His Valentine Triplets. Tina Leonard

Bode’s a terrible shot.”

       “Eventually even a bad shot finds a mark.”

       That might be true. Rafe pondered the wisdom in his aunt’s words as he held her to him. He looked at Burke over Fiona’s head. The only father figure most of the brothers remembered shrugged helplessly.

       “All right, no more tears. We’ll get this figured out.” Rafe patted Fiona on the back and let Burke lead her away.

       She was shaken, of course. They all were. Except him, for some reason. Staring down the barrel of that gun didn’t upset me like it should have.

       Bode was just superhot under the collar because the Callahans made his precious lamb recuse herself from the lawsuit. He’d expected Judge Julie to be his ace in the hole.

       Ha.

       “Crazy old man,” Rafe muttered under his breath.

       But an annoyed Jenkins was not to be treated lightly. Rafe remembered the time Julie had been teed off with him, and his brothers had let her into the bunkhouse where he’d been sleeping off a bender, and she’d drawn about fifty tiny red hearts all over his face with indelible marker. It had taken a week for those suckers to wear off. He’d been the laughingstock of Diablo.

       He still had a bone to pick with her about that.

       She hadn’t looked too happy with her father’s attempt to put a piece of lead in him today, but it wasn’t because she cared what happened to Rafe. All Julie cared about was her old man.

       “Which means,” Rafe muttered as he left the bunkhouse to head to the family council, “that the next time we make love, I’m going to have to make certain that the folks all the way over in Texas hear my darling little judge banging her gavel as I completely disorder her sweet little court.”

      “YOU REALIZE HE’S AN ASS,” Julie Jenkins snapped to Seton McKinley thirty minutes later, after she’d remanded an exhausted Bode back into Seton’s care.

       The blonde and beautiful care provider blinked at her. “Your father?”

       “No,” Bode interrupted, impatient for the story delay. “Rafe Callahan. He’s an ass. An eight-point horned ass.”

       Julie sighed. “Dad, calm down. Put all this behind you. Most importantly, it’s against the law to go waving rifles at people and threatening them. I know you don’t realize this, but you jeopardize my career when you lose control.”

       “I would never do that.”

       Bode looked at her with big eyes. Julie sighed again, realizing only too well how much the Callahans got under her father’s skin. “Dad, you did. I could be in trouble for not calling the sheriff out on you.”

       “This is what I’m talking about.” Bode waved a hand at her and Seton. “The Callahans are always at the root of every problem.”

       “Usually I agree with you wholeheartedly.” Most especially, she would agree with him that Rafe was something of a rascal. No sooner had his longhorn gotten caught on her land then Rafe had shone all his legendary Callahan charm on her. And she, like a weak, silly princess in a fairy tale, had let him wake her up from her self-imposed sleep, and then made certain she’d not had a night since when her dreams weren’t interrupted by his devilishly handsome, always grinning face. She didn’t even want to think about what he’d done to her last week in her own chambers—and yet she hadn’t had five minutes where she didn’t remember his mouth all over her body, tasting her hungrily as if he’d never had a meal so good. It sent shivers shooting all over her just thinking about it.

       “This time, I can’t agree with you. You’re at the root of this problem.” Julie settled a red-and-black plaid blanket over her father and left him to Seton, who seemed to have decent luck soothing Bode. Once again the situation was equally split, with blame for both sides. Her father was angry that the Callahans had asked her to recuse herself, and the Callahans were doing what they had to do to keep their ranch. It was all pointless. In the end, Bode would get Rancho Diablo. Her father always got what he wanted.

       She should have taken herself off the case long ago. But she’d wanted to stay in control as long as possible to make certain the Callahans didn’t pull any of their numerous tricks on her father.

       Callahans were famous for practical jokes on people they considered friends, and dirty tricks on those they didn’t.

       She had to protect her dad.

       “I gave him a shot of brandy, and he went right to sleep.” Seton walked into the kitchen and handed a glass to Julie.

       “Oh, no, thank you.” She waved away the crystal glass and reached for water.

       “I’m not sure what set him off,” Seton said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when he got emotional.”

       Julie shook her head and began unloading the dishwasher. “Trust me, there wasn’t anything you could have done. When Dad gets his mind made up, off he goes. Wild horses couldn’t hold him back.”

       “Do you know what was bothering him?”

       Julie didn’t turn around. “The Callahans. They always bother him,” she said simply, but she knew the truth wasn’t simple at all. “Don’t worry about it, Seton. Dad gets worked up about once a month. It always blows over.”

       “All right. Let me know if you need anything.”

       She nodded, and heard Seton leave the kitchen after a moment. Julie kept straightening, her mind not really on the task. After she finished the dishes, she closed the dishwasher and went out to the den to look at the black-and-white photos on the mantel. Almost every picture was of her and Bode. Riding horses. Swinging on the porch swing. Hunting deer. Skiing in Albuquerque. She’d framed them all in black frames so they matched, a chronology of their years together. Just the two of them—except one photo.

       That picture was of her, Bode and her mother. The three of them, a family, before Janet Jenkins had passed away from cancer. Bode had been a different person before her mother died. He was pretty focused now on wheeling and dealing, the thrill of the hunt.

       Julie didn’t think her father had ever mentioned the Callahans except in passing before he’d become a widower. His hatred of that family knew no bounds now.

       Of course, the Callahans stirred the pot like mad. Fiona was no wimp at plotting herself, and seemed to take particular delight in keeping Bode wound up.

       Julie had gotten revenge once, but even when drawing hearts all over Rafe’s face, she’d known she was totally attracted to him. Like his twin, Creed, he was lean and tall, with dark hair and a chiseled face. Creed’s nose looked a bit broken, but Rafe’s certainly wasn’t, despite the fact he’d rodeoed and been in numerous fights. He was totally, hauntingly masculine. Julie couldn’t touch his skin and not know he was totally delicious.

       But she’d never dreamed she’d slip under his spell and willingly shed her dress and her inhibitions for him—cross line, father and court to experience the wonder of making love with Rafe Callahan.

       “He’s still a jackass,” she muttered. Rafe did not like her. She was pretty certain their day in court had been a game, a Callahan hookup, for which the cowboys were famous. She looked at the picture of herself as a small child held by her mother, and knew there were some things she couldn’t even tell her father. He was just too mentally fragile these days—and some things were too terrible to confess.

       Especially when they had to do with Callahans.

       Unfortunately, she was pretty certain she was under the spell of a certain black-haired, crazy cowboy.

      “THERE IS NO REASON for us to pay any more attention to Bode than we have before,” Rafe said. He looked at Fiona, who was seated next to Burke in the upstairs library. Each brother had joined in the family council to discuss the next move, and Fiona’s startling pronouncement.