingo ladies can be your bridesmaids.”

  Fiona stared. If Burke had suggested that the answer to their dilemma was for her to sprout wings and fly, she couldn’t have been more shocked. She’d be more likely to sprout angel’s wings because the man was about to give her heart failure.

  Burke looked so earnest, with his bright-blue eyes and ruddy cheeks framed by very un-butlerish longish white hair, that she didn’t dare stamp on his romantic tendencies, however much she felt that he wasn’t thinking about her problem very seriously.

  “Burke, we can’t do that. You know I promised Jeremiah and Molly that I would see their boys to adulthood.”

  “And you’ve done that admirably.” Burke smiled at her. “Sometimes I just sit and chuckle about how skillfully you’ve played your hand with those ruffians, Fiona.”

  “But they aren’t married. They have no children. And have you forgotten, most importantly, that Rancho Diablo is going to be sold?”

  This was the part that frightened her the most; the nightmare that kept her awake at night. She had failed Jeremiah. The castle of his dreams, the home where he and Molly had imagined raising their sons, wasn’t really hers to raffle off to the brothers as she’d claimed. “Burke, they simply have to focus on their lives.”

  “Fiona,” he said, getting up to lie on the bed with her, cradling her head to his chest, “they are concentrating on their lives.”

  “They’ll hate me for losing the ranch.”

  “No.”

  “In a year, when it’s all over, and the Callahan name is nothing but synonymous with a joke and pity—”

  “Fiona, you sell these boys short. Anyway, they’re not even boys anymore. They’re full-grown men. Why not just tell them the truth, instead of forcing them to find brides they may not want?”

  “And the secret at the bottom of the stairs?” She looked up at her husband. “What do we do about that? And about their parents? Do you suggest I tell them that Jeremiah and Molly are still alive as well?”

  Burke laid his pipe on the nightstand tray next to him and stroked his wife’s head. “You worry too much, Fiona. It will all work out.”

  He’d always said that. She wasn’t convinced this time. Rancho Diablo was in trouble. She could tell the brothers, see if they could raise enough money to somehow buy it back. Once they found out she’d put it up as a guarantee for a deal that had gone south, they might be able to do something. She probably owed it to them to tell them what had happened.

  She couldn’t. They couldn’t help, she knew. And Jonas already had his eye on another property due east of here. He said he wanted his own place. Sympathy was her last card—community sympathy against that evil Bode Jenkins, their neighbor, and the scurvy bounder who’d convinced his daughter, the Honorable Judge Julie Jenkins, to cast their ranch as payment for the deal she’d greatly underestimated. Plus she owed a fearsome amount of taxes on a property that wouldn’t be theirs in another year.

  No one knew yet—but it would hit the grapevine soon enough. Fiona wasn’t certain how much longer she could keep the dam from breaking. Her friends would always be her friends, but the boys—the boys she’d pledged to raise—stood to lose everything.

  “Damn Bode Jenkins,” Fiona said. “He outfoxed me good this time. I wish he’d…I wish he’d fall into a river.”

  “Fiona,” Burke murmured, patting his wife’s head as she started to cry against his chest, “the boys are always going to love you.”

  She wished she could be certain of that.

  Chapter Four

  The bunkhouse door blew open. All five brothers glanced up. Snow and frigid wind blasted in with Jonas, who stamped his feet on the outside mat before closing the door.

  “Look what the bad weather brought in,” Pete said. “Couldn’t make it to the airport?”

  “Had no intention of leaving.”

  Pete took Jonas’s coat and hung it on the hook in the entryway. His brother looked tired. “So where the hell have you been?”

  “Following Miss Cavuti or whatever the hell her name was.”

  “You mean Madame Vivant. Sabrina McKinley.” Pete chuckled. “I figured you had an eye for her.”

  “I do. And you should, too. Two eyes, in fact.” Jonas glared at Pete, then around at the other brothers who sat on the dark-brown leather sectional, watching them. “Am I the only one who thought her story sounded odd?”

  Sam shrugged. “Aunt Fiona can take care of herself. And Burke wouldn’t let her come to any harm.”

  Pete applauded their youngest brother’s common sense. Pete hadn’t foreseen Jonas being so suspicious that he might follow the fortune-teller—if that’s what she really was. Truthfully, Jonas was right to be suspicious, but he’d be better off putting all the suspicion on their dear Aunt Fiona.

  Pete slapped Jonas on the back. “Well, join us for poker, bro. I’ll grab you a beer, if you want.”

  Jonas shook his head. “No. All I want is some hot, black-as-night, stand-a-spoon-in-it coffee. It was colder and the snow was higher where those gypsies are now. I about froze my tail off.”

  “Where’s their next stop?” Rafe asked.

  “North of here. Buzzard’s Peak or something like that. Think they’re on their way to Montana.” Jonas drank from the steaming mug Pete handed him.

  “What makes you think they’re headed to Montana?” Creed asked.

  “They stopped at a truck stop to fill up.” Jonas sank into the leather sofa with a sigh of appreciation to be home. “I got out to refuel, and spoke to one of the drivers.”

  “Sabrina didn’t see you?” Rafe asked.

  Jonas shook his head. “No. I’m sure she was bundled inside somewhere, counting whatever money she got from Fiona.”

  Pete smirked and reached for the cards. “Fiona wouldn’t part with much hard-earned cash, Jonas.”

  His brother eyed him. The other men sat silently, waiting. It was not unusual for Jonas and Pete to have a difference of opinion. They were fifty-fifty on the outcome, Pete thought with satisfaction. And this time, he was holding all the cards.

  “All I know,” Jonas said, “is that Fiona’s up to something. That bit about us getting married and having a bunch of kids is a smokescreen for something bigger.”

  Judah took the cards from Pete and began to deal. “Like what?”

  “That’s what I aim to find out.” Jonas set his mug down and rubbed his hands. “I’m starting to thaw.”

  “Listen,” Pete said, “Fiona has always looked out for our best interests. Why be so suspicious, Jonas?”

  Jonas glared at him. “Why wouldn’t she just divide the ranch between us, if it’s simply a matter of her needing to write a will? All of us are financially capable. It’s not like she’s having to protect the ranch from us doing something stupid with it. I’m not saying that I want Rancho Diablo, particularly, but it is home. And I have to wonder why Fiona just didn’t offer it to us and let us decide, instead of making us play marriage roulette for it. It bothers the hell of out me.”

  The brothers sat lost in their own thoughts, the only noise the popping of the roaring log fire. Pete wondered whether Jonas was so sore because he was the only one of them who’d once been within a foot of a wedding altar, then decided it was typical of Jonas to look out for the rest of them.

  Pete studied his
brother. “Jonas, we can decide whether to do this Fiona’s way or not. You don’t have to big-brother us anymore.”

  “Yeah?” Jonas glanced up, spearing his brother with a frosty gaze. “So how’s finding a bride going to fit into your Saturday-night routine with Jackie Samuels, Pete?”

  The brothers snickered. Pete thought about socking Jonas a good one, right in the nose, but it wouldn’t solve anything, because Jonas was right.

  He sighed. “Not too damn good.”

  “Jackie said no?” Sam asked.

  “Look,” Pete said, “no one’s even supposed to know about Jackie and me, okay? So I don’t really feel like discussing it.”

  “Dang,” Creed said, “we all figured you’d be first to the altar. Then the rest of us would be off the hook.”

  Pete’s brows went up in disbelief. “How would that work?”

  “You’d get married, and we’d keep working the ranch, just like we do. Of course, we’d have to beat the hell out of you until you went to a lawyer and divided the ranch up between all of us.” Rafe grinned. “That was the plan, anyway.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Pete said, his tone as sour as his gut had suddenly become, “you wanted me to be the fall guy in this deal. As soon as the ranch was out of Fiona’s control, you were going to highjack me into splitting it up between all of us.”

  “That’s right,” Sam said, “and it was a helluva good plan. We didn’t count on you muffing the proposal to Jackie, though.”

  “Probably should have,” Creed said. “If I’d bet a fiver on that, I’d be money-up right now.”

  Pete sank back into the sofa. “Here I thought I was doing a deal on you, and you were plotting against me and my new bride and family. You’re a bunch of jackasses.”

  “What’s that?” Judah said. “Did you say we’re a bunch of jackasses?” He smirked at his brothers. “Who wants to hold Pete’s head in a bucket of snow until he confesses?”

  The brothers rose like a well-muscled, united wave. Pete put up a hand of surrender. “Calm down. All I was keeping from you—and it’s just a small thing, nothing like what you were up to—”

  “We’ll decide that by family vote,” Jonas said, “don’t leave out any of the details.”

  Pete was torn. He hated to blow up Aunt Fiona’s excellent plan. On the other hand, Jonas had a great point. Maybe the fortune-teller had done something to Fiona’s mind. He had no idea, after all, exactly how much coin had changed hands. There’d been no sign outside the tent at the fair indicating a fee for services.

  “Pete,” Sam said, his voice deep with warning. “Don’t sit there and concoct a story, or we will hold you in censure.”

  That was bad. Last time one of them had been censured by the other brothers, Rafe—the unlucky bastard—had had his face tattooed in his sleep by a nice, usually calm lady—Judge Julie Jenkins next door. Rafe had been done in by his own twin, as Creed had opened the door for Julie. She’d brought an indelible red-ink pen, and the brothers had merely guffawed as she approached Rafe, who had crashed on the sofa. Rafe had been on a bender, so he hadn’t noticed until he’d gotten up the next morning to go to Mass and had found himself looking like something out of a girlie revenge flick. His entire face had been covered with tiny hearts, probably fifty of them.

  Julie was no pushover, and she thought Rafe was an ass. He hadn’t tried to get smart with that little lady twice. Pete winced when he thought about Rafe scrubbing his face for days after Julie’s sneak attack. Fiona had given Rafe some rubbing alcohol, but in the end, only time had worn away the tiny hearts on his face. His brothers had ribbed him for days, and Rafe had been unable to leave the ranch for the sake of machismo. If Rafe hadn’t been in a state of censure with his brothers, they would never have let a miffed female in to pen her revenge on his face. They would have at least stopped her at five, maybe ten, hearts. They’d never asked Rafe what had gotten him crosswise with Julie, and he’d never offered any information. Pete wasn’t eager to suffer a similar fate. “Fiona hired Sabrina to tell us the ranch was in trouble.”

  “Hired her?” Judah repeated. “Madame Vivant didn’t work a nefarious plan on her?”

  Pete shook his head. “Nope. I’m sure Fiona’s as right in her mind as any of us. No one would ever take advantage of her. Not easily, anyway.” He looked at his brothers’ incredulous faces. “I feel bad ratting out her plan.”

  The poker game was abandoned. They were in a bigger game now, Pete thought. “At the time, I thought it was funny. She was trying to maneuver us into settling down. I had a girlfriend already, so it wasn’t—”

  “You were going to cheat us,” Creed said. “You were getting a head start.”

  “No—” Pete began, then he slumped in the sofa. “Yeah.”

  They considered him with disapproving expressions.

  “It’s no different from you thinking you had me set up to fall first, thereby letting you off the hook,” Pete said in defense of himself. “And I didn’t feel that it was any of my business to spoil Fiona’s plan.”

  “This is true,” Sam said, “but we’ve always known we had to look out for each other.”

  Pete sighed. “Oh, shut the hell up. None of you wants to get married anyway. So don’t act like you could have caught up with me if Jackie had said yes.”

  “Assuming you’re not shooting blanks,” Jonas said darkly. “Five years of dating is an awful lot of raincoats. I’ve never seen you make a run to the drugstore.”

  Pete felt a flush run up his neck. “There’s nothing wrong with my gun, thanks. Jackie’s probably on the pill or something.”

  Sam’s mouth fell open. “You never asked her?”

  “Hell, no. She’s a nurse. What could I tell a nurse about birth control?” Now that his brothers were ribbing him about it, though, Pete wondered. He’d never seen anything in Jackie’s house that looked like birth control pills. In fact, he’d never known her even to take cold medicine. She was a big believer in homeopathy, when appropriate, and eating healthy like a granola-starved hippie. Fresh food was the key to life, she’d say, setting a snack in front of him, and he’d smile and eat and mostly stare at her, not caring if she fed him dirt so long as he got into the sack with her.

  “Damn, you’re not much of a stud,” Judah said, “if you don’t even know whether you should be wrapping up.”

  Pete jumped to his feet. “There is nothing wrong with my—with me! I could have children if I wanted them, if Jackie wanted them.” He didn’t know if she did, but he wasn’t going to admit that. Now that he thought about it, he and Jackie hadn’t done a whole lot of talking about big life issues.

  “Sit down. We’re just trying to figure out what to do here.” Jonas shoved him back down into the sofa, with a determined thrust that collapsed Pete. He felt as though his world was spinning, anyway. Did Jackie want children? He assumed that particular desire was baked into the DNA of all women. “Anyway, I never got around to asking her to marry me. She—” He took a painful swallow of beer. “She ran me off.”

  They took that in for a minute with an assortment of grunts and empathetic groans.

  “Sorry about Jackie,” Sam said. “Sucks, dude.”

  Pete glanced up at the first vote of sympathy he’d heard from his brothers, realizing how much he appreciated the sentiment. His other brothers reached over and either clouted him on the back or punched him in the arm. He felt better, as much as he possibly could, under the circumstances. “Guess you’ll need a different plan.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense.” Jonas glanced around at his brothers. “There has to be something pushing Fiona to be this drastic. I had my doubts about that little con artist she brought in, figured she’d at least hang around to try to worm something out of Fiona or the ranch, but she seems to have been happy to take her fee and go.” He squinted at Pete. “Why the hell were you going to let us all get caught in a noose, bro, if you knew it was a set-up?”

  Pete shrugged. “Wouldn’t kill an
y of us to settle down.”

  “Might kill me,” Sam said. “I live a monklike existence.”

  This earned hoots from his brothers. Pete rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I thought it was kind of cute to hear Fiona and her bingo buddies trying to put one over on us. I figured I was pulling one over on her by hearing her plans.”

  “But still,” Rafe said, “you planned to have the jump on us since you already had a woman picked out. I don’t know if I feel good about that.”

  “I had a girl picked out,” Pete said, trying not to wince, “but who knows if she would have wanted children immediately? These things take two people, and all the decision wasn’t mine. So I was only ahead in the fact that I had a woman I thought I had a relationship with.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about any of that,” Judah said, pulling out his wallet. “I think I’ve got some hot-date phone numbers in here from the last rodeo. I can probably catch up pretty quick, if you guys want to let Fiona think her plan is succeeding. What does it hurt to give her a little pleasure?”

  Creed shook his head. “I say we go to Fiona and tell her we’re all joining the priesthood. That’ll frost her.”

  Pete laughed, then straightened. “No! We can’t give her any reason to suspect that we know anything.”

  Jonas looked at him. “We can’t decide our futures based on emergency trips to the marriage license office.”

  “Do you currently base your future on more sound decisions than what Fiona has suggested?” Pete looked around the room at his siblings. “I don’t think any of you realize this, but Fiona wasn’t just our guardian. She wasn’t just a parent. She keeps a lot of secrets in her drive to be our number-one protector and cheerleader.”

  Sam laughed. “You make it sound like she and her little friends sit around and plot all day.”

  Pete nodded. “Don’t kid yourself. That’s exactly what she does.”