A Callahan Wedding

“Ah-ha!” Jonas wagged a finger. “But sometimes it is.”

“The good part is you’ll be rattling those skeletons for little Joe’s sake, and all your nieces and nephews, as well as your brothers. You want to be a hero for Joe, don’t you?”

Jonas sighed. “I’d like to say not especially, but I don’t think you’d believe me.”

Sabrina smiled. “I probably wouldn’t.”

He glanced at her. “Would you be willing to be my shotgun rider if I start opening those doors?”

Sabrina looked into his navy eyes. “I’ll ride shotgun.”

“And then you’ll marry me.”

She blinked. “Was that a proposal or a typical Callahan pronouncement? I always thought if you ever asked, it would be a lot more romantic.”

“Have I not asked you before? Because I have about a thousand times in my mind.”

“You see, Joe,” Sabrina said to the baby, who was contentedly sucking on his bottle and watching her face, “your father just delivered a half-baked proposal because he was afraid I might say no. Your dad protects himself.”

“Not true,” Jonas said. “I assume that a woman wants to marry the father of her child.”

“I might marry you,” Sabrina said, “but with a proposal like that, you can be certain you won’t make it back into my bed.”

“Oh,” he said. “I better up my game.”

“All of it, Doctor,” Sabrina stated. “I hope you can.”

“We’ll see,” Jonas said.

* * *

“SO, BASICALLY,” JONAS told Sam that night, “Sabrina hated Dark Diablo and didn’t accept my proposal. My big moment and I came up zeroes.”

“Not surprising,” his brother mused. “You did kind of half bake the thing. Sabrina’s right about that.”

“Yeah.” Jonas sat in the library drinking a whiskey with Sam, wondering how he’d ended up like this.

“The problem,” Sam said, “is that you always underestimated Sabrina. She’s way too good for you, for one thing.”

“This is true,” Jonas admitted. “She says I have to amp up my game, and I’m not sure how much amp I’ve got.”

“You want her, don’t you?”

“Hell, yes.” Jonas stared at the whiskey in his glass as if it held answers. “But she’s not a gentle and shy dove like your wife.”

Sam hooted. “Seton is not gentle and shy. She’s more like fireworks in my sky, trust me. Let’s do a further checklist. Judge Julie is a smokin’ pistol set to fire. Jackie was a nurse and keeps order like a general. Darla is a businesswoman, and there are days when I can hear the grocer grinding his teeth from the deals she makes him give her. Aberdeen may be a preacher, but she’s got a soul of iron, don’t let that sweet face kid you. Where are the retiring wallflowers in this family?”

“This is different,” Jonas said.

“Only because it’s happening to you this time, you big wienie,” Sam shot back. “Believe me, we all suffered when we fell in love, though we mostly suffered because of our egos. You’re just going to make more noise about it, I’m afraid. We’ll have to resort to earplugs.”

Jonas snorted. “Sabrina says I have to find myself first. She says I run away from what I don’t want to deal with.”

Sam snickered. “Guess she didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that.”

Jonas looked at his youngest brother. “It’s not true.”

“Of course it’s true. Every word. Did she set a goal for you, a dragon for you to conquer, in this quest for yourself?”

Jonas thought about it. “She says that until I’ve figured out the answers in our family, I likely won’t be ready to make a good husband and life partner. Sabrina says that I’ve been avoiding my responsibility for years, and that it probably all goes back to the fact that I was the oldest. She says her hunch is that our parents leaving affected me the most. It’s all a bunch of psychological nonsense, but I’m humoring her. It’s best to let women think they’re figuring us men out, you know.”

Sam sighed. “That is not a good attitude to take.”

Jonas was satisfied with his non-emotional approach to his chosen lady. “How would Sabrina know what I need to do to make myself into a good life partner?”

“Well, you ran off and got engaged to a woman you didn’t love because the woman you did love was pregnant with your child. Call me crazy, but you may have some issues to iron out, bro.”

He scowled. “Even if I did—and I’m not saying I have any issues at all—I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Sam raised his glass. “We did the spadework for you. All you have to do is put it all together.”

Jonas stared at him. “Not that easy, when you consider that it’s taken all five of you to get this far.”

“Well,” Sam said, easing back into the leather chair more comfortably, “if it’s true what Seton discovered, and our parents are still alive, you have to find out where they are. And why they went away. They had to have left us for some real good reason.”

“They went into witness protection because they’re hiding from a cartel they turned over to the various authorities involved. You can’t find someone in witness protection, no matter how much you might want to.”

“Yeah.” Sam scratched his chin. “But someone knows something.”

Jonas shook his head. “That could only be Fiona—and she would absolutely never tell—only Chief Running Bear might know.”

Sam nodded. “Bingo.”

“But so what if we did find our parents? If they wanted us to locate them, they would have given us a signal, a clue.” Jonas wasn’t sure this particular holy grail had a desirable outcome. “The bad guys, whoever they are, might find our parents, too, then. I don’t think it’s worth taking a risk.”

“You make several good points. Did I tell you, by the way, that Sheriff Cartwright had to release the guy he’d arrested? The one who was living in the canyons, and who rigged Seton’s laptop?”

“No,” Jonas said slowly. “Why did they release him?”

“He got bail from someone. A cash bond. And there wasn’t enough to hold him on.”

Jonas remembered how much trouble the rat had managed to cause over the years for their family. He’d bided his time, waiting for Jeremiah and Molly Callahan to contact the children they’d left behind. “It’s not safe to find them, Sam. We could lead danger right to their door.”

“I think you may be right.” Sam looked at his boots, then crooked a brow at his brother. “So you’ll just have to tell Sabrina you’re probably never going to find yourself.”

“Maybe.” Jonas thought it was a real possibility, anyway. He didn’t have the fire in his belly to know more than he did. Were they really alive?

Maybe finding out more about myself isn’t what I need to quit avoiding the big issues. I’m a surgeon, for God’s sake. I made life-changing, lifesaving decisions, every day of my life. What the hell am I afraid of?

It was simple enough. He was afraid of being abandoned, left behind once again. What had happened to drive his parents away?

As a child, he’d figured he must have done something bad. Something horrible, to make his parents leave and go away forever. God wouldn’t take parents away from a boy who was good.

It had been years before Jonas had understood he had done nothing wrong, that death had come unnaturally early to his parents. The learning process of grief and abandonment might have even stirred his desire to be a saver of lives.

But the habit of backing away from emotional moments stayed with him. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, hurt anyone, because he or she might leave.

So much easier just to avoid the big issues.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about Sabrina,” he said. “She doesn’t think I’ve got the ability to stick with it for the long haul.”

“She has a right to be a little antsy,” Sam said. “You pretty much shocked the entire town when you brought Chelsea home. And now what are you going to do with her?”

“Nothing. She seems happy working at the library and doing her own thing. She’s making lots of friends. I told her I’d send her back to Ireland anytime she wanted to go, on my nickel, but she said she’s having a blast.” Jonas shrugged. “She and Sabrina seem to get along, too. So I guess I just don’t think about her much.”

“You realize that, out of all of us, you made the biggest boneheaded error of courtship? Bringing another woman home,” Sam said, disgusted. “I didn’t dare even look at another woman when I was trying to catch Seton. I was too afraid she’d head back to Washington. I’m kind of surprised Sabrina hasn’t, actually.”

Jonas sat straight up. “She wouldn’t.”

“She might.” His brother shrugged. “She still keeps an apartment there, and you’re the world’s slowest Romeo. She may get impatient with you. I would.” He drank his whiskey and closed his eyes with sheer contentment. “I think she’s spotted you a couple of forgiveness points because everyone recognizes you’re a little impaired in the love arena, but I wouldn’t push my luck.”

Jonas felt himself go pale. Sabrina was a traveler, and fiercely independent. She did have a job in D.C., but she was on maternity leave.

He had to make like a retrofitted Romeo—fast.

“Anyway,” Sam continued, “Sabrina’s right. You do have a pattern. You would never have bought Dark Diablo if you weren’t looking to get away from all of us. It’s called shirking your responsibilities. How did Sabrina know you’d never change?”

Jonas gawked at his brother, wondering when having a dream had become shirking his responsibilities. “You know, I’m not the bad guy you paint me as.”

“Nothing bad about being terminally uncommitted and unable to participate in a family.” He shrugged. “We got used to it after you went off to college, then med school, then Dallas. But as far as a woman goes, Sabrina in particular, does she have any reason to expect much from you?”

Jonas didn’t reply. What the hell did his brothers know about anything, anyway?

He could be Dr. Commitment.

He could fix everything.

* * *

“I THINK MATTERS ARE pretty much as you’d want them to be, Fiona,” Chelsea said on the phone that evening as she relaxed in the Callahan guesthouse. It was comfortable here. The Callahans were nice, and they never bothered her, just seemed determined that she eat with whatever Callahan brother’s family had an extra seat that night. Altogether, being here was an enjoyable adventure, and the experience would give her a lot of material for the next mystery she was writing. “Jonas has a new baby—”

“A baby!” Fiona’s voice was like an explosion in her ear.

“Yes. His name is Joe. Sabrina’s the mother—”

“Sabrina McKinley!” Fiona chortled. “That is going to be one wily child. I wonder which parent he’ll be most like? Jonas is slow and studious, and Sabrina is quick-witted and adventurous.”

“He looks like Jonas,” Chelsea said thoughtfully, “but I do think he has some of his mom’s mannerisms. Sometimes when he sits in his carrier looking out at the world, I could swear he knows exactly what’s going on.”

“Tell me more,” Fiona said.

“Well, there was some guy here who apparently hacked into Seton’s computer in his effort to find your sister and her husband—”

“What?” Fiona’s voice over the phone sounded strained. “They caught him?”

“I heard they did.” It was hard to listen in on conversations around the ranch and not ask questions. Chelsea tried not to arouse suspicions. The last thing she wanted anyone to know was that Fiona had put her up to coming over with Jonas to “report” on the family. When he had proposed, it had seemed to Fiona like a golden opportunity, and she’d hatched this plan. Chelsea had been fine with it, excited to come to America, but she’d quickly figured out there were a lot of deep currents under the seemingly placid Callahan waters. “They had to release him, though.”

“That worries me.”

“It was strange, because the guy had been living in the canyons for years, biding his time. Sort of a secret cell, waiting for something to come to light.”

“Hmm. I don’t like the sound of this. Chelsea, are you all right in Diablo, or do you want to come home?”

“I’ll be fine for another week or so, I think.” It really was pretty in Diablo, so different from Ireland. Her mother was in good hands at the moment, so an adventure was probably best for all of them.

“Thanks. I’ll talk to Burke and see what he thinks we should do. Call me soon, all right?”

“I will.” Chelsea hung up the phone and looked out the window, where she could see Sabrina and Jonas with little Joe. She smiled at the picture the three of them made. Never had she seen a man more gaga for a woman than Jonas. He really had been fooling himself about not marrying Sabrina.

I’d like having a man so crazy about me. The problem is, I’m too picky for my own good.

* * *

“I CAN’T DO IT,” JONAS told Sabrina as they took a stroll around the ranch that night. Little Joe dozed in Jonas’s arms. “I can’t find myself. You’ll have to choose some other Herculean task for me to perform.”

Sabrina stared at the man who’d fathered her child, and shook her head. “What spooked you?”

“I’m not sure. It was a combination of things. You’ll have to choose a different test.”

Sabrina watched the moon glowing in the New Mexico sky, and thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen besides little Joe. “It’s not a test, Jonas. It’s just giving you time to figure out what you really want in life. And you can’t do that until you know what happened in your past. I think the past determines the future.” She reached up to run her hand across his cheek. “When I first met you, your aunt had hired me to tell you a yarn. I did that, only because I knew Fiona had her heart in the right place, that she was trying to help you Callahans, and not hurt you. I just don’t want you to ever regret that you married a woman who was out to trick you. Remember when I told you that the ranch was in trouble?”

“Yes,” Jonas said, “and it was.”

“Well, that’s the point. It still is.”

He rubbed his chin. “Just from a different source.”

“Exactly.” She knew the sheriff had released the man Sam had caught snooping around Rancho Diablo. And why wouldn’t the spy go right back to doing what he’d been doing—trying to find their parents? After all, that’s what he’d been hired and trained to do. “Maybe you should talk to him again.”

“I don’t think so. He’s not going to give up any more information. Anyway, you’re going about this all wrong. You should marry me, and then let me solve all these issues as they become solvable.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Sabrina said. “But you have a lot to do. You don’t need to be sidetracked right now.”

“There are more important things in life than worrying about the ranch, or about the past. Like watching little Joe pull himself up today. I’d rather focus on the good things.”

“I know,” Sabrina said, “but every marriage has rough patches. Take care of this rough patch first. You’ll thank me later.”

“I don’t know,” Jonas said. “I feel strangely compelled to get into bed with you instead of playing Sherlock Holmes.”

Sabrina smiled. “I never said you couldn’t seduce me, cowboy.”

Jonas’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t?”

She shook her head slowly. “No, but maybe I should. You’ll work harder.”

“I was always the guy who worked best with incentives,” Jonas said, pulling her close with his free arm. “Try me with the carrot-and-stick approach and see what happens, beautiful.”

“Jonas!” Sabrina giggled and put up no fight as they stepped through the door of the main house.

Five pairs of eyes stared at them.

“Hi, Jonas,” Rafe said. “Did you forget it’s time for the weekly meeting?”

“Uh…” Jonas carefully untangled himself from Sabrina and looked around at his brothers. “Can I skip this one?”

“Jonas,” Sabrina said quickly, “you have your meeting. I’m going to go give Joe his bath. ’Bye, guys.” She gathered the baby into her arms and stepped back into the night air, taking a deep breath as she went.

It had been a long time since Jonas had held her. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him.

Yet rushing things wouldn’t help anything.

She drove to Corinne’s and went up the stairs to draw a nice bath for Joe. The house was dark and empty, and Sabrina wondered where her aunt was. She set Joe in the tub, washing him with a mild, lavender-scented shampoo. He splashed in the water, delighted with this playtime.

She didn’t want to rush Jonas, but moments like these were so sweet they were meant to be shared with the father of her child. He’d lost six months of Joe’s babyhood.

It would be easy to accept Jonas’s proposal. But if she hadn’t had Joe, maybe Jonas would have married Chelsea, or some other woman. What did marriage mean to Jonas? Partnership? Companionship?

Sabrina wasn’t certain.

For her, it had to be true love. That’s all she planned to say yes to—true love, the real deal.

“Or it’s just going to be me and you, babe,” she told little Joe, rinsing his hair carefully. “And we’re a pretty good team, anyway.”

Joe looked up at her and splashed the water again. Droplets flew, and Sabrina smiled. He was such a good baby, such a sweetheart. Being a mother was the best part of her life now, even though she’d never imagined how much having a child would mean to her. Motherhood had changed her in so many wonderful ways.

Being a father was going to change Jonas, too. It already had. She could feel him yearning to be with his son, so much so that she wondered if his feelings for her really were all about her being the mother of his child.

Only time would tell. Going slowly would give them both time to be sure, especially Jonas. If she never got to share parenthood with Jonas, that was the way it would have to be.

Life wasn’t always perfect, even if she wished it so.

Chapter Four

One week after Jonas had nearly managed to get Sabrina into bed with him—almost!—he sat in the tearoom and bookstore of the Books’n’Bingo Society shop, staring at the three women who were determined to buttonhole him into civic responsibility.

Nadine Waters, Corinne Abernathy and Mavis Night wore smiles on their small, doughy faces that he just didn’t trust. He sipped the tea they’d offered him, and waited for the zinger.

It came with typical directness.

“As you know, Jonas, your aunt Fiona was president of our society for many years. In her absence, I’ve taken over the reins as interim president. However,” Corinne said, stopping for dramatic effect, “we think you should pick up where your aunt left off.”

Jonas set down his teacup. “Ladies, I don’t know the first thing about what this Society does. Nor do I have my aunt’s finesse in whatever it was she did, which mainly appeared to be—” He started to say “being a busybody,” but stopped himself.

“Running this town,” Nadine said, finishing his sentence. “And an admirable job she did of it, too. How Diablo misses Fiona’s sure-handed—”

“Interference,” Jonas said, not realizing he’d spoken aloud.

“Yes,” Mavis said. “There have been times when interference was called for. We could always count on Fiona to have the guts to make the calls that needed to be made, and to take responsibility for the issues that count most to this town.”

“Damn it!” There was that responsibility word again. Why was everyone determined that he was Mr. Fix-It? “I mean, darn it,” Jonas amended, and the ladies’ feathers seemed a bit less ruffled. “While I appreciate your generous offer—it’s quite humbling—I am just not your man.”

They looked at him, downcast.

“Well, I’m not.” Jonas met each gaze with as much diplomatic aplomb as he could muster. “I’m no good at busybodying—let’s call a duck a duck here. That’s what Fiona did. We all jumped to her puppet strings. But I’d make the world’s worst puppeteer.”

“You’d be an excellent ventriloquist,” Nadine said dryly. “A lot of yakking is coming from your mouth right now, Jonas.”

Their expressions seemed to say, Shame on you for shirking your duty!

Jonas sighed. “Really, ladies, I’ve got my hands full. I’ve bought a new ranch—”

“This is your home, whether you ever want to face that or not,” Mavis said. Her silver hair shone in the soft light of the tearoom. “We understand you wanting to separate yourself from your brothers and stake your own claim, but Diablo is where your heart is, Jonas. Even if Fiona did say you had wandering feet.”

He frowned. “We all did.”

Corinne shook her head. “No, Fiona specifically said you were the one who ran from home the minute you could, but unlike most wayward sons, you stayed gone. The only reason you’re here now is probably Sabrina.”

He brushed off his hat. They were right, blast their bright eyes and busy minds! If Sabrina wasn’t here, he’d be at Dark Diablo right now.

But he’d never considered himself a wanderer. “You know, I’d built a very successful practice in Dallas.”

“We know.” Nadine nodded. “And you can do that here.”

He stared, the notion crashing in on him like unwelcome waves. “Here? I don’t want… That is to say—”

“We know,” Mavis said. “You don’t want to live here. You don’t want to take care of the many elderly folk in this town who have tickers that need help just as much as those in the big city. Folks who helped raise you and kept an eye on you since you were in diapers.”

The guilt trip. It was a skillful ploy when used by the right people, and these three were pros. “I never thought about opening a practice here.”

“We know.” Corinne blinked at him. “We think taking this position as president would be a first step in getting your priorities straight.”

Mavis nodded. “Civic duty is a sign of maturity and commitment to community.”

Jonas flattened his mouth. In their minds, this position would begin to solder him to the town and community. But that wasn’t going to help him get his life back on track. Still, a little glad-handing and tea-sipping wouldn’t kill him.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

Corinne clapped her hands. “I told you he would!”

Mavis sniffed. “Congratulations, president of the Books’n’Bingo Society and interim mayor of Diablo.”

“Wait,” Jonas said. “You said nothing about a mayorship.”

“Yeah, but it’s past time we had one,” Nadine said. “We appoint you until you can be duly elected.”

“I don’t want—”

“Civic duty,” Corinne said.

Jonas sighed. “Fine. Do you want me to watch the jail or build on to the elementary school or perform any other civic thing while I’m here?”

The ladies smiled at him with approval. “You just help us get Diablo on the map, and you can do anything you want.”

Jonas scowled. He had a new baby to take care of and parents to find. A ranch to get off the ground. Somehow these ladies had caught him in their cookie-baited trap.

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