The Cowboy's Triplets (16 page)

Pete smirked to himself. He was pretty certain that if he'd been anywhere near Jackie, that last statement would have gotten the remote launched at his head. His lady was impatient and on edge, and he couldn't blame her. Pete couldn't imagine being confined to a recliner.
“You probably think this is all my fault,” he called out to her.

“Probably,” she said, and he grinned.

“Egg salad?” he asked. “Or pancakes. Fiona sent the egg salad. I can whip up mean pancakes. Your choice, my love.”

“I'm not hungry.”

She'd been plenty hungry for him not thirty minutes ago. Pete frowned and walked back out to the den. “I know this is hard on you. I'm trying to help.”

Jackie shook her head. “I'm sorry. I know you are. And it's not bad. I have all these wonderful books to read. There are three hundred channels on the TV. I'm catching up on movie classics, and that's really fun. I've been ordering DVDs on my laptop and building a collection of family movies between researching other wedding shops across the country. But it's not the same.”

“Try being the guy who can't give his wife any pleasure at the moment,” he said. “It's embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” She looked surprised.

“What do you think? While I appreciate your efforts, it's not as much fun without you screaming hallelujahs in my ear, Jackie. It's bad for my ego.” He thought about it for a minute, trying to explain. “It's like yelling into a canyon and nothing comes back.”

“Coming without me isn't good?”

“It's not bad,” he said, “but it's not as good, either.”

“Oh,” Jackie said. “I thought men just—”

He held up a hand. “Common misconception. But men are not cave-dwellers in search of the one-sided orgasm. Trust me. Some of us have evolved. And we like being joined in the hallelujah chorus. In fact, several hallelujah choruses. A hat trick is best.”

Jackie nodded. “Thank you for explaining that. Now I'm even more hot and bothered.”

“I knew it,” he said. “It's best we leave sex off the menu for now. Back to the pancakes or whatever else your heart desires.”

“My heart desires you.”

He sighed. “You, my sweet, must just lie there and look pretty.”

She threw a pillow that caught him square in the face. “What?”

“Go,” Jackie said, sounding like she meant it. “And next time you think of me, think of me in my nurse's uniform, taking your temperature in a place you won't appreciate, you male chauvinist—

“Hang on,” Pete said, “I'm just saying—”

“I have knitting needles,” she said. “You should go now.” She brandished a needle from which hung a pink bootie that didn't look all that successful to him—not that he planned on mentioning it to his angel cake while she was in this rather surly mood.

“All right. I'm going to get pasta. With veggies, because that will be healthy. And when I get back, we'll have a picnic right here.” He gave her his best how's-that-deal? smile and got a finger pointed at the door for his effort.

“I won't be gone long,” Pete said. “I've got my cell phone if you need me, if you need anything at all—”

“Go!”

 

P
ETE RAN INTO
Creed at the Italian family restaurant. “Why are you here?” he asked as he slid into the booth where his brother sat nursing a brewski.

“Fiona didn't cook anything tonight. She said we were on our own.” Creed shrugged. “Usually she gets ruffled
if some of us don't show up for dinner. But she's been acting a little moody lately.”

“Must be something in the water.” Pete thought about Jackie and decided she had cause to be as moody as she liked. “Is Aunt Fiona feeling all right?”

“She's fine.” Creed shook his head, his black hair wild and unbrushed. He needed a shave, Pete noticed, or he was thinking about growing an unattractive mop on his face. And he looked glum. “Bode Jenkins came over, and the two of them had an unpleasant meeting of the minds, to choose polite terms.”

Pete straightened. “What did Bode want?”

“I don't know. Burke told me about it. That's the only reason I can guess at what upset Fiona.”

“That bastard,” Pete said, “I'll kick his ass.”

“No need. Judah already did. Sort of. As much as you can kick an old man's ass.” Creed scratched his chin. “I think he just yelled at him and told him he'd kick him good if he didn't move his carcass off Callahan property. And Bode said it wasn't going to be Callahan property much longer, and then Fiona fainted. I think.” Creed swallowed half his beer, then nodded. “Yeah. Jonas said she'd fainted.”

“Damn,” Pete said. “I can't tell whose butt I need to be laying out if you're going to change the facts every time you draw a breath.”

“It happened so fast. Fiona's like a badger, you know, so we weren't too worried about her, but then Bode dropped his ace card and Fiona went lights out. Hell, Pete, I thought she'd kicked it.”

Pete went cold. “She's tougher than that. She'll outlive us all.”

“Yeah.” Creed swallowed some more beer, then shook
his head. “Anyway, so now we all know about the secret Fiona's been hiding. She said we're losing the ranch.”

Pete shook his head. “I guess.”

Creed narrowed his eyes. “Did you already know?”

“I knew a little about it,” Pete said, “though I was never sure Fiona had told me everything. You know how she dribbles out bits and pieces. And it's never clear exactly what's really going on.”

“But you knew. And you didn't tell any of us.” Creed looked mad as hell.

Pete shrugged. “She asked me not to.”

“But you knew there wasn't going to be a ranch for any of us to win. You knew that all along. You would have let us head to the altar for no reason.” Creed glared at him.

Pete shrugged. “You weren't in any danger, were you?”

“I might have been! And you would have let me walk the plank!”

“Nah.”

“Oh, yes, you wouldn't have stopped me.” Creed jutted his scraggly chin out. “Do you have any idea how much we've been worrying about this whole marriage bet?”

“Who's we?”

“The rest of us. Those of us who weren't picking out brides.”

Pete shook his head. “As I recall, you were all too happy to let me be the fall guy.”

“And so we were. But we didn't know Jackie would marry you at the time. Any of us might have ordered a bride. Gotten a subscription to an online dating service. I seriously thought about it.” Creed gulped. “But marriage
is not for the faint of heart, and my heart is faint when it comes to commitment.”

“I know,” Pete said sourly. “You weren't in any danger. So cool it.”

“Still. Brothers shouldn't hold back pertinent information, especially when it comes to Fiona.” Creed paused. “I've been sitting here thinking, and I've worked it over pretty well in my mind, and…I'm going back on the rodeo circuit.”

Pete sighed. “Don't make a hasty decision.”

“There's nothing else for us to do. We're all in the process of thinking through our options. Jonas put an offer on the ranch east of here. Judah's going back to rodeo for a while. Rafe is seriously considering hiring on with the Shamrock ranch. And Sam…well, he says he'll probably be Fiona's bodyguard. Or go do some bullfighting. He'd make a damn lousy clown, in my opinion. Wasn't very good at it before. Still, a man's got to do something, and if we have no livelihood here, then what the hell can any of us do? Can't sit around on our duffs watching our family home go up in a puff of smoke.”

Pete shook his head. “Nothing good can come of Sam and bullfighting.”

Creed shrugged. “He says someone has to hang around to make Bode's life a misery. He says he's either going to take his aggression out on Bode or on bulls. He hasn't decided yet.”

“Marvelous,” Pete said, “this is all just ducky as hell.”

His cell phone rang. Pete pulled it from his pocket, snapping it open when he saw the call was from Darla.

“Pete?” Darla said. “Thank God I reached you. Your phone hasn't been ringing.”

He frowned. Maybe the reception in the restaurant
was poor. “What's up?” he asked, his body tensing, his thoughts immediately on Jackie.

“It's nothing,” Darla said, but she didn't sound like her normally bouncy self. Pete held the phone tightly against his ear so he could hear her. “At least I hope it's nothing. Jackie was having a little stomachache, a bit more cramping than usual, so she called me and I came over to sit with her. Then I decided to call the doctor and he suggested we swing her by the hospital.”

Pete stood up, tossed some money on the table. He knew he shouldn't have let Jackie stand so long. Maybe hot showers weren't good for pregnant women. They'd had harsh words between them, perhaps a toxic stew for tiny angels. “I'll be right there.”

He snapped the phone shut. “Jackie's gone to the hospital,” he told Creed, his body feeling queer and not part of himself anymore as he hurried to his truck.

Dear God. Please let her be fine. I only just made her mine.

The scary—and amazing—part was that Pete was a father faster than he'd ever dreamed he could be. One day he was thinking
marriage,
and today Pete realized they hadn't bought cribs. Diapers. Toys. Hadn't even talked about it.

Pete wasn't even sure how they were going to fit three babies into the small guest room. But he looked at Jackie's worn-out face and thought she was beautiful, tough and strong, and he knew everything was going to be fine.

He smoothed her hair away from her face. He still didn't understand exactly what had gone wrong. Or maybe nothing had gone wrong. Perhaps the babies had just decided there was too little room inside his petite wife for all of them to be comfortable. He hadn't had a chance to talk to the doctor yet.

He kissed Jackie on the forehead. “Mrs. Callahan, you have three very small, very beautiful little daughters. And do you know something? They all have your cute nose.”

Jackie smiled wanly. “They have all their fingers and toes?”

“They're perfect. Little angels.”

His heart hammered inside him. What was he going
to do now? He had to learn how to bathe babies. He'd looked them over carefully as the nurses gently suctioned them, weighed them, measured them. It had taken every bit of self-control not to beg the nurses to be more careful with his tiny progeny—the babies looked so helpless, so fragile. More fragile than anything he'd ever seen in his life. Fanny was bigger and stronger than his daughters.

He was scared as hell.

“I love you,” he said to Jackie.

“I love you, too.” She closed her eyes.

“Jackie,” he said, close to her ear so that she wouldn't feel like she had to open her eyes and look at him, “I'm… I'm losing it here.”

She opened her eyes and reached for his hand to squeeze. “Everything is fine.”

He swallowed. “You scared the hell out of me. I think I hurt you. Maybe we had too much…I mean, I can't bear that you were in pain.”

She shook her head. “I've always wanted children. I didn't think I could have them. Whatever pain I had was such a small sacrifice that I've already forgotten about it.”

He glanced around at the nurses, who were paying him no attention at all. Their whole focus was on his darling bundles of joy. But the emergency C-section weighed heavily on his mind. What if there'd been a problem? “Jackie,” he whispered, “Is it okay with you if these are all the children we have? I don't think I can live with the fear of losing you.”

But Jackie had fallen asleep so his agonized soul-searching was his alone. Pete took a deep breath and tried to get a grip on himself.

“Mr. Callahan,” a nurse said, “we're going to take the babies down to neo-natal now.”

The babies. He probably looked like a cold-hearted sonofagun not to be over there staring with pride at his sweet girls. But he was nervous. They'd been fixed up with tubes and warmers and things, and he didn't think he'd ever be able to change a diaper without worrying that he'd pull off a leg. Accidentally snap off a tiny toe. God, he'd seen corn kernels bigger than those toes. He gulped. “Thank you.”

He looked back to Jackie, embarrassed that he didn't feel more for his daughters. Jackie was all he could think about. “Never again,” he told her, though she slept like an enchanted princess. “No more pregnancies. This is it for me. I want the rest of our lives together to be one long Saturday night.”

 

C
REED FOUND
P
ETE COLLAPSED
face-down on Jackie's shoulder, even as Pete sat bunched in a chair beside her. Creed set the flowers and the huge pink-and-white teddy bears he'd brought on a table and sighed. “Pete. You're gonna have a helluva of a backache tomorrow.”

Pete didn't move. In fact, he looked as dead to the world as Jackie. And in that moment Creed realized his brother loved Jackie Samuels with all his heart and soul. It hadn't been about the bet, though maybe that had provided a push. Pete was part of Jackie, and Jackie was part of Pete, and the two of them shared something that was missing in his own life.

Creed sighed and went to find his diminutive nieces. They were wailing in the nursery, shaking tiny fists while nurses tended to them. He had to admit that his nieces didn't look much like Callahans. They weren't brawny, or beefy or beautiful. “Whew, you'd think Pete
might have turned out a little better gene material than that,” he muttered.

But the nurses looked a lot more appealing. Creed perked up as three nurses hovered around the bassinets. There were tubes and breathing apparatuses and things that looked painful on his nieces, so Creed focused on the shapely nurses.

He didn't want a nurse, he decided. Jackie had been a nurse. Then she'd opened a bridal salon. And then she'd done this. He rubbed his chin, wondering where he'd ever find a woman that was the other half of him, as Pete had. The trouble with women was that you couldn't buy them and sell them like cattle or horses. If you got a bad one, you were stuck.

Stuck would be bad.

Pete could handle the situation they'd all gotten him into, because Pete was responsible. Creed liked to think of himself as more footloose. Actually, he was probably more in tune with his inner being and didn't need the security of another person. Pete was needy, Creed decided. This was all Jonas's fault. If Jonas hadn't left to go to a fancy Ivy League school up north, and then stayed the hell away to get his medical degree and training, Pete wouldn't have turned out to be Mr. Responsibility.

I'm not ready for any of what Pete's bitten off.

Fiona rushed to the nursery window. “Look at them! Oh, my! Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than those little babies?”

He had, but Fiona probably wouldn't take his observation well so he kept his mouth shut. “They're no bigger than newborn piglets,” he observed, and Fiona popped him a smart one on the arm.

“They'll grow.” She stared happily through the window, her whole body practically vibrating with joy.
Creed put his arm around his aunt, giving her a fond hug. “You've done yourself proud.”

“I did?” She looked at him.

“Well, if you hadn't spurred Pete into marriage—”

He stopped when her face fell. “No, no. Focus on the babies. Look how cute they are! I think that one in the middle has your nose, Aunt Fiona.”

Fiona looked distressed. “These children have no place to live. And it's all my fault.”

Creed looked at her. “Why would it be your fault?”

“I lost the ranch.” She gazed up at him with huge, tear-filled eyes. “And where are these babies going to grow up? Run? Play?”

“At Jackie's house?” Creed asked.

“Pooh. Jackie's house is no bigger than a dollhouse. I was there the other day. She doesn't even have a nursery set up.”

He blinked. “Nothing?”

“Not even a crib. Besides which, there's probably only twelve hundred square feet in the entire cottage.”

“I think that's Pete's business, Aunt Fiona,” Creed said, his tone reluctant.

“These angels don't even have names! Callahan number 1, Callahan number 2 and Callahan number 3. What is that, I ask you?” Fiona peered through the glass. “Not that I care what anyone thinks, mind you, but for heaven's sakes, at least have names on the bassinets when my friends come to visit.”

Creed shook his head. “That's for Pete and Jackie to decide.”

“They're slow about it.” Fiona looked disgusted, then brightened. “Creed, I think that little redheaded nurse is smiling at you,” she said, giving him a playful dig in the side that the nurse noticed. She batted her eyes
at Creed, and he stepped away from the window, his heart palpitating. In fact, he'd broken out in a nervous sweat.

His destiny was clear. He had to get out of Diablo. Fiona was done working on Pete, and if he wasn't careful, she'd turn her attention to
his
bachelor state. The sacrifice—Pete—had gone down like a newbie bull rider. And now there was no reason to worry about the ranch anymore.

She was going to work him like a bear in a circus. He did not want to be next on her to-do list.

“Don't you worry about a thing, Aunt Fiona,” Creed said, giving her a kiss on the forehead even as he backed away from his plotting aunt and the attractive redhead eyeing him. “I'll see you later.”

Fiona's gaze was on Pete's three daughters, and Creed made his getaway.

If he didn't watch out, he was going to end up like Pete—with a wife, babies and a gingerbread house. Creed broke into a run as he hit the exit.

 

“J
ACKIE
,” P
ETE SAID
when she opened her eyes an hour later, “Look what the teddy-bear fairy brought.”

He pointed to the three enormous bears sitting up on the table. “Our daughters won't be as big as those bears when they're in fifth grade.”

Jackie smiled. “They'll grow. I just need to feed them.”

He jumped to his feet, realizing his beautiful wife had to be hungry. “Can I get you something? A drink? Something to eat?”

“A new body.” Jackie shifted with a groan. “Pete, what do you think about the babies?”

Pete straightened. “Um, they look just like their
mother. Gorgeous. They seem bossy, too. Very opinionated about what they want.” He shot her a careful glance. “I like that in a woman, as you know.”

Jackie looked at her husband. “Did you get within three feet of them?”

“Ah…not yet,” he hedged. “But I will. When they aren't like tiny loaves of bread.”

“Pete Callahan, I never thought I'd see the day when you were afraid of anything.” Jackie smiled at him. “Although I don't think you were too happy when you locked yourself in the basement.”

“I didn't—oh, hell.” He sat down next to her. “Can you drink a beer? Wine? I feel like I need a small shot of courage.”

Jackie was already tired again. “Go down and see our daughters. Then go celebrate.”

“I'm not leaving you.” Pete picked up her hand, caressing it with his lips. “I shouldn't have left you today.”

“The babies were ready to be born, Pete. Whether or not you were there to stop it, they were coming.”

He shook his head, and she knew her stubborn cowboy was having trouble dealing with everything. She loved him for it. “Don't worry. You're going to be a great father.”

“How do you know? I haven't had any experience. I have no role model. I'd like to bottle them until they're eighteen, and then send them off to college.”

“Pete.” Jackie laughed. “You remind me of Mr. Dearborn.”

“I'm nothing like Mr. Dearborn. I'm far better looking.”

“Tell that to Jane. She will not agree.” Jackie ran her fingers through Pete's shaggy black hair. She didn't think he'd touched a brush in twenty-four hours. Life
had certainly changed a lot for her cowboy. “Do you want to go shave and change your clothes?”

“I'm not leaving. So back to Mr. Dearborn and why he gets to share my wife's mind when she thinks of me.”

“He was a pain,” Jackie said with a smile. “My most needy patient, by far. He wanted more attention, so he got it. And I knew he was trying to get my attention, but I couldn't help myself. He was cute when he complained. He did it so nicely, and I knew he was doing it on purpose.”

Pete frowned. “But I'm not a complainer, nor am I needy.”

Jackie laughed. “You're needy.”

“My wife just had triplet daughters. I'm entitled to be a little off my normally rugged and independent game.”

He pressed a kiss to her wrist, then put her hand down. “I have fantasies about getting in this hospital bed with you, Mrs. Callahan.”

She patted the bed. “Bring it on, cowboy.”

“You, me and at least a bed will be happening as soon as the doctor pronounces you healed. Until then, you're on a Pete diet.” He slightly pulled away from her, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair. “So, don't you think we should discuss names?”

Jackie blinked. “Fiona, Molly and Elizabeth. Didn't you tell the nurses?”

He looked at her. “Did I miss a bulletin, wife?”

“Did we need to discuss it? I wouldn't think baby names are your thing, Pete.”

“I think we should discuss everything.”

“Then you choose some names.”

Pete hesitated. “I haven't had time to think about names.”

“Surely there are some that you like.” Jackie waited, amused that her husband seemed to get more flustered by the moment.

“I don't know any girl names. And you've caught me off guard. I don't think well when I'm rattled.” Pete gazed around the room as if looking for clues. “I was just thinking it was time to buy a baby book.”

“I think we're past the book stage, husband. I'd go buy cribs and diapers, wash cloths, towels, that sort of thing,” Jackie suggested.

Pete looked horrified. “We haven't bought anything. Jackie, we have to have car seats to get the babies home from the hospital.” Pete stood up so fast he nearly knocked over the chair. “I've got a lot to do.”

Jackie was about to say so
go do it
when the man who walked into her room made the words go completely away.