Tina Leonard - A Callahan Outlaw's Twins (12 page)

“If you’re looking for a blonde about medium height, she got into a truck with some people.”

He looked over the woman, checking her eyes for honesty and her demeanor for duplicity. It was possible she was lying, but he didn’t think so. Her blue eyes were clear and earnest.

“How do you know she was with me?” he asked.

She shrugged, her cherry-red coat pulling tight over her generous frame. “You look like you’re waiting for someone. She was a really pretty lady, looked like she was dressed up for a date. And not too happy to leave with the people she went with. But if she wasn’t with you, then—”

“Wait.” He put a hand on the woman’s arm to stop her. “How many people? What were they driving?”

“Dark green truck, followed by a tan truck that looked like it was used for off-roading. Mud smeared on the license plate.”

His radar went on high alert. “How long ago?”

“Ten minutes.” She cocked her head. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see more than that.” She shrugged. “Sorry I can’t be more help. Tell Fiona I said hello.”

He looked at her. “You know Aunt Fiona?”

She smiled. “Everyone knows your aunt Fiona. We’ve been best friends for years. Tell her Corinne Abernathy said it’s time for a meeting of the Books’n’Bingo Society.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sloan said, trying not to be rude and dash off, but panic was rising inside him. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“If it helps, they went that way,” Corinne said, pointing.

Sloan touched his hat and ran to his truck, dialing Galen with fingers that hadn’t been this unsteady since the night he’d fired at his first target on the other side of the world.

* * *

K
ENDALL
TRIED
NOT
TO
panic, even though she was cold and frightened. They’d taken her boots—she’d protested, but apparently even thuggy-looking girls dug great boots—and gave her a yucky pair of old tennis shoes, which were not the least bit fashionable. She didn’t even want to think about the disgusting things on her feet now.

Sloan would be here any minute.

What had they been fighting about at dinner? She couldn’t remember. It was no longer important. As soon as she saw him, she was going to kiss him like he’d never been kissed before.

Time crawled, and then the truck stopped. The door opened.

“Get out,” one of the horrible women said.

“I can’t see.” Obviously.

Someone dragged her from the truck. Doors slammed, an engine roared and she heard the vehicle drive away.

After a moment, Kendall realized she was alone.

With her hands tied and a hood on her head. She bent over, shaking the hood to the ground.

“I have no idea where I am,” she muttered, looking around at the frozen landscape. “Sloan, this is a good time for the cavalry to arrive.”

But maybe the cavalry wouldn’t. So she had to get her wrists untied. She was miles from anything she recognized, surrounded by snow-lined canyons. Thready gray clouds streaked the dark sky. If it snowed again, her tracks would be covered. She was wearing tennis shoes, and already the snow was seeping in through the thin canvas.

She had her babies to think of. Her freezing to death or getting pneumonia was not going to do them a whole lot of good, so she was going to have to figure this out herself.

Kendall tugged on the plastic tie on her wrists with her teeth, thankful her hands were in front of her. To her surprise, the plastic popped free.

“On to civilization.” She headed in the direction the truck had gone, stepping in the tire tracks. This road led somewhere, and if she told herself she was simply taking a nice, healthy walk for her babies, maybe she wouldn’t panic about getting lost.

* * *

I
T
WASN
’
T
DIFFICULT
to follow the trucks that had taken Kendall. Sloan knew there had to be a connection to the hired guns in the canyons, and he knew they’d been waiting, watching, in order to have grabbed her from the sidewalk. So they weren’t very far off.

He and his family fanned out in a deliberate pattern, searching for tracks. An hour later, Ash had located two sets of tire tracks in the snow near an outcropping.

She stared down at some tiny marks peppering the white snow. “Is she wearing high heels again?”

Sloan grunted, his stomach tight.

“They left,” Galen said. “So either they’ve taken her somewhere else or they abandoned their plan.”

“Follow that set of prints,” Falcon said. “It’s freshest. The rest of us will break up here.”

Sloan took off in his truck, his heart thundering. Just when he thought he’d lost the trail, the tracks disappearing onto a two-lane, little-used road, Sloan saw two vehicles fitting Corinne’s description heading westward. He called his brothers to warn them, then for some reason kept driving on. Why would they come back this way? Where had they gone?

His brothers and Ash would take care of the vehicles. He decided to see where this road led.

Twenty minutes later, that intuition led him to his wife, walking along the side of the road, with no purse, no boots, and obviously in high temper.

He stopped the truck and jumped out, and before he could get to Kendall, she’d launched herself into his arms.

“I knew you’d come,” she whispered against his neck.

Sloan closed his eyes. This time he’d found her. Next time he might not be so lucky.

“Never seen you in a pair of tennis shoes,” he murmured against her hair.

“They took my boots,” she said, and then she kissed him, so desperately Sloan could only hold her tight.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We can get you more boots.”

“It’s not okay,” she said, “it’s the principle. It’s personal now.”

She kissed him so wildly Sloan almost didn’t connect the dots. “Wait,” he said, carrying her over to the truck. She was shivering, and he wanted to get her warm. “What does that mean, exactly?”

She pulled the offending tennis shoes off her feet with disgust. “It means,” Kendall said, “that they could have hurt my children. When you catch those people, I’m getting my boots back.”

Sloan looked at his determined wife. “What am I missing?”

“I wore those boots for you. I was trying to be beautiful for you.”

He smiled. “I’m not too into the packaging. I’m kind of into the girl.”

She sniffed, checked her face in the mirror. “You’d have to be a woman to understand. I’m going to smack those silly girls when you catch them. Once for my boots, and then once for each of my babies.”

He laughed, then stopped. “Girls?”

“Two girls, one man.”

Just as Corinne Abernathy had said. “Whoever’s trying to take down my cousins sent women to do the job this time?”

His wife turned to look at him. “Can you think of any better way to get the job done?”

She had a helluva point.

“Sloan, I’m afraid I made a tactical error. I told them the Callahans were gone. They didn’t seem to know that.”

They’d been careful to spirit his cousins and their families out of town under cover of night so they couldn’t be tracked. Sloan hesitated, not wanting to upset his wife more than she was already. All this talk of boots and vengeance worried him. “So they know we’re not Jeremiah and Molly’s family?”

She nodded. “I’m so sorry, Sloan. I realized I’d made a horrible mistake when their leader guy seemed so interested.”

“Leader guy?”

“Big man. In charge. He called you Sloan Chacon. Said he knew you well, but I told him I didn’t think so.”

Sloan felt Kendall’s gaze on him.

“Spoke a foreign language I’ve never heard before, and I’ve got a pretty good ear for languages,” she added. “I do business around the world. I’m pretty familiar with accents.”

He spoke a few sentences, and her eyes went wide. “That’s it! How did you know?”

“I know,” Sloan said grimly, “because sending family to hunt down family is the obvious thing to do.”

* * *

K
ENDALL
KNEW
SHE
’
D
MADE
a mistake by running off at the mouth. She lay in the bed that night staring up in the dark, seeing nothing, hearing Sloan’s even breathing beside her. He wasn’t asleep. He insisted on staying with her—which gave her hope—yet it seemed they were further apart than ever. It wasn’t that he didn’t kiss her good-night, or that he didn’t say anything except good-night once he got in bed.

She might as well be in Hell’s Colony.

“I made a terrible mistake, didn’t I?”

He didn’t reply. But she heard a deep sigh.

She rolled over, put her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Sloan.”

He stroked her back. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

“I didn’t tell him where the family is.”

She felt him tense. “Did he ask?”

“He did. I told him I had no idea. He seemed to believe me.”

Silence. Kendall felt her heart breaking. Even though Sloan wouldn’t admit it, she knew she’d made a tragic error. Maybe jeopardized everyone’s safety. There was only one thing she could do.

“Sloan?”

“Mmm?”

“Remember when you said that it would be best if I went back to Hell’s Colony so you could concentrate on what needs to be done here?”

“Yeah.” His arm fell away from her.

“I think I’ll go home tomorrow.”

After a long moment, Sloan said, “That’s a good plan.”

And he didn’t say anything else—which was all Kendall needed to know.

Chapter Thirteen

The babies were born six months later, on a warm July day when Kendall no longer thought about the frightening night in the frozen canyons. Two baby boys were placed in her arms, and it was such an amazing moment—so perfect in every way—that the only thing missing was Sloan.

She’d heard very little from her husband since she’d left. Living in Hell’s Colony was so much a world away from Rancho Diablo that Kendall missed him all the time.

At the same time, she’d known what their marriage was from the very beginning: temporary.

“He’s going to love you,” she told her sons. “You’ll be proud that you have such a big, strong daddy.”

Jonas came into the nursery to examine his nephews. “Always amazes me that such tiny things grow up to be cowboys, and putty for the fairer sex.”

Kendall smiled. “Sounds like a man who loves his family.”

“Yeah.” He sat on a blue-cushioned rocker. “Does Sloan know?”

She nodded. “We don’t talk much. He doesn’t want me...me being tracked here.” Kendall hated to admit it, but maybe it was time. “When I was kidnapped, I made the mistake of revealing that all of you had gone.” It felt good to get the confession off her chest. “Jonas, I’m so sorry.”

“If it hasn’t mattered in six months, nothing’s going to change now,” he said, and Kendall knew he was trying to make her feel better.

“The thing is, if the people who want to find your parents can locate me, they can track you.”

“I know. Sloan told me everything. Don’t worry about it.” Jonas unwrapped a blue cigar from a candy bouquet and munched on it. “What did you name them?”

Kendall looked at her sleeping boys. They were wrapped in little white T-shirts, and wore tiny white socks with blue stripes on their feet. “Carlos Gilchrist Chacon Callahan and Isaiah Sloan Chacon Callahan.”

Jonas smiled. “Impressive handles for them to grow into.”

She nodded, feeling horrible about endangering her friends. “How’s the bunkhouse?”

“Going up. Looks great. After the harsh winter we had, things got slowed down quite a bit. But your detailed notes and plans have kept the project moving smoothly.”

“You’re trying to make me feel better.”

“That’s something I never do, waste words on employees to make them feel better.”

She needed to hear that. Was glad to know her work was valued. Yet it had been easy for her to become a liability. “I have a flat in Paris.”

“We don’t have to go anywhere, Kendall,” Jonas said. “This place is a compound. The wives and kids are safer here than just about anyplace. Plus the security is beefed up. Eventually, our friends are going to slip up, and your husband and my cousins are going to be on the bad guys like stink on horse crap. Quit worrying so much.”

“I’m going to Paris,” Kendall said. “I can work from there.”

“There’s no reason to do that,” Jonas said. “They’re not going to find you here, Kendall.”

She wasn’t worried about being found. “If I’d left when Sloan asked me to, none of this would have happened. But I was stubborn, I thought I knew best. I wanted to get to know my husband,” she told Jonas, “but I didn’t realize how much was at stake. My children. Your children.”

“Kendall.” Jonas chomped on the candy cigar. “Go if you think you must. But just know that nothing bad is going to happen to any of us. You didn’t give up any information that they wouldn’t have figured out eventually. They’re mercs for a reason.”

But they knew she was having twins. She’d told them the company name, had bragged about her brothers. No doubt they were already having the Phillips compound watched. Of course they were. They’d been trying to get at the Callahans for years, and this place was a lot easier to stake out than miles of hard, winding canyons.

“Jonas, they know where you are.”

“I know. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me. As much as I hated being kidnapped, at least it was just me. It would kill me if it was one of the children.” She glanced toward her precious sons. “I always swore up and down I was simply a career woman. But now I have them,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes, “and I realize exactly how much damage I’ve done to your family.”

He broke the blue candy cigar in half and handed her a piece. “Kendall, they were going to find us eventually. We were always prepared for that. Being in your compound bought us time. Those hired guns will never be successful. And that’s not just bravado talking. We don’t know where our parents are, we don’t know where Sloan’s parents are. The mercs can wait out there until they’re a hundred years old and they’ll never find them. There are some things that can never be found.”

* * *

T
HE
BROTHERS
SAT
in the upstairs library, celebrating the good news that had been passed on by Jonas Callahan.

“Two sons,” Falcon said. “That’s awesome, bro.” He high-fived his brother.

Galen studied the photos Jonas had texted over. “They don’t look a thing like you, thank God. It’s all their mother’s genes. For which we are grateful.”

Guffaws met that comment. Sloan grinned, prouder than he’d ever been. “They do look like their mother.” He missed Kendall terribly, would probably never get over the soft feel of her skin, the gentleness of her touch, the taste of her lips. There was only so much a man could think about without going mad.

He’d known a lot of emotional pain in his life, but a lot of happy times, too. The birth of his boys by a woman he knew he’d fallen in love with brought on a mixture of those emotions.

“Are you going to see them?” Ash asked.

No one in the room said anything. It was a question born of hope, but one they all knew the answer to. The thought that his offspring could ever be kidnapped punched fear into him. He considered himself a fairly strong man, but that would bring him to his knees. His sons—or any Callahan child or wife—were why he and his siblings were here. To make sure that never happened.

He raised a glass to his brothers and sister. “Thanks for celebrating the happy occasion with me.”

“So now what?” Jace asked.

Now...now they’d probably get a divorce one day. No marriage survived time that stretched but never ended, and he and Kendall wouldn’t be able to spend time together like a normal married couple for a long time. If ever.

But he’d known all along that he wasn’t the kind of man she would have chosen, if circumstances hadn’t conspired to bring them together. “I don’t know what happens now,” Sloan said, even though he did.

It just hurt too damn much to talk about.

* * *

F
IONA
WENT
OUT
in the sunshine to look at the strands of red, white and blue lights strung along the fence. She loved to decorate as much as she loved to bake, but it hadn’t been as much fun to put out the pretty lights for Independence Day without all the children around to gaze at them with delight. There’d been no fireworks, either, and she couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been fireworks at Rancho Diablo. It was a family tradition, one even the folks in the town of Diablo came out to enjoy.

She sighed, wishing she could go visit Kendall’s new babies. Jonas had sent her a photo by text, but it wasn’t the same as holding a baby. There was nothing like the powdery-fresh fragrance of a sweet, precious baby. And she just knew Kendall needed her help. Kendall had been pretty much confined to bed and rocker for the last three months of her pregnancy. The babies had been born just past preemie, so that had been good, and Fiona knew there were a ton of Callahan wives and menfolk around that would help her. For that matter, there was plenty of staff in the Hell’s Colony compound, so Kendall lacked for nothing.

But Fiona was missing out on being part of the
babies’ lives. And she missed her grand-nieces and grand-nephews more than her old heart could stand, or at least it felt like it.

She began to remove the lights from the corral posts, tugging at the strand and unwinding it, sunk in her thoughts. Maybe a visit to her friends at the Books’n’Bingo tearoom and bookshop would cheer her up.

But she doubted it. She just felt so rudderless without all the children around. Raising Jonas and his brothers had been some of the happiest times of her life. Even when the boys had been up to their necks in mischief, she’d been happy. In fact, maybe she’d enjoyed those times the most mainly because the trouble they’d gotten into hadn’t been bad, just basic boy hijinks.

She’d loved raising her sister’s children, even if she’d always wished Molly and Jeremiah could have been around themselves. Without children of her own, she’d felt needed by the boys she and Burke had raised.

She’d asked Burke if they could journey out to see the new babies, and visit with the other children, but he had said no, he didn’t think so. Ashlyn had told him that they’d found marks of a dead campfire in the canyons, and they didn’t think it was from random travelers moving across the ranch.

So they were being cautious.

But Fiona was going stir-crazy. And she wanted children around.

Chief Running Bear appeared at her side. “Let’s talk.”

She glanced around, rolled the lights into a ball she set on a post. “I’ve got cookies. Come inside. It’s safer.”

“You seem sad,” he said, following her.

“I miss babies.”

He laughed, and she shook her head. “A happy home has movement and laughter in it.”

She handed him the cookie tray, and he took a chocolate chip, one of his favorite things she baked. “You are worried.”

“Yes, old friend, I am.” Fiona sighed. “We ask a lot of these new Callahans. And Jonas’s family are all settled happily in Tempest, at Dark Diablo, and in Hell’s Colony. The children love their schools. I’m afraid they’ll never return here.”

He sat down, munched his cookie, accepted the hot black coffee she poured for him. He wouldn’t drink iced tea—only coffee. “Life has changed.”

“Will it be this way forever?” Fiona asked, her heart aching.

“Until it’s over. But think of it this way. They won’t find Jeremiah and Molly. They’ll never find Carlos and Julia. Both sides of the family are safe.”

“So these boys’—and Ash’s—parents are alive?”

The chief nodded. “Galen knows where they are. But he will never tell.”

Fiona blinked. “Why does he know?”

“He’s eldest. He had to be told—he was pulled out of medical school to take care of his siblings.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Galen had graduated from college and was just starting med school many years ago, when Jeremiah and Molly went into witness protection and we told Jonas and the boys their parents had gone to heaven. Julia and Carlos continued their work. Julia was CIA, and had access to information that could have been helpful to us, if we’d needed it. Unfortunately, they realized that in order to continue the work Jeremiah and Molly had done, it was best they go into hiding, as well. This kept their children safe.”

“What a terrible burden for Galen,” Fiona said. “He could have only been twenty-three or so.”

“He did eventually return to medical school once all the siblings had reached eighteen, but yes.” The chief sipped his coffee. “Everyone made sacrifices, even you. To keep all the children safe.”

Fiona rarely ate the cookies she baked, but today felt she needed extra fortification. She stirred some whiskey into her coffee, offered some to the chief, who declined. “But the rest of the boys—Sloan and the others—they don’t know their parents are alive?”

“Yes, they do. They know they had to go away. But the tribe helped guide them, raise them. Taught them the sacred ways. It was not a bad way to grow up, Fiona. It prepared them.”

“But still.” She shook her head. “What do they get for protecting us? Protecting the land and the Diablos? And the children?”

“What do you want them to have?”

“Children,” Fiona said, her voice a whisper. “Their childhood back, through their own children. So that they can know the happiness family brings.”

He put a hand over hers briefly. “You worry too much, my friend. They are happy.”

“They can’t be. Sloan can’t even see his new babies. Their names are Carlos and Isaiah.” Fiona sighed. “He doesn’t say it, but I know he misses Kendall.”

“He’s a soldier. He’ll do what he has to do.”

“It’s not fair,” Fiona said angrily. “I hate those evil people out there! They’re taking my family’s lives away!”

“Not their lives,” the chief said.

“I know. And I’m grateful for that. I meant they’re taking the most important things in life away from them. My wish for them is that each of these Callahans—Carlos and Julia’s family—find happiness with someone they love.”

“We did it before,” he reminded her. “You didn’t think you’d ever get your nephews to the altar.”

She smiled, wiped her tears with a tissue. “What are you suggesting?”

“To help them.”

“I’m listening.”

“On the other side of the canyons there are twenty thousand acres that have gone up for sale. I know the man who owns the land. I also know that the mercenaries hide in the canyons and camp up there.”

Fiona studied her friend and companion. “Go on.”

“We have plenty of silver between us, you and I. We can buy the land, deed it to Rancho Diablo. Award it in five years to the one with the desire to live there.”

She stared. “What if they all want to live there?”

“Probably that won’t happen. This is a job for them, like any other assignment they would have been sent on.”

“But still. What if?”

“They have to be married for the chance to win it.”

“The
chance?
” she asked.

“Just a chance. A one in seven chance.”

“But what if they can’t find someone they want to marry in five years?” Fiona asked. “I hear rumors that Sloan and Kendall will get divorced soon.”

He considered that. “It can’t happen.”

“It can when two people never live together and never have the chance to know each other. I don’t care what you say, family sticks together.”

“Then that’s it.” He looked satisfied. “They have to be married, and settled on the land across the canyons, with children, most importantly.”