Читать книгу Cowboy Sam's Quadruplets - Tina Leonard - Страница 6

A week later, Sam decided Seton was the slowest woman ever when it came to accepting a marriage proposal. So he invited himself into her office and gave her his most winning grin, the one he reserved for sticky judges.

She glared at him. “No.”

Her reluctance surprised him. “Did you even consider it?”

Seton shook her head. Today her blond hair was twisted up on her head in a businesslike braid thing, and while he thought it looked good on her, he liked her hair best loose and straight. She wore a blue suit and a continual frown, so he relaxed in the chair and pondered his next angle.

“I didn’t consider your proposal,” Seton said. “I figured you’d be over it once the crazy wore off.”

“I never have crazy moments.” Sam crossed a boot over his knee and pressed his fingertips together. “My offer was based entirely on careful planning and sound logic. You need me and I need you.”

Her light brown brows winged together. “How do I need you?”

“Don’t you want to get married?” Sam couldn’t help doubting her happy-spinster stance.

“I’ve been married.” Seton got up and shoved some manila folders into a nearby filing cabinet. He admired her long legs and delicate feet, tucked into navy blue pumps, and the curve of her fanny under the knee-length skirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his attention completely shot as he tore his gaze from Seton’s delectable rear view. “Did you say you’d been married?”

“Mmm.” She sat back down and stared at him, her eyes clear and matter-of-fact. “It’s not an experience I’m pining to repeat, to be honest.” She picked up a lone file folder on her desk, consulted it for a moment, then tapped for a few moments on the keys of her open laptop. “But after your business offer—”

“Proposal.”

She looked at him again. “One can’t really call that a proposal, Sam. It was all about business. Your business. The only thing you forgot was something for the other party. Negotiations tend to be short-lived when one party wants something and the other wants nothing.”

“I mentioned there would be financial compensation, Seton,” Sam said.

“Which sounds unethical.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see where you’re coming from.”

“I doubt it.” Her tone was cool as she returned her gaze to the computer screen. “But in the spirit of friendship, and I suppose we’ll have to have some kind of friendship since we’re both living in Diablo, I did a little searching for you.”

“I don’t need you to search out a wife for me,” Sam said, feeling crusty. “I’m not going to make my offer to just any woman. Thanks.”

“About your parents,” Seton said, shooting him a glare. “Forget about the marriage bit—that horse isn’t going to run. Let’s focus on the real problem you have, which is that you said you didn’t know who you are.”

He raised a hand. “I’m not in a hurry to find out.”

“It seemed like that was your big hang-up when you were in here the other day. Your real reason for wanting a wife. An anchor, if you will.”

Sam shrugged. “Wrong theory, Miss Marple. Anyway, you’re going out of order. I came here to talk about marriage. Not myself.”

“I’m not accepting your proposal.”

Well, wasn’t she just the most stubborn little thing? It was almost cute. There was something between them, even if she didn’t care to notice it. Sam supposed a woman didn’t decide to become a detective without some good ol’ ornery in her makeup. Seton was so no-nonsense she probably scared most men.

Sam liked a challenge, and the more pretzel-like the chase, the better. He figured he’d be a pretty poor lawyer if he didn’t crave a good knuckle-cracking challenge. He leaned his chin on his fingertips and tried to think where he was going wrong here. It was really important that Seton say yes. Marriage would solve everything for him. He wouldn’t be the last one on the range. What man wanted to cross the finish line last? He sure as hell didn’t. Jonas would be much better at being the family wallflower. Frankly, things were awkward now at family gatherings. There were all his brothers, their wives, their children—and him and Jonas. Like a date, or an old pair of doting uncles who couldn’t measure up to what a woman needed in life. He hated being Sam the Single Callahan.

Besides, he had a yen for Seton.

He sighed. “So what did you find, Snoopy?”

“Snoopy?”

“Did I ask you to snoop around in my life? I asked you to marry me, not go on a hunt for clues.” Sam couldn’t help the grieved tone in his voice. “I guess that would come with the territory, though.”

“What territory?” Seton shot him an annoyed glance of her own.

“Marrying a private investigator. You’d always be digging around, looking for stuff. Frankly, I don’t have that many fossils to unearth.” He spread his hands wide. “I’m a pretty simple guy, actually. I just want a companion. I want to get married so Fiona won’t fix me up.”

“She’s in Ireland.”

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that matters,” Sam said darkly. “Fiona would send over a mail-order bride if she could find one who could finesse me to the altar.”

“Maybe she should,” Seton said sweetly. “Since all you want is a name on a piece of paper.”

He looked at her. “All right. I get that you’re not impressed. But what would you do in my place? Just think about it for a moment.”

Seton shook her head. “Maybe this will help you. There are no records of your parents in Diablo. Not their births, obviously. But there are no records of their deaths.”

“Did I ask?” Sam snapped.

She narrowed her gaze on him. “If you don’t want to know what I found, I certainly won’t reveal it, Sam.”

“I’m not paying for it.” He leaned back again, noting that his gut was all churned up.

She shrugged. “I didn’t ask you for anything.”

This was true. He chafed at the reminder that only he seemed to want something. He admired her independence, even while it annoyed him. “I don’t appreciate you being nosy,” he said.

She turned off her computer. “I apologize.”

“You were trying to help me find myself,” Sam said, “but see, I don’t want to be found.”

She looked at him. Confronted with knowing that his past was a very empty one made him irritable. If there were no death records in this county, then his parents had died somewhere else. Fiona had never been clear on that. They’d always known they should have asked her, but Sam more than anyone didn’t want to know. Because once he asked, he was going to find out that his parents weren’t the same as his brothers’. There was no other reason for Jonas to remember that Sam had come “later”—after their parents had died.

He stood. “You’re right. We wouldn’t suit. I’m looking for a simplifier in my life. You wouldn’t be simple.”

She blinked. “Sam, I apologize for offending you. I just searched public records. It wasn’t like it took me more than five minutes to look through records that are open to anyone—”

He shoved his hat on his head. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Thanks, though.”

He departed, and Seton thought she’d never seen Sam move so quickly. She sighed. It was going to be awkward now every time they ran into each other in town. He hadn’t wanted to know anything about his life—had run from learning anything at all.

How did a woman accept a man’s offer when he claimed he didn’t know who he was?

Seton turned back to the case she’d accepted yesterday, involving a woman who thought her sister was siphoning off her funds by using her identity. Identity theft wasn’t as interesting as missing persons work, but Sam didn’t want to be found, and this job paid, so Seton sent Sam out of her mind.

She had to stop thinking about how very much she’d actually considered saying yes to his outrageous proposal.

“MAYBE AUNT CORINNE HAD a point,” Sabrina said when Seton called her that night. “Maybe you should have played it out awhile, at least until you’d figured out what he really wanted. The Callahans are crazy, but they’re crazy like foxes. There’s a method to their madness. And I think Sam wasn’t being honest with you or himself about his true motivation.”

Seton shifted on her hard wooden chair in her office. “He’ll have to find someone else to fill the check box on his life list.”

“Maybe that’s not all Sam wants.”

“It’s all he thinks he wants,” Seton pointed out.

Sabrina laughed. “I don’t remember any of the Callahan brothers going down easily.”

“We have nothing in common,” Seton assured her older sister, “and I don’t want a second failed marriage.” She idly rearranged the pencils and pens in her desk. “What would you do if Jonas came to you with the same proposition?”

“Why do you bring up Jonas?”

Seton heard the sudden tension in her sister’s voice. “Sam seems to think Jonas is calling you for a reason.”

“Probably. The Callahans do very little without a reason. It’s usually nothing that reveals itself to a serene mind, though. And I aim for serenity, as you know. So I don’t think about why he calls. I just chat with him for a minute or two until he gets it out of his system, and then I make an excuse to get off the phone.”

Seton wrinkled her nose. “Still, what would you do if Jonas offered you what Sam offered me?”

There was silence for a few moments. “Well,” Sabrina said, “since I’m pregnant, I’d very likely say yes.”

“What?” Seton was so flustered she didn’t know what to say. It was impossible to imagine her sister being pregnant. Sabrina hadn’t had a boyfriend in—”Is it Jonas’s?”

“Yes. But you can’t tell him.”

“Wait.” Seton leaned back in the chair, stretching her feet out in front of her and slipping off her pumps. Her head ached, her feet ached and her whole world seemed to be spinning on a twisted axis since she’d returned to Diablo. “When you did you two have a thing?”

“A fling,” Sabrina said, “and it happened when I was living upstairs at the Callahans.”

Seton frowned. “You two were certainly quiet about it. No one seems to know that you and Jonas were even interested in each other.”

“We’re not. Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean it was a serious relationship. In spite of my best efforts and my diaphragm, I seem to have fallen under the Callahan charm.”

“Congratulations,” Seton said. “What do you mean, you’re not going to tell him? You’re planning to, right?”

She waited with some alarm for her sister’s answer. Which turned out to be exactly what she’d feared.

“No, I’m not. Jonas doesn’t want children, and he doesn’t want to get married. He was having a grand time watching his brothers rush to the altar, and planned on being the sole Callahan bachelor. He’s already bought his own piece of property, Dark Diablo. I’m not sure anyone knows he’s actually made the purchase. I can’t tell you how many times Jonas told me that Fiona might run his brothers around with her Grand Plan, but he’d figured out the best way to avoid the whole thing altogether.”

“I can’t believe this,” Seton murmured. “I’m going to be an aunt.”

“Not if you give away my secret,” her sister said. “I’ll revoke aunt privileges.”

Seton frowned. “I think your pregnancy will be obvious when you come back to Diablo, Sabrina.”

“I don’t plan on coming back. Ever.”

“You have to tell him sometime.” Seton felt as if the tables had been turned between the older sister and the younger, and now she was in charge of the scolding. “It’s not fair to the baby not to know his father.”

“That comes later,” Sabrina said. “Trust me, I have a plan. After the baby is born, I’ll tell him.”

Seton frowned again. “Why after?”

“Because all the Callahans have managed to get married before their babies were born, as I recall, or very shortly thereafter. I don’t want Jonas suffering a similar attack of conscience.”

“That’s terrible,” Seton said. “What about the poor child?”

“The poor child will be fine. I’m sure that he or she will later appreciate that I didn’t try to tie Dad down.”

“I don’t know,” Seton murmured slowly, and Sabrina said, “Back to your question.”

“What question?”

“About Sam’s proposal.”

“Actually, the question that got us here was what would you say if Jonas offered you the same proposal. You said you’d accept!” Seton exclaimed with delight. “Therefore, it only makes sense for you to tell him.”

“The proposal under consideration,” Sabrina reminded her, “is ‘marry me, Seton, and it’ll be a name-only thing, just to satisfy the family requirements.’ I would take that deal. But I’m not being offered anything by Jonas.”

“But you might be!” Seton felt compelled to fight for her niece or nephew’s sake. After all, aunts were meant to be advocates, weren’t they? “If you’d tell him!”

“The difference is, your deal is that there’ll be no babies, no sex,” Sabrina pointed out. “I can assure you that Jonas and I could never strike that bargain. Obviously, we’ve already had sex, and if we got within a mile of each other, we probably would again. But you and Sam—”

“Never would,” Seton said, somewhat morosely. “He made that pretty clear.”

“Exactly. So you’re in a stronger position.”

“Why?” Seton flexed her feet and shoved them back into her pumps. Her head was spinning, and she was ready to head out into the already dark street of Diablo. “You’re having a baby. I want a baby, and won’t get one from Sam.”

“I’ll leave you to figure out those details,” Sabrina said.

Seton flipped off her office lights and locked the door, stuffing her keys into her briefcase as she walked down the hall, cell phone to her ear. “Don’t you want to wear the magic wedding gown? It’s yours, Sabrina, after all.”

“No, I don’t. It was Mom’s, Seton. It’s only magic because it was Mom’s. I had nothing to do with that. I’ve been thrilled for other women to wear it and know their true love. Me? I’m just happy I’m going to be a mother, to be honest.”

Seton headed out into the brisk night air and glanced up at the stars. “I miss you. I can’t bear that you won’t ever come back to Diablo. Why didn’t you tell me that when I was in D.C. with you?”

“Because I had a strong feeling there was someplace else you belonged. And I’ve really gotten into this animal activist stuff,” Sabrina said. “That undercover investigation we did with the circus really fired me up. There’s a whole lot I can do, Seton. Next week, I get to speak before a committee on animal abuse. I like it here in D.C. And it’ll be a great place to raise a child.”

“Sure,” Seton said, not convinced. “Thanks for the chat, sis.”

“No problem. Go get him, is my advice.”

“I don’t want—” Seton began, but Sabrina had already hung up. “I don’t want him,” she murmured, walking to her car, not noticing the figure leaning against the door.

“Working late?” Sam asked, and Seton gasped.

“Sam!” She tossed her cell into her briefcase, feeling a little guilty about talking about him. She hoped he hadn’t heard anything she’d said. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting on you. How about we discuss things over a drink at Banger’s?”

Seton looked at Sam, thinking about her sister’s pregnancy. She couldn’t have a drink with Sam. If she did, she might start talking and unload Sabrina’s secret. It weighed so heavily on her now. “I don’t think so.”

“C’mon,” Sam said, “you look like you could use a chardonnay.”

“I could,” Seton said, “but I think Aunt Corinne is waiting on me with tea and cookies.”

“Nah. She’s playing bingo. I just saw her at the Books’n’Bingo with the blue-haired crowd. That means,” Sam said, with his trademark Callahan smile, “that I’m all yours for the evening, doll.”