by Tina Leonard
She nodded her head, her silvery-white hair shining under the lights, her eyes bright as she chose her words. Creed was amazed by his aunt’s energy. For the hundredth time, he pondered how much she’d given up for them.
He even felt a little bad that he’d tried to thwart her plans. But fate stepped in and, just as soon as he was positive he wanted to thwart her forever, he’d met a girl who made his heart go ding! like a dinner bell. Maybe even a wedding bell. That was life for you.
“So,” Fiona continued, “I have a confession to make. In my haste to keep the ranch out of the state’s hands, and out of Bode’s possession, I made a mistake. I played right in to his hands by agreeing to sell the land to a private developer. Fighting the state would have taken years in court, and money I was loath to spend out of your estate. So I chose a private buyer to sell it to, and made a deal that they would allow Rancho Diablo to be taken over by an angel investor. My offer was that we would buy the ranch back from them in five years, when Bode had turned his eyes to someone else’s property or passed on, whichever came first.” She took a deep breath, appearing to brace herself. “However, Bode was ahead of me, and the private investor I thought was absolutely safe and in our corner turned out to be in that nasty man’s pocket. So,” she said, looking around at each brother, “we’re homeless in nine months. Totally. And for that, I can never say how sorry I am. I’m sorry for not being a wiser manager. I’m sorry that you men won’t have the home your parents built—”
She burst into tears. The brothers sat, shocked, staring at their aunt, then at Burke, then at each other. Creed took a couple of quick breaths, wondering if he’d heard her right, if he could possibly have just heard that Rancho Diablo wasn’t theirs anymore, and quickly realized this was no playacting, no manipulation, on Aunt Fiona’s part.
It scared the hell out of him. His brothers looked just as stunned. But their aunt had been bearing an oh-so-heavy burden alone, so Creed got up and went to pat her back. “Aunt Fiona, don’t cry. This isn’t a matter for tears. We’re not angry with you. We would never be angry with you. You’ve done the very best you could, and probably better than most people could under the circumstances.”
“You should be angry! If you had an ounce of common sense, you would be, you scalawag.” She pushed his hand away, and those of the other brothers when they came to fuss over her.
“But I probably don’t have an ounce of sense,” Creed said, “and we love you. Rancho Diablo is yours just as much as ours.” He gulped, trying not to think about the yawning chasm that their lives had just turned into with a stroke of an errant wand. This was home.
Although perhaps not any more. But he only said, “Let Sam look over whatever papers you have to make certain there are no loopholes. Maybe call in some legal beagles. Right, Sam?”
His younger brother nodded. Creed got down on a knee and looked into her eyes. “You should have told us instead of trying to marry us off. Maybe we could have helped you.”
“I wanted babies.” She blew her nose into a delicate white handkerchief. “If I was going to lose the ranch, I wanted you to have brides who were eager to marry into the Callahan name, and live at Rancho Diablo. At least get married here, for heaven’s sakes. But you’re all so slow and stubborn,” she said, with a glance around at each of them, “that I realized I was going to have to be honest with you instead of waiting for the spring sap to rise. Goodness knows, even the bulls are looking for mates. But not my nephews.”
She sighed, put upon, and Creed glanced around at his brothers with a grin. “We tried to get hitched for you, Aunt Fiona. The ladies just won’t have us.”
“Well, I certainly don’t blame them.” She took the drink that Burke handed her, sipping it without energy. “But I’m making other plans. I’m holding a matchmaking ball, right here at Rancho Diablo. I’m inviting every single female that my friends know, and that’s a ton, from as far away as the ladies care to come, all expenses paid. It’s probably the last big party I’ll ever have at this ranch, and I intend for it to be a blowout that will be talked about for years. Your bachelor ball, my going-away party.”
“Whoa,” Judah said, “there are only five of us, Aunt Fiona. We can’t entertain a whole lot of women in a chivalrous manner.”
“Goodness me,” Fiona said, “most men would leap at the chance to have a bachelor raffle held in their honor.”
“Bachelor raffle?” Jonas asked. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Only if you’re a wienie.” Aunt Fiona gave her nephews an innocent look. “And there are no wienies in this room, I hope.”
“Definitely not,” Creed’s twin, Rafe, said.
“No,” Sam said, “but as the youngest, I’d like to put forth that I should have the lion’s share of the ladies.” His brothers scowled at him. “What? None of you wants to settle down. I’m not exactly opposed. At least not for the short term.”
“You don’t want to settle down,” Jonas said, “you want to sow your wild oats. And all of us are ahead of you in the age department.”
“Uh-oh,” Sam said, leaping at the chance to bait his eldest brother, “do I hear the sound of a man’s biological clock ticking? Bong, bong, Big Ben?”
Jonas looked as though he was about to pop an artery, Creed thought, not altogether amused. “We don’t need a raffle or a bachelor bake-athon or whatever, Aunt Fiona. We’re perfectly capable of finding women on our own. In relation to the ranch, if it isn’t ours anymore—potentially—then there’s no reason for us to hurry out and find brides. What we need to find are excellent lawyers, a whole team of them, who can unwind whatever Bode thinks he’s got you strung with.”
“We don’t need to hire a lawyer, or a team,” Aunt Fiona said, and the brothers looked at her with surprise. “We won’t hire a lawyer because I hired a private investigator to keep an eye on him. I’m just positive Bode’ll make a slip any day, and I’ll be on him like a bird on a bug. And,” she said, her doughy little face sad and tearstained with now-dried tears, “it wouldn’t look good that I hired a P.I. to dig up dirt on him.” She leaned close to Creed to whisper. “However, there’s every chance he knows.”
Creed winced. “Not unless he’s bugged the house.” Pete had claimed that someone had locked him in the basement last winter, searched the house and destroyed Aunt Fiona’s jars of canned preserves and other stored food in an attempt to find something. What that person could have been looking for was anyone’s guess. Nothing had been stolen—no television, none of Fiona’s jewelry, no tools. He supposed the house could be bugged, but the room they were currently sitting in was far away from the front doors and not easy to access. Someone would have needed several hours to search the house and plant bugs, and Pete hadn’t been locked away that long. “It would be very difficult to bug this place.”
“But he might know many things about us anyway,” Fiona said, “because he gossips a lot.”
“Bode?” Jonas said. “No one would talk about us to him.”
“You think Sabrina McKinley might have told him something?” Sam asked, “since she’s working as his caregiver?”
“No, Sabrina wouldn’t blab,” Aunt Fiona said, “because she’s working for me.”
Chapter Five
“Whoa,” Jonas said, “Aunt Fiona, that little gypsy is a private investigator?”
Aunt Fiona nodded. “She’s actually an investigative reporter, which is even better because sometimes they’re nosier. It’s her sister, Seton, who’s the actual gumshoe. And don’t sound so shocked, Jonas. You didn’t think she was a real fortune-teller? She was playing a part I hired her to play.”
Creed was having trouble dealing with all this new information. “But didn’t she say that our ranch was in trouble, and a bunch of other nonsense?”
“Yes, but I gave her a script. I was trying to warn you, spur you along. As I mentioned, you’re all quite slow. Thick, even. Why, I’d say molasses in winter moves faster than my nephews.” She gave a pensive sigh. “The pr
oblem is, you don’t have a home anymore. We don’t have a place to run our business. And only Pete got married. At least he’s happy,” she said. “At least he found a wonderful woman.” She cast an eye over the rest of her charges. “The rest of you will have a less favorable position to offer a wife. Your stock has dropped, as they say.”
“Okay,” Jonas said, “let’s not think about our marital futures right now. Let’s deal strictly with the business end.”
“I say we go kick Bode Jenkins’ skinny ass,” Sam put in, and everyone shouted, “No!”
Sam said, “What a bunch of pansies.”
“You have to be more sly than that,” Fiona said sternly. “Violence is unacceptable. It’s all about the mind, and I simply got out-thought.”
“I’ll have a friend eyeball the papers,” Jonas said thoughtfully. “In the meantime, I’m closing on that land I offered on next week. We’re not exactly homeless. If we have about nine months, we have enough time to move Rancho Diablo operations there. And build a house. It won’t be like this one,” he said, glancing around the room, “but it will be ours.”
“What would you supposedly get for the house and land—if the deal is for real?” Rafe asked.
“Only ten million dollars,” Fiona said. “A half of what it’s worth for all the land, the house, and—”
She stopped, glanced at Burke, who shrugged.
“And?” Creed prompted.
“And mineral rights, and so on,” she said, and Creed wondered if she’d just hedged some information. Fiona was known to keep her cards close to the vest. “It’s a pittance, when you consider that we won’t be able even to use the name Rancho Diablo anymore. We will truly be starting our brand from the bottom again.”
Fiona’s cheeks had pink spots in them and her eyes glittered. Creed could see that not only was her pride stung because Bode had outwitted her, she was crushed to have to give her nephews this hard news.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Creed said. “For now, this is enough to digest. I don’t think you should trouble yourself anymore tonight, Aunt Fiona.”
Judah nodded. “I agree. My only question is, Bode hasn’t been bothering you lately, has he?”
Fiona shook her head. “He’s been pretty quiet since he thinks he got me over a barrel.”
“About Sabrina,” Jonas said. “What happens if Bode finds out that she’s actually a reporter?”
They all took that in for a moment. Bode was known for his hot temper and grudges. He was underhanded, unforgiving. The tall, skinny man was unkind to just about everyone he knew; he kept people in his pocket by making sure he had whatever they needed. Bode was a power broker; he liked that power, and no one crossed him lightly.
Creed looked at his aunt. “Do you think involving her was a good idea, Aunt Fiona?”
“She and her sister came highly recommended. They are the nieces of—”
“Oh, no,” Sam said, “not one of your Books ’n’ Bingo cronies.”
Fiona arched a brow at her youngest nephew. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I always hire friends, whether it’s for curtain-making, preserving or tree-trimming. There’s no better way to ensure loyalty and fairness in a job than to hire one’s friends.”
Creed’s heart sank a little, too, just south of his boots. Aunt Fiona was in over her head. The expressions on his brothers’ faces confirmed his own doubts. His cell phone jumped in his pocket, forestalling his worried thoughts. Glancing at the number, he frowned, wondering why he’d be getting a call from Wyoming.
Probably something to do with the rodeo he’d crashed out of. “Excuse me for a moment, Aunt Fiona,” he said, and stepped outside the library. “Hello?”
“Creed Callahan?” a man asked.
“Yes. Who’s speaking?”
“This is Johnny Donovan. You were at our place—”
“I remember you, Johnny. How are you doing?” Creed’s heart jumped right back up into his chest where it belonged as he wondered if Aberdeen might have put Johnny up to calling him. He could only hope.
“I’m fine. In a bit of a tight spot, actually.”
“Oh?” Johnny had seemed capable of handling just about anything. “Something I can help with?”
“Actually, yes, perhaps,” Johnny said. “You remember my sister, Aberdeen?”
Did he ever. “Yeah.” He made his voice deliberately disinterested, not wanting to sound like an overeager stud.
“Well, I’m wondering—jeez, this is awkward,” Johnny said. “I’m wondering if I paid your way back up here for a week, could you come keep an eye on my bar?”
Creed’s jaw went slack. “Um—”
“I know. Like I said, it’s awkward as hell. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t up against it, and if I didn’t know that you were taking a bit of time off from the circuit.”
“Yeah, I am.” Creed sank into a hallway chair, staring out the arched, two-story windows that looked out over flat, wide, beautiful Rancho Diablo. “What’s going on?”
“I need to be in Montana for a few weeks. Aberdeen needs to be there as well. We have a child custody hearing coming up.”
Creed frowned. He didn’t remember anything being discussed about children. Did Aberdeen have kids? He knew nothing about her personal life—and yet, whenever he thought about her, he got an irrational shot of pleasure. I’m doomed. I’m damned. She’s not only a preacher but one with custody issues. Yee-haw. “I see,” he murmured, not seeing at all, but wanting to prod Johnny into spilling more info.
“Yeah. We can close the bar for two weeks, but I still hate to leave it unattended. This isn’t the best area of town, as you know. We’re kind of out of the way. I have a ton of friends here who could watch it, but frankly, I was thinking you owed me one.”
Creed laughed, detecting teasing in Johnny’s voice. “I probably do.”
“I believe in doing business between friends,” Johnny said. “The pay is generous. My bar’s my livelihood. I’d like to keep it in safe hands.”
Creed grinned. “And you don’t want to keep it open?”
“Not necessarily, unless you want to. You don’t have any experience with a bar or family-owned restaurant, do you?”
“Not so much.” Creed wondered if he should back away from the offer politely or jump at the chance to see if Aberdeen still smoked his peace pipe the way he remembered she did. He was pretty certain she set him on fire all over. Sure, any woman could probably do that if a man was in the right, open mood, Creed mused—but Aberdeen seemed to do it for him even when she aggravated the hell out him.
He thought that was a pretty interesting juxtaposition. “We do have a family business, but it isn’t in the same field as yours. We don’t have strangers knocking on our door at all hours, not often anyway.”
Johnny laughed. “So you’ll do it?”
“I might. Let me run it past the family.”
“Sounds mafia-like.”
Creed grinned to himself. “Sometimes it can seem that way to outsiders. I’ll get back in touch with you soon, Johnny. Good to hear from you.”
He turned off his phone, sitting and considering this new twist for a moment. His gaze searched the wide vista outside, its dusty expanse vibrant even as night was covering the mesa. And then, he saw them, running like the wind across the faraway reaches of the ranch, black as night, fast as wind, free as spirits.
“Los Diablos,” he murmured, awed by the hypnotizing beauty. “The Diablos are running!” he called to his brothers, and they came out of the library to stand at his side, watching in silence, shoulder to shoulder, knowing this might be one of the last times they ever saw the beautiful horses materializing across the evening-tinged swath of Rancho Diablo land.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Aberdeen asked Johnny as she walked into the upstairs living room. “You look like you’re thinking deep thoughts.”
Johnny put his cell phone in his pocket. “No deeper than usual.”
She smiled at him. “Then why are you frowning?�
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“I’ve just been thinking about how we’re going to make this all work out.”
“Oh.” She nodded and sat down on a worn cloth sofa. “I finally got all three girls to sleep. They are so sweet when they sleep. They look so angelic and happy.”
A small smile lifted Johnny’s mouth—but not for long. “Has Diane called to check on them?”
Aberdeen shook her head. “I think she probably won’t for a while. I did talk to Mom and Dad today. They said Diane has decided to go around the world on a sailboat with her new boyfriend. They expect the trip to take about a year and a half.”
Johnny’s face turned dark. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wouldn’t joke about that.” Aberdeen sighed. “We need her at least to sign some forms that state we can make medical decisions for the girls while she’s gone.”
“I’m going over to France,” Johnny said, and Aberdeen could see his jaw was tight. “I’m going to try to talk some sense into her. She just can’t abandon her children. I don’t know if she needs medication or what is going on—”
“Johnny.” Aberdeen patted the sofa cushion beside her. “Come sit down.”
He sighed. “Maybe I need a drink.”
“It wouldn’t help. I think you going to France is a good idea. I’ll stay here with the girls and start looking for a house and school and a doctor.”
“Have you ever thought how much having the girls here is going to change your life, even more than mine?”
Aberdeen blinked. “There’s no point to worrying about the situation. We love the girls. Diane, as much as I hate to say it, appears to be unfit or unwilling at the moment.”
Johnny sat silently for a few minutes. “I’ll make a plane reservation. I may drag Diane back here kicking and screaming, though.”
