His Callahan Bride's Baby (Callahan Cowboys) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Living in the endless gorges and canyons near the breathtaking mesas that framed Rancho Diablo had taught Falcon a lot. He’d survived the barren spirit-breaker that was Afghanistan, and now here he was, in his own backyard, surviving once again.

Surviving until December. Waiting the whole damn thing out. What else could he do?

It was cold now, and had been since the beginning of November. The first crisp winds had blown in the middle of October, wrapping him in a chilly embrace he welcomed. With each snowfall, each test to his well-honed survival instincts, Falcon felt stronger.

Some would say he was hiding, but no man could hide from himself forever. He’d dealt with his raw emotions where Taylor was concerned, looked into that mirror of jealousy and confronted the longing he didn’t want to feel.

Yes, he was stronger.

The grasp of the crush he’d had on Taylor had become clear to him. Jillian had been right—Taylor would never be happy with him. She deserved a well-off man, someone unscarred, a more genteel sort. He was too hard-bitten and rough-edged to make Diablo’s best girl happy.

Wisdom had not been easy to accept, but the gracious thing about wisdom was that it was patient, waiting for you to mature into acceptance of its erudition.

So he had. And felt like a healed man.

He sat on his horse, eyeing the stretch of snow-crusted land between him and Rancho Diablo, surprised that he felt a strange sense of homesickness. Perhaps just before Christmas he’d return and test his heart’s readiness to face Taylor again.

A jeep roared toward him, leaving wide tracks in the snow. It was almost as if he’d conjured her, because he could see the long chocolate of her hair in the distance. Of course, it couldn’t be Taylor—no one at Rancho Diablo would send her out here alone in a jeep. So it was a mirage, like the Diablos, a mirage of his longing.

Maybe he wasn’t as healed as he’d imagined.

She pulled up beside his horse and switched off the jeep. He couldn’t speak for the shock of seeing the object of his dreams materialize so unexpectedly.

“Hi, Falcon,” she said, and it was the same sweet musical voice he remembered so well.

Well, he wasn’t dreaming. Hadn’t gone mad from endless hours of envisioning her on her seemingly endless quest for a better man.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice rough from lack of use. It surprised him that his words came out so gruffly, but Taylor didn’t seem fazed.

“Obviously, I’ve come to see you.” She got out of the jeep and picked up a basket, which she handed to him. “This is from Fiona. Comforts from home.”

He blinked. “Uh, I’ll put that on the table in my kitchen.”

“Okay, smart aleck.” She put the basket back into the jeep. “I’m pretty sure she meant for us to have something to snack on while we chat, but if you’re going to be a boor, we’ll go with that.”

“What are you doing here?” he repeated, unable to get past the fact that Taylor had shown up in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s December,” Taylor said, “and I believe you proposed to me. By the way you’re hiding out, I can only assume you’re reneging on your offer.”

“Okay,” he said. “Now that we’ve got that settled, you should head back before the storm rolls in.”

She looked at the sky. “Storm?”

He shrugged. “I’m figuring on a good six inches of snow. Thanks for the eats, but it would be safer if you went home.”

Sending Taylor away was the last thing he wanted, but he was operating from the new well of wisdom he possessed. Better not to allow wily temptation to rule his newly acquired, hard-won knowledge.

She looked at him with impatience. “Look, cowboy. Let’s just quit dancing around the subject matter and get everything straight between us, because it wasn’t easy for me to come out here and find your boneheaded self. No woman goes running after a man who makes love to her and then never darkens her door again, in fact, hides from her, so this is the only time I intend to throw myself out here like this. Fair warning.”

A little panic banged on his heart as he dismounted from his horse to face her. He tried to remind himself how much he cared about this woman, but he pushed the panic away ruthlessly, not about to get caught up in his emotions again. Otherwise the three months he’d spent out here alone with his thoughts and his heartache were going to be for naught—all the good wisdom that had been finally knocked into his superthick skull wasted. “I think things are best left as they are.”

“You’re officially reneging on your proposal?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“All right.” She took a deep breath, stepped close to him. Looked in his eyes, seared him with her deliberate stare. She poked a finger in his chest, and he’d never wanted to grab her and kiss her senseless as badly as he did at this moment. “Listen to me, you big chicken, you weasel of epic proportions. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”

Thankfully, she hadn’t come to tell him she’d picked another bachelor and was ducking out of the so-called agreement. That had been his greatest fear when she’d pulled up in the jeep. The relief was practically blinding.

“Okay,” he said, smelling sweet perfume and maybe some peach shampoo. His mouth dried out with longing. “I accept that.”

“You will accept that, you louse, because I’m not giving you a choice.” Her eyes flashed at him. “I’m having a baby, and the last thing I’d ever do is to marry a chickenhearted weasel who’s scared to death of his own feelings.”

Falcon felt as if a boulder from the canyons had fallen on him. He could barely breathe. “A baby? My baby?”

She slapped him, not hard enough to make his ears ring, but enough to bring him clarity. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Taylor said crisply. “And a louse.”

He blinked, recognizing that he was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, with a mad female not prepared to give quarter. Falcon shook his head, then laughed. “Holy smokes, I’m going to be a father.”

“Yes, you are.” She turned to walk away, but he caught her arm.

“Don’t go off in a huff,” he said. “Since you’ve gone to the trouble to come all the way out here, stay and share Fiona’s basket with me.”

“I don’t think so.” She pulled away and stared at him, greatly annoyed. “I shouldn’t be surprised that even your condoms weren’t trustworthy, courtesy of the bearer.”

He laughed again, delighted with her spunk, thrilled at the news that he was going to be a dad. “Boy or girl?”

She sniffed. “I’m not telling you. I don’t want you involved with my pregnancy at all.”

He pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest, smiling. “You little devil. You left me out here all these months suffering, and you knew you had the ace.”

“I have no idea what you’re babbling about, but it sounds like a lot of Callahan doublespeak to me,” she muttered against his chest. But she didn’t pull away, so Falcon took the liberty of stroking her long dark hair, enjoying the silkiness of it. God, he’d missed her.

“Does my family know?”

“Just you, you boob. I didn’t want any of them rushing out here to tell you. I figured they’d send up smoke signals to give the news if they had to, and then you’d probably run as far as Maine to get away from me.”

He couldn’t help the grin on his face. “I’m so glad you came out here to ask me to marry you.”

She pulled away, her face wreathed in annoyance. “I did no such thing. I wouldn’t ask you to marry me if you were the last man on earth.”

“So you said.”

“Just making sure you’re listening, cowboy.” She went to the jeep, got the basket out, set it in the snow. “There’s your Christmas cheer. See you next year.”

She got in the jeep. He let her go, the grin on his face stretching from side to side. Oh, he’d let her run, for now. Work off some of that womanly aggravation she was wrapped in so righteously.

But she’d better work it off quick, because he didn’t intend to wait very long to make sweet, thorough love to her.

He’d waited long enough.

* * *

“H
ERE
SHE
COMES
!”
Ash and Fiona scrambled away from the spot where they’d practically been camped, keeping an eye out for Taylor’s return. The two of them had been worried sick that Galen or one of the others would ask where the jeep was before Taylor returned. Or if she didn’t return—and they had to confess what they’d done. “Get back to stringing lights, pretend like we weren’t spying on her, and let’s never do that again!”

“It was your idea,” Fiona said. “If you hadn’t meddled in the first place, if you hadn’t egged your brother to go to Tempest to strut his stuff in front of her date, Falcon would still be on the ranch and they’d still be on speaking terms that don’t last just twenty minutes! In the future, you leave the meddling to the pros.”

Ash unwound a spool of lights so fast she could barely concentrate. “It’s your fault for keeping us all working against each other for a ranch. We’re the only family whose aunt deliberately stirs the sibling rivalry.”

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it, I always say. Now pipe down,” Fiona said under her breath. “Act merry!”

The jeep engine switched off, and Ash and Fiona arranged their faces into pleasant, nonconspiratorial expressions.

“Did you have a nice drive?” Fiona asked, with a trace too much sugar, Ash thought.

“Yes, thank you. I appreciate you letting me use the jeep.” Taylor handed the keys back.

“No basket?” Ash asked, trying not to blurt out the obvious question she really wanted to ask—
Did you find my hammy-brained brother?

“I left it.” Taylor’s expression didn’t seem as happy as it should. “Merry Christmas, if I don’t see you ladies again before the holidays.”

Taylor got in her own car, while Fiona and Ash gaped after her.

“Stop gawking,” Fiona said. “Wave and act like our curiosity isn’t killing us.”

They waved and smiled, Callahan manners on display.

“That did not go well,” Ash said.

“Not a bit,” Fiona agreed.

They waved harder, smiles stretched wide and friendly.

“Whew,” Fiona said, when Taylor’s car had disappeared from sight. “It’s exhausting being an aunt!”

Ash looked at the Christmas lights that had yet to be strung along the fence. “We overplayed this.”

“Too late to do anything about it now. We’re going to have to let nature take its course. Never an easy thing, because nature can be quixotic.” Fiona sighed. “Two stubborn hearts trying to work out the excesses of love is hard on the spectators.”

“Oh, brother,” Ash said. “Do me a favor, don’t do my love life any favors, okay?”

Fiona adjusted her blue gloves, settled her blue wool cap over her white curls. “I wasn’t aware you had a love life, niece,” she said, too sweetly.

The sweetness had the barb of truth in it.

“You know what I mean. No assistance from the peanut gallery, if and when I ever catch my cowboy.”

“You just remember you didn’t want my help,” Fiona said, giving her a jaundiced glance that spoke volumes.

A slight shiver washed over Ash, a vague reminder that a smart woman didn’t toss an aunt’s charms and blessings to the wind lightly. Maybe she’d been too harsh. A touch ungrateful. They all benefited from Fiona’s love and tutelage, even if sometimes her “guidance” could come under the heading of well-meaning, shazam!-style destruction. A veritable poof-cloud of mayhem could be wrought in an instant by Fiona’s capable fingers. Still, no
irreparable
harm was ever done—mostly. Ash glanced at Fiona’s sweet, doughy face, but her aunt was deep in her own thoughts.

Ash went back to arranging lights, thinking that a white Christmas wedding was what was needed to bring some cheer to this depressing joint and her dispirited aunt—but it looked as if Christmas gloom was setting in fast instead.

* * *

“R
EADY
OR
NOT
,
here I come,” Falcon said, settling his horse in the barn and grabbing his truck keys. He’d given his little mama-to-be a week—plenty of time to get over her pique, which he hoped was long enough to let a woman’s ire subside.

“Hey,” Ash said, appearing at his elbow. “Where’re you off to?”

He looked at his sprite of a sister. “Thought I’d run over to...someplace.”

No point in mentioning his mission. Too many cooks in the kitchen had already severely impacted the recipe. And he was trying to be a gentleman, no easy feat when he wanted to rush over to Taylor’s and sweep her off her feet.

He and Taylor had a lot to discuss. She’d been oh-so-cute shifting all the blame on him about an unlucky condom—but she knew quite well that when the condoms had run out thanks to a certain sexy lady, she’d whispered sweetly that it wasn’t that fertile time of the month anyway, and then seduced him out of his good sense.

Oh, Taylor knew very well what had happened that night, and he’d let her slide on the detail. Because it didn’t matter in the long run how they’d become parents, they were going to be parents, and he couldn’t be happier.

But it was time to get the curious clan out of their business.

“Well, if you’re planning to go see Taylor, she’s not there,” Ash said.

“How do you know?”

“She and her mom left about five days ago.” Ash gazed at him with sympathy. “I didn’t know if you wanted to know or not, and I’m on a new mind-my-own-business mission.”

“You should do that. Be good for you,” Falcon said, his mind spinning. “Where’d they go?”

“I just said I’m minding my own business,” Ash said, “and you said I should. Wild horses couldn’t drag any further information out me.” She stalked off in a little-sister huff, and Falcon quickly realized he’d erred.

“Wait a minute.” He followed Ash. “You can mind your business all you want, but I need to know where Taylor’s gone.”

She looked at him. “Don’t you have her cell phone number? Ask her yourself. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

“Of course I don’t have her cell phone number.” Falcon frowned. “Do you?”