His Valentine Triplets. Tina Leonard

with their aunt’s dispensation of the ranch. “You’ll figure it all out.”

       “I wish I’d known half the stuff before we got knee-deep in battling Bode. Did you know that originally this land was owned by a tribe? Our father bought it from them.”

       Rafe shrugged. “That explains the yearly visit from the chief, maybe.”

       “Yeah, it sure does. The tribe retained the mineral rights to the property.”

       Sam sure had his full attention now. Rafe turned away from the window to goggle at his brother. “All mineral rights?”

       “Oil, gas, silver—you name it, it’s not Rancho Diablo’s.”

       Rafe couldn’t help grinning.

       “What’s so damn funny, Einstein?” Sam snapped.

       “Bode doesn’t know.” Rafe laughed out loud.

       After a moment, the thundercloud lifted from Sam’s brow. “That’s right, he doesn’t. And he can’t sue a tribe for their mineral rights. Well, I guess he could, but he wouldn’t win. This is a signed and properly executed document.”

       They both sank onto a leather sofa and chuckled some more. Jonas poked his head in, favoring each of them with a grumpy gaze.

       “Don’t you two ever do any work?” he snapped.

       “Listen, Oscar the Grouch, close the door,” Sam told his elder brother.

       Jonas obliged, though not happily. “Why are you two lounging when there’s work to be done?”

       Sam handed him the sheaf of papers. Jonas gave it a cursory glance and handed the stack back. “I don’t have time to read a wad of papers as thick as your head. That’s your job, Counselor.”

       “Well, if you would read,” Sam said, “and if you could read, as your medical degree claims you can, according to these papers, Rancho Diablo Holdings owns no mineral rights. They are instead owned by the tribe of Indians from which Chief Running Bear hails.” Sam grinned, waving the papers. “An interesting turn of events, don’t you think?”

       Jonas stared at his brothers with obvious disbelief. “All mineral rights?”

       “Yep. All we own is the land and the bunkhouses and the main house. Actually, if you think about it,” Sam said, waxing enthusiastic about the topic, “no one really owns the houses, either. The banks do, and even once they’re paid off, the government can still come along and decide to kick you out. They either want the land for building, or they decide you owe back taxes on the property, and poof! There goes your domicile.” Sam shrugged. “The value is in the mineral rights, I’d say, and those, brothers, we do not own.”

       “And we never did,” Rafe said, glancing at the papers. “These documents were executed the year before you were born, Sam.”

       “Yeah, I noticed that.” He frowned a bit. “But let’s not go there for the moment.”

       “Holy Christmas,” Jonas said, “that means Bode’s lawsuit is basically nullified.”

       “In large part, if not in total,” Sam agreed. “Lovely day, don’t you think?”

       “Fiona knew this,” Jonas said. “She had to know the mineral rights weren’t ours, and that we couldn’t give them over even if Bode won his case.”

       “Maybe she didn’t,” Rafe said, wanting to defend their small, spare aunt. “Even Sam said he didn’t really understand the papers.”

       “I understand them perfectly,” Sam said, “and I can’t find any documents that state otherwise, which might indicate a later sale from the tribe to Rancho Diablo Holdings. So what that tells me—”

       “Is that Fiona probably never saw those documents,” Rafe said stubbornly. “They were signed before she came. When our parents were alive.”

       Sam pursed his lips. Jonas sighed and looked out the same window that Rafe had been gazing from. Rafe knew his brothers thought Fiona had withheld the information on purpose.

       “She hardly had time to go digging through every document pertaining to the ranch. Overnight, she became guardian to six boys in a foreign country,” he pointed out. It made him slightly angry that his brothers seemed to think Fiona might have been deceptive about what she knew about their property. She was the executor of their estate. “It doesn’t make sense.”

       “She became guardian overnight to five boys,” Sam said, bringing up a point that Rafe had chosen to gloss over. “I came later.”

       Rafe saw no reason to chase that particular ghost right now. He waved a dismissive hand. “You’re a Callahan. Let’s not dig up every screaming specter in this house right now.”

       “What I’m saying is that Fiona knows who my parents are,” Sam said, and Rafe and Jonas stared at him in shock.

       In all the years they’d been a family, this was the most they’d discussed Sam’s abrupt arrival. They wouldn’t have even known about it, but Jonas had been old enough to remember that Sam had come later—after the accident that had claimed their parents. Rafe wished Fiona hadn’t left, and that all this discussion of documents had never arisen. Nothing good could come of the past interrupting the present. He looked at Sam’s strained face and felt sorry for his brother.

       “I’m just saying this because Fiona knows who my parents are, and she knew about the mineral rights. I know that,” Sam said, “because Chief Running Bear doesn’t swing by every Christmas Eve just to share toddies with our aunt in the basement.”

       “Well, he probably does,” Jonas said, “if I know Fiona.”

       Rafe sighed. “This is ridiculous. Just call her and ask. Or go down to the county courthouse and sift through some records. There’s no point in getting all wild and woolly about stuff that doesn’t matter.” He felt ornery at this point. It was too hard seeing Sam suffer. “There’d be no reason for her to keep this from us,” he said, refusing to believe that their aunt could be quite so manipulative. “If she’d known, she would have revealed it in court so Bode would shove off.”

       Jonas shook his head. “She might be protecting the tribe.”

       “Or she didn’t know!” Rafe insisted.

       “Or, and this is the most likely scenario,” Sam said, “this was the perfect way to get right up Bode’s nose.”

       Rafe blinked. “You mean to let him sue us for practically no reason?”

       Sam shrugged. “Everyone’s been talking for years about the rumored silver mine on our property. We know there’s nothing here, but Bode would believe the gossip. More important than land would be a silver mine. Treasure seekers have always tilted at windmills.”

       “Bah,” Rafe said impatiently. “So what. I’ll tell him myself.” He was getting more ruffled by the moment, which made sense, since he was enamored of making love with Bode’s daughter.

       “You can’t tell him,” Jonas said, his tone forceful and big-brother-like for a change. “None of us in this room is going to say a word to our brothers or anyone, until we find out why Fiona didn’t want it known that the mineral rights had been sold. I’m pretty certain it’s bad to withhold pertinent information in a court case, and we can’t get our aunt in trouble.”

       “Not in this case,” Sam said. “Fiona and Burke are just going to say that the document was executed before they arrived, and they had no knowledge of its existence. And you,” he said to Rafe, “may I suggest you curtail your activities with a certain judge? Try not to annoy her or her father? We need time to figure everything out, before we hurt our case or our aunt. And I don’t trust you to keep your mouth shut if you’re in the throes of pleasure.”

       Rafe crammed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t take a swing at his brother, and