His Valentine Triplets

Bode whirled, punching his finger toward Rafe as he escaped his daughter’s clutches. “You’re not winning,” he told him. “You haven’t won.”

Julie dragged her dad from the bunkhouse.

“Damn,” Rafe said, “I believe Bode’s finally gone over the edge.” He sank onto the leather sofa. His brothers and Fiona and Burke gathered around. “I thought he had a caretaker over there to keep an eye on him.”

“Seton’s busy, I think,” Fiona said. “She’s been over here helping Sabrina with some things for me.” Their aunt shrugged. “Seton does have time off, and she chooses to be here with her sister. That has nothing to do with Bode’s visit, because he seemed mostly upset with you.” Fiona looked at Rafe. “Didn’t he say he was going to kill you?”

Rafe shrugged in turn. “I took that ‘you’ in the global sense, as in all of us. I don’t think he meant me personally. If he wants to kill anyone, it would probably be Sam, who is beating him all to hell in court.”

“Oh.” Fiona nodded.

“I swear,” Rafe said. “I didn’t do anything to the old man. We all agreed we’d abide by the law, and the decision of the courts, and I’m cool with that.” He held up two fingers in a V. “Peace, brothers. It’s all chill in the house of Callahan.”

Jonas snorted. “Yo, thinker, don’t do anything stupid. The man is tense, and next time we might not be around to save you.”

“Save me?” Rafe shook his head. “He’s crazy. Everyone knows it.”

“Everyone may know it, but that won’t save you if Bode decides to get crazy on you.”

Burke looked at Fiona. “Actually, that’s the most upset I’ve ever seen our neighbor. Thankfully, his firearm wasn’t loaded, although they say there’s really no such thing as an unloaded gun.”

“He is crazy,” Fiona agreed, “but he’d been quiet for a while. Which made me nervous in a different way. But now I’m really nervous.” She looked around the room at all the brothers. “Now is as good a time as any to tell them,” she said to Burke, and Rafe thought, oh, that didn’t sound good.

“It’s up to you,” Burke said, moving his hands to her shoulders.

Fiona looked down, allowing Burke to massage her shoulders, which was strange, for this independent woman rarely accepted anyone’s comfort. Rafe could tell his little aunt was struggling to put her thoughts in order. Bode’s untimely visit had put speed to something that had been on her mind. Rafe waited, feeling tense himself now.

“Burke and I believe that Bode’s ill feelings in this suit have largely been directed at me. I’ve been a thorn in his side for quite some time,” she said.

The room was so silent Rafe thought he could hear Sam’s heart beating beside him, which was really annoying. It should be my heart I hear beating. Sam’s always been one for attention. It’s why he’s a lawyer.

“Remember the Plan I put forth to all of you? How I put Rancho Diablo in trust for whichever of you married and had the largest family?”

They all nodded. A couple of his brothers looked pretty proud, because they figured they were in the lead. Rafe snorted. It didn’t matter. They’d decided among themselves that, whoever won it, they were going to divide ranch ownership between them equally, in spite of Fiona’s Plan. And once he got started making a family—when he finally decided to settle down—Rafe would make all his brothers look like beginners, anyway. There was such a thing as proper planning, which all men of deep thought knew. Strategy. Chess players understood the importance of strategy, for example.

“Well, after a great deal of thought, worry, prayer and yes, even strategic plotting, Burke and I have decided,” Aunt Fiona said, taking a deep breath, “to move back to Ireland.”

Chapter Two

“Now see what you’ve done, brain man,” Sam said beside him, and Rafe turned.

“What?” he demanded. “What did I do?”

“You’ve upset Fiona.” Sam shook his head. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t ticked off Bode and his precious pumpkin, Julie. By the way, did you get my play on words? Brain man? Like the movie Rain Man?”

“Yeah, a laugh riot.” Rafe turned to face his aunt. “Okay, before everything gets really out of hand, I suggest we discuss topics of concern that affect the ranch and its future.” He went to Fiona and patted her on the back. “Let’s meet in the library in thirty minutes, which will give everyone time to finish what he was doing just as our neighbor had another of his dramatic fits.”

The brothers went off in separate directions, muttering and murmuring. Rafe looked down at Fiona. “It’s going to be all right. You can’t let Bode upset you every time he decides to be a clown. Because he does it so often.”

She stared up at him, her eyes bright. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I know, in my raising of you boys and the management of this ranch. But I cannot let something bad happen to any of you.” Fat tears plopped down Fiona’s wrinkled cheeks.

He hugged her. “We’re grown men, Aunt. You don’t have to worry about us anymore.”

“That’s not what that rifle said.” She sniffled.

“Yeah, but we all know Bode’s a terrible shot.”

“Eventually even a bad shot finds a mark.”

That might be true. Rafe pondered the wisdom in his aunt’s words as he held her to him. He looked at Burke over Fiona’s head. The only father figure most of the brothers remembered shrugged helplessly.

“All right, no more tears. We’ll get this figured out.” Rafe patted Fiona on the back and let Burke lead her away.

She was shaken, of course. They all were. Except him, for some reason. Staring down the barrel of that gun didn’t upset me like it should have.

Bode was just superhot under the collar because the Callahans made his precious lamb recuse herself from the lawsuit. He’d expected Judge Julie to be his ace in the hole.

Ha.

“Crazy old man,” Rafe muttered under his breath.

But an annoyed Jenkins was not to be treated lightly. Rafe remembered the time Julie had been teed off with him, and his brothers had let her into the bunkhouse where he’d been sleeping off a bender, and she’d drawn about fifty tiny red hearts all over his face with indelible marker. It had taken a week for those suckers to wear off. He’d been the laughingstock of Diablo.

He still had a bone to pick with her about that.

She hadn’t looked too happy with her father’s attempt to put a piece of lead in him today, but it wasn’t because she cared what happened to Rafe. All Julie cared about was her old man.

“Which means,” Rafe muttered as he left the bunkhouse to head to the family council, “that the next time we make love, I’m going to have to make certain that the folks all the way over in Texas hear my darling little judge banging her gavel as I completely disorder her sweet little court.”

“YOU REALIZE HE’S AN ASS,” Julie Jenkins snapped to Seton McKinley thirty minutes later, after she’d remanded an exhausted Bode back into Seton’s care.

The blonde and beautiful care provider blinked at her. “Your father?”

“No,” Bode interrupted, impatient for the story delay. “Rafe Callahan. He’s an ass. An eight-point horned ass.”

Julie sighed. “Dad, calm down. Put all this behind you. Most importantly, it’s against the law to go waving rifles at people and threatening them. I know you don’t realize this, but you jeopardize my career when you lose control.”

“I would never do that.”

Bode looked at her with big eyes. Julie sighed again, realizing only too well how much the Callahans got under her father’s skin. “Dad, you did. I could be in trouble for not calling the sheriff out on you.”

“This is what I’m talking about.” Bode waved a hand at her and Seton. “The Callahans are always at the root of every problem.”

“Usually I agree with you wholeheartedly.” Most especially, she would agree with him that Rafe was something of a rascal. No sooner had his longhorn gotten caught on her land then Rafe had shone all his legendary Callahan charm on her. And she, like a weak, silly princess in a fairy tale, had let him wake her up from her self-imposed sleep, and then made certain she’d not had a night since when her dreams weren’t interrupted by his devilishly handsome, always grinning face. She didn’t even want to think about what he’d done to her last week in her own chambers—and yet she hadn’t had five minutes where she didn’t remember his mouth all over her body, tasting her hungrily as if he’d never had a meal so good. It sent shivers shooting all over her just thinking about it.

“This time, I can’t agree with you. You’re at the root of this problem.” Julie settled a red-and-black plaid blanket over her father and left him to Seton, who seemed to have decent luck soothing Bode. Once again the situation was equally split, with blame for both sides. Her father was angry that the Callahans had asked her to recuse herself, and the Callahans were doing what they had to do to keep their ranch. It was all pointless. In the end, Bode would get Rancho Diablo. Her father always got what he wanted.

She should have taken herself off the case long ago. But she’d wanted to stay in control as long as possible to make certain the Callahans didn’t pull any of their numerous tricks on her father.