Callahan Cowboy Triplets

“I did. Tighe was nowhere to be found.” Jace shook his head. “I think I might have sipped a little too liberally from Tighe’s libation. My head’s killing me.” He handed her a soda off a cardboard tray he’d carried into the bleachers. “You didn’t see him?”

She shook her head. It wasn’t a total fib—she hadn’t seen Tighe in the darkness. But she’d felt him, and he’d made glorious love to her that she’d remember for days.

“Don’t know where he went. I looked for him near the pens, but no one’s seen him.” Jace shrugged. “He hasn’t scratched, either, which is a bad sign that our plan didn’t work.”

“Your plan,” River said. “I refuse to take further part in keeping Tighe from his...goal.”

Jace glanced at her. “I don’t blame you. He’s a rascal.”

“You’re all rascals. Including your sister, Ashlyn, and your aunt Fiona.”

Jace laughed. “No argument there. But we’re doing what’s best for him. Ever since Tighe was little, he thought he was a big shot.”

“How is he different from, say, you?”

“Because I can do what I brag about. Tighe isn’t Dante. He isn’t smart like Galen. He’s not tough like Ash. If it’s true what Grandfather Running Bear says about one of us being the hunted one, the one who’ll bring destruction to the family, it’d be Tighe. He’s always on a quest, but he never quite achieves it. You get what I’m saying?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” River said, “I’ve worked for the Callahans for quite a while. I know the drill.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d feel guilty, River. Your job is to be a bodyguard. Protecting Callahans is what you do, right?” Jace leaned back, a popcorn-eating philosopher. “Protecting Tighe from himself is no different from your normal job description.”

“Whatever.” River’s nerves were jangling. “I don’t feel guilty, just for the record.”

“You did the best you could.”

“Shush, Jace,” she said, “I can’t hear the announcer. I don’t want to miss Tighe ride.”

“True, if we blink we’ll miss him,” Jace said, laughing.

“You guys are mean. Tighe’s on a mission.” River felt compelled to stand up for him, even if she’d been part of the plot to keep him off the bounty bull. Secretly, she hoped Tighe met his desired goal, whatever it was that urged him on—because then...

Then he might want to settle down like his Callahan brothers, Sloan, Falcon and Dante.

That was treacherous thinking. One night of sexy lovemaking didn’t mean anything—at least, it probably hadn’t to Tighe.

But it had to her. If the opportunity presented itself again, she doubted she’d refuse another night in Tighe’s arms.

In fact, she knew she wouldn’t.

She might even instigate it.

* * *

IT WAS TIME: the moment of truth. Either he could take it or he couldn’t; it was time to find out if he could pin the tail on the donkey.

“Good luck,” said Galen, who’d come out to watch his fall from grace. But Tighe had told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to stay on Firefreak for the whole eight seconds, come hell or high water.

“Thanks.” He took a deep breath, approached the chute. “Is River watching?”

“I’m sure she has every intention of watching you win the buckle, bro,” Galen said, and Tighe swallowed hard.

“Great.” He had to make eight seconds. What price being a hero? Priceless, no matter how many bruised ribs. He got on the chute amid muttered encouragement from the other cowboys helping load up Firefreak’s slayer. He mounted the massive body, which had been relatively still until he seated himself, and began wrapping his hand—then crashes, curses and fear rang through his ears in a tunnel of mindless noise. He nodded, the chute jerked open and Firefreak burst into action.

Tighe stared up at the arena ceiling, shocked to find himself on his back. A bullfighter yelled, helped guide him in a headlong rush to the corral side as Tighe gasped from the pain flooding his leg. Firefreak danced a wild jig of triumph before being chased from the ring.

Tighe glanced at the time.

Three seconds. He’d made it three seconds.

And he was pretty certain he’d done something to his leg. Heat and white-hot pain shot up to his groin. Worse, he’d proved his family right—in front of River.

“Are you all right, Tighe?” River asked, suddenly at his side as Galen checked him over.

Tighe stumbled toward a bench and let his brothers help him out of his gear. “I’m fine. Nothing damaged but my pride.”

“And his leg,” Galen announced. “Brother, you’re going to be bed-bound for a while.”

“I’m fine.” Tighe was bothered that he hadn’t had the epiphany he’d been expecting while on Firefreak. True, Dante had been known to exaggerate—and maybe he’d even told a wee fib just to goad Tighe on. But Dante had sworn to his siblings that for the few seconds he’d been on that bull, he’d been absolutely, mindlessly free of his demons.

“You’re not fine.” Galen moved a practiced hand over his leg, divining what would take other doctors X-rays to learn. “You have a fracture, brother. And a groin tear. You’ll be out of commission a good six weeks.”

“And we were already shorthanded,” Ashlyn said, not sparing words as his other siblings grouped around him. “You’ll have to learn to take care of yourself from your bed. None of us can give up ranch duties to tend you, when we told you that riding Firefreak was practically a death wish for you.”

He wasn’t the big zero on the back of a bull they thought he was. “I’ll be fine.” He looked at River, saw the worry on her face, tried to smile reassuringly. “I am fine.”

“I’ll nurse him.” She looked at him, then around at his siblings. “Goodness knows he’s a pain, but I can bring the twins and watch all three of them.”

“Three children,” Ash said. “Somehow seems fitting.” She glared at her brother.

“You guys can be as annoyed as you want,” Tighe said. “As soon as I’m healed, I’m getting right back on that ornery son of a gun.”

“He hit his head.” Jace shook his own numskull, not understanding his brother’s determination. “You must have, or you wouldn’t say something so dumb.”

“I’m getting back on him,” Tighe repeated, “Firefreak is a pussycat.”

“Maybe you can talk some sense into my intelligence-challenged brother,” Ash whispered to River.

Tighe smiled. Dante said that riding Firefreak had brought him closer to Ana, and now River was going to take care of him while he was bed-bound.

Firefreak’s the best thing that ever happened to me. “Awesome,” Tighe said, swallowing back a slight moan as Galen and Jace began fitting a board to his leg so they could get him to a hospital. Tighe winked at River, the woman to whom he’d made love last night—sweet as an angel—the only woman worth pulling his groin over just to get her attention.

* * *

AFTER A TRIP to the hospital and then a visit to an orthopedist that didn’t do much for his mental state, which at the moment was black and aggrieved, Tighe sat in Jace’s truck, his leg up on the backseat, thrilled to be going home. The seven-chimney, Tudor-style mansion that Molly and Jeremiah Callahan had built long ago to house their young family of six sturdy Callahan boys—the Chacon Callahans’ cousins—rose like a beautiful postcard from its New Mexico grounds. Backed by panoramic spools of canyons and gorges, Rancho Diablo was an amazing sight. Tighe didn’t think he’d ever get over the breathtaking beauty of the ranch. He’d been born and raised in the Chacon tribe, then served in the military, where life was a whole lot different than here. He loved the ranch and the small town of Diablo, loved being with his family, enjoying a new closeness they hadn’t been able to share in many years. Even the constant threat of danger couldn’t always rub the shine off Rancho Diablo’s surroundings.

But the truck didn’t turn toward the main house, and Tighe’s radar went on alert. “Why are you taking me to Sloan and Kendall’s house?” Something was most certainly afoot.

“Since River has agreed to be your nurse—I can’t imagine why—” Ash said, “Kendall says it would be best for you to be here. This way River can keep an eye on all her charges. It’ll be better if the twins’ normal schedule isn’t interrupted.”

This didn’t sound good at all. “Much as I love my little nephews,” Tighe said, “I don’t want to stay at Sloan and Kendall’s. I’ll stay in my own room in the bunkhouse.” How could he ever be alone with River if he was sharing space with little Carlos and Isaiah? They were active, trying to pull themselves up on unsteady feet, eager to find their range and explore.

There would be no time for romancing the tall, delicious bodyguard with two busy rug rats taking up her every second. “Not to be selfish or anything,” he said, and Ash said, “Go ahead and admit it, you’re selfish. I can hear the wheels turning in your head. ‘How can I be alone with River if I’m laid up with my darling nephews?’” she added in a high voice, mimicking what she thought he was thinking, and in fact, what he had been thinking.

“I am selfish.” Tighe sighed. “Something’s happened to me. I used to be footloose and, well, footloose.”

“Now it’s just your head that’s loose. Come on, brother. Let me help you inside.” Ash hopped out, opened his door.

He glared at her. “No. Take me to the bunkhouse, or the main house. I would rather suffer in silence than be just another—”

“Helpless person River has to keep an eye on?” Ash prodded.

“The trouble is, you don’t suffer in silence. Come on.” Jace put his shoulder under Tighe’s to give him support as he unsteadily maneuvered himself out of the truck. “You’re lucky we don’t just leave you out in the peacock pens to heal, where we can’t hear you moan and groan.”

It was too humiliating. He wouldn’t look like a warrior, wouldn’t be a hero with badass courageous qualities if his woman tossed him in with the kiddies as an extra responsibility.

“Either you take me to the bunkhouse or I’m going to the canyons.” After making fierce love to that little lady practically all night long, he wasn’t about to appear anything less than a stud—and he couldn’t be that if he was laid out on a sofa. “The weather’s fine. The canyons suit me just as well as anywhere.”

“Be a sitting duck for Uncle Wolf and his cretinous crew,” Jace said. “Come on, be practical, bro.”

Jace didn’t understand practical. Practical was when you could think past the sirens that screamed in your head every time the woman you had a thing for got within ten feet. Tighe had lost his practicality a long time ago. “Canyons or bunkhouse. Take your pick. Can’t promise to stay either place.”

Ash sighed. “Flip a coin. Either decision is bad. Fiona will roost on the bunkhouse if you stay there, she’ll be so worried that you’re an easy mark. The canyons and you’re even more of a sitting duck.”

That sounded very much like conditions he’d lived under in Afghanistan. He could survive there by his wits, and wouldn’t be taking up any of the family’s time. Tighe brightened. “The canyons. Who’s riding canyon right now?”

“You were supposed to,” Jace said sourly. “It was your shift. Now Xav Phillips says he’ll come back and take over, which isn’t a good idea.” Jace glanced at Ash, who was talking on a cell phone to River, complaining that Tighe was a stubborn ass. “We don’t need Xav in the canyons, dude, as you well know, because Ash will find a thousand reasons and ways to get down there to haunt her favorite cowboy.”

“Who’s got a favorite cowboy?” Ash asked, returning. “Apparently, not River right now. She’s annoyed with you, Tighe.” Ash grinned. “She says you have to go to Sloan’s, because she can’t leave the twins to visit you in the bunkhouse.”

Even better. He didn’t want River around while he healed. A lightning flash of intuition told him he’d be better off returning when he was all better, a hero again—not the poor sap everyone was annoyed with. “Really, I’m such a pain in the ass, the only place I can be is the canyons.”

“I agree completely. Still, a bad idea,” Jace said.

“But—” Ash began, and Tighe waved her to silence.

“I’ve made up my mind.” What use was he as a man if he was on par with the twins? “I got myself into this mess and I’ll get myself out. As a matter of fact, just take me to the stone and fire ring. All I need is a bottle of whiskey and some girlie mags. I’ll be fine.”

Ash and Jace stared at him, their expressions dismayed.

“Okay, no girlie mags,” Tighe said, loving messing with his siblings. They thought he wasn’t big and bad right now. Well, he was; he was a monster pain in the butt, and that was just the way a man should be.

“You’ll be unprotected,” Ash said. “Much as you’re the only one among us with such disregard for yourself, you still do not want to put yourself out there with a bull’s-eye on you for Wolf and his gang. Listen to me,” she pleaded. “I’ll worry myself sick.”

“Sick about what?” River asked.

The three Callahans stared at the tall woman who’d just walked up, catching the last words of their conversation. Just the sight of that gorgeous creature made his blood pound. River gave him the wild, mad dreams of a man who’d tasted heaven once and was determined to do it again. Once he was healed, he was coming back for her.

“Nobody’s worried about a thing,” Tighe said.

“I’m worried.” Ash looked at River for help. “My jackass of a brother wants to camp out in the open instead of stay in the house with you and the twins. In the open,” she emphasized.

River didn’t miss Ash’s message. She met his gaze, didn’t look away. Peered deep inside him, until he felt her reaching into his soul.

The woman practically stole his very breath.

“I’ll drive you out there,” River said.

Chapter Three

After he’d packed up some gear and run the gauntlet of a protesting aunt Fiona and family, River hustled Tighe into the military jeep and steered it toward the canyons. He glanced over at the goddess next to him, trying to decipher the change in her mood. She certainly wasn’t the cooing, sexy tigress he’d had in his arms last night.

He’d have to call River’s mood elusive, which didn’t sit well with him at all. It almost felt as if she was abandoning him without a thought.

“Thanks for the ride. My siblings weren’t going to bring me.”

Glossy dark strands of hair blew around her face as she drove, rather speedily, he thought, given the uneven terrain. She could at least quit mashing the pedal.

“It’s not my worry if you’ve got a death wish. I have no desire to keep you from your fondest desires, Tighe.”

That didn’t sound right. She was his fondest desire. “I don’t have a death wish.”

“Don’t you?” She leveled him with brown eyes that held not a care in them. “First Firefreak. Now sleeping in the open, when you know that the ranch has been under siege for forever. For longer than either you or I have even been here.”

Aw, she was fretting about him, the cute little thing. He reached over and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

She batted away his hand. His brows rose. “Regretting last night?”

She turned to him, her forehead pinched in a frown. “Regretting what?”

He hardly knew what to say, since this darling angel seemed to have suddenly sprouted a ten-inch layer of cactus needles around herself. “You and me.”

“Hardly,” she shot back. “It didn’t mean a thing, cowboy.”

He tried not to let his jaw fall open. “Nothing?”

“Should it have?”

It certainly had to him. Hell, he’d gotten on Firefreak for her! Making love to her, plus facing his greatest challenge since coming to Diablo—well, it was the greatest cocktail of adrenaline and gut-punching life he’d ever experienced. “You know me. It’s just all about getting naked,” he bragged, trying to sound like his old self, the self he’d been before they’d made love. His whole world had changed—shouldn’t hers have, too?

“Where am I dropping you off?”

She sounded completely unworried. Tighe comforted himself that that was because everyone knew he could take care of himself. “At the stone ring, please.”

At that news, she did look a little alarmed. “You’ll be out in the open. I think your family assumes you’re at least taking shelter in one of the caves or overhangs.”

“Wouldn’t do any good. Wolf will find me if he wants to, and frankly, I don’t care if he does.”

“You’re injured, Tighe. I know you don’t like to admit to mortality, but you do recall that seven goons tied up your sister and Xav Phillips just last month?”

Tighe had no intention of hanging out in a cave like a cowering dog, away from the stars he loved and the fresh breezes that stirred his soul. “It’s just a little groin pull, darling. No worries. However,” he said, perking up, “maybe you’d like to hang around and nurse my groi—”

“And a hairline fracture,” River interrupted.

“I mend best in the open. I lived in the tribe. Was deployed to some hellish places. Don’t you worry about me, beautiful.”

“I’m not,” she snapped. “I think you’re an idiot.”

Well, that wasn’t how a man wanted the angel of his dreams to view him. “Harsh.”

“Honest.”

She pulled up to the stone ring. Large rocks, one set for each of the seven Chacon Callahans, encircled a small glowing fire. His grandfather, Chief Running Bear, tended the blaze. The chief said this place was their home now, while they protected Callahan land, and the mystical black Diablos, the spirit horses that lived in the canyons. They were the true wealth of Rancho Diablo.

“Home sweet home,” Tighe said.

“Then get out,” River said, “if this is where you want to be.”

He turned to look at her. “Gorgeous, I’m pretty sure I showed you a good time in bed. Is there a reason you’re all prickly suddenly?”

She met his gaze. “I told you. I’m pretty sure you’re the loose cannon I always believed you were.”

He winced internally. This was true. But it wasn’t necessary to rub in the fact that he’d clearly failed to change her mind. “All right, sweet face. Try not to miss me too much,” he said, getting out of the jeep and managing his crutches a bit more slowly and painfully than his jaunty tone implied.

“I won’t miss you at all.” She wheeled the jeep around and drove away, apparently not even curious as to where he planned to lay his bedroll.

“Guess that means we won’t be sharing the old pillow tonight. It’s a shame, because I’m pretty sure you’re kidding yourself, my hottie bodyguard.” He hobbled around, trying to find a place to settle, not altogether surprised when his grandfather appeared.

“Howdy, Chief.” Tighe tossed his bedroll down. “Haven’t seen you since Dante’s wedding.”

“I’ve seen you.” Running Bear picked up the bedroll. “Come.”

Tighe followed as fast as his crutches would allow. “Where are we headed?”

The chief disappeared behind some thick cacti. A threadlike stream encircled a wide stone dugout tucked back and hidden so well that Tighe would never have seen it even if he’d been looking for it. He had a feeling his brothers and Ash had no idea about Running Bear’s lair. Well, Ashlyn might; she seemed to know more than most. But he thought Galen, Jace, Falcon, his pinheaded twin, Dante, and Sloan were just as in the dark as he was. “Nice digs, Grandfather.”

Running Bear grunted. Tighe felt honored that his grandfather had brought him to his private sanctuary. They sat near the opening, staring out over the curling canyons below. “Wow, this is quite a view.”

“Yes.” Running Bear didn’t look at him as Tighe gingerly settled himself against the rock ledge so his leg could jut forward for support. “We need to discuss your time at Rancho Diablo.”

“My time?”

His grandfather gazed out into the distance. Sudden fear clenched Tighe’s gut. The old chief had warned the seven Chacon Callahans that one of them was the hunted one, the one who would bring harm to the family. Was it him? Was that why Running Bear had brought him here? Somehow Tighe had known this was where he belonged, almost from the moment he’d realized River had gone chilly on him.

“Tell me what I should do, Grandfather,” he said, and the old man closed his eyes, though Tighe knew he wasn’t dozing.

“Meditate on who you are,” Running Bear said. “You are not yet who you will be.”

Tighe didn’t know how to be anything other than what he was. Some—like River—claimed he was a bit wild. Maybe he was. Certainly he liked to live on the edge, but wasn’t that part of enjoying life to the max? His family teased him, calling him more taciturn than his talkative twin, but that had been when they were kids. The military had thought he was fairly accurate and single-minded when it came to sniper skills. Tighe had earned the moniker Takedown. He’d liked living almost alone at times, when he was on an assignment. Other times he’d appreciated the camaraderie and brotherhood of his platoon. It had been a close bond, reminiscent of his tribe. “Chief, I don’t know how to be anything different than what I am.”

His grandfather looked at him. “You will learn.”

Then he left the stone crevasse, disappearing without a sound. Tighe leaned back against the rough wall with a sigh. He looked out over the canyons from his grandfather’s aerie, and wondered if he would ever get River to kiss him again. She seemed to think he needed to change somehow, too.

He was pretty resistant to that. “Twenty-seven years of being the opposite of Dante wasn’t so bad,” he muttered. “I’d rather be me than him.”

He liked being wild and free. What exactly was wrong with that?

Even River wouldn’t want him to change that much. She had to have liked him the way he was or she wouldn’t have allowed him to make love to her.

Then again, he could consider changing just a little if she’d open her arms to him again. Problem was, he didn’t know what he was supposed to change. Tighe closed his eyes, willed himself to meditate.

“Every journey changes your soul. Each journey is a path to self-knowledge,” Running Bear said. “There is no life without this.”

“I know, Grandfather, I know. I remember your teachings.” Tighe opened his eyes, glanced around. Running Bear was nowhere to be seen. But his words remained in Tighe’s mind, delicate as air.

Closing his eyes again, he allowed the mysticism he knew so well to envelop him, something he hadn’t done in a long, long time.

* * *

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Ash asked River, who was looking out a window in the main house, toward the barn. River had specifically chosen this room for her project.

“I’m spying on your brothers. And Sawyer. There’s something strange about her. I don’t believe for a second that she’s had real training as a bodyguard. Not like Ana and I had.”

“The little twins seem to like her.”

“Isaiah and Carlos like her because they’re Callahan males. They’re predisposed to like pretty girls from the moment they’re conceived. That doesn’t make her a bodyguard. It makes her a decent nanny. Maybe.”

Ash flopped into a chair. “When I asked Kendall why she’d hired Storm Cash’s niece, she said Sawyer had the right training, and that she’d spent time in the desert honing her skills. Kendall said she checked her background, and Sawyer and Storm hadn’t been close during Sawyer’s childhood. So in Kendall’s maternal opinion, there was no reason to eliminate a perfectly good bodyguard just because of some stinky family relations. And Kendall said sometimes it was best to keep your enemies tucked tight to one’s bosom.”

“I like my bosom enemy-free. I’m not leaving until I know the twins are in capable hands,” River stated.

Ash watched Sawyer below, chatting up Jace, as little Isaiah and Carlos happily sat in their double stroller. “I didn’t know you were planning on leaving. And yet, I guess I did know. I was just hoping my hunch was wrong.” Ash sighed. “You’re going to find Tighe, aren’t you?”

“It’s time someone does.” It had been three weeks since she’d driven Tighe to the stone fire ring. She had no idea what he was eating or drinking, or if he was miserable from his leg injury. None of the Callahans, including the protective aunt Fiona, seemed all that worried. When River had mentioned to Fiona that maybe her husband, Burke, might need to go check on Tighe, she had shaken her head and said she didn’t have time for such monkeyshines.