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A Callahan And A Cash—Forever?
Sawyer Cash pregnant? With twins? The fiery-haired bodyguard who had secretly shared Jace Callahan’s bed just rocked his world. The only solution is a quickie Vegas wedding. Then it’s back to Rancho Diablo, where Jace can keep an eagle eye on his bride and babies-to-be while waging war against the Callahan nemesis hell-bent on stealing his land.
Jace knows Sawyer thinks she’s only brought him trouble. She wanted to catch a Callahan and now she and their baby boy and girl are right in the line of fire. But doesn’t Sawyer know she’s the only woman for him, even if her family might be in the enemy camp? With things reaching a boiling point, Jace vows to fight for his family’s future as only a Callahan can!
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a father to a little girl and boy. It’s so unreal. And wonderful.”
It was hard not to soften under the pride in his deep voice. She’d always loved Jace’s voice, so warm and enveloping and inviting, especially when he whispered to her in the dark.
Sawyer sensed those days were long gone. Nothing could be the same now that they were married, and married under circumstances he’d no doubt come to regret one day. Speaking of regret, she figured she might as well put everything in the open now. She took a deep breath.
“Jace, here’s the main reason you and I have a marriage that’s probably going to be difficult. I know your family really never trusted mine.”
“Sort of stating it too harshly,” Jace said. “We didn’t know what to think. Besides, we’ve put all that to rest with our marriage.”
Dear Reader,
The final Callahan bachelor is about to fall, and the journey was so much fun to write! Was there ever a man more destined for love and family than Jace? And yet falling for one’s neighbor—considered no friend of the family—can’t be all that good an idea, can it? But Sawyer Cash has long been Jace’s siren call—the petite, red-haired fireball tempts him madly! Sleeping with the enemy has never been so satisfying…until twin babies enter the picture. Double trouble!
What does a hunky cowboy do when everything he’s ever wanted is on the wrong side of the fence? Jace will need all the mystical assistance Rancho Diablo has to offer if he’s ever to win Sawyer Cash’s heart.
I hope you enjoy Jace’s story. And then, on to little sister Ash’s own perilous trek to love.
Best wishes and happy reading always,
Tina
Her Callahan
Family Man
Tina Leonard
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tina Leonard is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of more than fifty projects, including several popular miniseries for the Mills & Boon American Romance line. Known for bad-boy heroes and smart, adventurous heroines, her books have made the USA TODAY, Waldenbooks, Ingram and Nielsen BookScan bestseller lists. Born on a military base, Tina lived in many states before eventually marrying the boy who did her crayon printing for her in the first grade. You can visit her at www.tinaleonard.com, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Many thanks to the wonderful readers who have taken the Callahan family into their hearts—your enthusiasm has made their stories possible.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Excerpt
“The Callahans fight to win. They’d rather die than give an inch.
And there’s not an inch of quit in them.”
—Neighboring ranch owner Bode Jenkins, when asked by a reporter why the
Callahans simply didn’t move away from Rancho Diablo
Chapter One
Jace Chacon Callahan stared back at the petite fireball glaring at him. Sawyer Cash was his nemesis, his nightmare, the one woman that could keep him awake at night, racked by desire. Her killer body and haunting smile stayed lodged in his never-at-rest brain. And now here she was, red hair aflame and blue eyes focused, oblivious to the fact that his mind was never quite free of her. “You’re the bidder who won me at the Christmas ball?” Jace demanded.
Sawyer shrugged. “Don’t freak out about it. Someone had to bid on you. I was just trying to contribute to your aunt Fiona’s charity. Are we going to do this thing or not?”
He seemed to be locked in place, thunderstruck. For starters, Sawyer was telling a whopper of a fib. There’d been plenty of ladies bidding a few weeks ago for the chance of winning a dinner date with a Callahan bachelor, which happened to be him.
But what had him completely poleaxed was that the little darling who had such spunk—and whatever else you wanted to call the sass that made her an excellent bodyguard and a torture to his soul—was that Sawyer was quite clearly, this fine February day, as pregnant as a busy bunny in spring.
In a curve-hugging, hot pink dress with long sleeves and a high waist, she made no effort to hide it. Taupe boots adorned her feet, and she looked sexy as a goddess, but for the glare she wore just for him.
A pregnant Sawyer Cash was a thorny issue, especially since she was the niece of their Rancho Diablo neighbor Storm Cash. The Chacon Callahans didn’t quite trust Storm, yet in spite of that fact they’d hired Sawyer to guard the Callahan kinder.
But then Sawyer had simply vanished off the face of the earth, leaving only a note of resignation behind. No forwarding address, a slight he’d known was directed at him.
Jace knew this because for the past year he and Sawyer had had “a thing,” a secret they’d worked hard to keep completely concealed from everyone.
He’d missed sleeping with her these past months. Standing here looking at her brought all the familiar desire back like a screaming banshee.
Yet clearly they had a problem. Best to face facts right up front. “Is that why you went away from Rancho Diablo?” he asked, pointing to her tummy.
She raised her chin. “Are we going on this date or not? Although it won’t surprise me if you back out, Jace. You were never one for commitment.”
Commitment, his boot. Of his six siblings, which consisted of a sister and five brothers, he’d been the one who’d most wanted to settle down, maybe even return to his roots in the tribe. By now he’d been fighting the good fight for Rancho Diablo for such a long time he never thought about living anywhere but here, or at least no farther away than the land across the canyons, which his brother Galen had shocked them all by acquiring, in a direct assault on Aunt Fiona’s marriage raffle for the property.
The siblings thought Galen had cheated, or at least “rigged” the ranch deal in his favor. Jace and Ash hadn’t had a chance to marry and have babies, all prerequisites for Fiona’s ranch raffle. Ash was still steamed as heck with her big brother, Galen, whom she adored—although not when it came to acquiring the ranch she’d already named Sister Wind Ranch, which was actually called Loco Diablo by him and his brothers.
Jace wanted the land for himself, but he’d never pushed hard enough to find a lady with whom he could settle down and start a family, a necessary component of the marriage raffle. He’d been too busy chasing Sawyer night and day—or, to be more precise, letting himself get caught by her.
He gazed at her stomach again, impressed by the righteous size to which she’d grown in the short months since he’d last seen her—and slept with her.
He wished he could drag her to his bed right now.
“I’m your prize, beautiful,” he said. “No worries about that. But before we go, you’re going to admit whether that child you’re carrying is mine or not.” He wouldn’t be able to eat a bite, thinking about another man finding his way into Sawyer’s sweet bed. Jace broke into an uncomfortable sweat just imagining someone else with his adorable darling.
“I’m hungry, and in no mood to chat.” Sawyer turned to walk away, and he caught her hand to stop her, pulling her toward him. That she was avoiding the topic told him everything he needed to know.
“It’s my baby,” he stated quietly, his gaze pinning hers. “Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not.”
Her perfume wrapped around him; her heart-shaped lips were close enough to kiss. His ears rang with her admission, and Jace struggled to take in that he’d awakened this frosty February morning in Diablo, New Mexico, a free man—and would go to bed a caught man, and a father. “You’re having my baby?”
She gazed at him with those blue eyes that had long intoxicated him, even though he knew she was sexy trouble. “I’m having your babies.”
If he hadn’t been such a strong person, a man of steel forged by fire, as he frequently told himself, he’d have raised an eyebrow with surprise. “Babies?”
“Twins. One boy, one girl, if the doctor’s correct.”
Stunned was too gentle a word for the emotion searing him. The vixen who’d avoided him these past four months, not even letting him know where she was—who’d made him believe he was never going to hold her in his arms again—was the sin to which he was now tied.
His family was going to razz him a good one—and they weren’t going to toss confetti in congratulations. They’d say he’d gone over to the dark side, had slept with the enemy’s niece.
Hell, yeah, I did. And she’s having my children.
I’m on top of the world, even if I’m going to Hell.
* * *
SAWYER CASH GREW wary as the handsome cowboy she’d spent months dreaming about steered her toward his truck. She didn’t like the sudden glint in his eye when he’d realized she was pregnant with his children—and she knew the Callahans well enough to know that a glint in the eye meant their wild side was kicking in. “Where are we going?”
“On the date you bid for and won, darling. Be a lamb and hop in my truck,” Jace said, opening the door for her.
She’d always love the wild in Jace Chacon Callahan. His eyes were that navy color all the Callahan men had, but his were both a little distant and a little crazy. His hair was always tousled, dark strands going haywire except when tamed by a cowboy hat. Even his laugh was a bit wild, tinged with the devil-may-care attitude that most of the Callahan men possessed.
She’d always been attracted to Jace—but right now he made her nervous.
“Since I won you, I get to pick the date parameters, right? I mean, I paid for something.”
He smiled, slow and sexy, heating her with memories of snatched passion they should never have shared. “Whatever you want, little darling. Now slide in so I can buckle you up good and tight.”
Warnings howled in her psyche. She didn’t like anything about his sudden determined mood. “There’s a cute little restaurant in Tempest we could check out.”
“Tempest.” He buckled her in with care and stared into her eyes, just inches from her face. “It’s a funny thing, but the night of the Christmas ball, all I learned about the woman who won me was that she was from Tempest.”
“At the time I bid, I was working for your brother Galen in Tempest,” she said, a little breathless at the devilish look in Jace’s eyes. “At Sheriff Carstairs’s place. You know about what happened there.”
He had to have heard about the night Sawyer and her cousin Somer had taken shots at each other, quite by accident. Hired by Galen, Sawyer had been doing her job—and Jace hadn’t had any idea she was only a short truck ride away in Tempest, which was how she’d wanted it.
All the same, it had been hard not to drive “home” to Rancho Diablo to see him. But she’d known that to see Jace meant falling under his spell and into his arms.
She’d done far too much of that. Obviously.
“You covered your tracks real well.” He checked her seat belt again and she smacked his hand away, making him laugh in a throaty, teasing growl. He was just itching to get on her nerves in every way, and he was certainly succeeding. “Disappeared for months, then took a job with Galen, which I consider a bit traitorlike on your part. Then deliberately won me at Aunt Fiona’s auction. As I recall, the bidding went sky-high that night. I, the last Chacon Callahan bachelor to be on the block, fetched the highest price ever. Which you paid, and no one twisted your arm at all.”
She couldn’t look away from the knowing laughter in his eyes. “You’re a bit of an ass, Jace.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He closed the door, went around to the driver’s side. She could hear him guffawing with delight at her admission that she wanted him.
Well, she had wanted him, and she had paid a record amount for him at the Christmas ball, determined that no other woman should win him that night, not when she’d just learned she was pregnant. Five thousand dollars had gone to Fiona’s favorite charity, thanks to her sexy nephew. Jace’s aunt had no idea how many times Sawyer had fallen under Jace’s spell, seduced by the hot cowboy with a wicked penchant for frequent, enthusiastic lovemaking.
She couldn’t even comfort herself with the thought that he was a dud of a lover, or lacked the skills or attributes a female adored. No, he was pretty much perfect as a lover. And darn well aware of it, too. “So, we’ll head to Tempest for dinner?”
He started the truck, pulled out from the driveway at Rancho Diablo, where she’d agreed to meet him as his mystery date. “Sure, we can eat there. But not tonight. Tonight, we’re going to take a romantic drive.” He glanced over at her. “You cute little thing, trying to sneak up on me with this surprise pregnancy. You didn’t have to win me at the auction just to tell me about the babies. I would’ve married you even if you hadn’t bid for me. You could have had me for free.”
He was so arrogant! “I did not want, and do not want, to marry you. Put that right out of your insane mind.”
Apparently Jace thought her words were a real thigh-slapper. Sawyer’s brows drew together in a frown as he laughed. “Something funny?” she asked.
“Reverse psychology is an excellent tool.” He glanced over and stroked her cheek. “You didn’t pay five grand just to have dinner with me, doll face.”
He was insufferable. Why had she bothered to try to keep another woman from getting her manicured hands on him?
Sawyer should have thrown him to the wolves with a smile on her face.
“Jace, tonight is about dinner only. I’ve lived without you just fine for the first several months of this pregnancy, and I can continue to do well on my own. I suggest you try to grasp that. While you and I may have some parenting details to work out, there’ll be no resumption of our former relationship.”
“Could you classify that former relationship for me?”
He was definitely digging down to find his deepest layer of smart-ass. “Working professionals with benefits. You know that as well as I.”
“And now that you’re pregnant, those benefits are no longer beneficial?”
She could hear the smirk in his voice. “That’s right.”
He hit the main road, but they weren’t heading for Tempest. “I believe you went the wrong way,” Sawyer stated.
“I’m going the only way we need to go,” Jace said. “You and I are taking a side trip to Vegas. We’re going to give my children my name. Then if you want to sleep alone, that’s your choice. I won’t fight you about that. But being a father to my children, Sawyer, I will fight for.” He glanced at her, his smile slightly amused. “I’m a pretty good fighter.”
She knew that. All the Callahans were stubborn, steeped in loyalty to family and land. It was one of the reasons she’d fallen in love with Jace. Now he wanted to marry her, have a quickie wedding to seal the torrid love affair they’d shared under the family radar. She was a Cash and he was a Callahan, and the two were never supposed to meet on more than a professional basis.
“We can do this without marriage,” Sawyer said a bit desperately as he sped toward Vegas. “We can divide custody with the use of legal instruments instead of a marriage ceremony.”
“We’ve come this far, we may as well go all out. My family’s going to flip out when they find out I’ve...” He hesitated, then glanced at her with a grin. “That I’m having children.”
“That you’ve impregnated the enemy?” She glared at him. “I can’t think of a worse reason to get married.”
“I can’t, either, but we’re apparently past needing a reason and are moving swiftly on to cause. Those children deserve a proper start in life. That’s all there is to this, Sawyer Cash. Don’t feel guilty because you’ve worked your wiles on me, and are finally getting what you wanted all along, when you made your way into my bed.”
“Not your bed.” Not with the furtive lovemaking they’d enjoyed. There’d been nothing traditional about their stolen moments together.
“Doesn’t matter if it was truck bed, front seat, barn, canyon or Rancho Diablo roof. We misused ye olde condom somehow, and now the piper must be paid.”
She rolled her eyes. “About that time on the roof...”
“You said you wanted to see the stars. I believe we achieved your goal.”
He really was an insufferable jackass, quite confident that his lovemaking was the end-all to a woman’s dreams, the gold buckle of mind-blowing sex.
She couldn’t argue the point. She’d left Rancho Diablo when she’d realized she’d fallen head over heels in love with him, and that he had zero desire for a serious romance between them. He’d never said it in so many words, but she knew the difficulty of their relationship as well as anyone.
She’d thought she was in the clear, had made her escape with her pride intact. And then the morning sickness had begun.
“I don’t want to get married, Jace.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about our children. Now try to get some rest. There’s a blanket in the backseat if you want it. When you awaken, it’ll be time for us to find the fastest house of I do in Vegas.”
Great. That sounded like a wedding she could always look back on with a fond smile. No magic wedding dress for her, no marriage at the beautiful seven-chimneyed mansion at Rancho Diablo like all the other Callahan brides.
Drat. I had to fall for the one Callahan for whom a quickie, no-strings-attached marriage is just ducky.
Sawyer pulled the blanket over herself and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t think about what she’d done, blowing her entire bank account on the wildest, wooliest Callahan of all. When she’d known quite well that the Callahans and the Cashs were never, ever going to trust each other.
Babies notwithstanding.
Chapter Two
“It does trouble me that you felt like you had to win me to have this conversation,” Jace told Sawyer an hour later, as he sped toward Las Vegas. “I’m flattered you spent several months of your Rancho Diablo salary keeping me from another woman, but I would have withdrawn myself from Aunt Fiona’s bachelor raffle if I’d known I was a father.”
He looked over at Sawyer, noting that the spicy redhead looked as if she wanted to give him a piece of her mind, and probably would in a moment. He remembered the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her. Galen and he had played backup to Dante when he went over to see Storm Cash, and Sawyer had opened the door instead of her uncle, catching all of them off guard. Jace had seen a big smile, a slender, athletic body, cute freckles across a tiny nose, big blue eyes twinkling at him, and felt himself fall into deep, fiery lust—lust so strong that every time he saw her, he wanted her.
Of course, he’d known better. There were some lines one could cross, but sleeping with the enemy was a mistake only a man with his mind anywhere but on his job would make. But then she’d been hired on at Rancho Diablo by his brother Sloan and Sloan’s wife, Kendall—and suddenly the red-hot neighbor sex-bomb was in Jace’s sights like a tornado he couldn’t avoid.
It hadn’t taken him long to respond to the magnet pulling him toward Sawyer—only to discover that she seemed to feel the same desire. They’d made love as often as possible, as discreetly as possible, keeping their affair completely locked away. Sawyer didn’t want to jeopardize her job, knowing that she still had to earn Callahan trust—and Jace hadn’t wanted his family harping on his lack of loyalty.
His family was in for a big shock, but right now, he had to make certain his little firecracker mama got to the altar.
One thing about the Callahans: they were deadly serious about their ladies once they found them. But rare was the Callahan bride who’d made her way to the altar quietly.
He intended to avoid that unnecessary heartburn.
“I did not,” Sawyer said with annoyance, “want you to withdraw from Fiona’s event. You’d been advertised on barn roofs and billboards for months as Diablo’s prize of the century. It wouldn’t have been right to tell you at Christmas that you were going to be a father, and make you withdraw. That would have devastated Fiona, taken all the fun out of the Christmas ball and denied the charities that she funds much needed revenue, which comes from the purses of women who are hoping to win the dream man lottery.”
Jace perked up at the idea that Sawyer might think he was a dream man, suddenly hopeful that shoehorning her into marrying him would be simpler than it had first seemed. She didn’t appear all that anxious to say I do.
Unaware of his hopeful state, Sawyer took a deep breath and stated, “I took care of the obvious problem of my children’s father hanging out with another woman simply by winning you. It wasn’t that big of a deal, Jace.”
“You cute little thing.” He smiled at her, impressed by the starch in her attitude. “I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not thrilled to find out you’re my mystery girl. I’ll be happy to put a ring on your finger tonight, Sawyer.” And then, if good fortune smiled on him, maybe after the I dos were said, he’d finally get his little darling into a real bed, in a room with a closed door that locked, so he could enjoy her for hours on end.
“It’s going to feel great not to rush things anymore,” he said, not really aware he was speaking out loud, and Sawyer said, “I feel pretty certain we’re rushing marriage. Marriage is the one thing in life that shouldn’t be rushed at all.”
“Well, that cow is long out of the barn, so we won’t worry about that. Let’s move on to big decision number two.”
“I’m not even sure I want to be a Callahan,” Sawyer said. “I think I’ll keep my maiden name.”
He nearly stomped on the brakes. “That’s not going to happen, sweet cheeks. You and I are going to be Mr. and Mrs. Callahan, just like all my brothers and their wives. We share the children, we share the last name.”
She sent him a frown. “I’m not persuaded.”
“You will be. That’s my gift, persuasion.” He hoped she bought that corny line, and plowed on, “The second most important decision we make in life is where to live. I think the babies should be at the ranch, but everything’s hot around there right now, as you know.” They’d hired Sawyer in the first place because they’d needed bodyguards for the Callahan children. But later, they’d brought in more personnel to help keep Fiona and any other weaker links safe.