The Cowboy's Triplets

by Tina Leonard

  Pete’s gaze went to Jackie. She swallowed. No one made her blood race like Pete. Darla was probably right. Pete was going to be a very arduous suitor when he learned he might possibly be a father to twins. He’d get it into his head that he was having twin boys, just like his father, and then there’d be some bragging.

  I’m not telling him until I know for sure, Jackie decided. There’s no reason to get his hopes up, and he would. Darla’s right. He’ll crow, and he’ll think he’s going to win that stupid bet of Fiona’s, and he’ll romance me like a lovestruck cowboy.

  And it would be wonderful.

  Heat hit her as she thought about how Pete could romance her. Magic hands, persuasive lips—she just couldn’t handle a super-determined Pete right now. I’m having a panic attack. I’d say yes, whatever you want, Pete, and then I’d find out Dr. Graybill’s made a mistake and then I’d have Pete dishonestly. Because I was scared.

  This was not the way she wanted to get him.

  It had to be about love.

  “We need to talk,” Pete said. “Take the rest of the day off.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jackie sighed. There was kind, loving, gentle Pete, and then there was demanding Pete. Stubborn was good, Jackie told herself. A bossy, chauvinistic Pete would help her keep her eyes on her goal. “No,” she said. “I can’t take off. I can’t leave Darla.”

  He sat down next to her on the sofa. “Then we’ll talk here.”

  That might be worse. Anyone could come in at any moment, making their cozy rendezvous into some romantic foregone conclusion that wedding bells would soon be ringing. Jackie edged slightly away. “We’ll close the store in a couple of hours. Surely it can wait.”

  He pulled her to him, kissing her thoroughly, leaving her breathless and dazed. “I’ve been on the road with my brothers for almost five days, if you count hours around the clock. I need time with you. And if I have to have it right here on this overstuffed floral mushroom—”

  “Loveseat.”

  “Loveseat,” Pete went on, “then I don’t care who in Diablo sees us.”

  Jackie pulled back, blinking. This was a new Pete, a Pete who wasn’t content to wait seven days between visits. “Did something happen while you were gone?”

  “You’ve been happening to me for five years.” Pete caressed her cheek with warm fingers, and Jackie felt herself melting.

  She couldn’t melt.

  “Pete, we can talk later.” She stood up, desperate to get him out of the store and away from her before she broke down and threw herself into his big, strong arms. “I’ll come by your place.”

  He looked at her. “My place.”

  “Yes.” Jackie smiled at him. “Something new for us.”

  “I don’t want new. I want old.” He reached out to grab her, and she sidled away just as Fiona came in the door.

  “Pete!” Fiona said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were on the road with Sam and Jonas.”

  “I was.” Pete got up and kissed his aunt on the cheek. “I cut the trip short.”

  “No good horses?” Fiona asked.

  “A change in plans,” Pete said. “Aunt Fiona, if you have time in your busy schedule, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Oh.” Fiona looked from Pete to Jackie, then back to Pete. Obviously not seeing whatever she was hoping to find in their expressions, she said, “I can spare some time tonight. Will it take long? Should I have Burke make dinner for us? Jackie, will you be joining us?” Her tone turned hopeful.

  “No. No Burke. No Jackie. Just you and me,” Pete said.

  “That sounds dull as dishwater.” Fiona sniffed. Then she brightened. “Jackie, I just saw Doc Graybill, and—”

  “Goodbye, Fiona,” Jackie said, gently easing her out the door. “It was so good to see you. I’m sorry you can’t stay longer.”

  “But I can—” Fiona said.

  “Goodbye!” Jackie said, closing the door. Dr. Graybill would never discuss her private health concerns. But he might have said something like When will we be hearing wedding bells? and that would be all the encouragement Fiona would need.

  Jackie turned around, leaning against the door for support.

  Pete stood in front of her, staring down at her with penetrating blue eyes. She hadn’t heard him sneak up behind her. Her patience snapped. Opening the door, she said, “You don’t want to be late for your meeting with Fiona.”

  Pete leaned down to kiss her lips, right there in the open doorway where anyone on the main drag of Diablo could see. “Don’t forget to come by tonight,” he reminded her, when he finally released her lips. “I’ll be ready and waiting.”

  Her knees buckled. “About that—”

  “Okay,” he said, “I’ll come to your place. And then you can tell me what you’re hiding, Jackie Samuels.”

  Pete went off whistling, not that he felt all that lighthearted. It gave him something to do with his lips since he couldn’t be kissing Jackie right now. All he wanted to do was kiss her. He’d nearly killed Sam and Jonas on the trip. He’d had a really short fuse with them, all from thinking constantly about Jackie. He wanted to be able to kiss her every hour on the hour. “This bachelor business is for the birds,” he muttered, and Rafe appeared at his side.

  “You’re back,” Rafe said. “Did Sam find what he was looking for?”

  “I don’t know if Sam knows what he’s looking for. What are you doing in town?” Pete glanced around for Rafe’s truck.

  “Buying feed. We need some storage boxes, too.”

  “For?”

  “Fiona’s taken down all the Christmas lights. She wants to put them in color-coordinated boxes this year. Red and green, so we don’t have to hunt next year. It wouldn’t be so bad if she didn’t have a million decorations for every holiday.”

  Pete nodded. Ever since they’d been boys, Fiona had insisted upon lights along the fences out front, color appropriate to every holiday, including Valentine’s Day. “That means she wants the red and white ones separated for Valentine’s—”

  “And the green and white ones for her precious St. Patrick’s. All in their own special boxes. We’re going to need to build another storage shed.”

  Pete sighed. “Isn’t there enough room in the basement?”

  Rafe walked with him to the truck. “That’s the thing I wanted to mention to you,” he said under his breath, and Pete thought Why am I the one elected to hear everything?

  “Fiona and Burke have been doing stuff in the basement.”

  “There are things I do not want to hear,” Pete said, getting into his truck.

  Rafe got into the truck with him. Pete was glad to have a little windbreak from the cold. He’d rather head home for a cup of hot coffee, but he couldn’t exactly shove Rafe out the door.

  “Not that kind of stuff, dummy,” Rafe said.

  “Lights,” Pete said. “She’s having an organizational fit, right?”

  “I’m not sure. Her Navajo friend was by the other night—”

  “Running Bear.”

  “Exactly.” Rafe nodded.

  “So? Chief Running Bear comes every year. Like freaking Santa Claus. Except we don’t put out cookies and milk for him, and toss instant oatmeal for his reindeer.”

  “Yeah.” Rafe looked at his brother. “After his visit, Fiona and Burke started hanging out in the basement. A lot. Every time I go to find her, she’s down there. She says she’s cleaning and getting ready for spring canning. But the door at the top of the stairs is always locked.”

  She’d locked it when they were kids, too. She was afraid one of them might fall down it in their sleep. “This is nothing new. She’s just being cautious.”

  Rafe scrubbed at his chin. “Maybe.”

  “And she’s probably cleaning.” Fiona was a bit of a pack rat. The basement had dirt flooring and shelves where Fiona stacked her canned vegetables and dishware she used only at holidays. And of course, her decorations. There was very lit
tle lighting, just an overhead fluorescent light. “It’s good that she’s organizing things,” Pete said, not really sure if it was or not. “I need to do some organizing myself.”

  “She took a long-handled shovel down there the other day,” Rafe said.

  Oh, hell, Pete thought. I didn’t want to hear that. Nothing good can come of Fiona and shovels.

  It means something’s being dug up—or buried.

  PETE WASN’T REALLY SURPRISED when Fiona wasn’t at the house for their meeting that evening.

  “She’s gone out,” Burke told him. “Emergency Books ’n’ Bingo meeting.”

  “Right, right.” Pete noted Burke was dressed in his usual natty attire, but looking even more dapper than usual. “Going out yourself?”

  Burke grinned. “I’ve been selected as guest speaker at the Books ’n’ Bingo meeting.”

  “Really. Where’s the meeting?” Pete wondered whose house they’d snared on short notice.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t know them.” Burke jammed a tweed driving cap on his head and headed out. “Lock up when you leave!”

  Pete grimaced. He knew everybody in town, unless someone had moved in yesterday, and even if they had, Aunt Fiona would have organized a welcome committee, and he’d have heard of that. So clearly it was a secret meeting.

  Fiona loved secrets.

  “All right,” Pete muttered to himself. “Let’s just have a look-see in the basement.”

  He grabbed the keys from Burke’s special cupboard where he kept all his butlering crap—not that Burke would appreciate his things being labeled so—and fished out the long one for the basement lock. It slipped in without hesitation. “Like taking candy from a baby,” Pete said, and opened the door.

  He turned on the wall sconce, heading down until he could reach the switch for the overhead fluorescent. “And then there was light,” Pete said, except there wasn’t. Just a dim glow that streamed out from the ceiling. He peered into the dark basement, which looked the same as always to him. Dark and a little scary, and fit for spiders and other things that went bump in the night, as well as being a perfect spot for glass jars of preserves and vegetables. “I’m hungry,” Pete said. “I could go for some pears right now.”

  He moved off the stairwell, debated going upstairs for a flashlight. Waste of time, he thought. Rafe was nutty. Nothing down here had been disturbed; he didn’t need a camping torch to figure that out. There were boxes and boxes of Fiona’s ornaments and lights, and rows of her carefully labeled foods—nothing more.

  Pete didn’t allow his gaze to travel over to the long rectangle in the dirt floor. As kids, he and his brothers had joshed each other about it being a buried coffin. They’d told ghost stories about it, daring each other to go digging. After so many ghost stories, none of them had ever wanted to be the brave one.

  “It’s silly,” he muttered. “We’re all grown men. We’re not afraid of ghosts anymore.”

  Creed had told the best ghost stories. He could make the hair stand up on his brothers’ arms. Once Creed finished his story, usually with some kind of banshee howl or other horrible story-ending device, the boys couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. Pete’s eyes would close—then snap back open to peer restlessly around in the dark for signs of spirit life.

  Creed had put Burke up to rigging a flying ghost in the trees once, right where the boys had spread out their camping gear. In the night, an ungodly howl had arisen, and suddenly, something white was flying over the boys, draping long fingers of soft spirit cloth over their faces as it whipped over their heads. The boys had fled into the house, screaming at the top of their lungs—except Creed, who they realized was outside rolling in the dirt, clutching his sides with laughter while enjoying them getting the bejesus scared out of them.

  The hair stood up on Pete’s arms at the memory. A nervous finger of fear tickled the back of his neck. He made himself glance at the seven-by-four-foot rectangle in the dirt, and cursed to himself.

  It wasn’t worth it. There was nothing here. Fiona hadn’t been digging—there was no newly turned earth anywhere. She’d probably been digging in the garden and run downstairs with something she was canning.

  His brothers were so busy worrying about Fiona that they were beginning to imagine she was off her rocker. But Fiona was just Fiona.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “My brothers just need to work a little harder to occupy their fertile imaginations.”

  He went back up the basement stairs. He could shower and get to Jackie’s by seven if he hurried—time enough to drag her out to dinner. There was no reason for them to hide anymore—their secret was out. In fact, taking her to dinner might be the best way to help convince her that she needed to be thinking about their future. Jackie might not mind being a single mother, but he didn’t want to be a single father.

  If he was lucky, and played his cards right, perhaps he could convince her to let him into her bed tonight, too. She just needed to know how much she needed him. And their baby needed him, too.

  He needed her. Pete grabbed the door handle, and pulled out to make the door swing open. The handle resisted. He tried again, applying a little more force.

  It was locked.

  Pete banged on the door. “Burke! I’m in here! You locked me in!”

  Burke had left. But maybe he’d come back and seen the open door. Pete had left the key in the lock. “Burke!” he yelled, banging on the door. “Rafe! Creed!”

  Jonas and Sam were still on a wild goose chase to find themselves horses, Pete reminded himself. Sam wasn’t going to buy anything because he claimed to be worried about the ranch. And Jonas was sitting on the fence about quitting his practice in Dallas and buying the land east of here to start his own ranch. That left Judah. “Judah!” Pete hollered. “Judah, open the damn door!”

  There was silence on the landing above him. Pete balanced on the narrow step, and cursed to himself. His cursing was a comforting refrain of angry words.

  It kept the silent darkness away.

  “I can’t take it,” he said, pounding on the door. He couldn’t get enough leverage on the narrow step to kick it. The door opened into the basement, anyway, so kicking it wouldn’t help unless he was on the other side.

  He was not on the other side. He was a prisoner in Fiona’s basement.

  “They’ll be home soon,” he told his jumping heart. Sinking onto the stair, he pulled out his cell phone. He’d call Judah, tell him to come let him out.

  No cell service in the basement. “Of course not,” he muttered, talking to himself to keep from getting weirded out. “When I get out of here, everybody’s going to do exactly what I tell them. No more fibs. No more—” He stopped as he felt a spider—or something—whisk over his arm.

  Just like Creed’s damn ghosts in the trees. Pete froze, his entire being tense, waiting. It was high time, he decided, to change his life. There were too many people running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

  He would not join the chicken rodeo.

  When I get out of here, everybody starts listening to good ol’ Pete. Instead of being Mr. Responsibility they listen to and then ignore, from now on, it’s all about what I want.

  And what I want is Jackie.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Pete didn’t show up that night, Jackie refused to admit that she was disappointed. She didn’t want to call his phone. He’d said they had to talk—so if he was in the mood for conversation, he’d show up.

  She told herself she was glad for the reprieve.

  She missed the heck out of Pete, the old Pete. I miss us the way we were, she thought, but then she knew she didn’t. That was why she’d wanted to change her life. She’d needed to move forward. Pete was not forward.

  Still, she missed the easy companionship they’d shared once a week. “I’m in trouble,” she muttered to Fanny. “I can’t live with him, and I can’t live without him.”

  It was too crazy to contemplate. Jackie sat on her sofa and snuggle
d the puppy, who was putting on weight almost as fast as she was. “You were some gift, you know?” she told Fanny. “I did not need a puppy and two babies.”

  The doctor had to be wrong. His hearing was probably a little compromised at his stage in life. She had a very small house. There was room for one child, but not two, not really.

  She heard the doorbell, and went to find Darla on the porch. “I’m glad you’re here. I needed company.”

  “I need a favor,” Darla said. “Is Pete here?” She glanced around.

  “No. He never came by.” Jackie shrugged, trying to act as if it were unimportant.

  “Never called?”

  Jackie shook her head.

  Darla sat on the sofa, putting a leg underneath her and reaching for Fanny. Jackie handed her the puppy and sat down, too. “That’s not like that eager-beaver cowboy.”

  “Probably had to do something at the ranch. They’re a little shorthanded with Sam being gone.” Jackie tried to sound complacent about Pete’s absence. “And since I’m avoiding telling him the truth until I get the test results, that’s fine with me.” It really wasn’t. She missed him now. But it was for the best, until she was more settled. “I don’t know where I’d put two babies.”

  Darla eyed her stomach. “I don’t, either.”

  Jackie sighed. “So what did you need Pete for?”

  “Oh.” Darla sat up. “I want his opinion on a new car.”

  “What’s wrong with your truck?”

  “I like my truck. But I’d been thinking about getting something newer, and Sabrina wants to buy it.” Darla beamed. “Pete would probably have some good ideas, or know of someone who has something they want to part with.”

  “When did you see Sabrina?”

  “She came in after you left. She says she’s enjoying working for Mr. Jenkins. And she likes living in Diablo. So she thought she might get a new truck. Hers is awfully dilapidated, you know. So then I said I might be looking to sell.” Darla grinned. “Your theory of change is rubbing off on me.”

  “My theory hasn’t been going too well, if you haven’t noticed.” Jackie shook her head. “I’ll call Pete and see if he’s still coming by.” She was glad to have the excuse to call him. He was usually punctual to a fault. His cell phone kicked instantly over into voice mail. “It’s not like him to be this late.” Or late at all.