by Tina Leonard
“No,” Sam said. “You’re not backing out on this deal now, angel cake.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then started over. “I think it’s for the best, Sam. We got married for such different reasons than what our marriage has turned out to be.”
“No one can predict what their marriage is going to be like,” Sam said. “And you’re not going to weasel out on me now.”
She put down the tiny onesies she’d been folding. “Sam, listen. As much as I care about you, I can’t get over the fact that I brought a lot of trouble to Rancho Diablo. I’m sure your brothers are wondering why you married someone who drew more worry than anyone else to the family. I know for a fact that all your brothers are totally happy with their wives.”
“Yeah, well, don’t think their wives don’t give them plenty of trouble, because they do. So unpack that damn suitcase, and don’t even talk to me about running off. We have four babies counting on us, and we’re going to do the right thing by them. So just settle down, Calamity Jane.”
Seton shook her head. “Whether you admit it or not, you’re not as happy as your brothers are, Sam. You wanted to be footloose and free. You got us instead.” She gestured to herself and the babies. “Any man would be entitled to feel resentment over the way I roped you into having children.”
“Yeah, well,” Sam said, “how about you let me decide what my feelings are? For a brainiac P.I., you don’t know as much as you think you do about your husband, which should be the easiest thing you have to consider. How about a little skullduggery with your husband, sweetie?” he asked, handing her the flowers. When she took them from him, he swept her into his arms and kissed her lovingly on the lips.
Seton pulled back after a moment, trying to catch her breath. “Wow, it’s been a long time since you kissed me like that.”
“I’ve been trying to give you a break. Now that I know you’re getting all restless on me, I’ll just have to remind you why you tied me down in the first place.”
Seton narrowed her eyes at him. “I didn’t do all the tying, cowboy.” She laid the flowers on the table, and he thought his gift had pleased her. He pressed on with his suit.
“Still, you’re very talented at throwing a rope, Seton. Caught me in one try.” He reached for her, and pulled her toward the bedroom. With any luck, maybe the babies would stay napping for another few minutes, long enough for him to romance his suddenly guilty wife.
Sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her down the hall and dropped her on the bed, where he gave her a light spanking. “Listen, gorgeous, you might have gotten a case of cold feet, but those babies won’t be going anywhere. You need a day or two to get some crazy out of your system, fine. But those bundles of joy stay with their daddy.”
She jumped off the bed when he released her. “Sam, you can’t just pretend to spank me and think that your case is rested.”
“You’re right. You sidetracked me with your travel plans. Come here, my turtledove, and let me finish the job.” He massaged her bottom through her denim dress, and then reached underneath to find bare skin, making certain that she knew how much he wanted her. He kissed her lips, her neck, made his way down to the lacy camisole edging the front of her dress. “You’re beautiful, Seton.”
She didn’t say anything. But she wasn’t running away.
Sam decided now was an excellent time to remind Seton why she wanted to stay right here with him at Rancho Diablo.
“CONVINCED?” Sam asked Seton about twenty minutes later. He was feeling pretty good about his performance. From his wife’s moans and squeals, he thought he’d made her pretty happy.
“For a quickie,” Seton said, “yes, I think I am.”
“If that was your version of a quickie, we’re going to have a long and happy marriage.”
Seton smiled. “It’s been a long, long time since you’ve held me, Sam.”
“It’s been a long, long time since you were available, goddess.” Sam rolled up on one elbow and stared down at his beautiful wife. “So there’ll be no more talk about you putting on your tennis shoes and doing the cold-feet run.”
“You may have changed my mind for the moment,” Seton said, stretching. “But if any more of your little friends show up around here, I’m going to hit them with a broom.”
“I thought you said we would never be laying hands on anyone in violence in this home.”
Seton gave a wry grimace. “I said you weren’t to teach Bear to fight.”
“That leaves me the girls. Trust me, girls can be just as good fighters as boys. They’re meaner.”
Seton laughed. “Not my little cupcakes.”
“So our bargain is back on.” Sam got out of bed, thinking he heard the “cupcakes” starting to move around in their Moses baskets.
“I’ll think about it after you get rid of your canyon friend for good.” Seton got up, too, and he appreciated her charms as she pulled on her dress.
“He’s still in jail. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There is,” Seton said. “Have you ever wondered what he was surviving on out there?”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t care if he was catching snakes and drinking his own p—”
“Sam. There’ll be no disgusting talk in this house, either.”
He grinned. “What is disgusting to you might be survival to another.”
Seton looked at him. “I’m thinking about Aunt Fiona’s canned preserves that were destroyed.”
Sam zipped his jeans and tried to follow Seton’s line of thought. It was hard, because just looking at her getting dressed was making him think about pulling that dress off her again. “So?”
“He might have made it into her basement once, but he wasn’t coming onto the ranch often enough to steal leftovers and preserves for survival.”
“The canyons aren’t far from the next town. He wouldn’t have had to come into Diablo for supplies.” Although now that Sam thought about it, the man had come onto Rancho Diablo several times that they knew of. They’d always blamed the incidents on Bode, but…
“Someone had to have seen him, Sam,” Seton said, “and that’s what bothers me. He didn’t just now get caught because we were lucky. If he installed a tracking device on my laptop that I could find, as little as I know about spyware, there could be more stuff. Which means he had some type of communication device of his own in order to install it. That leads me to think that he is accessing Wi-Fi from a hot spot somewhere.”
“It wouldn’t take him twenty minutes to walk to Ponce Laredo from the canyons. Banger’s has Wi-Fi, but I doubt he would have been that bold.” Sam realized that Seton was never going to be able to rest now, not with her mind teasing over the facts they knew about the intruder.
And Sam had to have her focused on the babies, and herself, and him, all the time, if their marriage was going to survive. She needed to rest and heal and enjoy the one thing she’d always wanted: motherhood.
So he said the only thing he knew to say.
“It doesn’t matter, Seton. He’s locked up. He can’t bother us anymore.” At least not for a while, Sam thought, walking down the hall to stare at his babies. If he ever came back in this house, I would personally kill him with my bare hands, regardless of Seton’s opinions on the matter.
Sudden rage made Sam kind of crazy as he realized what he would do to protect his family. He loved these children fiercely; he loved his wife like he’d never loved anyone in his life. “I’ll take care of you,” he told the babies, and behind him Seton said, “I know, Sam.”
He turned to her. “Just don’t think about leaving anymore. Go unpack that damn suitcase.”
“Try to understand, Sam,” she said after a moment. “He would never have been here if it wasn’t for me. And I don’t know who he might have told. He was informing someone somewhere.”
Sam narrowed his eyes, thinking. “You’re probably right. I’ll have the foremen who live on the outskirts of the ranch, Johnny Donovan and Jagger Kni
ght, keep an eye out.”
She took a deep breath, knowing the moment had come. “You might want to talk to Chief Running Bear, too.”
Sam looked at her. “He doesn’t live on the ranch, Seton. He just appears from time to time.”
“He knows about the guy, Sam,” Seton said softly. “I know he does, because the chief asked me not to tell you anything until the time was right. I think that time is now.”
Sam shook his head. “How much time did you two spend chatting?”
“Not long. Later, I realized that Running Bear had known all along that the man was in the canyons.”
The chief would know. He knew every inch of this land. It had been his tribe’s before they’d sold it to Jeremiah.
“Is this your last secret?” Sam asked his wife.
“Absolutely,” she said. “The rest of our life together will be an open book. I promise.”
He looked at her. “I’m not going to talk to the chief. It won’t do any good.” Sam thought about it, checked his emotions, realized it was true. “Whatever he didn’t want us to know, we still don’t know. And that’s fine.”
It was true. For him, it was over. He pulled Seton down next to him on the sofa and glanced over at their babies. “Are we staying in this bunkhouse?”
“I am, if you are,” Seton said shyly.
“Good. Because the thing is, I don’t need to know any more than I do.” As Sam spoke the words, he knew they were true. “I don’t care about the chief. I don’t care about the hire. I’ll let Jonas mop everything else up. Or my other brothers. You did a lot of work, Nancy Drew, but I have a funny feeling that if we look any more into the past, we’ll lose sight of the future.”
Seton caught her breath. “I want a future with you, Sam.”
“Of course you do, love,” he said, kissing her fingertips. “I’m the man of your dreams.”
“Did you read that in my notebook, too?”
Sam looked surprised. “No. Was it in there?”
She laughed. “No. But it’s not a secret, either.”
“All right, then. I’ve got an idea. I think we should get married again, right here at Rancho Diablo, with no other reason than we want to be together.”
Seton hesitated. “Why are you telling me all this now? Is it because I was going to leave?”
“No,” Sam said, “you weren’t going anywhere. I knew that all along.”
Seton smiled at her husband’s ego. “So why now?”
“Because you’ve changed me, Seton. If you go, I’m going to follow you. You’re my Alaska, you’re my Amazon rain forest. You’re my adventure. If I have any more adventure than what you’ve given me, babe,” he said, pointing to the babies, “it’ll probably kill me.”
She wasn’t sure. Could a temporary marriage turn into the real thing? Did he really want her—or just the babies? “There has to be more than that for a marriage to work.”
“Not for me. I wanted to find myself. I can keep looking, but the truth is,” he said, kissing her on the lips, “I found myself with you and our family. There are a lot of unanswered questions around here, but that’s the way it’s always going to be. The questions I had about myself are all answered.”
Tears flooded Seton’s eyes. “Sam, that’s so romantic.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He gave her a long, loving kiss. “But it’s not really romantic as much as it is just true. I’ve loved you for a long time, Seton. I was probably in love with you the first time you and your sister came to our ranch with your silly little game.”
“Your aunt hired us,” Seton reminded him. “It was very serious to her.”
“Fiona is a great lady. I love her dearly. Whatever she knows about us may stay a mystery. You, however, are the only thing I want in life. And these children,” he said, gazing down at their babies one more time. “Funny how such small things can change a man.”
Seton drew closer to him. “I always wanted a child, Sam. But I want our marriage to work, too. I love having a family with you.” She gazed at her husband, full of love and joy that he was hers. “I’ll marry you again, if that was a real proposal this time.”
Sam got down on one knee, and she held her breath.
“Knowing everything about me that you do, Seton McKinley Callahan, will you marry me at Rancho Diablo, with our family and friends and these wonderful angels you brought into my life?”
Seton smiled and pulled him into her arms. “Sam Callahan, you just got yourself a permanent deal. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Sam grinned to himself as he held Seton, and thought that life was perfect. He had his wife, he had his children, and for the rest of his life he was going to be the best father and husband he could manage to be.
Sam Callahan had finally made it home.
Epilogue
The magic wedding gown fit Seton like, well, magic. She felt beautiful wearing the long, exquisitely designed dress that all the Callahan brides wore—and it was true what Jackie, Darla, Aberdeen and Julie had said: she did see the face of the man she loved when she put it on. She did know Sam was the right man for her.
But I knew that, anyway, almost from the first time I ever saw him.
When Sam saw her walking down the aisle between rows of white chairs draped with blue ribbons at Rancho Diablo, his eyes told Seton that he thought she was beautiful, too. And that she was the only one for him.
This was the wedding of her dreams, all that she’d ever hoped for. But it was more than a wedding ceremony; this time it was both of them going into marriage absolutely certain of their love, and of their commitment to each other and their family.
“You look beautiful,” Sam said as Seton’s father, Max, walked her to his side at the rose-festooned altar. “But then, you always do to me.”
Seton smiled at her husband. “I love you, Sam.”
“And I love you, babe,” he instantly replied.
“Well,” Father Dowd said, “this is going to be a remarkably different ceremony than last time, I can tell already!”
The many guests laughed. It seemed everyone had come out to the ranch on this beautiful May day to see Seton and Sam say I do one more time. Seton didn’t think she’d ever been happier. Sabrina had agreed to be her maid of honor once again, and Seton just hoped that one day her sister would get the chance to wear the beautiful gown. She glanced at her with a smile, delighted that Sabrina had decided to stay in Diablo permanently.
Better still, their parents were in town for the wedding—and to meet all the new grandchildren. Renee and Max had spent hours with the babies, enjoying being grandparents to the fullest.
It was the most wonderful day of Seton’s life.
Well, besides the day she’d had her children. She smiled at Sam as he took her hand, even before the priest asked who would give the bride in marriage. Together Sam and Seton stood at the altar, enjoying the fact that most of their friends and family were there with them.
It would have been perfect if Jonas had been Sam’s best man, and if Fiona and Burke had been there to share their joy. But Seton knew that, wherever they were, they would be pleased that Sam and she were so happy together.
And Rafe made an excellent best man, anyway. He was beaming as if it was the first wedding for Sam and Seton, and somehow, she felt that it was.
Sam gently squeezed her hand. “One day you and I will watch our children marry their best friends. Four weddings,” he whispered. “That sounds like fun times four to me.”
Seton smiled. It was too far in the future to think about. But she was so thankful that the future was theirs, now and forever.
Sam couldn’t stop staring at his beautiful wife, and thanking his lucky stars that she was going to be his always. He was so proud that his babies were at the wedding, too. Little Sherry, Devon, Sarah and Bear were in separate carriers, being watched over by doting family and friends, zealously assigned by their very protective great-aunt Corinne. There’d been a lot of sleepless nights, but Sam had enjoye
d every single one. He meant what he’d been trying to tell Seton: that she was his best friend. He trusted her with his heart, and he knew she was the woman he’d waited all his life to find. She brought him magic, and total happiness.
He’d been blessed many times over. He was Sam Callahan, husband to Seton McKinley Callahan, and father to four wonderful children.
He was more blessed than he’d ever hoped to dream.
And when Sam suddenly heard the hooves of the mystical Diablos galloping through the deep-hued canyons of Rancho Diablo, he wasn’t surprised at all.
