His Valentine Triplets

He hit the bar, and didn’t bother with a glass, just let the liquor burn down his throat from the bottle. After capping it, he wiped his brow and concentrated on the pain.

“I had no other way to tell you,” Julie said, stepping out of his room. Rafe’s throat went dry as a bone, no longer moist from the alcoholic drenching. “It takes a lot to get your attention, cowboy.”

“There’s no way,” he told her. “I used a condom when we were in the field. Mind you, it wasn’t the newest, but latex lasts forever. It’s nuclear material. So you must be mistaken, Julie. Condoms are safe.”

“I don’t remember hearing the sound of foil tearing open in my office.”

This was true. “I figured you were on the pill or something by then,” he said, and Julie looked outraged.

“Excuse me if I never considered us an ongoing thing.”

He blinked. “And now?”

“Now you know.” She walked past him, obviously about to leave. “That’s all I owe you, Rafe.”

“Who else knows?” he asked, wondering if he needed to talk to Bode.

“You and whoever saw this sign.”

“Did Jonas know you were waiting in my room?” Rafe’s head was spinning. “I mean, he told me congratulations.”

She smiled. “I asked him not to.”

Great. Everyone loved pulling the wool over good ol’ Rafe’s eyes, he thought bitterly. “Well, things will have to change. You, me, everything.”

“Probably,” she said, and walked out the door.

As if he was supposed to know what to make of that. Rafe hurried after her. Julie got in her truck, gunning it, sending up plumes of driveway dust, and the little judge went off without even a glance at him.

Not even caring that she’d totally kicked his ass in a major way.

“I’m going to be a dad,” Rafe said. “More importantly, I’m also going to be a husband, whether that little judge and I ever see eye to eye on the subject or not.”

“Talk to yourself often?” Sam asked, wandering by with a smirk on his face. “Dad?”

“Only when I want to,” Rafe said, and headed off to ponder what the hell had just happened to him.

“YOU’D BEST FIND A BUNKER,” Jonas told Rafe an hour later when he found him staring up at the ceiling, his gaze fixed on the plaster as he lay on the leather sofa. “Bode’s going to tear you limb from limb when he hears the not-so-good news. Jeez, Rafe, what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Obviously. This throws a wrench into everything.”

“Tell me about it,” Rafe said. “Great sex goes out the window once the little woman’s got a bun in the oven. And I never got to have great sex with her.” He moaned piteously.

“Ugh,” Jonas said under his breath to Sam, who leaned over the sofa to punch his brother in the chest with a grin. “Do something with him, will you? Explain to him how neatly, with one fell swoop, he’s destroyed our court case you’ve slaved over for three years.”

“Idiot,” Sam told Rafe. “You’re supposed to be the smart one. Turns out you’re the dumbest of all.” He laughed, enjoying his brother’s plight.

“It’s not funny,” Rafe said. “Now she hates me.”

“Now we all hate you, dummy.” Jonas sank onto the sofa, staring at the fireplace. “I was hoping it wasn’t true. I was hoping you weren’t as dumb as you look. Once again, however, you prove yourself.”

Rafe waved a hand in the air. “Try being me for a change. The most beautiful woman in the world is having your baby. She doesn’t want you. Life is ugly from where I’m lying.”

“Please don’t let me ever be that pitiful,” Jonas said aloud. “If I ever get like him, Sam, you’re in charge of shooting me.”

Sam took a seat in a wingback chair. “It’s just that he’s been convinced for so long that he was so much smarter than everyone. Bulletproof, like Superman. Only now you’re Superwienie,” he told Rafe. “This is going to complicate the hell out of things, especially when Bode comes to kill you.”

“I know,” Rafe said. “I think I better go talk to him.”

“No!” Sam and Jonas exclaimed.

“Don’t set a foot on that property, Rafe.” Jonas’s tone was grim. “Don’t go see Julie. Don’t upset Bode. We’ll try to hide you as best we can, but we’re not the Secret Service. We’re not nannies, damn it.”

“Be careful,” Rafe said. “I’m the cook. Mind your manners or you’ll be eating Rice Krispies for days.”

Sam shook his head. “Look, Plato, Jonas is right. You’re going to have to lie low. If you think Bode wanted to put lead in you for picking on his little girl when we made her recuse, he’s going to send out a team of snipers to take you out once he finds out you’ve knocked up his little lambkins.”

“I think he should leave town,” Jonas said, as if Rafe wasn’t there. “He could hit the rodeo circuit. The boys’d cover for him. He could fly the plane up to Alaska and do something productive for a change.”

“Fly fishing’s productive?” Rafe asked. “I’m not going anywhere except over to Julie’s.”

“No!” Sam said. “Look, freak, you’re in big trouble, even if you’re too dumb to know it. God, all kinds of IQ and not a grain of street smarts.”