BRANDED BY A CALLAHAN (8 page)

He’d change magic into marriage.

Chapter Eight

When Dante returned, Chief Running Bear sat in the kitchen snacking, and no doubt plotting, with Fiona. “Hello, grandfather,” Dante said. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”

Lately the chief showed up more often than the once-a-year at Christmas his Callahan cousins claimed was his pattern before. Maybe it was because there was more family here for Running Bear to juggle. If there was anything his grandfather and aunt lived for, it was steering the family ship.

The chief nodded. “We have much to discuss.”

“What’s on your mind?” Dante sat on a bar stool next to his grandfather and gratefully accepted the hot coffee and thick chocolate chip cookies Fiona slid his way. “Thank you, Aunt Fiona.”

“You’re in the doghouse with me, nephew,” she said, sailing off out the door.

“Whew.” Dante drank the coffee, shook his head. “That is one unhappy aunt.”

Running Bear sipped his tea and said, “You cursed the magic.”

“I—” Yes, he had. He’d sat in this very kitchen and hollered unkind words up the stairs. “Look, I’ve never been a big believer in tchotchkes and thingamabobs.”

His grandfather nodded. “I know.”

“And I really don’t believe that the dress disappeared. It had to have been an optical illusion.” His resolved stiffened. “Fiona has a lot of tricks in her very deep bag.”

Running Bear shook his head. “Do not doubt the unseen.”

“Yeah, well.” What could a man do? He had faith—he did, otherwise he wouldn’t have survived the dry, endless days of war he’d experienced. “Dresses just don’t disappear. But I’m sorry Aunt Fiona is upset.”

“What about your woman?”

Dante sighed, didn’t try to pretend he didn’t know what his uncle was talking about. “Ana left. Said I wasn’t the right man for her.”

“She had a vision.”

“I don’t really—” Dante nodded. “Okay, she did have something like that. At least she said she did. Whatever happened, it really spooked her.” He remembered her running past the window. He’d known she was crying. “I don’t believe in visions and spectral heebie-jeebies. But I do know that Ana’s vision was real to her.”

“Yes. You weren’t in it. She had an empty vision.”

“Not for lack of trying on my part.”

“Do you know what happened?”

Dante shook his head. “She said she hadn’t seen me. She said she saw another dude, but I’m not sure if she was just trying to throw me off. If there really were some other man, I think I would have...”

“Would have what?”

He’d started to say,
I would have lost my mind,
but he was made of sterner stuff than to lose his cerebral advantage over a rival. “Well, I would have told her man that I wasn’t giving her up.”

“Yet you weren’t in her vision.”

“Yeah.” Dante studied his coffee. Then the picture went crystal clear. “Oh, hell! You’re trying to tell me that she didn’t see me because she didn’t want to! She doesn’t believe that I’m her heart’s desire, or her perfect prince, or whatever!” He looked at his uncle triumphantly. “Because she doesn’t believe it in her
heart
.” He leaned toward his uncle, his voice conspiratorial. “Have the Callahan brides figured out the trick?”

“Trick?” Running Bear looked at him with puzzlement in his dark eyes.

“Yeah. The Callahan brides see the man of their dreams because they
want
to.” This was so simple! Fiona had cooked up the perfect autosuggestive story to set the Callahan ladies’ hearts to fluttering with imaginary conjurings of what they wanted. “So all I have to do is convince her, and then Ana will try the dress on again, and she’ll see me.” He felt very good about figuring this all out except for one tiny, terrible detail. “But the dress is gone. Didn’t even leave behind an enchanted thread I could—hell, I don’t know—whisper pleas and prayers over.”

“More like you should whisper something else,” Running Bear said, standing.

Dante raised a brow. “Such as?”

His grandfather shrugged, grabbed a cookie for the road. “You’re not suggesting I apologize to a dress, are you? Because that’s really... I mean, that’s further out on a limb than my imagination can take me.” He was so confused he didn’t know what to think.

“We shall see many things in the future here,” his grandfather said. “Saying goodbye is easy. Maybe other words are more difficult.”

He left, closing the kitchen door behind him. Dante got up to follow, opening the door just in time to feel a whoosh of air as a dark black shadow raced past him, galloping toward the canyons and disappearing into the night.

His grandfather had been riding a black Diablo mustang.

Which was crazy, because spirit horses were just...spirits. And yet, spirits were the heartbeat of Rancho Diablo. Why had he said he didn’t believe in mystical things? He was surrounded by them.

Because he’d lost that faith when he’d been fighting, and was no longer that innocent youth who’d gone off to war.

And yet he knew better, in spite of himself.

His grandfather had tried to hand him the key to the puzzle. Somehow, the lock was just out of Dante’s reach.

* * *

“I
CAN
’
T
FALL
FOR
D
ANTE
,” Ana told her mother, Lynn, as she helped clean the small store her parents owned in Buffalo Gap. “Not more than I already have, anyway. I promised myself I would never get married. At least not until I was a bit older. I like my career, and I don’t want that to change. Truthfully, I never wanted to have to tell a man I had a female issue that might affect our marriage.” She hadn’t wanted to be defective—as a bodyguard, strength was her calling card. She thought about all of this for a minute while sweeping the dust from the floor into a dustpan. “Dante is the kind of man women dream of. Dark and handsome and strong. Intelligent. Courteous.”

Lynn smiled. “You’re in love.”

“I am. I just don’t want to be.”

“So you’re here until you get over it.” Lynn moved some pies and cakes onto the counter, placing them under glass covers. “You can stay as long as you want. I can use the help.” She looked up with a smile. “You’ve been here three weeks. I’m glad you finally want to talk about it. I was beginning to worry.”

Ana was so glad to be home. Of course it was the Christmas season now at Rancho Diablo. Fiona would be deep into the festivities, stringing her lights, baking up a storm. The ranch took on a glow of romantic beauty that was all its own. “I do miss the ranch, and the Callahans,” Ana said wistfully, thinking about the little twins she’d been trusted to protect. “Those are the most adorable little boys. I guess they’ll really be walking a lot now.”

Lynn smiled. “Your father needs help putting up the wreaths. Make sure he gets the ribbons straight, will you?”

“I will,” Ana said, but then she knew it was time to finish telling her mother the truth. “Mom, I’m expecting.”

Lynn hugged her. “I know, honey.”

Tears popped into Ana’s eyes. “How did you know?”

“Well, the lack of appetite was either love or morning sickness or both. The ginger ale you’ve been drinking signaled that I was going to be a grandmother. Your father and I have been about to burst waiting for you to tell us.”

“I don’t know what to do, Mom. I’m so happy. Shocked, but happy. I really believed I would have much more of a problem getting pregnant.”

“Well, sweetie, when one doesn’t use protection—”

“Oh, we did. Trust me, Dante is a man who leaves nothing to chance. Although I didn’t tell him I couldn’t have a baby.” Ana enjoyed her mother stroking her hair for another moment, and then stepped away. “I always felt so guilty that I was an only child and I might not be able to give you grandchildren.”

Lynn smiled. “I know. I figured it would happen when the time was right. And it appears that the time is right, now.”

Maybe it was. She didn’t know. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Dante that the condoms were defective.”

“From what you tell me, he seems like a pretty confident man. Something tells me he may not be all that shocked, and will even love bragging about it.” She put a hand over her heart. “You need to tell your father. It’s been driving him mad, not being able to say anything. We didn’t want to ask too many questions.” Lynn’s eyes twinkled. “But here’s a little secret that may interest you. Your father bought a new pony. He’s in the corral, waiting to be named by the new bundle of joy.”

Ana couldn’t help smiling. “I love you, Mom. And Dad.”

“We love you, too. No matter what you decide, we support you.”

Ana went to help her father and give him the good news. As she passed the window, she glanced outside, spying a tall, muscular cowboy on the street. Her heart jumped, and she looked closer, but of course it wasn’t Dante.

She was surprised how fervently she’d wished that her Callahan cowboy had come to get her.

* * *

“I
T
WAS
A
LARK
,
REALLY
,”
Fiona said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble by having Ana try on the wedding dress! I was attempting to be helpful.” She sat next to Chief Running Bear on the hood of the military jeep she used often on the ranch. They perused the canyons, companionable from knowing each other so long. “I felt certain she’d see Dante and realize that he was the man for her!”

“Get another.”

Fiona gasped. “Another magic wedding gown? Where would I get one of those? They don’t exactly grow on cacti!”

He shrugged. “It’s the legend the brides loved. That’s the magic they believed.”

Fiona blinked. “Are you saying I should buy just any old wedding dress, and tell the Callahan brides it’s magic?”

“Is there another way?”

“Yes,” Fiona said, “my mischievous nephew can tell me where he hid it. He’s not getting one single acre of that ranch land until he does!”

“We didn’t purchase the twenty thousand acres,” Running Bear reminded her. “You might recall the farmer decided not to sell. To us.”

“The boys and Ash don’t know that,” Fiona muttered. “I have no problem spinning that web as long as I can. And that farmer may decide to sell eventually.”

“My son Wolf put too much pressure on the farmer to sell. Wolf wants that land so he can legitimately stay close to Callahan land, wait for the right moment to strike.”

Fiona’s blood chilled. “It’s never going to work. He’s never going to find your other two sons and their wives. Jeremiah and Molly and Carlos and Julia are forever safe.”

“Wolf has a long memory. He’s paid well by the cartel. He is my black sheep, and has no intention of being anything else. He has time to wait for the right moment.”

“I’m so sorry,” Fiona murmured. “We always hope our kids will grow up and be productive people with character. I wish he’d fall into a hole!”

Running Bear laughed ruefully. “I don’t understand his choices. We are like night and day.”

They stared off for a while, neither speaking. Fiona worried, more than she wanted to let on. “Some days I wonder if it would be easier if we sold the ranch and started over elsewhere. Colorado, even Montana. Texas.”

He patted her hand. “I know, old friend. We must believe. We are on the side of right.”

“But maybe right doesn’t save us.” Fiona felt a heaviness that seemed to suffocate her sometimes. “Although I’ve always believed that good guys win, sometimes I wonder if we’re passing a heckuva legacy to all the little Callahans.” She looked at Running Bear. “They don’t know Jeremiah and Molly, and Carlos and Julia. Maybe they’ll wish they didn’t have to always fight so hard to keep the family secrets safe.”

Running Bear shook his head. “Callahans are strong. We know what we’re fighting for, and we’ll teach the little ones. As we did before.”

He meant with the six Callahans she’d raised here, for her sister, Molly, and Molly’s husband, Jeremiah. Why Wolf wanted to kill his own brother—Jeremiah—so badly was something she’d never understand. How could one turn on his brother and hope to sell him out to the enemy?

It all went back to the days of blackness on the land, when the cartel tried to take over. Jeremiah had fought back, and Molly had believed in that fight. Carlos and Julia had joined in, and now their seven kids were here, fighting for the land. For family, for community. For a way of existence no one else could understand, maybe, unless they’d lived with the same ancestors that had breathed life into them. “Wolf should have known. He was one of us.”

“Everyone chooses their path in life. Greed overtook him.” Running Bear sounded very sad about this, and Fiona patted his hand, as he’d comforted her. “But no, I never think about giving up. You’re tired, old friend. Yet you are strong. Wild tigers couldn’t make you give up one inch of this land.”

“I know. I’m grumpy today. Things didn’t work out between Dante and Ana the way I’d hoped they would. Dante did something to my magic wedding dress, and that’s enough to put any woman in a stew. And I feel like something’s not right around here.” She looked around. “Maybe I’m getting old.”

“We have many years behind us,” Running Bear agreed, “but you’re feeling the changes that are coming.”

Fiona perked up. “Changes?”

He nodded. “Wolf intimidated the rancher to the north into not selling to us. So your neighbor Storm Cash has bought that property.”

That meant Cash had ranches on two sides of them. “That’s better than Wolf buying it.”

“I hope so. We will wait and see.”

“A long time ago, I did some horse trading with Storm. He seemed like an honest person. We talked about going into business together on some horse breeding. Never happened, though,” Fiona reflected. “We lost touch for a while. Then he bought the land near Rancho Diablo, and I haven’t talked to him much.”

“We’ll watch him closely, now that we have him at our head and side,” Running Bear said, and Fiona sighed.

“That sounded ominous.”

He looked at the sky. “Storms are coming. We should get back. I don’t want your nephews worrying about you. Or Ashlyn yelling at me for keeping you out too long.”

Fiona smiled. Her nephews and niece were very protective of her. “I think I’ll stir up some trouble. That will shake off my blues.”