A Callahan Christmas Miracle

“That’s fine,” Rose said. “I completely understand.”

The older woman beamed. “That’s it, then. I’ll let Jace go over the paperwork with you. Mealtimes are posted in the kitchen, as is what’s being served.”

Rose glanced one last time at the door Galen had passed through. All the Callahans had been rumored to be hard to tame—but once tamed, they made wonderful husbands and fathers.

If any man needed taming, it was Galen Callahan.

* * *

ROSE’S EYES SNAPPED OPEN in the night and she pulled the crocheted duvet up to her throat, telling herself she was nervous for no reason. She’d gone home and retrieved her things, and her father had sent her off full of dire warnings: Don’t go anyplace by yourself, and don’t let any of the Callahan men turn your head. They were rascals and scoundrels, and loved women like bees loved honey.

Her dad had no idea how much the thought of a rascal Callahan appealed to her. But the other warnings had scared her a bit. She’d heard tales of the danger that circled Rancho Diablo.

The door eased open, and she held her breath.

“Knock, knock,” she heard a man’s voice say softly.

“Yes?” At least it was a friendly visitor.

“It’s Jace. Got a second?”

Rose wondered if this was a Callahan ritual. “Do you always make nocturnal visits?”

“Sometimes. Depends. She’s in here, Galen. She says we can come in.”

She hadn’t said anything of the sort, but since Galen was around, Rose pushed herself eagerly to a sitting position. “What’s going on?” she asked, flipping on the tiny lamp on her nightstand. “Oh, my goodness! What did you do to yourself?”

Both men were covered in mud from head to toe.

“Don’t you dare get near my bed!” The pretty white coverlet wouldn’t stand mud on it—she’d never get it out. “Step on that rug, and don’t either of you move!” She hopped out of bed and pulled a robe from her closet, putting it on over her smiley-face pajamas.

Galen grinned at her. “Cute.”

“Thanks.” She wished she was wearing something sexier than the pajamas she’d had for the past two years, but she hadn’t expected two handsome cowboys to visit her in her bedroom. “What have you been into?”

“We want you to come down to the canyons with us,” Galen said. “We need a small, delicate person like you to do something.”

Rose eyed the mud that covered their jeans and smudged their handsome faces. “You two are nothing but trouble, I can tell. It’s written all over you.”

“That’s what they say,” Jace said, and he looked so pleased about it that Rose wondered if either of these men could be tamed. She looked carefully at Galen.

“If I come with you, and I’m not saying I will, what is it that you want me to do? Because I don’t want to come back looking like you. I don’t think crawling around in canyons was in the employment contract I signed.”

“We’ll give you combat pay,” Jace said. “Fiona baked fresh chocolate chip cookies tonight. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“I bet. Occasionally, my dad sends me to Diablo to the Books’n’Bingo Society tearoom for cookies. We have a bakery in Tempest, but Dad likes what your aunt and her friends make better.” Their cookies were lures, and the Callahans had other lures, too. Her gaze longingly touched on Galen’s biceps, his broad chest, his lean hips in blue jeans.

Even caked in mud, he was so sexy she ached.

“So anyway,” Rose said, “I assume this outing is dress-down?”

“Something a little less bright than smiley faces,” Galen said cheerfully, and his brother glared at him.

“We’ll step out while you change,” Jace said, dragging him from the room.

Rose dressed quickly. Even though it was June, it could be cool in the canyons. She pulled on jeans she wouldn’t mind getting filthy, a dark sweatshirt that read Dark Shadows, boots and a dark hat.

Galen’s gaze widened when she joined them in the hall.

“I didn’t expect you to wait on me right outside my door.”

“Expediency,” Galen said. “We’re nothing if not expedient. Dark Shadows?”

She closed her door. “Seemed appropriate. You do go to the movies on occasion, don’t you?”

“No, he doesn’t go to the movies. He barely leaves this ranch. Galen is our resident nerd. Brother, it was also a black-and-white TV show many, many moons ago.” Jace waved them down the stairs. She followed, and Galen brought up the rear.

“I’m not a nerd,” he said, his deep voice husky. “I’m busy. And we didn’t have televisions in the tribe. Not back then. I missed the good days of black-and-white TV.”

“Don’t mind him,” Jace said, leading them through the kitchen. He slid all the cookies off the plate Fiona had put out and into a bag, and left the empty dish on the counter. “He’s harmless. Some of us had the opportunity to watch television shows, but Galen was always studying.”

They went out the kitchen door and headed to a truck. Rose was thrilled to be in on a Callahan caper. Their adventures were legendary; people spoke of their stories in reverent tones. Despite her father’s warnings, she wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

The brothers sandwiched her between them in the front seat, and she enjoyed the feeling of having a strong man seated on either side of her. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re going to lower you into a cave,” Galen said. “We want you to tell us what’s down there.”

Bats and snakes, no doubt. “A cave?”

“Yeah. We’ve both tried, but we’re too big to get inside, with only one of us to pull the other out.” Galen winked. “We can lower you in and pull you out so fast it’ll feel like you’re on a carnival ride.”

“Pretty sure she’ll feel more like she’s a puppet,” Jace said. “With you being the puppeteer. Hope you’re a better puppeteer than you are a TV trivia expert.”

“I...” She wasn’t about to refuse, not when Galen’s blue eyes were smiling at her as if they shared a secret. He really was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

“We looked for our sister,” Jace groused, “but Ash can never be found when she’s needed.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be put in a cave,” Rose said.

“When Ash can’t be found, it’s because she’s tracking Xav down.” Galen sighed. “Anyway, you’re thinner.”

“More petite,” Jace said, “like a boy.”

Rose gasped. “I’m nothing like a boy, thank you!”

“I didn’t mean that, exactly,” Jace said hurriedly, and Galen laughed.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “And my brother’s a dunce. Don’t listen to a word he says. He has zero idea how to talk to a woman. Anyone on the ranch will tell you so.”

Rose felt a bit better, and her spirits lifted. Galen thought she was beautiful! That had to be a good sign—even if he did want to lower her into a dark cave on her first night at Rancho Diablo.

* * *

GALEN COULDN’T BELIEVE he’d talked the tiny blonde into a midnight adventure. His good fortune kept improving. And she felt so soft and dainty next to him. When he’d seen her in those silly happy face pajamas, his body had been hit with a lightning strike of sexual attraction. Desire, fierce and strong, had poured over him, stopping his breath.

The truck hit a rut and they all bounced. Rose flew into his side, and a breast brushed his arm, which he gallantly tried to ignore. “Whoa,” he said, “you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled at him before quickly looking back out the window.

“Jace isn’t our best driver. He gets behind a steering wheel and thinks he’s at Daytona.” Galen didn’t want Rose to feel awkward about the accidental closeness they’d just shared—but his mind went right back to the tempting touch he’d just received courtesy of his brother’s terrible driving.

He was so glad Jace was driving.

“Not true,” Jace said. “In defense of myself, I’m such a good driver, I could teach driver’s education.”

Rose smiled. “I’m sure you could, Jace.”

A fire smoldered inside Galen, lit when he’d felt Rose’s breast against his arm. What he wouldn’t give to make that accidental touch the real thing. “Here’s the turn, Jace.”

He eyed the canyons, which were steeped in darkness. Somewhere out there, no doubt, their uncle Wolf’s henchmen lurked. No one knew yet how the fire had started, but according to the sheriff, the quaint, solitary farmhouse on the neighboring land had burned to the ground. Fortunately, the foreman hadn’t been home. Hadn’t lived on the property, except for weekends, after he’d sold out to Storm Cash.

“This isn’t Rancho Diablo, is it?” Rose asked.

“No,” Galen said. “This is Rancho Not.”

“Rancho Not?”

“What my ham-headed brother means,” Jace said, “is that we’re trespassing.”

Rose glanced at Galen. “Why?”

“Because we’re spying,” he said simply. “Actually, we’re not even spying. We’re gathering intel.”

“Spying,” Rose said. “You think your uncle Wolf has planted something in the cave we’re going to.”

“Not just another pretty face,” Jace said. “You see, Galen, I told you she had brains as well as beauty. You said Rose was a looker, and I said she was also a brain.”

“You were focused on my superficialities and not my intelligence?” Rose asked Galen.

“That’s about the size of it,” Jace said, happy to have him land in hot water with a huge splash. “This is the spot. Let me help you out, dollface.”

Galen glowered at his brother, who ignored his obvious discomfort with his flirting. “Dollface” took Jace’s hand, and he helped her from the truck, leaving Galen with no option except to get out and tag along behind them with a Maglite and a case of unexpected jealousy.

He had no reason to feel jealous. He barely knew Rose, and Jace was a boob of epic proportion. Rose would never be interested in his wild-eyed brother. And anyway, I have no place in my life for a girlfriend. Even one as sexy as Rose.

“Galen, tie the rope around Rose. I’ll check for snakes and bats, one last time.”

She let out an involuntary squeal. Galen grinned as he wrapped the rope around her tiny waist. “Don’t listen to him. He just likes to hear you squeak.”

“Well, I will, and loudly if there’s anything down there with two eyes!” Rose watched with trepidation as Jace shone his own Maglite into the crevice. “How did you ever find this cave?”

“Our intel revealed that there’s a lot of activity around this location. Then we found this cave. We want to know what’s down there.” Galen pulled the rope taut, tugging her a little closer to him. She smelled good, a flowery scent that tantalized him. “I’ll be at the other end of this rope, and nothing will happen to you. If you want to come out, you just jerk it, and we’ll get you out faster than a genie out of a bottle.”

“You’d better,” Rose warned. “Or I’ll commandeer the bag of cookies and not give you a single one.”

“That’s my girl,” Jace said, “hit him where it hurts. Now down you go.”

Galen handed her a flashlight, then stepped close to the edge of the cave opening, shining his own light so they could see as she was lowered down.

“What exactly am I looking for?” she asked, glancing up.

“Bodies,” Jace said. “Dead bodies.”

She let out a small gasp.

Galen laughed. “Don’t frighten her.”

“That’s right.” Jace grinned at Rose as he let out more rope. “You’re like a canary,” he told her. “You’re going to let us know if there’s any trouble down below.”

“Canaries die,” Rose said.

Galen smiled, impressed with her spirit. “Only in the case of noxious gas. And believe me, I’m up here with the only noxious gas around. You’re just going to be down there for a moment.” His words seemed to soothe her, but Galen felt suddenly anxious as Rose disappeared from sight.

It got very quiet underneath the velvety New Mexico sky. Galen listened, his pulse thundering, his breath short, his stomach even cramping a bit—maybe he shouldn’t have allowed his brother to talk him into this—and then suddenly, the rope went completely slack.

Chapter Three

“Rose!” Galen shouted, realizing that she was no longer at the end of the rope he held. He tossed it away, as did his brother. The two of them flattened themselves against the lip of the cave, peering down. “Rose!”

“Hold your horses,” she called from below. “All that bellowing is making me nervous.”

“What are you doing?” Galen gulped against the fear tightening his throat. She sounded as if she was talking to them from the bottom of a jar. “You were supposed to just take a quick look and come back out.”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty cool down here.”

Galen shone the flashlight into the crevice. “Put the rope back on and get up here!”

“Keep your pants on, boys. I may never come this way again, so I want to fully live in the moment.”

“What the hell is she doing?” Jace muttered. They pressed as close as they could to the hole, trying in vain to see what Rose was up to.

“I know just as much as you do, which isn’t exactly a comforting feeling,” Galen said.

“She’s a sparky little thing, isn’t she?” Jace commented, his tone admiring.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” Galen demanded.

“Not to my knowledge. Sometimes I wish I did. Other times, I think how lucky I am that there’s no nagging woman in my life.”

“Hey!” Rose called up. “I heard that! I think you should know it’s a well-known fact that men nag as much as women. Sometimes more. Now, get your muscles going, fellows. I’m ready to come out.”

Galen grabbed the rope with relief. He and Jace tugged her out as fast as they prudently could. She came out of the crevice, illuminating herself with the Maglite.

“Look,” she said. “I’m Tinkerbell, rising from Hook’s lantern.”

“Someone likes children,” Jace said. “Which is a fortunate thing, because I like children myself. Maybe you and I—” they set Rose on solid ground “—should think about having some children of our own.”

“I don’t think so,” she said sweetly, and she smiled at Galen, whose breath went out of him. “Anyway, look at what I found.” She held up a handful of silver coins, jingling them.

He was about to say, Marvelous, but you had me so worried when the rope went slack, when the sound of a truck engine approaching sent them running for their own truck.

“Holy crap,” Jace said, patting his jeans. “Where are the keys?”

“Damn it!” Galen exclaimed as they sat breathlessly watching Jace look frantically for the keys.

“Those keys on the dash?” Rose asked, and Galen uttered a curse word he never thought he’d say in a lady’s presence. Jace grabbed them and jammed one into the ignition.

“Wait!” Rose said. “We probably left a ton of footprints. They’ll know we were here!”

“No time to clean that up. Floor it, Jace.” Galen looked behind them. “Unknown vehicle at six o’clock.”

Jace switched on the engine, pulling away from the cave without turning on the truck lights. They sped into the darkness, and Galen lifted a rifle down from the gun rack, watching behind them.

Once they made it to the main road, he let out a ragged breath. “I don’t think they saw us.”

“Or decided not to give chase,” Jace said.

“It’s beautiful down there,” Rose said, completely unbothered by their haphazard getaway. “You can’t believe all the amazing stuff in that cave.” She held up the coins, eyeing them in the beam of her flashlight. “And look at this awesome statue.”

Galen stared at the delicate silver figure of a mustang, a Diablo, in Rose’s even more delicate palm. “That’s Rancho Diablo treasure.”

“Really?” Rose handed it over and he took it, reverently touching the horse, feeling it hum with the spirit that kept Rancho Diablo alive. “Then you’re going to love this, too.” She reached into her waistband and pulled out a handgun, giving that to him.

“What were you doing down there? Excavating?” Jace demanded. “Next time, we’ll send you with a sack so you can bring up everything your heart desires.”

“Good,” Rose said, “because I had to leave behind a really sweet painting of your grandfather.”

Galen stared at the woman sitting next to him, the new nanny they’d hired to watch the children and educate them and play with them, and it hit him that he was in the presence of a kindred spirit. A spirit that was unafraid and that walked in harmony with each moment. “How do you know it was our grandfather?”

She looked at him. “Everyone in Tempest knows Chief Running Bear. He hangs out sometimes at the Ice Cream Shoppe. You’ve got property in Tempest, so when he’s in town, he stops by. The kids love his stories.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “I took some photos on my cell phone. I’ll be very curious to see if this Maglite gave off enough light to capture anything. Too bad you can’t fit down there. It’s like a museum of contraband.”

Galen’s breath caught at her sheer bravery, not to mention audacity. Instead of worrying that she’d barely escaped detection and possibly danger, Rose acted as if she’d passed a pleasant evening in an enchanted grotto. She handed him a cookie from the bag, and gave one to Jace, too. Then she smiled at Galen, and he grinned back, abruptly aware that his heart had just jumped headlong into the hands of a woman who wore smiley-face pajamas to bed.

* * *

GALEN LAY IN HIS BED after a hot shower, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He’d looked at the photos Rose had taken of the cave, and with the powerful Maglite she’d been able to illuminate some revealing items. There was a cache of guns in the hole, enough to do great damage in the hands of some dedicated shooters. He’d share those photos at the emergency family meeting he planned to call tonight. The painting of his grandfather had been a bit more difficult to see, but it was still an amazing portrait of a man he couldn’t imagine sitting still long enough to be painted.

Galen resolved to get that painting out of the cave ASAP. It looked as if they’d been using his grandfather’s likeness for the purposes of recognition and training. No doubt Wolf—or the cartel—had a bounty on Running Bear’s head. The portrait was old, done maybe twenty-five years ago—hard to tell without seeing it in good light—and no doubt stolen. Galen wasn’t certain how many years had passed since Wolf and Running Bear’s relationship had ruptured forever, but maybe Wolf had taken the portrait when he’d left the tribe.

Galen would be willing to bet his uncle also had photos or sketches of the four elder Callahans the cartel wanted flushed out for turning them over to the government: Molly and Jeremiah Callahan, his cousins’ parents, who’d built up this ranch, and Julia and Carlos Chacon Callahan, his and his siblings’ parents, who’d wholeheartedly embraced the battle for Rancho Diablo. Wolf would never stop trying to turn the Callahans over to the cartel, but they were in hiding, in witness protection. They’d never be found.

No one knew where they were, not even Fiona.

No one except Running Bear.

And me. But I’ve kept myself away from anything that might weaken me for so long, I know that secret is buried deep within me. I don’t understand Wolf’s desire for vengeance on his family. Even if they turned him in to the government, he shouldn’t want his relatives dead.

Family is all that matters.

Galen glanced over at the silver horse standing on his nightstand. The filigreed saddle glinted in the moonlight pouring in his bedroom window. It was a fine piece, designed by a master silversmith.

The mustang had come from someone who knew the old ways, and who understood the Diablos.

There was only one person he could think of who knew such things: his father, Carlos.

Somehow, Wolf had gotten hold of it, which meant he was getting closer. Galen decided he would wait until morning to discuss the situation with Grandfather, and then proceed with a family meeting. Matters were turning urgent.

An almost silent tap on his door interrupted his raging thoughts. “Yes?”

The door opened. “Galen?” Rose said. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” He sat up, turned on the lamp on his bedside table. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She sat on the foot of his bed, wrapped in a plaid red-and-green robe that didn’t match the smiley-face pajamas she’d put back on. She wore some kind of fuzzy boots that looked comfortable and warm, and her blond hair had been washed clean of dirt and cobwebs, hanging in damp strands around her scrubbed, makeup-free face.

He thought she was cute as a baby deer.

“I forgot to tell you something else I saw in the cave.”

“What?”

“Besides the weapons,” Rose said, “there was also a front loader. I didn’t take a photo, because it was at the back.” Her blue eyes focused directly on him, waiting for him to draw the same conclusion she had.

“A front loader.”

She nodded.

Galen leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed over his bare chest. “There’s no way they got a big piece of machinery down the crevice, and filled the spot back in. The ground we were lying on was solid.”

“Exactly.”

Suddenly, Wolf’s desire to keep them off the new property became clear—and Storm’s wish to sell them the land because “things were happening there he wasn’t comfortable with” made more sense.

“They’ve dug a damn tunnel,” Galen said. “They’re burrowing under Rancho Diablo and the land across the canyons.”

“Could come from as far away as Mexico,” Rose agreed. “I think that cave is just a storeroom, an adjunct off the main tunnel. Maybe I went down some kind of air vent, or a fissure that’s recently cracked open, which they haven’t discovered. Had you ever noticed it before?”

Galen hadn’t, and right now it was hard to think with Rose sitting on his bed, a vision of temptation. What he wanted to do was grab her and kiss her, maybe even find out what was under those happy-face pajamas. But one didn’t seduce an employee, no matter how sexy she was.

His brothers had seduced employees and made them wives.

Not me. I’m going to leave well enough alone. We shouldn’t even have sent her down an air vent or shaft or whatever the hell that stupid hole was. What was I thinking?

He’d been thinking that he wanted any excuse at all to see her, and hadn’t dreamed she’d accept this mission and throw herself into it with more gusto than any Callahan.

“We haven’t had a whole lot of chances to check out that land. First of all, it’s huge, so there’s a lot to cover. We don’t have the manpower to do it, especially when we’d be trespassing.” Galen rubbed his shoulder absently. “But Xav Phillips was over there poking around one day—he’s one of our foremen—and he noticed something funny about the ground in that area.”

“We should go back and check it out more thoroughly, maybe in daylight.”

He looked at her, stunned. “You sound way too much like my sister. Don’t even think about going back there without me.”

Rose smiled, and his slow-working brain went blank as he stared at her mouth. Those lips were just made for him to kiss. He could feel it, the call of the wild screaming through his blood.

“I won’t,” she said, and he snapped back to the present.

“I’ll fire you if you do, on the spot, no questions asked,” he warned, suddenly afraid that Rose was indeed just like his sister, with an impetuous, adventuresome nature that bordered on wildness.

Or bravery. The military would call it bravery.

His sister was too brave for her own good. And this spunky woman on the end of his bed was beginning to sound very much the same.

“I promise,” Rose said. “It wouldn’t be any fun without you, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t call what we did tonight fun.”

She smiled again. “It was a lot of fun.”

“You realize we were within a rabbit’s foot of getting shot at.”

“You had us covered. I trust your marksmanship.”

Galen closed his eyes for just a moment, opening them to stare at her. In the photo she’d snapped of the weapons cache, there’d been a few AK-47s, and a few more exotic styles of weaponry. Someone was gearing up for battle, and he wondered if Rose recognized just how little protection his rifle would have been against, say, a clip with multiple rounds in it. “While my marksmanship is decent, we didn’t want to get caught.”