Читать книгу Callahan Cowboy Triplets - Tina Leonard - Страница 11

Chapter Three

After he’d packed up some gear and run the gauntlet of a protesting aunt Fiona and family, River hustled Tighe into the military jeep and steered it toward the canyons. He glanced over at the goddess next to him, trying to decipher the change in her mood. She certainly wasn’t the cooing, sexy tigress he’d had in his arms last night.

He’d have to call River’s mood elusive, which didn’t sit well with him at all. It almost felt as if she was abandoning him without a thought.

“Thanks for the ride. My siblings weren’t going to bring me.”

Glossy dark strands of hair blew around her face as she drove, rather speedily, he thought, given the uneven terrain. She could at least quit mashing the pedal.

“It’s not my worry if you’ve got a death wish. I have no desire to keep you from your fondest desires, Tighe.”

That didn’t sound right. She was his fondest desire. “I don’t have a death wish.”

“Don’t you?” She leveled him with brown eyes that held not a care in them. “First Firefreak. Now sleeping in the open, when you know that the ranch has been under siege for forever. For longer than either you or I have even been here.”

Aw, she was fretting about him, the cute little thing. He reached over and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

She batted away his hand. His brows rose. “Regretting last night?”

She turned to him, her forehead pinched in a frown. “Regretting what?”

He hardly knew what to say, since this darling angel seemed to have suddenly sprouted a ten-inch layer of cactus needles around herself. “You and me.”

“Hardly,” she shot back. “It didn’t mean a thing, cowboy.”

He tried not to let his jaw fall open. “Nothing?”

“Should it have?”

It certainly had to him. Hell, he’d gotten on Firefreak for her! Making love to her, plus facing his greatest challenge since coming to Diablo—well, it was the greatest cocktail of adrenaline and gut-punching life he’d ever experienced. “You know me. It’s just all about getting naked,” he bragged, trying to sound like his old self, the self he’d been before they’d made love. His whole world had changed—shouldn’t hers have, too?

“Where am I dropping you off?”

She sounded completely unworried. Tighe comforted himself that that was because everyone knew he could take care of himself. “At the stone ring, please.”

At that news, she did look a little alarmed. “You’ll be out in the open. I think your family assumes you’re at least taking shelter in one of the caves or overhangs.”

“Wouldn’t do any good. Wolf will find me if he wants to, and frankly, I don’t care if he does.”

“You’re injured, Tighe. I know you don’t like to admit to mortality, but you do recall that seven goons tied up your sister and Xav Phillips just last month?”

Tighe had no intention of hanging out in a cave like a cowering dog, away from the stars he loved and the fresh breezes that stirred his soul. “It’s just a little groin pull, darling. No worries. However,” he said, perking up, “maybe you’d like to hang around and nurse my groi—”

“And a hairline fracture,” River interrupted.

“I mend best in the open. I lived in the tribe. Was deployed to some hellish places. Don’t you worry about me, beautiful.”

“I’m not,” she snapped. “I think you’re an idiot.”

Well, that wasn’t how a man wanted the angel of his dreams to view him. “Harsh.”

“Honest.”

She pulled up to the stone ring. Large rocks, one set for each of the seven Chacon Callahans, encircled a small glowing fire. His grandfather, Chief Running Bear, tended the blaze. The chief said this place was their home now, while they protected Callahan land, and the mystical black Diablos, the spirit horses that lived in the canyons. They were the true wealth of Rancho Diablo.

“Home sweet home,” Tighe said.

“Then get out,” River said, “if this is where you want to be.”

He turned to look at her. “Gorgeous, I’m pretty sure I showed you a good time in bed. Is there a reason you’re all prickly suddenly?”

She met his gaze. “I told you. I’m pretty sure you’re the loose cannon I always believed you were.”

He winced internally. This was true. But it wasn’t necessary to rub in the fact that he’d clearly failed to change her mind. “All right, sweet face. Try not to miss me too much,” he said, getting out of the jeep and managing his crutches a bit more slowly and painfully than his jaunty tone implied.

“I won’t miss you at all.” She wheeled the jeep around and drove away, apparently not even curious as to where he planned to lay his bedroll.

“Guess that means we won’t be sharing the old pillow tonight. It’s a shame, because I’m pretty sure you’re kidding yourself, my hottie bodyguard.” He hobbled around, trying to find a place to settle, not altogether surprised when his grandfather appeared.

“Howdy, Chief.” Tighe tossed his bedroll down. “Haven’t seen you since Dante’s wedding.”

“I’ve seen you.” Running Bear picked up the bedroll. “Come.”

Tighe followed as fast as his crutches would allow. “Where are we headed?”

The chief disappeared behind some thick cacti. A threadlike stream encircled a wide stone dugout tucked back and hidden so well that Tighe would never have seen it even if he’d been looking for it. He had a feeling his brothers and Ash had no idea about Running Bear’s lair. Well, Ashlyn might; she seemed to know more than most. But he thought Galen, Jace, Falcon, his pinheaded twin, Dante, and Sloan were just as in the dark as he was. “Nice digs, Grandfather.”

Running Bear grunted. Tighe felt honored that his grandfather had brought him to his private sanctuary. They sat near the opening, staring out over the curling canyons below. “Wow, this is quite a view.”

“Yes.” Running Bear didn’t look at him as Tighe gingerly settled himself against the rock ledge so his leg could jut forward for support. “We need to discuss your time at Rancho Diablo.”

“My time?”

His grandfather gazed out into the distance. Sudden fear clenched Tighe’s gut. The old chief had warned the seven Chacon Callahans that one of them was the hunted one, the one who would bring harm to the family. Was it him? Was that why Running Bear had brought him here? Somehow Tighe had known this was where he belonged, almost from the moment he’d realized River had gone chilly on him.

“Tell me what I should do, Grandfather,” he said, and the old man closed his eyes, though Tighe knew he wasn’t dozing.

“Meditate on who you are,” Running Bear said. “You are not yet who you will be.”

Tighe didn’t know how to be anything other than what he was. Some—like River—claimed he was a bit wild. Maybe he was. Certainly he liked to live on the edge, but wasn’t that part of enjoying life to the max? His family teased him, calling him more taciturn than his talkative twin, but that had been when they were kids. The military had thought he was fairly accurate and single-minded when it came to sniper skills. Tighe had earned the moniker Takedown. He’d liked living almost alone at times, when he was on an assignment. Other times he’d appreciated the camaraderie and brotherhood of his platoon. It had been a close bond, reminiscent of his tribe. “Chief, I don’t know how to be anything different than what I am.”

His grandfather looked at him. “You will learn.”

Then he left the stone crevasse, disappearing without a sound. Tighe leaned back against the rough wall with a sigh. He looked out over the canyons from his grandfather’s aerie, and wondered if he would ever get River to kiss him again. She seemed to think he needed to change somehow, too.

He was pretty resistant to that. “Twenty-seven years of being the opposite of Dante wasn’t so bad,” he muttered. “I’d rather be me than him.”

He liked being wild and free. What exactly was wrong with that?

Even River wouldn’t want him to change that much. She had to have liked him the way he was or she wouldn’t have allowed him to make love to her.

Then again, he could consider changing just a little if she’d open her arms to him again. Problem was, he didn’t know what he was supposed to change. Tighe closed his eyes, willed himself to meditate.

“Every journey changes your soul. Each journey is a path to self-knowledge,” Running Bear said. “There is no life without this.”

“I know, Grandfather, I know. I remember your teachings.” Tighe opened his eyes, glanced around. Running Bear was nowhere to be seen. But his words remained in Tighe’s mind, delicate as air.

Closing his eyes again, he allowed the mysticism he knew so well to envelop him, something he hadn’t done in a long, long time.

* * *

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Ash asked River, who was looking out a window in the main house, toward the barn. River had specifically chosen this room for her project.

“I’m spying on your brothers. And Sawyer. There’s something strange about her. I don’t believe for a second that she’s had real training as a bodyguard. Not like Ana and I had.”

“The little twins seem to like her.”

“Isaiah and Carlos like her because they’re Callahan males. They’re predisposed to like pretty girls from the moment they’re conceived. That doesn’t make her a bodyguard. It makes her a decent nanny. Maybe.”

Ash flopped into a chair. “When I asked Kendall why she’d hired Storm Cash’s niece, she said Sawyer had the right training, and that she’d spent time in the desert honing her skills. Kendall said she checked her background, and Sawyer and Storm hadn’t been close during Sawyer’s childhood. So in Kendall’s maternal opinion, there was no reason to eliminate a perfectly good bodyguard just because of some stinky family relations. And Kendall said sometimes it was best to keep your enemies tucked tight to one’s bosom.”

“I like my bosom enemy-free. I’m not leaving until I know the twins are in capable hands,” River stated.

Ash watched Sawyer below, chatting up Jace, as little Isaiah and Carlos happily sat in their double stroller. “I didn’t know you were planning on leaving. And yet, I guess I did know. I was just hoping my hunch was wrong.” Ash sighed. “You’re going to find Tighe, aren’t you?”

“It’s time someone does.” It had been three weeks since she’d driven Tighe to the stone fire ring. She had no idea what he was eating or drinking, or if he was miserable from his leg injury. None of the Callahans, including the protective aunt Fiona, seemed all that worried. When River had mentioned to Fiona that maybe her husband, Burke, might need to go check on Tighe, she had shaken her head and said she didn’t have time for such monkeyshines.

“Oh, Tighe’s fine. Don’t worry about him. When he was a boy—”

River glanced at Ash, who seemed to suddenly have swallowed her words. “When he was a boy, what?”

“I was just going to say that once when we were young, Tighe went off for a while. I was six,” Ash said, “so I remember it well.” She smiled at River. “It’s all right. We’re used to him being independent.”

“If you were six, Tighe was eight when he went on this adventure. How long was he gone?” River was curious as to how he had fared in his childhood. “Five, six hours?”

“Two months,” Ash said softly. “He was gone two months, in the coldest part of the year. Most of us wanted to stay close to the fire at night. Tighe wanted to find out if he could build his own fire and survive on what he found and caught.”

River sucked in her breath. “No parent would allow that.”

“Oh.” Ash shook her head, got up. “No worries about that. Tighe was never really alone, though he doesn’t know that, so don’t tell him. It would totally crush him and blow his wild man conception of himself. But there were always scouts watching him. Not that the scouts would have interfered, unless there’d been severe danger. A test is a test, and Tighe wanted the chance to test himself.” Ash fluffed her silvery-blond, shoulder-length hair, not concerned in the least. “Grandfather said Tighe had the soul of a tiger, and that he would make many kills when he left the tribe. And he did. He was a pretty good sniper. Don’t worry about my pinheaded brother,” she said. “He’s more wolf than man. Tighe’s problem is that is he’s scared, maybe for the first time in his life.”

“Scared of what? Not rattlesnakes, or becoming a dried-out skeleton, with no food or water in the canyons.”

“My guess is,” Ash said, “he’s been a little scared ever since you came here.”

“Me?”

“Maybe. Tighe’s always seen himself as the uncatchable male. Also, I think it’s come to his mind that he might be the hunted one.”

“You know,” River said, looking back out the window, “it could be you, Ash.”

She shook her head. “Not me. But if it is, I hope someone shoots me and puts me out of my misery.”

“Shoots you?” River was horrified. “Who would do that?”

“I’m hoping you,” Ash said softly, looking at her. “You’ve always got your Beretta strapped to your thigh, don’t you?”

“I would never shoot you,” River snapped. “And how do you know about my gun?”

“I know everything,” Ash said, wandering out the door.

“I see,” River muttered, watching Sawyer stretch up to kiss Jace on the cheek on the ground below her second-story window. “Really nice to know I’ve fallen for some kind of hard-core survivalist wolf-man. And that woman is working an angle,” she said of Sawyer, watching her slink off, leaving a seemingly stunned Jace behind. “Don’t fall for it, handsome.”

Jace would probably fall like a ton of bricks. She watched Jace almost strut, all peacocklike, his gaze fastened on Sawyer’s backside. River sighed and got up from her perch. Ash’s wealth of information had unsettled her to some degree. Tighe wasn’t afraid of her—not in the least. That could be ruled out. He was stubborn and opinionated, but not afraid of a woman.

Now the other business...was he the hunted one? Ash was crazy if she thought River was going to shoot her, if it turned out to be her. “The only shooting I’m doing is at bad guys, and there may not be any of those,” River said, watching Jace rub his cheek where Sawyer had pecked him. “Just gullible ones.”

She went to hunt up Tighe, the resident wolf on the loose.

* * *

THE STONE CIRCLE showed few signs of anyone living there, though a small fire flickered, the embers glowing. There were no signs of foul play, but River felt uneasiness in the pit of her stomach. A man with a sore groin and a fractured leg should be right here where she’d left him.

“Hello, beautiful,” she heard someone say, and River turned.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “Why are you standing up?”

Tighe smiled, feeling very much in control of the situation, obviously, by the devilish light in his eyes. “You were worried about me.”

“No, I wasn’t.” Why add to his already overburdened ego?

“You were.” He stumped forward, resting his weight on a crutch crudely fashioned from the forked limb of a tree. “I’m glad you were worried about me, but I could have told you there was no need.”

“Then I’ll be going.” She didn’t feel like putting up with his macho attitude when he’d worried her half to death for days. “I’ll let your family know you’re fine.”

“I may return with you for a bit. You got room in your ride?”

She’d driven the military jeep, which had plenty of space for cargo. “I suppose.”

He got in without needing assistance and grinned at her. “Unless you want a tour, I’m ready to head back.”

She looked at the cowboy, the man who invaded her dreams and kept her breathless whenever she thought about him. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“For the moment. That’s how I live—I’m totally in the moment.” He grinned, pleased with his lone-wolf persona.

She gazed at his rangy body, and his long hair, which hadn’t seen much of a brush in the three weeks he’d been gone. He looked as delectable as ever. It was annoying that a man could hunker in the wilderness and not suffer ill effects. “I have to admit I was afraid of what I’d find.”

“You don’t think I can live without Fiona’s cookies.” Tighe laughed. “I miss the comforts of home, but mostly the children, I have to admit.” He caught her hand as she put it on the shift. “Sometimes I even missed you.”

“Did you?” She shifted, moving his hand away. “I didn’t miss you a bit.”

It was a lie, of course, to save face.

“I think you did,” he said cheerfully. “But I understand you want to keep it to yourself. It was sweet of you to come find me. I’m surprised my family didn’t tell you there was nothing to worry about.”

He was so annoying she wanted to dump him out of the jeep. The thing was, everything he was teasing her about was true—she had missed him, and she had worried. Did anything ever get under his skin? “Hey, fun fact,” River said, “I’ve skipped my period.”

Oh, for a photo of Tighe’s expression. He looked...stunned. River kept driving, curious to see what he’d say, pretty pleased that she’d found the one thing that would shut him up for just a moment.

A loud whoop erupted from him. Tighe threw his straw Resistol into the air and laughed out loud, loudly enough to startle birds from trees, if there’d been any around.

Apparently he wasn’t so much the silent type as his siblings had claimed.

“That’s awesome! When will we know for certain? How long do these things take?”

“In a couple of weeks I’ll go to the doctor. I keep telling myself maybe I’m late because of worrying—”

“About me—”

“No. About things at the ranch,” River interrupted, “but I’ve always been completely regular.”

“You cute little thing,” Tighe said. “That night you and my brother and sister were plotting against me, you had your own little plot going.”

“Not hardly.” River was getting mad. “Perhaps you didn’t do a decent job wrapping up.”

“You helped, as I recall,” he said gleefully, “and I remember you seemed to be impressed.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” River parked the jeep at the house, jumped down. “You can just wait there until one of your siblings finds you. Or Wolf. Right now, I don’t care.”

She went inside, aggravated beyond belief.

“Did you find my brother?” Jace asked.

“I found a jackass. It might have been your brother. You can go out to the jeep and see for yourself.”

With that, she went to check on the twins.