by Tina Leonard
“That’s nice,” Jonas said. “Thank you for your opinion of me. For your information, I like women. I like them a lot. I’m just pickier than you are. I liked Sabrina a lot.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, feeling slightly proud that he was the architect of the plan to make his brother face his life. “So who else do you think would be the father of her child, Sherlock?”
Jonas held up a hand. “It’s not mine. I know, because she would have told me. Or she would never have left here.”
“Goof,” Judah said, “she might have left because she didn’t think you wanted a serious relationship with her.”
Sam nodded. “It’s true. Any man who only sleeps with a woman is likely to wind up with some communication errors. Like Pete did.” He grinned at his brother.
“Yeah?” Jonas glared at him. “And how is your relationship with Seton going? Since you claim you no longer need to get married now that I’m supposedly going to be a dad?”
Sam swallowed some whiskey, glanced around at his brothers. “Look, there’s history here.” He wasn’t about to admit that he and Seton had a setup going that would make Houdini proud. “Remember in the beginning, when we learned of Fiona’s plot to have us compete for the ranch? Back in the good old simple days of whoever had the biggest family won?”
He glared at his brothers. “And you bunch of turkeys were looking for a scapegoat. Everyone decided it should be me—one, because I’m the youngest and didn’t care if you made me the fall guy. And two, I was willing to turn over the ranch to you guys, anyway. So I was elected to be the patsy.”
He took a deep breath. “I said I’d do it, because this was back before the lawsuit heated up big-time.”
“Wait,” Jonas said, holding up a hand, “let’s get some facts straight. One, you were the best lawyer around.”
“I was all of almost twenty-seven,” Sam said. “I was wet behind the ears.”
“You’d already proved yourself in two major property litigations. You could have been hired on with any firm in the country. You were offered partner at a prestigious law firm. And pardon my saying so,” Jonas said, “but you’d developed quite the reputation in your field as a major butthead to deal with before you so-called retired.”
Sam wrinkled his nose. “I prefer the term tenacious. Thank you.”
“So we knew you were our man. It had nothing to do with the fact that we saved a lot of dough keeping it in the family,” Jonas said.
“That’s right,” their other brothers chorused.
“And as far as digging you up,” Jonas said. “You were just cresting twenty-seven and thinking about packing in your career. But you didn’t need to retire to the ranch.”
“You did,” Sam said, “and you’re just barely looking thirty-five in the eye.”
“Anyway,” Jonas said, “Sabrina and my relationship has nothing to do with why you don’t need to get married.”
“Well,” Sam said, looking around at his brothers for sympathy, “I no longer have to be the fall guy. You’ll have a child, Jonas. All of you have children. We don’t need any more. And now that you’ve all done your parental and wedded duties, you can turn over my portion to me, just like I was going to do for you.” He grinned, feeling fully justified. This would let Seton off the hook. As much as he might dig her, she most certainly did not dig him.
He knew Seton didn’t want to marry him. It stung, but a man had to suck it up sometimes.
His brothers were grumbling. Judah poured everyone another liberal splash of whiskey.
“It might not be my baby,” Jonas protested.
“Well, let’s do some fact finding,” Rafe said. “When you and Sabrina were having your intimate moments, did you ever ride bareback?”
Jonas blinked. “She was always protected.”
Pete coughed. “What the hell does that mean? You let her do all the work?”
“She used a diaphragm.” Jonas glared at them.
“She did?” Judah looked thoughtful. “What were you doing this whole time? Just having fun?”
“I respected her choice,” Jonas said stiffly.
“So every time you had an intimate encounter,” Sam said, “she was protected. There weren’t any little lazy moments.”
Jonas’s face turned slightly red. “There may have been a time or two, in the early morning, in the very early morning, when perhaps we weren’t as—”
“That’s enough.” Sam shook his head. “Poor Sabrina. And you didn’t even trouble yourself to think her baby might have been fathered by you. I feel sorry for her. I really do.”
They all sat in silence for a few minutes.
“I still think you ought to marry Seton, since you’re so in love with her,” Judah said.
Sam jumped, nearly sloshing his whiskey. “Uh, I don’t know.”
“She’s beautiful and smart as hell, and frankly, you’re marrying above yourself,” Pete said.
“Yeah, but maybe I shouldn’t,” Sam said thoughtfully. “She could do better.”
“True,” Jonas said, eager to turn the spotlight off of him. “But she seems crazy about you.”
Seton? Crazy about him? Sam glared at Jonas. “Is this my bachelor party or not? Because so far it’s been pretty lame, bro.”
Jonas jumped up, eager to change the topic of conversation. “All right. On to the bachelor party part of the evening.”
“Well, hurry up.” Sam glanced at his watch. “I’m going over to Seton’s in a bit.”
“That’s what you think, Dopey,” Jonas said. “That whiskey’s been making you talk stupid.”
“Yeah,” Judah said. “We’re not going to let you back out of locking down the best thing you’re ever going to get.”
Sam glared at his brothers. “It’s my call, I believe.”
“So, anyway,” Jonas said, appointing himself head funmeister. “Off we go to find the party. Follow me.”
He left the library, and all the brothers trailed behind. Clearly, they all knew what was about to happen. Sam didn’t care what they had up their collective sleeves. He wanted to go over to Seton’s and tell her she was off the hook. It was almost a given that she’d clap her hands and jump up and down in celebration.
With all the brothers meeting the original stipulations of their aunt’s Plan, everything was fine. He didn’t have to get married, because he didn’t care. And he didn’t want children.
Life was good.
“Come on, slowpoke! It’s your party!” Jonas called up the stairwell.
“I’m coming, damn it,” Sam muttered, following his brothers down the stairs, and then down the basement steps. “Holy Christmas, you’re not bringing the stripper down here, are you?”
His brothers groaned.
“What an ape. When have we ever had a stripper in the house? Fiona would have slapped us one-eyed,” one of them whispered, but in the dim light of the overhead fluorescent bulbs, he couldn’t identify the wise guy. Sam joined the semicircle around the fresh-packed, coffin-length scar in the ground, his skin already beginning to goose-pimple.
“Why are we here?” he demanded. “We’re not touching that thing. We already tried it once. We dug it partially up, found a box, decided we didn’t want to know what Fiona and Burke had hidden under the house, and reburied it. Remember?” He glanced around at his brothers. “We said that it was better to let sleeping skeletons lie, or something like that.”
“Yes, we did.” Jonas nodded, then looked at his brothers for confirmation. “But in the spirit of putting the past behind us, and as we haven’t been able to locate Fiona, we’ve decided it’s time for this family to know exactly what’s been going on all these years. No more secrets.”
Sam shook his head. “Does it have to be tonight? Isn’t my bachelor party supposed to be about dirty stuff?”
“You’ll be plenty grubby once you play around in that dirt. Dig.” Jonas handed him a shovel.
“Why me? I’m the guest of honor!” he protested.
�
�We’re all digging. And none of us got bachelor parties, did we?” Rafe said. “Let’s settle this once and for all, Barrister.”
“This is foul. And unfair.” Sam took a deep breath, knowing he, too, needed to know what was in their past. There was no reason to avoid it any longer. Hell, when Seton had tried to tell him small details, he’d run like a deer.
The time had come.
“This is not my idea of a bachelor party,” Sam said, and turned over a shovelful of dirt.
Chapter Seven
It didn’t take long for the six men to dig up the box, and with his scalp prickling, Sam knelt down. His brothers squatted beside him to help, trying to pull off the three locks of the pinewood footlocker.
When they finally prized it open, Sam couldn’t believe his eyes.
Rows and rows of silver. Bars and bars of the stuff, lying neatly on top of each other. The Callahan men tugged the box from its hole, grunting with the weight of it.
Underneath it was another box.
“That one’s got the body in it for sure,” Judah said, giving Sam the heebie-jeebies.
“Shut up, ass,” he told his brother. “Get down there and see if it’s light enough to be lifted out.”
Judah leaned way over into the hole, with Pete holding on to his boots. He thumped on the lid, which made a hollow sound. Then he tried to lift one side of the box. “I don’t know how Fiona and Chief Running Bear moved all this stuff around. Remember Burke babysat us every year during their meeting, so we wouldn’t stumble on their secret?”
Sam glanced around, noting a curved pole packed beside the box. “See if you can grab that,” he said, and Judah managed to work the pole up the side. He handed it to Sam, who jabbed at the lid, knocking it off and revealing the contents. The box was filled with cloth sacks, about the size of lunch bags, tied with string. Sam hooked one with his pole and pulled it up. He opened the bag, which jingled in his hands. “Silver coins. All of this is exactly like what we found in Fiona’s so-called secret storage cave some months ago.”
“The silver mine,” Jonas said. “It must be worth a ton.”
“You’re the investor in the family, Jonas. Make a guess,” Creed said.
“Could be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said slowly. “Which means Fiona was hiding this from Bode Jenkins all along.”
“Maybe it’s not ours,” Sam said. “Remember, we have no claim to the mineral rights.”
“Well, let’s pack it up,” Rafe said. “We don’t know who it belongs to, but it’s definitely not ours, and frankly, I’m just glad it’s not a body.”
“Why didn’t they put it in a bank?” Pete wondered aloud.
“Because it was safe here, and accessible. If Fiona had deposited any of this in a bank in town, people would have talked. And the secret about the silver mine wouldn’t have been a legend anymore, it would have been a fact.”
“A safe-deposit box would have been secret,” Sam said, “but she would have needed so many it would have gotten expensive. Besides, the chief couldn’t have gotten to it whenever he wanted, I guess.” He shrugged. “It’s probably not ours. We just own Rancho Diablo land.”
They put everything back just as they’d found it, then tamped the dirt back down so it looked undisturbed.
“See?” Judah said. “You did have a dirty bachelor party.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m going to Seton’s.”
“Bad idea,” Jonas said. “I just got a text saying that Sabrina’s having a tough time fitting into the suit Seton picked out for her. Even Corinne’s magical sewing needle may not save it. They think they may have to make a late-night run to the Magic Wedding Dress shop. Jackie and Darla said they’d meet them there, since all their husbands were over here reading Playboy magazines and drinking Sam under the table.”
Sam grunted. “I’m pretty sure I can’t back out now.”
“That’s right, wuss,” Jonas said. “Everybody back to the library. We’ll order pizza and try to live up to the girls’ expectations of the rambunctious life we’re living.”
“I didn’t want a Playboy magazine, anyway,” Sam said, following his brothers.
I’d just like Seton in the flesh. And I have a bad feeling I may not get her.
THE NEXT TIME Sam saw Seton was at the makeshift altar on Rancho Diablo. His fiancée stood underneath a painted trellis, looking beautiful and nervous as hell.
He knew exactly how she felt.
She carried a bouquet of some kind of flowers he couldn’t name, and looked gorgeous, which was to be expected because she was gorgeous. She made his heart thunder with longing and emotions he’d never experienced. He wanted her, and Sam knew that the only reason he hadn’t been a gentleman and let her off the hook was simple.
He was selfish.
After last night’s shocker, he’d known what he needed to do. Somehow he couldn’t make himself give her up.
“Excuse me,” someone said, and it wasn’t the priest speaking. Sam turned to glance at the fifty or so guests seated in white lawn chairs that had been brought over from the church, and came face-to-face with a uniformed courier.
“Young man,” Father Dowd said sternly, “we’re conducting a marriage ceremony.”
“Sorry,” the courier said. “I have a schedule I have to keep. I make my deliveries no matter what people are doing when I arrive. Trust me, sometimes I’d rather not disturb them.”
Sam snatched the letter the courier held out, and Jonas, his best man, tipped him. “Go on, now,” Sam told the man, before Seton could slip away. She was so pale and looked so ready to flee that he didn’t dare give her a chance to do so.
“Better open it,” she told him.
“It can wait.” He stuffed it in the breast pocket of his tux.
“I suppose you should,” Father Dowd said, “just in case someone is protesting your marriage.”
Seton gasped. “Why would they?”
“Do you often receive deliveries during official occasions?” Father Dowd asked Sam.
“Not really,” Sam said, not wanting anything to keep Seton from becoming his bride. He felt urgent about it, as if he was racing against an unseen enemy. “Blast,” he muttered, “I’ll open it. But we’re all going to feel silly when it turns out Jonas didn’t pay the electric bill or something mundane like that.”
No one laughed—or smiled. Behind them, the guests were starting to chatter to each other. This was not the way Sam wanted to start his marriage, such as it was. He didn’t want to give Seton a chance to remember that he’d told her they could get a divorce later on, after his part of Fiona’s Plan had been fulfilled. With Sabrina standing next to her with a tummy the size of a small garden shed, Seton had a lot on her mind. Now he knew why Jonas had been so tense. Sam figured he’d flip out if a baby got sprung on him, too.
“All right,” he said, and tore open the envelope. He scanned the contents, his gut tightening. “This can be handled later,” he said, and Jonas said, “What is it?”
“It involves the ranch.” Sam didn’t want to go into detail. He realized his brothers’ ears were stretched out, trying to hear every word, and sighed. “The lawsuit has been terminated,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“What?” Seton said.
Sabrina gasped. “Completely?”
Jonas grabbed the letter. “That’s exactly what this says. This is the best news we’ve had in five years. Hurry up and get married so we can celebrate!”
“Wait,” Seton said, and Sam’s heart sank.
“I knew better than to open it,” he told Father Dowd. “I blame you.”
“That means you don’t need to marry me,” Seton said, almost on cue from the devil Sam just knew was perched on his shoulder, conducting this dreadful moment and laughing his little red ass off.
“Yes, I do,” Sam said stubbornly.
“No, you don’t,” Seton said. “It was all about the ranch, remember?”
“I knew it!” Jonas exclaimed. “I knew
you were rigging this marriage. If it wasn’t rigged, you’d never land a babe like Seton.”
“Hey,” Seton said, her tone stern. “Sam could have gotten me.”
Sam perked up at Seton’s loyalty. “Really?”
“Of course.” She didn’t seem completely certain, but he wasn’t going to quibble. If she’d said he could have gotten her under normal circumstances, maybe she was telling the truth.
Probably not, now that he thought about how hard he’d had to twist her arm.
