Her Callahan Family Man

Of course, his redoubtable aunt would bean him a good one if she ever heard him refer to her as a weak link. But whether she liked it or not, she and Burke were getting up there in years.

“I can take care of myself. And the babies,” Sawyer said. “It won’t be much different from when I took care of Kendall’s twins.”

“I don’t like it,” Jace murmured, thinking out loud.

“No one asked you to like it.”

“The problem is, bodyguards are supposed to be unemotional about their assignment. You can’t be unemotional about your own children. No, I’ll have to look into hiring someone for you and the babies.”

“No, you won’t,” Sawyer said, and it sounded as if she spoke through tightly clenched teeth. “I don’t want a bodyguard. I’m not planning on living with you.”

He checked her expression. Yep, she had that serious look on her face, and he recognized yet another hurdle in his relationship with the saucy redhead.

She didn’t want him in her bed. That’s what this was all about.

His wooing would have to be played very smoothly, because he absolutely would be in a real bed with Sawyer, undressing her, with a ceiling overhead and not the sky. He wanted to hold her in his arms and make her cry his name, without having to quietly rush through each and every encounter.

Sooner rather than later he intended to have his way with the beautiful bodyguard, sharing lovemaking that would be record-breaking in length and very, very satisfying. That was the plan for tonight—if he could figure out the key to the tight lock she was trying to keep on her heart.

Lucky for him, he was really good at picking locks.

* * *

THEY WERE HALFWAY across Arizona, halfway to Las Vegas and the Little Wedding Chapel, when Sawyer hit him with a bombshell.

“Several members of your family are on the way to witness our wedding.”

To say his jaw dropped nearly to his lap would be putting it mildly. “My family?”

“Yes, and my uncle Storm, and his wife, Lulu Feinstrom.” Sawyer beamed at Jace. “I know how your family loves a wedding, so I texted them. They’ll be on the family plane soon and on their way, ready for wedding cake. At least that’s what your sister said. Ash also mentioned she ordered us a whopper of a cake, because everyone in your family has had a sweet tooth since they were born. Her comment, not mine.” Sawyer smiled, delighted that she’d outplayed him.

He’d seen her busily working on her phone, but he’d assumed she was looking up places to wed. Her decisive strategy meant Aunt Fiona and maybe even Uncle Burke were on their way. Jace knew he’d never get Sawyer into a bed for hours tonight, not with his partying family there. They’d want to kick up their heels and spend the evening giving him grief about how he’d surprised them with this sudden dash to the altar, blah, blah, blah, and they’d talk him to death, when he should be concentrating on undressing the redhead next to him.

It was really all he had on his mind.

Instead, he was going to get a whopper of a wedding cake.

“I don’t have much of a sweet tooth,” he said, casting a longing glance at her body in her hot pink dress. “I prefer spicier fare.”

“I’ll try not to feed you too big of a bite, then.” She went back to texting, and he wondered if it was too late to text his family and explain that, while he loved them, he really wanted to handle this momentous occasion alone, because he was going to have a devil of a challenge getting his wife into a bed with him. He didn’t have time for celebrating and family hijinks. Every second of his life until these babies were born had to be spent romancing his wife. After they arrived, he’d have precious little time alone with her, and he hadn’t yet enjoyed his woman the way he wanted to.

He felt like a man who’d starved a long while in plain view of the most delicious meal he’d ever seen.

“It was nice of you to invite my relatives,” he said, even though family was the last thing he wanted around.

“And mine,” she said, her voice bright. “No bride wants to be married without someone to give her away.”

There was the problem. His family and hers didn’t get along, making the situation ripe for discomfort and fireworks.

“Anyway, I knew your family wouldn’t want to miss the last Callahan bachelor getting married.” Sawyer smiled at him, her big blue eyes completely innocent, when he knew that she was trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

“If we’re going to marry, I want us to start out on the right foot with the in-laws and the outlaws,” Sawyer said. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving them out.”

“Where are they booking rooms?” Jace asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m booking us rooms at a bed-and-breakfast nearby.”

He swallowed. “Rooms?”

She glanced up from the sudden storm of texts she was sending. “I meant room.”

No, she hadn’t. Jace could tell he was going to have to keep a very close eye on his little woman. No drinking too much and finding out she’d shuttled him into a room with his family. No visiting too much, or he’d probably find her headed back to Diablo without him. “Sex is what got us into this, darling.”

“That’s how it works,” Sawyer said.

“Yet I have the strangest feeling you don’t want to be alone with me.”

“Callahans are known to have a lot of strange qualities. I wouldn’t let it bother me now, if I were you.”

“We’ll stop and get you a ring,” he said, giving up on sex for the moment.

“I don’t need a ring. The vows are more than I want.”

He grunted. “The ring is part of the ceremony. You’ll have a ring.”

“Are you going to wear one?”

He hadn’t planned on it, but he sensed this was treacherous water. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know.” She ran a considering eye over him. “But if you are, I will.”

“Back to our discussion of our domicile,” he said.

“I’m planning on going to Rancho Diablo,” Sawyer stated.

He blinked, hearing the thing he’d been sensing, the trouble at the end of the supposedly peaceful road. “Like, as soon as the ‘I do’ leaves your mouth?”

“Well, not until we’ve cut the cake.” She looked at him, puzzled. “Of course I plan to stay for the cake your sister ordered. It would be rude to leave!”

Great. Nothing said love like worrying about the sister’s cake purchase. “I was thinking we’d live together.”

“This morning, you didn’t even know you were a father. So we don’t have plans,” Sawyer pointed out. “Spur-of-the-moment decisions are rarely a good idea.”

“As in getting married in Vegas?”

“As in getting married in Vegas.” She nodded. “I liked our relationship just the way it was.”

He shook his head. “We didn’t have a relationship. We had sex, but not a relationship.”

She met his gaze. “Was there a problem?”

The problem had come when she’d left, and he realized he’d been parked at the gates of heaven for too long. Now he was hoping to crash through those gates and land in the paradise waiting for him—if he could just figure out how to explain that to Sawyer. How could a man tell his woman that, while frequent, horny sex had been fun, and fired by the forbidden, he sensed the next phase of their relationship could be that much sweeter?

Especially since she didn’t seem inclined to recognize the possibility for an ongoing, more meaningful relationship between them.

“Not a problem, exactly,” he said carefully. “But it seems that we should be open to the idea of a new phase in our friendship.”

She didn’t reply. “I know this pregnancy changes your life significantly,” he added.

“Yes. It does.” Sawyer turned her head to gaze out the window.

He had one reluctant little mama on his hands.

“Yours, too,” she said. “I know the Callahans have a pattern. You find out you’re expecting, and immediately want to get married. Then the wife gets shuttled off to a safe location.” Sawyer finally looked his way. “I’ll expect you to treat our pregnancy differently.”

“How differently?”

“By not trying to send me off to your family in Hell’s Colony, or Tempest.”

He swallowed. That had been the next plan. “The reason my brothers have been so determined for their wives and children to be in another location is because Rancho Diablo isn’t safe. You know as well as anyone that my uncle Wolf has made things very difficult at the ranch. It’s even worse now. Which is why your uncle Storm sold us his ranch and moved into town with Lulu Feinstrom.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve already rented out a room from Fiona. Didn’t she tell you? I called and asked her about renting a room before I came back to Rancho Diablo for our date. I do need a place to live now that my job in Tempest is completed.”

“You rented a room?”

Sawyer nodded. “A marriage license won’t mean I want to be a wife in anything other than name.”

Well, there was nothing he could say to that. She’d ridden all over his poor flailing heart. It beat wildly in his chest, stressed and unhappy with his current circumstances.

There was only one thing to do.

He pulled over at the next rest stop and parked the truck. Then he pulled Sawyer close and laid a kiss to end all kisses on her. He didn’t let her go, either, making certain she knew how much he desired her, kissing her long and thoroughly, communicating in a different way what he couldn’t say out loud. And searching for that answer he wanted so badly: that she did, in fact, still want him.

It was a risky move, but when he felt her lips mold against his, Jace knew his belief in high risk, high reward had paid off.

His little darling still had the hots for him big-time—no matter how tightly she was trying to close those sweet, pearly gates.

* * *

SAWYER WAS SO annoyed with herself for giving in to Jace’s charm that she sat stiffly staring out at the landscape rushing past. He’d caught her off guard, that was all. If she’d had a second’s notice of his intention, she could have controlled her reaction better.

Jace drove down the road with a sexy, confident, “I win” curve to his lips, a true cat that ate the canary. Sharing that kiss was a huge setback to her plan, and devastating to her heart.

I promised myself that wouldn’t happen. No more falling under his spell. Not one woman who married a Callahan kept her independence. It was as if they got their wedding ring and poof! instant Callahan copy. Babies and bliss.

Babies and bliss in every corner.

“I’m renting a room from Fiona because I’ll be in Diablo only until the babies are born. Four months after that I’ll be living in New York,” Sawyer said.

That wiped the smirk off his face. “New York?”

“Yes. I’ve taken a job with a firm that provides security for high-profile clients.”

“You’re going to be a bodyguard while you should be staying at home with my children?” Jace shook his head. “I can see two big problems with your plan, doll face. One, my children aren’t going anywhere without me. Two, it’s going to be terribly hard for you to be a homeroom mother and a bake sale coordinator while you’re working. My children need you more than high-profile clients do.”

She stiffened. “I’m sure you’re hoping I’ll thank you for your opinion. However, I’m fully capable of making my own decisions.”

“Yes, you are. And I trust you’ll make decisions that are in the best interest of our family, not harebrained ones that are purely designed to keep you and me from sharing a bed.”

He’d gotten pretty close to the truth. “That’s not the reason I took the job, Jace. I’m a very good bodyguard, and there’s still a lot I want to do and learn.”

“Yes, but your days of living on the edge are over. You can get your fill of that at Rancho Diablo.”

“So you’d be all right with me and the children living at Rancho Diablo?”

He hesitated. “I didn’t exactly say that.”

“Then we have nothing to discuss.”

“We have plenty to discuss. And now that we’ve just passed the Nevada state line, we’re getting closer to our destination, so I won’t hesitate to mention that this is the happiest day of my life.”

She gave him a curious glance. “Why?”

“It’s not every day a man finds out he’s going to be married and a father.” He glanced at her. “Even better, that the woman who’s providing all this excitement wanted him badly enough to pay five grand for him, thereby scuttling all other females’ chances. Just so very cute of you.” He laughed out loud, pleased with himself. “You put up stop signs, but there’s lots of green lights flashing all over you, Sawyer Cash.”

He was angling for a good hard takedown to his ego. Sawyer told herself Jace had always been a goofball, and ignored him.

“Have you asked Galen to hire you on again at Rancho Diablo?” Jace asked, stunning her.

“No.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shrug.

“We’re always looking for staff we can trust.”

“Are you saying you trust me?” Sawyer asked.

“Are you insinuating I can’t? Or shouldn’t?”

His gaze met hers, and she found herself drawn in, the way he’d always drawn her in. With the memory of his hot kiss still warm on her lips, she’d be lying to herself if she tried to pretend she didn’t want to experience once again what he could do with those wandering hands of his. Experience the sweet satisfaction of what miracles he worked with a mouth that never ceased talking smack, and the to-die-for sexy things he whispered to her during lovemaking.

But she couldn’t allow herself to get caught in the snare of sex. The goal was far more important than the pleasure.

“I’m not insinuating anything. I don’t want you and your family to give me busywork.” Sawyer knew how this story would play out. The moon would be promised—and she’d wind up with nothing but a crash to earth. “I’m not the kind of woman who’ll be happy staying home to wash your socks, Jace.”

He laughed, and Sawyer favored him with a frown.

“My socks?” Jace chuckled again. “You have a problem with my socks?”

“I don’t want to be a Callahan housewife. I intend to keep doing what I do.”

“You’re jumping the mark, sister. No one ever said you can’t work. I encourage it.”

“You do?”

“Sure thing.” He grinned. “In fact, I’ll stay home with the babies. How’s that for a compromise?”

She blinked, not certain where he was going with that. While all the Callahan men stayed close to home once married, she didn’t think Jace would be happy as a Mr. Mom while she earned the family bread. “You’ll do diapers and bath time?”

“Sure.” He shrugged, not fazed at all. “The babies will have organic food I prepare myself, too—none of that jar stuff. Baths with lavender oil, and a nightly de-stress rubdown. I’ll sing lullabies and tell them stories I heard when I was a child in the tribe.” He looked satisfied with that plan. “I’ll have to see if Grandfather Running Bear can add to my collection.”

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”

He picked her hand up, brushed it against his lips. “Believe it. You work, and I’ll be the best stay-at-home dad you ever saw.”

“You’re too much of a chauvinist, Jace.”

“I resent that remark, darling. Don’t you worry about a thing. This is going to work out so well, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without me. Be the best five grand you ever spent.”

She raised a brow. “That really wound your ego up, didn’t it? Me spending that kind of money for a date with you?”

“Oh, angel.” He kissed her hand again. “You paid that kind of cash for exactly what you’re getting—a husband.”

She sucked in a breath. “Jace, honestly, I don’t know how you fit in this truck with your ego.”

He laughed. “I bought the biggest truck I could.”

There was nothing else to say to such enthusiastic patting of his own back. Anyway, she’d already gotten two concessions out of him: she could live at Rancho Diablo and she could keep her job.

His ego could take a flying leap.

Jace’s phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” he told Sawyer. “I have to take this.” His gaze slid over to her as he pulled off the road so he could talk on the phone. “Hello, Grandfather.”

Whenever Chief Running Bear spoke, everybody listened. The man said almost nothing unless it was important. Sawyer couldn’t tell much of what was being communicated, but it was clear Jace’s attention was clearly engaged.

“That’s interesting news. I’ll see what I can do.”

He hung up, then steered the truck back onto the highway again. “Running Bear suggests we go into hiding immediately.”

Sawyer gasped. “Hiding! Why?”

“Apparently Wolf’s right-hand man, Rhein, was arrested today on suspicion of smuggling. This means the Feds have decided to clamp down on the illegal operations that are being run across the canyons. Running Bear says this will have the effect of ramping up Wolf’s goal of taking over Rancho Diablo. He says that because of your pregnancy, it would probably be best. Wolf will post bail for Rhein soon enough, and no doubt the sheep will hit the fauna.”

Sawyer shook her head at his attempt to be lighthearted about something that wasn’t funny at all. “I’m not going into hiding.”

“I thought you’d feel that way,” Jace said. “We have another option.”

She didn’t smile at the devilish wink he sent her. “What option?”

“I’ll guard you.”

“You mean I would be assigned to you as a bodyguard,” Sawyer said. “You have no experience.”

He grinned. “However you want to play it, babe. I’d let you guard my body any day.”

“It won’t work. You wouldn’t take it seriously.” She shook her head. “Once I’m on bed rest, you’d drive me insane. The two of us working together would be an unfocused assignment.” She thought about the babies, and what she would do once they were born. They’d be targets; they’d need special protection. She’d worked for the Callahans long enough to know that Running Bear’s words were worth heeding. If he said that Rhein’s arrest would add to the heat at Rancho Diablo, it couldn’t be ignored. “If that was your only option, it wasn’t a serious one.”

“We’re either on the road in hiding, or we stick together like glue. I guess it’s going to depend on how you feel. When will the babies be born?”

“I’m five and a half months pregnant. I’m hoping to make it at least as far as April. But I know your sisters-in-law didn’t carry their twins and trips quite as long as they would have liked. I’m in good shape, and the doctor says I’m on track for a normal pregnancy. So we’ll see what happens.”

“Okay. The goal is keeping you stress-free and resting. Hard to rest if you’re on the run.”

“Are we seriously talking about this?” She looked at him. “It’s not in me to be afraid.”

“I’ll do it for both of us.” He glanced at the rearview mirror. “In fact, we’re being followed, and it’s not by a Callahan. Aren’t you glad you won me now, beautiful?”

Chapter Three

Jace didn’t want to scare Sawyer, but she’d been around Rancho Diablo long enough to know the odds against them were long. There wasn’t time to coddle her into seeing things his way. He was going to have to give her a push; Sawyer and the babies were his number one priority right now. “How are you for train travel?”

“I’m not,” Sawyer said, “going into hiding. I’m not running.”

“We are going into hiding. Take your pick. It’s either a sunny locale or the mountains. What’s your preference?”

“My preference is that you take me home right now. I’ll stay in the house my uncle is selling your family, so I’ll be close enough for you to keep an eye on.”

“This isn’t a game,” Jace said quietly. “You know that, Sawyer. You know what Wolf is capable of. He means business. I’m not going to risk anything happening to you and the children.”

The thought filled him with dread. There was good reason to worry. Taylor, his brother Falcon’s wife, had been kidnapped and taken to Montana for months during her pregnancy. Aunt Fiona had been kidnapped, and she’d burned down Wolf’s hideout during her rescue. The memory made him smile—but it was also a compelling reason to treat this newest threat seriously. Wolf had a long memory.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’re driving to Texas,” Jace said. “We’ll get married, and we’ll call our long road trip a honeymoon.”

“You’re not going to whitewash us going into hiding by calling it a honeymoon.”

He had one unhappy lady on his hands. But what else could he do?

In Texas he had family. He couldn’t go to Hell’s Colony—it was too hot right now with the Wolf situation, and there was no reason to bring the heat to his Callahan cousins. But they could find a nice, out-of-the-way cabin deep in the piney woods of East Texas that would be really hard for Wolf to find.

If Jace had learned anything from the past few years of being hounded by Wolf, it was that caution was as important as bravery.

His mind made up, Jace sped toward Vegas and, hopefully, a slew of Wedding Elvises eager to say wedding vows as quickly as possible.

* * *

“I ABSOLUTELY AM not going to marry him,” Sawyer told Ashlyn Callahan when they met at the chapel in Vegas. The place was white, but that was its only concession to being a wedding stop.

Ash glanced at the pastor and his doughy little wife. The man had on a tall top hat and wore a white satin suit. His wife was arrayed in a vintage period gown, purple with red feathers. “Maybe it wouldn’t be my first choice, either. But it’s a good first start.”

“First start?” Sawyer stared at Jace’s silver-blond-haired sister. Ash had always seemed like an ethereal fairy to her—and yet it was said that of all the Callahans, she was the most dangerous. “A marriage only gets started once, doesn’t it?”

Ash shrugged. “Where you say the words isn’t important. Getting you and my niece and nephew safe is.”

A chill swept Sawyer. How did Ash have so much information about her pregnancy, so soon? Callahan gossip always spread like wildfire.

“I just figure it’d be like Jace to split the deck. No commitment.” Ash looked at her. “Except to you, it seems.”

Sawyer shook her head. “Jace isn’t committed to anything except his children. And Rancho Diablo.”

“Don’t go on what he says, is my advice. My brother never really was much of a talker, not about anything that made much sense.” Ash smiled, looking pleased with herself when she realized Jace had caught her jibe. He came over to ruffle her hair.

“Jace, if you mess up my hair, you’ll have a scary sister in your wedding photos,” she complained. “Your bride thinks you have commitment issues.”

He looked at Sawyer and grinned. “I do. But not to the degree that Sawyer does.”

She met his gaze. “I’m not marrying you here.”

“Well, you have to,” Ash said. “At least, you have to try on the magic wedding dress. Fiona sent it with me, said you should try it on. I always think my aunt’s advice should be heeded,” she said, tugging Sawyer away from Jace’s suddenly interested gaze.

Sawyer made herself follow Ash down the hall and into a private room. “I don’t want to try on a dress.”

“This one you do,” Sawyer said. “It’s magic.”

“That’s a myth, a fairy tale.” She’d heard about the dress’s supposedly supernatural qualities and didn’t believe it. “There’s nothing wrong with the dress I have on.”

Ash glanced back at her before opening a closet where a long, white bag hung. “If you’re going to be a runaway bride, at least do it in style. This dress,” she said, pointing to the bag, “exudes style. High fashion, even.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Sawyer said. She wasn’t getting near it, wouldn’t be enticed to even take a peek. “I saw the dress on Rose when she and Galen were married. It’s beautiful and traditional, but not high fashion.”

Ash stared at the bag. “I thought a gown that made every woman beautiful would be considered high fashion.”

“No. It would be considered lucky.”

“Oh,” Ash said, recoiling. “We don’t do lucky in our family. Mysticism and respect and ancient lore, and perhaps a little supernatural wonder, but never luck.”