His Valentine Triplets

“I won’t argue with that,” his brother said gleefully. “I heard the whole thing, and you have very little understanding of how to treat a woman, bro.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rafe snapped, his patience addled by being so near Julie and unable to possess her. “You told me to stay away from her until this whole thing blows up or over.”

“True,” he conceded, “but she didn’t wear that darling little dress to talk about cases, dummy. She came wearing that hot number hoping you’d take it off of her.” His grin was wide. “Boy, are you dumb.”

Sam continued on, and Rafe sighed before heading out to the barn.

He wasn’t dumb. He was playing it safe, and right now, that seemed like the smart thing to do.

And maybe the only thing to do.

RAFE CALLAHAN WAS AN ASS, Julie fumed as she stalked to her truck. She got inside and resisted the urge to peel out of the Rancho Diablo driveway. It would solve nothing, and it served no purpose for him to think he’d won.

That’s what this was all about. From time immemorial, women had been played by Romeos, and she was no different. The Callahans were great tricksters, fond of practical jokes and mayhem. They loved one-upping anyone who tried to outdo them.

Her father was right: Callahans were trouble. And she should have known better than to think there was anything real going on between her and Rafe.

“An ass,” she muttered. “A big, braying ass.”

Her heart jumped and fluttered as she thought about how wonderfully he kissed, and she wiped at a tear that slid down her cheek. One tear, that was all she’d spare for that tall, dark, handsome Romeo.

He wasn’t worth her time.

Unfortunately, she still had to talk to him. The problem now was telling him what she had to tell him without killing him.

This time, she wouldn’t settle for permanent marker hearts all over his face.

A branding iron would be much better, but unfortunately, she didn’t have one of those. “Oh, heck,” Julie said to herself. “This is not going to be good.”

Chapter Four

“So,” Jonas said, rattling pots and pans in the kitchen as Sam walked in. “We’re going to need to organize KP duties. I think an org chart might be necessary. We’ll divide up days of the week for cooking, cleaning—”

“Whoa,” Rafe said, “I’m not eating your cooking.”

“Excellent,” Jonas said. “You can have my days.”

“All right,” Rafe said, as Sam entered the kitchen and poked his head in the fridge. “You can do my cleanup.”

“Why can’t we just eat out?” Sam asked, his face mournful as he considered the fridge. “Frankly, I don’t think the three of us are qualified to take care of ourselves.”

It was probably true. Creed, Pete and Judah had wives and families who could take care of them. Rafe figured Jonas and Sam were pretty useless at providing for themselves, and he didn’t particularly want to be shackled with babying them. Sabrina lived upstairs at the main house, but she definitely could fend for herself. Rafe grimaced. He could take care of himself, too, but someone was going to have to take care of his boob brothers. Sam was busy with the court case and probably couldn’t subsist on hamburgers from Banger’s Bait and Tackle, not if they wanted him firing on all cylinders legally. And Jonas didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain. Rafe sighed as he looked at his helpless brothers. “We could hire a cook.”

“For the three of us?” Jonas looked outraged. “Doesn’t that seem wasteful?”

“It seems practical,” Rafe snapped. “I make good food, but I’m not cooking for you babies.”

They both looked at him with regret in their eyes. Rafe realized that a trap had been sprung on him. “You two discussed this. You planned this pity party! You want me to do the woman’s work—”

“Don’t let a female hear you talking that way,” Sam interrupted with a glance toward the ceiling, as if he suspected Sabrina might be lurking upstairs. “You’ll get your head handed to you.”

“I don’t care.” He shot his brothers a sour look. “What a pair of wienies.”

“If you cook,” Jonas said, “I’ll do the grocery shopping.”

“And I’ll do cleanup,” Sam said. “Sort of. We’ll eat off paper plates and use paper napkins. No more niceties like cloth napkins, which Fiona used to spoil us with.” A woeful sigh escaped him.

“And what about clean sheets in the bunkhouse?” Rafe asked. “Basic hygiene? We haven’t taken care of ourselves our whole lives.”

“No time like the present,” Sam said, injecting cheer into his tone.

Rafe wasn’t buying it. “We need a housekeeper. Jonas, you’re going to have to open the purse strings.”

“I can’t,” he stated. “Remember, we said we were going to be cautious with our resources until the lawsuit gets dismissed.”

Crap, Rafe thought. “If I cook it, you eat it, no whining. And I never, ever do cleanup.” The very fact that his brothers had shanghaied him into this, when he needed to be thinking about Julie and her long, beautiful legs, teed him off greatly. “I do not have time to be Rachael Ray for you lazy bums. But I will, as long as all I ever hear from you is ‘mmm-mmm good.’”

“Deal,” Jonas and Sam both said, and Rafe stalked out of the kitchen, wondering why today was his day to have everyone lined up against him.

He poked his head back inside the kitchen. “Starting tomorrow.”

His brothers nodded eagerly.

“By the way,” Jonas said, “congratulations.”

Rafe blinked. “On what? Being a patsy?”

Jonas stared at him for a long moment. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Great. Thanks.” Rafe left again, wondering why Jonas had looked so surprised. “Jerk,” he muttered under his breath, though he loved his older brother. The word jerk made him think about Julie calling him that, walking away from him in her pretty white dress, and he decided maybe thinking about her was just too hard.

To hell with his brothers. They were weird, anyway, even for Callahans.

He was the last normal one left on the range.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, RAFE stared at Julie’s latest handiwork in the bunkhouse. As pranks went, it was a doozy. He appreciated the size and scope of her one-upmanship. He hadn’t wanted to pay attention to her, so she clearly had decided there were better ways to get a man’s attention.

She’d put a sign on his bedroom door in the bunkhouse. It had a stork carrying a blue-swaddled bundle of joy.

His breath stung in his chest. “‘Congratulations,’” he read aloud, “‘baby Jenkins arrives in May. Julie.’”

Rafe was reeling. There’d been no warning. No clue.

Except from Jonas, but whoever paid attention to him? “My world has gone mad,” Rafe muttered, and tore the stork off his door.

He was not having a baby. This was some mad attempt by Julie to rattle him, like the time she’d doodled on his face. Only this would last longer than a week. His brothers would be in top form over this joke. Everyone knew that Callahans were supposed to marry and populate. She was adding fuel to the fire.

But the sign said May. That was pretty darn definitive, and judges were typically pretty careful with details. Rafe tried to take another gulp of air and decided he might be having a wee panic attack. He needed a shot of something stiffening, like perhaps whiskey.