The Callahans (Prequel - Tempted By A Texan Series)

  She drew near. “You did a good job. As always.”

  Shrugging, he said, “Well, who else could make it look so pretty?”

  Cassie chuckled and jabbed him with an elbow. “Green thumb.”

  “Brown thumb,” he countered. “You and all your other siblings. You’d think they can raise the best horses and cattle in the region, but can’t get a plant to grow.”

  “They’re your siblings, too. When we decide to claim one another, that is.”

  Quinn grinned right along with her.

  “You’ve got Mom’s talent when it comes to growing things. Heard your lavender fields produced so much this last year that Gran’s putting you second in charge. Making soaps and lotions out of all the crops was brilliant. My clients ordered double for the holidays and sold out. So, I’d say, little brother, you’re a success.”

  He grunted, folding his arms across his chest. Looking at her now, he said, “Thanks, but second in charge is like being the first loser.”

  Frowning, she said, “Give it time. Gran likes to be in control.”

  “No kidding.” He shook his head and went back to gathering his gear. He’d seen her now and again over the last couple of days but not alone or for any length of time. “You here for a reason?”

  Her silence fell between them. “Why don’t you do that one, too?”

  “The…baby?” he choked out.

  She murmured.

  “He wasn’t even born. Just in Mom when they died.” Why couldn’t he bring himself to touch the small Angel stone?

  “Four months along.” She gulped hard; even he could hear it. “She hadn’t even told us yet.”

  “Before they left for the Vegas airport, they called. She told me they had a surprise for us…I can only imagine it was that.”

  “You never told us that! Why not?”

  “Eleven. Traumatized.” He shrugged. “Didn’t speak for a year.”

  “Quinn, you all right? I mean, Gran and the brothers say you come out here a lot, talk to them as if they’re real.”

  “Maybe because with a house full of yackety-yakking family this is the only place anyone listens?” He laughed, but deep down there was a kernel of truth there.

  “I see your point, brother. Now, tell you what, you join in with our plan against Gran, and I’ll listen to anything you have to say, anytime.”

  He held up his hands. “Oh no, you’re not roping me into one of your schemes, Cassandra Callahan. Been there, done that, got chewed out and then some.”

  “Come on, Quinn. All of us need to be on board with this or it’s not going to work.”

  The tools clattered together as he pitched them into the back of his beat-up pickup truck. “Work yours and it will surely derail mine.” Nothing could deter him from his dream of raising field after field of grapes for making wine, peach trees for pies and preserves, massive vegetable gardens, all kinds of flowers, and anything else he could legally grow. He, Quinn Callahan, knew deep down he was a farmer, not a rancher.

  “If you don’t even know it yet—”

  “Don’t need to, big sis. No one bests the best at her own game. Just ask Gramps.”

  She marched to his side and confronted him. “She’s going to marry us off. One by one. Until all six of us are sunk. By this time next year, she’ll be gloating as we’ll be reeling at how she pulled off the impossible.”

  He jerked back. “Marriage?!” The one word came out sounding as horrified as he felt.

  Her smile grew. “I knew you’d see things my way.”

  Quinn threw down his gloves. “Son of a biscuit!”

  Chapter 8

  Gramps

  Whitfield Callahan peered out the kitchen window facing the big house. He could get at least six of his small cabins in that gigantic ranch house. Her light upstairs flickered on and off and on and off and then stayed on.

  “Hmm…” A smile curved his lips. Signal.

  He stayed staring at the house for what seemed like hours, but were only minutes. All the lights were out except that one beaming from the second floor.

  A short time later, he saw the shadowy figure slip out the back door and glide down the path connecting the two homes.

  Whitfield waited.

  His door opened with a squeak.

  “About time you did something about that, old geezer,” she grumbled, coming in without knocking or being invited.

  “Don’t like it, don’t visit.” Slowly, he turned and crossed his arms over his barrel chest. The lone nightlight in the kitchen bathed her in a buttery yellow light. Her hair was freshly styled, her body scrubbed and lotioned, too, he judged, by the lavender scent he inhaled. And the simple dress hugged her small waist, flaring gently to her knees.

  She jammed a hand on her hip. “You don’t want me here?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “No sassing. Not in my house.” Sticking a thumb over his shoulder, he said, “You run that one the way you want to, Annie Callahan. Have been for over twenty years now. But not this one.”

  She hmmped in defeat. “Never could get you to do what I wanted to do, old man. Why do you think I kicked you out?”

  “The happiest day of my life,” he baited.

  “Mine, too.”

  “Yes sirree. I can do as I please here. Leave the paper on the table, all spread out.”

  “And dirty dishes in your sink overnight,” she said, nodding to the few plates sitting there now.

  “Drop my socks and drawers wherever I please.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “And collect everything under the sun.”

  “Nothing wrong with a man needing things, knowing they’re going to be there when he needs them…” He gulped hard, realizing he revealed too much.

  “You need me, Geezer?” Her voice wobbled a tad.

  “Yep,” he admitted, but tacked on, “Tonight’s good for me. Seems like for you, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Good enough for now.” He wanted her. But not on her terms. It had been like that all their fifty plus years together. He dismissed the musings and came back to the here and now. Scratching his jaw, he asked, “What’s the song you were swinging to this morning?”

  Even from here he could tell she blushed, a slight one high on her cheeks. “I like it.”

  “Me, too. Sing it.”

  “It’s the bass one.” Smiling, she began to sing the snappy lyrics of the pop song and tap her foot.

  “Show me what you’ve got, Annie.”

  She did a few steps, singing along, and then twirled around and shook her backside to him. “’Bout the bass…”

  He chuckled, the first real one since she’d snuck out of his cabin two mornings ago.

  How long were they going to keep it a secret from everyone, especially their kin? How in the world did he and their grandmother tell their grandkids that Gran and Gramps were getting it on after all these years apart?

  Now, there would be some fireworks! From them or from his wife, he couldn’t be certain…

  THE END

  Here’s a sneak peek at Travis, Book 1 in The Tempted By A Texan series:

  TRAVIS

  TEMPTED BY A TEXAN – Book 1

  Chapter 1

  “What the—?”

  Travis Callahan gained the crest of the grassy hill. No, he wasn’t seeing things.

  Calico was down.

  He slammed the gear in place, shut off the engine, and then jumped out of his ATV. He took two steps and nearly froze. “Me and a horse?” he muttered. His shoulder throbbed with recalled pain just thinking of getting near one again, never mind one flailing around.

  The irony did not escape him. A rancher by trade, Travis, surrounded by animals, avoided the interaction; he’d always come out on the losing end.

  Her loud, desperate whinnies hit him in the gut. He couldn’t turn away from her agony. Travis rushed to the sick, writhing mare with his heart clenched.

  No, not that. Don’t feel. Just thin
k!

  “Is she dying?” He dropped to his knees and shucked off his work gloves. Lifting her head, he found wide, glassy eyes and her tongue hanging out, along with her labored breathing. He gently laid her head down on the cold March ground and let his hands travel over the rest of her. Hot, clammy body; distended belly. “Easy, girl!”

  With a slight shake in his hands, he ran his palm over her sweaty coat. Hooves kicked from inside her. The mare thrashed. Travis dodged her legs at the same time he realized the foal was breech.

  Alone, he cursed his bad luck. Animals were his brother Colt’s forte, not his. Travis had sent him over a hundred miles away on ranch business. And why in the world had he let Luke go on that ten-day vacation anyway?

  Glancing around, Travis craned his neck to see the outbuildings, faded gray planks from years in the hot Texas sun, in the distance. Cattle grazed or lapped up water from the manmade pond in the valley.

  “Not a person in sight.”

  Where were all the ranch hands when he needed them? On a ranch a quarter of the size of a small state, couldn’t at least one or two hang back to lend a hand? Saturday night. What did Travis expect? They rode hard and worked even harder; this was their one night to cut loose.

  “There’s got to be somebody? Anybody?” Panic gripped him in his throat. His mission in life was to run the Circle C, his family’s ranch, and bring it back even stronger than ever before. Raising the best award-winning cattle in the state proved a round-the-clock endeavor. They were the mainstay of the ranch.

  Thanks to his brother, horses were becoming second. Travis made the deals, bought the top-of-the-line stock, hired the vendors and ranch hands and helpers, checked on the saddle shop business, tended to the finances, and ran a tight, well-run ship. It worked. Most of the time.

  He did not, and had not, been a hands-on animal handler. He left that chore to his four brothers and sister, when she was in town. It’s not that he didn’t like the creatures. No, they didn’t like him; every time he’d mount a horse, he’d been thrown. A hundred and one times and you’re out.

  Travis winced and rolled his left shoulder, recalling the near crippling tumble almost a year ago. Laid up for six weeks in a cast, he realized he’d tried taming his last one and centered all his attention on the running of the place. Now, that worked.

  With a lot of trimming the fat, pushing into profitable ventures, and reworking everything from the help to the computer programs, Travis steered the bull by the horns. Only now did he see they reaped those rewards with the continual positive attention the ranch gained these last few years.

  “Now this.” They couldn’t afford to lose their prized mare or her foal.

  Recalling the radio in the ATV, Travis rushed to it. “Callahan One to the ranch house. Gran, you there?”

  It took a few seconds, but her voice came over the line. “Travis? I thought you were in your office? Where are you, son?”

  “On the north side. Look, Calico is birthing early and breech. Get someone out here. I don’t care who—just get me some help. I don’t have the first idea what to do.”

  “Will do. Pronto! Be back in a flash.”

  Smiling at Gran’s words, he headed back to the horse’s side with the portable radio. Gran was a piece of work, but the one person who he and his younger siblings could always count on. Hadn’t she and Gramps taken them in and raised them like their own when his folks died in that plane crash? Hadn’t she stuck by them every step of the way?

  She had her schemes cooking most of the time, which he’d spent countless times trying to curb, but she’d been the glue to keep them together.

  The horse bellowed and Travis winced at the obvious shafts of pain shooting through the animal.

  “I’m here,” he soothed, patting her long neck.

  It went on over and over again, and sweat popped out on his forehead. He swiped at it and kept checking on the progress. Knowing he wasn’t cut out for this; he wished he was back at the ranch house, holed up in his office and on the phone to the vendors they worked with.

  Travis wasn’t a hands-on kinda guy, not when it came to four-legged creatures. The business end of things, yes: not the business end of animals.

  The radio crackled. “Travis, I got the vet’s new assistant patched through.”

  New assistant? When did Doc Ferguson hire someone for anything?

  “Mr. Callahan, I’ll walk you through the birth.” The warm, feminine voice jolted him. That and her words.

  He keyed the mic. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Her chuckle, light and brief, surprised him. “No can do. I’m up to my armpits in mud and other brown stuff at the moment. Mrs. Wheeler’s pig has a twisted colon. I love my job.” The hint of sarcasm brought a smile to his lips. He suppressed his own bubbling chuckle.

  Who was she and why hadn’t he heard there was a new assistant in their small town? Like his brothers and sister teased him, he needed to get out and about more. Paperwork was fine, but humans weren’t half bad once you got to know them. Or so they claimed.

  “You’re on your own until I can get some of the ranch hands over to you. If they haven’t all left, that is,” Gran said. “Go on, dear. Do your thing.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Callahan. Now, Travis—I can call you Travis, can’t I? After all, you’re going to be blushing by the time I get through with you.”

  Heat bathed his cheeks already. Was she flirting? He definitely wasn’t used to a woman speaking like this to him. He mostly dealt with men, and the few women he did talk to were females he either grew up with or were all business like he was.

  His affairs, usually an extension of business relationships, were mutually convenient and brief, the way he liked it. They’d agreed until they got too close, or wanted more, and then he shut it down.

  The horse writhed again. “Call me whatever you want. Just tell me what I can do for the mare and her foal.” He shrugged off his coat, rolled it up, and placed it under Calico’s head.

  “You know where to find her vagina, don’t you?” the assistant asked a little too sweetly.

  “Why don’t you tell me where it is and what it’s used for?” Sarcasm went both ways.

  It was nearly two hours later, and after much dirty talk from the vet’s assistant, Travis, shoulder deep in the horse’s birthing canal, was able to coax the foal to the proper position and tug on two spindly legs and the body soon followed. Slimy and skinny, it slipped in his hands. He held it to his chest, getting soaked through with a mixture of watery blood and slime. At least it was still warm.

  “Travis? You got our baby out?”

  Exhausted and exhilarated at the same time, he laughed. Gingerly, he reached over and grabbed the mic. “Baby is good. Alive.”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Look then. You know the difference, right?”

  “I’ve seen my share before.”

  “Stick or no stick?”

  He groaned. Travis shifted the animal and took a peek. “It’s a girl.”

  “Yeah! We had a little girl!” She cheered, choking up in the middle of it.

  Gulping hard, he frowned. Sniffles came over the line. “Nah, she couldn’t be,” he muttered. “Are you crying?”

  “Of course, I am. We saved her.”

  They did share that. But did she have to get all weepy about it? Travis didn’t do emotions, either.

  “What are we going to name our beautiful baby girl?”

  “Ours?” A sinking sensation shot through his gut. Not because she asked, but because he wanted to name this shivering little filly with her.

  His iron-clad policy of getting personal with anything outside of family shifted.

  “Ah, hell no…”

  Chapter 2

  Skye Walker eased the old truck through the huge stone pillars guarding the Callahan property. With her jaw hanging open, she pressed her body forward and gazed up to see the long, intricate entwined pieces of arched wood proclaiming it th
e Circle C Ranch and lights, now off, were wrapped throughout. “Must be a sight when it’s lit up,” she murmured.

  She swallowed hard. “You can’t hide money.” Skye should know; her granddaddy had flaunted it to no end. His Caddie, classic and shiny red, blared wealth and power. The diamond on his pinkie sparkled whenever it hit the light. That and the custom suits and alligator boots he’d favored were crystal-clear memories she wished she’d forget. Oh yeah, and his criminal ways, too.

  Pressing her foot slightly down on the accelerator, Skye aimed the vehicle to get through the entrance and away from her troubling thoughts of what she’d recently run from when he resurfaced in her life. The creaky truck bumped along down the long gravel drive. Her heart hammered the closer she got to the huge stone and wood ranch house with the wrap-around porch with several white rockers on it.

  New to town, she’d yet to meet the Travis Callahan, oldest brother of the much-talked about rambunctious clan. However, she’d certainly heard many a story of the founding family of the quaint town and especially the son who’d lost his parents, kept the family intact, and brought the ranch back from near ruin, all before the ripe old age of thirty.

  Worth a pretty penny, the rancher seldom socialized, focusing on business and his family. Like a champion bull rider, his laser-sharp grit and determination earned him legendary status. The wagons full of gold and respect followed.

  A jab of longing shot through her as she drove past well-tended acres of fields, cows in the far-off pastures, well-worn barns and sheds, metal shoots for roundups and branding, and the horse corral with a half dozen prancing beauties in it. “You done good, Mr. Callahan.”

  Warm sensations tugged to life as flashes of when she was growing up on her great-aunt’s farm and the sight before her merged into a familiar ache. Surprise bumped on its heels; in all the years she’d been gone and all the places she’d been, Skye had never had this sweet feeling of home wrap around her like this land had.

  The brakes on Doc Ferguson’s truck squealed as she came to a halt near the front door and yards away from three trucks of various ages and wear and color.

  A few minutes later, Skye looked at the big oak door in front of her. The lump in her throat grew. Her knuckles stung from knocking. “This is a house? Cripes, it looks like a fortress.”