A Callahan Christmas Miracle

“No,” Running Bear said. “Well, yes and no. Yes, Fiona will do anything to see you happy, as your married cousins and siblings are. But we always intended to grow the ranch. We knew they were building tunnels. We hoped you would come to love it here as much as your cousins do.”

“I do. The whole family does.”

“I know. But one of you must be the head of that ranch. We don’t want it broken up and weakened, making it easy for the cartel to move in.”

Galen shook his head. “I don’t like it. If Ash wins the ranch, she’ll be over there alone. She may not want us all living there. We need to stay together as a family. As a unit. We always have.”

“So win the land yourself.”

“I have no reason to expect that I’m in the running. I have no wife, probably won’t for years.” He’d taken care of his siblings so long he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to relax and have time for romance.

He thought about Rose next to him in bed last night and decided he could relax a little.

“Tell your brothers and sister that you want the land.”

Galen started. “I can’t do that. I can’t tell them I’m bumping them out of Fiona’s ploy.”

“You don’t want any of them living on land that only you knows has been compromised. It’s not safe.”

“Can’t we destroy the tunnels?”

“We would destroy acres and acres of good land with them.”

There were no good answers, no good choices. “It’s too dangerous to raise a family there now, so what difference would it make if we destroyed it? Those tunnels are how they’re getting to Rancho Diablo so easily, Grandfather.”

“Yes.” Running Bear nodded. “You must ask your ancestors what the right answer is.”

“The right answer to what?”

“Your path. What you are meant to do.”

“I say we burn them out. From burned ground comes new growth.”

“It would take many men to do it.”

That was also true. He’d had lots of military training. Teamwork wasn’t unknown to him. “It would be expensive to bring in that much personnel.”

“Yes. But it can’t be done alone.”

“Explosives. I can think of a hundred ways to collapse tunnels.”

His grandfather opened his eyes to look at him. “You’d be put in jail. You can’t set fires and blow up land without breaking the law.”

“There has to be a way.” Galen just couldn’t think of one. But it made his blood hot with anger that the enemy was gaining on them by doing whatever they wanted, while he was confined by the law. “Some way I haven’t thought of yet.”

“Buy the land,” Running Bear advised. “Tell Storm you will.”

“By myself? Or you mean the family as a conglomerate?”

“You buy the land. Tell your cousins you need to use the resources of Rancho Diablo as collateral. Jonas Callahan will know what you need.”

The treasure of Rancho Diablo. Galen knew about it. There were a couple working oil wells, the fabled silver mine, the buried silver and gold, as well as the land and its holdings. But the black Diablo mustangs were the real wealth. They held the spirit of the land, kept it alive. “What does Wolf think he wants with Rancho Diablo?”

“The wealth. The riches.” Running Bear rose. “What my son does not understand is that he cannot have any of those things. They will never be his.”

Galen rose with his grandfather. “How is that?”

“Because evil never overcomes good. This ranch was built for good. The fight will be long. It will be difficult and costly. But it will not be lost. Think on what I have said, Galen.” His grandfather looked at him. “Tell Fiona the terms of the ranch raffle must change, if she’s going to get the last of you boys, and even Ash, to the altar.”

“Change how? And I don’t want to get married,” Galen said. “I’ve been alone too long. I like my life the way it is.”

“The shepherd must eventually have a flock.” Running Bear walked toward the gorges twisting through rocks carved by eons of wind and rain.

“I don’t need a flock,” Galen muttered. “And I don’t need a twenty-thousand acre ranch.” He sighed as he got in the jeep. “I don’t want the land. I want to burn them out,” he called after his grandfather. “Let the rest of them divide up the ranch over there.”

Silence met his words. Which meant the old chief had said all he planned to say on the matter.

Running Bear knew what had to happen.

Galen went back to Rancho Diablo to think.

* * *

SOMER STEVENS MET HIM as he drove up to the ranch house, a big smile on her face. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

He parked the jeep, appreciating her dark beauty. And yet somehow she just didn’t ring his bell the way Rose did. “Why is that?”

“Wondered if you want to go riding. I’m fixing to take out Gray.”

“I’m afraid I can’t join you today,” Galen said, and wondered why she rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe because she was a shade too friendly.

“Next time, perhaps.” She disappeared into the barn, and Galen stared after her. He hoped she planned to exercise Gray in the corralled area of the ranch, where it was safest. What if it were Rose riding? Would she stay near the house, or stray off on an adventure?

Definitely stray off, for any reason.

Somer wasn’t his problem. She was Sloan and Kendall’s problem. She’d been hired to take Sawyer’s place guarding their twins. Occasionally she would switch and guard Tighe and River’s triplets. If she had an afternoon off, it wasn’t his business.

He went inside the house, his mind full of his grandfather’s advice.

“Hello!” Fiona grinned at him. “Why is your smile turned upside down, nephew?”

He sat at the kitchen counter, nodding gratefully when she pushed a mug of coffee and a slice of apple pie his way. “Thank you. Running Bear wants me to buy the ranch across the canyons,” he said, and bit into the deep, flaky pastry. Cinnamon and allspice and warm buttery piecrust melted in his mouth.

“You?” Fiona looked at him curiously.

He shrugged.

“Why?”