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“Not me,” he muttered. “There’s got to be something more than a court case and Jonas in my world.”
“Did you say something?” his brother yelled after him.
“No!” Sam went on up the stairs and wondered if he could talk Seton into having dinner with him again tomorrow night.
Anything to keep him from ending up like the Odd Couple with his brother.
“DINNER TONIGHT?” Sam asked, poking his head into Seton’s office at five o’clock Monday afternoon.
She closed up her briefcase and shook her head. “It’s probably not a good idea, Sam.”
“I’m in the mood for Chinese,” he said. “Surely you can’t resist that?”
She looked at him, tempted in spite of herself. “I really must resist.” You and the Chinese food.
“Can’t is such a funny word,” Sam said. “It means you want to, but are making the conscious decision to decline your better judgment. You pick the restaurant. I’m easy.” He flung himself into one of the leather chairs facing her desk and shook his head. “Please say yes. It saves me from having to look at Jonas. I’ve had a long day in court, and trust me, I’d rather look at you than him.”
Seton shook her head. “Poor Jonas.”
“Poor Jonas nothing. He’s calcifying in front of the fireplace. It’s not a pretty sight.”
Seton wondered if it was possible—even remotely—that Jonas was hankering for Sabrina. “That doesn’t sound like the Jonas I remember.”
“Yeah, he’s a butthead.” Sam glanced around her office. “You need some pictures on the walls.”
“Decorating isn’t my strong suit.” Seton walked to her office door.
“Good to know. I nearly married you.”
She laughed. “No, you didn’t. I never came close to accepting your proposal. So forget about it.”
“All right.” Sam stood and joined her in the doorway. “Maybe we should try to fix Jonas and Sabrina up. Get them together somehow.”
Seton stared up at Sam. “I don’t think so. I did all the meddling I’m going to do when I dug around for information on you. I’ve given up on it.”
“You’re a P.I. Being nosy is your game.”
“But meddling isn’t.” She snapped off the lights and locked the door.
“He’s never going after her,” Sam said, and Seton glanced up at him, her heart suddenly lurching.
“No?”
Sam shook his head. “Nope. He’s too, I don’t know, mature or something. At least he thinks he is.”
“Oh.” She was conscious that Sam had taken her elbow while she wondered about Sabrina and Jonas. What if Jonas did go see her sister? What if—
She’d promised Sabrina to keep her secret. “My sister certainly won’t come back to Diablo.”
They walked into the local Chinese restaurant and Seton felt herself relaxing in the soothing atmosphere.
“What did Jonas do to her? I’ll pound him, I promise. He’s had it coming to him for a while.”
Seton started, not relaxed anymore. “Why would you think he’d done something to Sabrina?”
“If she won’t come back here, and he won’t go there, although he calls her often, then he’s done something. Trust me, I know Jonas. He’s a great heart surgeon, but that’s all he knows about matters concerning the heart. Want to go all-out on a pupu platter?”
“That actually sounds delicious.” Seton’s mind was spinning about Jonas and Sabrina. She eyed Sam as he studied the menu, thinking that it was a shame the two of them had such opposite life goals.
“I suppose we wouldn’t have to get married to satisfy my needs,” Sam said, and Seton said, “What needs?”
“Marital needs,” he said, not looking up from the menu. “My desire to have a wife, stability and peace and quiet.”
“You may be the only man who equates marriage with peace and quiet,” Seton observed, and sipped her sake.
“What if we got engaged,” Sam said thoughtfully, his gaze no longer on the menu but on her, which set her heart pounding as she realized he was working on a Callahan plot. “Just engaged, a really long-term engagement?”
“Your point?” she asked.
“I’d be as good as married, and you wouldn’t be afraid of getting tied down. Best of all, Sabrina would probably come home to our engagement party.”
Seton stared at him. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Sam blinked. “Which part?”
“All of it. Order the pupu platter. I can’t plot on an empty stomach.”
He asked for a pupu platter and veggie egg rolls and maybe some dim sum—she wasn’t paying attention to anything but Sam’s face as he ordered—and then looked at her earnestly. “This could work.”
“I’m not following,” she said cautiously.
“They just need to be brought together,” Sam explained. “Then they could both move on with their lives, for better or worse.”
Seton had forgotten to ask how far along her sister was. She’d been too shocked to do so. She counted back how long it had been since Sabrina and she had left for D.C. It had been around four months.
Sabrina should definitely be showing.
“I don’t think she’d come back even to an engagement party,” Seton said. “Not that I’m considering a fake engagement to you, anyway.”
“You should,” Sam said. “There would be many pluses to being my fiancée.”
“I can’t think of a single one.” She dragged a crispy noodle through some sauce and munched it happily. “Besides, if Sabrina wouldn’t come back to Diablo, we’d be engaged for nothing. Then we’d have to break it, which would be a mess, and—”
“What if I told you,” Sam said slowly, thoughtfully, quietly, in a tone she’d never heard from him before, “that I wasn’t entirely opposed to having a baby?”
Seton blinked, nearly choking on her sake, which made her eyes water. She coughed and shook her head. “You’re so manipulative it’s scary. Or impressive. I can’t decide.”
“I’m serious,” Sam said. “I could tell as soon as I proposed that a baby was going to be your sticking point. As you said, both parties have to get something in an agreement. I’d get a wife and you’d get a baby. Stick that coin in your baby meter and see if it registers.”
She gave him a stern look and dabbed at her eyes with the white dinner napkin. “Sam, parenthood shouldn’t be negotiated. Babies aren’t bargaining chips.”
“No, they’re more like time bombs. Trust me, there’s several of them ticking away around the ranch, and something’s always going off.” He looked pretty cheerful about his observation. “One more would just add to the energy.”
He was already having one more Callahan. Seton shook her head. Their pupu platter arrived, along with more goodies Sam had ordered, and Seton dug in, hoping he would eat, too, and forget all about his newest idea. “This is delicious.”
“I know. This restaurant is great. They’ll deliver out to the ranch, too, which makes all of us very happy.” Sam frowned. “Jonas has quit cooking, and it’s really a pain.”
“Can’t you warm up a burger for yourself? Open a bag of Bertolli?” Seton looked at him curiously as she bit into an egg roll and moaned with joy. “I’ve never had egg rolls as good as they serve here. I literally craved them when I was in D.C.”
“Another reason you should never have left.” Sam waved his at her before dipping it in mustard and plum sauces. “When your aunt told me you were returning, I knew you belonged in Diablo. ‘That’s my girl,’ I told your aunt, and later, I realized that’s exactly what I meant.”
Seton put down her egg roll. “What, exactly, did you realize you meant?”
“That you were my girl. Or you should be. How many times do I have to tell you I need a wife?” Sam gazed at her. “Your aunt warned me that you might be a little stubborn. I told her I could handle it.” He started on the dim sum with gusto.
“Maybe I don’t want to be your girl,” Seton said with some heat. “You know, in some places, in a lot of places, this domineering attitude of yours could be construed as chauvinism.”
“Nope. Desire.” Sam closed his eyes as he licked his fingers. “This is so good I could eat it for breakfast.”
Seton sighed and joined him in eating the dim sum. “Sam, you were quite certain you didn’t want children.”
“But I’ve had time to reconsider my position,” he said, “and you’d be cute pregnant. You’re tall, but not too tall, and have nice curves, so you’ll be a stunner. Sabrina’s short and has that bright red hair, so she’d probably look like a plump, cute—”
“Ugh,” Seton said, “don’t talk about it.”
“Why?” Sam looked at her. “I just meant that you’d be very beautiful carrying a baby, Seton. And I’m willing to make that happen.”
“How?” she asked, with some acerbity. “Didn’t you say that our fakey thing would be in name only?”
“I’m flexible.” Sam grinned at her, and Seton’s heart jumped.
“Flexible.”
“Sure. See how hard I’m trying to make this agreement work?”
“I wasn’t aware we were negotiating.”
“Aren’t we?” Sam poured some more sake into her cup.
“I don’t think so.” Seton stared at him, wondering what it was he really wanted. Corinne and Sabrina had both said that there was more to Sam’s offer than it seemed. Seton wondered if they were right.
“We have to get those two back together somehow,” Sam said. “All parties benefit.”
“I thought you weren’t attracted to me.”
Surprise crossed Sam’s face. “Did I say that?”
“You said something like it.”
Sam laughed out loud. “Give me a chance, angel face.”
“This is so crazy,” Seton said under her breath. “You’re absolutely nutty.”
“Probably,” Sam said cheerfully. “But I can tell you like me, even if you don’t know why.”
Her lips twisted. “My, what a big ego you have, wolfie.”
“Needs a good woman to keep it in check.” Sam didn’t seem too bothered by that. “Think of how much fun we could have trying to start a baby. Practice makes perfect, I hear.”
She stared at him. “I doubt it.”
“Well, we’d know in nine months,” Sam said. “We probably shouldn’t waste any time finding out.”
Seton eased back, so full that she felt stuffed, and so annoyed with Sam she didn’t know what to think.
“I understand that you need a guarantee,” he continued. “I wouldn’t buy a horse without checking it out thoroughly, either. We could give it a few months, see if the stork has room in his calendar for us, and then announce our engagement. Or marriage, whichever you’re in the mood for at that time. Then Sabrina would come home for your baby shower—”
Seton narrowed her eyes. “You seem very determined to get my sister back to Diablo. What’s with that?”
“My brother’s suffering,” Sam said. “You’d pity him if you saw him. He’s practically wasting away.”
“Not over Sabrina.” Seton wondered exactly what had transpired between Sabrina and Jonas that she hadn’t noticed. A pregnancy, for one thing.
But how much else? Was her sister in love?
Maybe Seton owed it to her future niece or nephew to find out.
“Think it over,” Sam said. “Very little downside for you. If you were a gambling woman—”
“I’m not,” she snapped. “I see the odds as being very long that any of this works out.”
“Tell you what.” He leaned forward, his voice soft enough for only her to hear. “If we find ourselves with a baby, I’ll sign over my portion of the ranch to the child.”
Seton blinked. “Why?”
“It’d be theirs in due time, anyway,” Sam said, eternally optimistic, “and you’d have a better place for your office than that dingy building you’re in now.”
“I like my office,” Seton said. “It’s my own private space.”
“You’d like the ranch better,” Sam told her. “Office and nursery in one.”
She wasn’t going to succumb to the lure he presented. For Sabrina, maybe. But it was a long shot. Seton didn’t know if her sister even liked Jonas.
She’d liked him well enough to make love with him.
“This is terrible,” Seton groaned. “You have no idea the dilemma I’m in.”
“It’s hard pushing the upper end of your ovarian best-by date,” Sam said sympathetically.
“I’m twenty-six, thank you very much,” she retorted. “And that’s not what I meant, anyway. I can’t even imagine myself in bed with you, Sam.”
He grinned. “That’s funny, because I can see myself in bed with you—and liking it. A lot.”
Chapter Four
“I don’t know.” Seton glared at him. “I doubt we’re compatible. I think I’d prefer a more clinical route.”
“Like artificial insemination?” Sam looked depressed. “Give a guy a chance, will you?”
“Clinical might be easier.” The attraction Seton felt for Sam was overwhelming, but she wasn’t about to admit it. It seemed as if the best route was to deny any and all thoughts of sex between them.
One unplanned pregnancy in the McKinley family was enough at the moment.
Sam grabbed her hand across the tabletop and pulled her around to his side, making room for her to sit next to him in the booth. “See, you’re not exactly my polar opposite.”
“I have a feeling I should be pushing away from you like one,” Seton said. “Ask me later if I regret not running like heck.”
“I had you pegged as a girl who likes to be caught.”
“You’d be wrong.” Seton leaned away from him when she noticed Sam checking out her lips. “I was on the cross-country team in high school.”
He brightened. “We need an athletic woman in the family. It’s good for the genes. None of us were much for track.”
Seton sighed. “I don’t think you’re ever serious about anything.”
“There you’d be wrong. I’m serious about everything.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t you just ask Jonas what’s bugging him? Maybe he’s upset about something.”
“He is. He’s been mopey ever since your sister left. It’s like looking at Droopy Dog.”
“I’ll just ask Sabrina if she’ll come visit me and Aunt Corinne.” She knew her sister wouldn’t, though.
“You do that. Maybe it’ll work. In the meantime, I’ll go have blood drawn.”
“You’re serious about this.”
“Very serious. Dead serious.”
Seton looked down at her fingers, then at Sam. “I don’t think so. It’s not going to be easy for me to get pregnant, and if I did, you strike me as the kind of man who’d be determined to drag me to the altar.”
“Well, as you’re not certain you can conceive, we don’t have to worry about a pregnancy yet.” Sam smiled at her. “I say we go for a practice run.”
“Sam.” Seton frowned. “I’m not going to just go jump in bed with you when we haven’t even kissed.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, in plain view of everyone at the Chinese restaurant in Diablo. “Mmm,” he said, “I do love Chinese food.”
She blushed. “I’m sure it’s a rare man who claims to love sake kisses.”
“Eat a fortune cookie and let me kiss you again,” he teased. “Just for comparison.”
Seton stood, looking at him while feeling everything was all wrong. “I can’t do this, Sam.”
“All right,” he said, signing the bill. “Don’t say I didn’t offer you a whale of a deal.”
They walked out together, and she was relieved when he didn’t put his hand at her back. Her mind and heart were both racing, just from thinking about Sam. And Jonas and Sabrina. And the baby. But mostly Sam, and how good his lips had felt against hers.
She hadn’t expected them to feel so sexy.
“Tell you what,” he said, walking her to her car. “I’m going to be at a cute little bunkhouse on my property. If you’re in the mood later to come by and iron out some details, I’ll be there, reading briefs. No worries if you don’t.”
Seton watched as he took her hand and brushed her fingers against his lips. Her pulse quickened, making her nervously aware of how much she liked him. She’d come back to Diablo for this man.
And he was offering her almost everything she’d dreamed of.
Not love, of course. But just about everything else.
Maybe Aunt Corinne is right. Maybe playing it out is the right thing to do.
She couldn’t. Getting involved with Sam would just complicate matters. “I won’t be there,” she told him, and he shrugged.
“You know where the bunkhouse is. No one stays there anymore. Jonas lives in the main house, and when I say lives, I use the term loosely. He’s more like a fireplace vampire. He comes alive to feed horses and then settles back in his Count Dracula position with his tray table in an upright and locked position.”
She looked at Sam. “Would you know if anyone ever used the word eccentric to describe you?”
He laughed. “I’ll be seeing you, Nancy Drew.”
Off he went, as if he had all the confidence in the world that she’d show up. Just because he wanted her to. A snap of his fingers, and the world fell at his feet.
Well, not me, buster.
AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, the sound of pebbles hitting her window pulled Seton from her bed, where she’d been reading a whodunit by one of her favorite authors. She pulled open her window and glanced down to see Sam grinning up at her from the ground below.
“You’re going to wake Aunt Corinne, you ape!” she whispered. “You’re too old to be throwing stones at a lady’s window!”
“You didn’t come see me,” Sam said. “I thought I’d pick you up.”
“You’re so not funny.” He was like a big puppy, she decided, completely unlike the cagey barrister one saw in court. “I’m not coming down. I’m reading a book, and it’s very good.”
She didn’t really expect him to buy her flimsy excuse, and he didn’t.
“How can I find out if I want to marry you if you stay locked up in your tower?” Sam asked.
“That’s a problem you’ll have to resolve on your own. Now go away.” Seton started to close her window, then heard her aunt’s voice on the porch.
“Hello, Corinne,” Sam said. “Yes, it is a lovely night.”
Seton eavesdropped shamelessly.
“I’d love to come inside. Thank you, Corinne,” he said.
She realized he’d gone into the house with her aunt. There was nothing she could do except get dressed and go downstairs. Somehow, she’d have to run Sam off before her aunt plied him with tea and cookies and questions about his aunt Fiona and uncle Burke. There was nothing Aunt Corinne would love more than to catch up on her dear friend.
Seton jumped into a blue dress, pulled a brush through her hair, gargled, smoothed on some lipstick and flew down the stairs. Sam had his head under the sink, looking at the pipes. Aunt Corinne held the flashlight and a box of tools at the ready.
“Aunt Corinne!” Seton exclaimed.
“Ow!” Sam started and banged his head on the cabinet, and Aunt Corinne jumped like a cat startled by a barking dog.
“Seton! I thought you were asleep!” her aunt exclaimed. “What are you doing up?”
Sam raised a quizzical brow and grinned.
“I’m … I thought I heard voices,” she said. She gazed back at Sam, annoyed.
“Sam’s come to fix my sink,” Corinne said. “I saw him in town and told him I was having issues with it, and he said he’d stop by.”
Seton glared at Sam, who shrugged. “Did he really?”
“Yes,” Sam said, “and it turns out you did drop your ring down the drain, Corinne.” He handed it to her and winked at Seton. “She thought she had, but didn’t have her glasses on at the time.”
“You didn’t mention that to me,” Seton said. “I could have helped you look for it. You didn’t need to bother Sam, Aunt Corinne.”
“Oh, Sam’s never minded helping me out.” Corinne’s expression was blithe. “None of the Callahan boys mind coming by because I give them lots of cookies.”
Sam smiled. “I actually come to see your aunt. The cookies are merely a nice benefit.”
“Oh, you rascal.” Corinne handed him a wrench. “Thank you, Sam. Now you wash up and we’ll all have a snack. I’ve baked some Toll House cookies fresh, and they’re my best batch in weeks.”
Seton frowned. “Surely we could send Sam home with his cookies, Aunt? I’m certain he has a busy day tomorrow, and it is late—”
“Why, Seton.” Corinne handed Sam a dish towel to dry his hands. “No one goes to bed at nine o’clock.”
Seton blushed. She’d been in bed with her book earlier. “Since everything seems to be handled down here,” she said. “I believe I’ll go back up to bed.”
“You do that,” Sam said, and her aunt smiled.
“Yes, Seton. Get your rest, dear.”
She hadn’t really wanted to go upstairs while Sam was here. Clearly, he couldn’t take a hint to go. Seton pursed her lips, trying to decide what to do—had he not just asked her why she hadn’t shown up at his place?—and decided to call his bluff. “All right,” she said brightly. “Good night, all.”
She forced herself to go back upstairs, and felt like a child who’d gotten sent to bed early. But she was doing the right thing. Sam hadn’t said a word about coming by to help out her aunt. He was playing games with her and the best thing to do was ignore him.
It wasn’t going to be easy when she could hear Sam and her aunt downstairs laughing and reminiscing. Seton sighed and tried to focus on the mystery, which no longer seemed that riveting. After a while, unable to concentrate, she put the book down and tried to hear what they were saying.
Twenty minutes later, she heard the front door open and Aunt Corinne call, “Good night!”
Sam said, “Good night!” Seton heard his truck pull away and realized she’d closed her book. She’d never be able to concentrate on the red herrings now.
Sam stayed on her mind too much these days.
“Seton?”
“Yes, Aunt Corinne? Come in.”
“He’s gone.” She entered and sat on the vanity chair. “Didn’t you want to see Sam?”
Seton wondered if her aunt had dropped her ring down the drain on purpose just to get Sam and her niece in the same room together. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ve had dinner together the past few nights. He keeps mentioning his proposal like he means it. Frankly, I’m confused.”
“He seems honestly interested in you.”
Seton wondered if Sam was interested or just being expedient about his plans. “I don’t know, Aunt Corinne. I’m not skilled in the dating game, I guess.”
“Hiding up here is no way to encourage him,” her aunt pointed out.
“I don’t really want to encourage him,” Seton said. “I think we might be too different.”
“You came back because of Sam,” Corinne reminded her.
“I know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what he really wants.”
“He wants a woman,” Corinne said. “He wants you.”
Seton blinked at her aunt’s frankness. “He doesn’t know me.”
“What’s to know? You like him, he likes you. There’s no perfect rubric for love, Seton.”
She sighed. “He wanted me to visit him tonight.”
Aunt Corinne gazed at her. “What can it hurt?”
She didn’t know. Nothing, except her heart, of course. But maybe she was worrying too much. Seton got up, began to put her dress back on. “I’ll go. But I feel stupid.”
“Why? Because he wants you to come over, and you want to go?” Corinne shook her head this time. “If you like the man, show up. You’ve practically got a steel cage wrapped around you, Seton.” Her aunt smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Sam’s a very nice, eligible bachelor. He likes you. What does it hurt to go find out if you like him?”
Seton hesitated, not certain she was doing the right thing. She was a little intimidated by Sam and his potent, blatant allure. But if her aunt thought paying a man a call at his bunkhouse was a good idea, then what could go wrong?
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, when she finally got up the courage to knock on the bunkhouse door, what Seton most feared came to pass.
Lacey MacIntyre opened the door, and Seton could see Wendy Collins, the town’s much-married-and-on-the-hunt-again librarian in the background. “Hi, Seton. What are you doing here?” Lacey asked without much enthusiasm.
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