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Jonas studied her, then looked down at the child in his arms. “Hi, little Joe.”
The baby put a curled fist on Jonas’s chin.
“He’s a darling,” Chelsea said. “Such a happy baby!”
Tears swam helplessly in Jonas’s eyes. To cover his emotion, he handed the baby back to Sabrina. He realized that guests were milling around them, trying not to listen in, but this was Diablo, after all. Folks were curious about what was happening.
Jonas felt weak and somehow stupid. Poleaxed. “Congratulations,” he said to Sabrina. “He…”
He started to say doesn’t have your beautiful red hair, he got my ordinary black, and then choked back the words. Finally, he just nodded to his brothers and Seton and Sabrina, and hauled ass to the punch table.
Chelsea followed him. “Are you all right, Jonas?”
He worked to take in the deepest breath he could. “Yeah.” But he didn’t glance at her.
“Look, Jonas.” She put a gentle hand on his forearm, and he turned to face her. “Under our agreement, which was nonbinding, all you asked for was a fiancée to help you save face. I agreed to that because I wanted to come to America, but I don’t think it’s working out the way you hoped it would.”
He definitely hadn’t saved any face. “Maybe not.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Jonas.” Chelsea’s eyes were soft. “It wasn’t like we had a grand love affair. You’ve never even kissed me, other than as a sister.”
“You’re a nice woman, Chelsea. I like that about you. You’re calm and steady, not like…” Her. Not like Sabrina, who kept him churned up, not knowing if she was a gypsy or a spy or a woman on a mission to destroy his heart.
“You’re in love with her, Jonas. Anyone can see that.” Chelsea smiled at him. “It looked like Cupid smacked you right on the nose with his quiver when you saw Sabrina. And when you held that baby—”
“Let’s go for a drive,” Jonas said. “I can’t think about it. I want to get a whiskey at Banger’s.”
Chelsea shook her head. “Running off is not saving face. As I recall, that was your primary goal.”
“You’re right.” He shook his head, trying to clear it from the mist of emotions clouding his brain. “Did you see that baby?” he asked, unable to believe his denseness. How could he not have ever suspected that Sabrina was pregnant with his child?
And everyone had known but him.
“I did see little Joe,” Chelsea said dryly. “He looks just like you. How much you want to bet that Joe is short for Jonas?”
He blinked. “I doubt it.”
She laughed. “Jonas, as the daughter of your aunt’s neighbor in Ireland, I feel I have a little leeway to tell you not to be such a hardhead. Why were you so intent on believing she wasn’t having your baby? I distinctly remember you saying that it nearly killed you when you came home for your brother’s last wedding, and she was sticking out like a house. That’s what you said—that she was sticking out like a house. Did it never occur to you to simply ask her?” Chelsea asked softly.
“I didn’t want to hear the answer,” he said. “I was so sure she’d found someone when she moved to Washington, D.C. Chelsea, I’ve done you a terrible disservice.”
“Not me,” she said, laughing. “I’m having a great time. I’m sorry you’re suffering, though. Listen, I hate to leave you moldering here at the punch bowl, but I’m starved. Will you mind if I head over to the buffet table and grab a plate?”
He shook his head, feeling lost and thick. Really thick. When Chelsea left his side, Jonas glanced up to the New Mexico sky, wide and vast and endless. I have really blown it. Why didn’t I just ask Sabrina if Joe was mine?
But Jonas knew why. At the time, he’d been terrified he’d spent over three years mooning after a woman he knew was way out of his league. She was wilder than him, she had more personality. She was a gypsy and Jonas was a heart surgeon—how was that going to work? A big part of his cowardice was not trusting the sexual attraction they shared. He’d never met a woman who could make him feel like a king and then a flunky at her feet. She’d turned him inside out from the day Jonas had met her. In fact, he remembered fainting. He’d thought he’d eaten something bad, but when he came to, she was standing over him in the living room. Jonas thought she was an angel staring down at him.
A very wild, very bad, superhot angel.
It had been all he could do not to look up her skirt.
Now my son is not wearing my name, the Callahan name. His birth certificate probably says Father Unknown on it, and—
“Damn it!” Jonas said, then cursed some more, electrifying the guests who’d ventured too close to the punch table.
This Father Unknown business was going to have to be fixed—pronto.
Chapter Two
“As far as I can see,” Sam said the next day, when his five brothers had corralled Jonas in the upstairs library where they held their weekly meetings, “you have some ’splaining to do. Where the hell have you been for all these months?” Sam shook his head. “You are not the one who was supposed to go off on a major soul-seeking mission.”
“That’s right,” Pete said. He lounged in one of the wingback leather chairs, comfortable in his position as the first-married of the Callahan clan. “I always felt you scoffed at those of us who were less settled than you. You’ve always been so…well, stodgy is the word that comes to mind.”
“Not too stodgy to fall for a gypsy,” Creed said gleefully. “Remember when Sabrina was in her Madame Vivant days?” He shook his head with a grin and held up a cut crystal glass. “Here’s to the joy of watching big bro go down like a sack of bricks.”
“That’s not fair,” Jonas protested. “The whole Madame Vivant escapade is exactly what threw me. None of us knew at the time that she and Seton were Corinne Abernathy’s nieces. It felt like some bell-wearing, exotic shyster had been let into our home by our fey little Aunt Fiona.”
“Speaking of, we still have no coordinates on Fiona’s whereabouts,” Judah pointed out. He shrugged. “I guess she’ll show herself when she wants to tip her hand.”
Judah didn’t seem too worried. As the father of twins, he had plenty of other things on his mind.
“I tried my best to find her and Burke,” Jonas said, feeling defensive as he glared around at his brothers. “You have to understand, Fiona is not an easy woman to outthink.”
“That’s for certain.” Rafe, the father of triplets with Judge Julie Jenkins, looked smug as he leaned against the fireplace. “And you were probably not the scout to send after her, bro. Not that we had much choice in electing you, as I recall. One day you were at Sam’s first wedding, and then poof! You took a look at Sabrina’s belly and off you went. It was an amazing thing to watch the studious, life-by-numbers-and-books guy go off on a major toot.”
Jonas wasn’t certain he felt a lot of sympathy in the room. Some gentle ribbing, perhaps, and maybe even a bit of pull-your-head-out-bro! He bristled. “Any one of you would have thought the same thing I did if the woman you loved was in a family way and hadn’t told you. What was I supposed to think?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. He was enjoying his newfound happiness with his wife, Seton, and their quadruplets. Jonas was still shocked that his younger brother had married before him. That was really almost the sole reason he’d brought Chelsea home with him. He didn’t want to be poor Uncle Jonas, the doddering leftover to his many nieces and so far only nephew.
“Now that you’ve admitted Sabrina is the woman you love, what are you going to do about Chelsea?” Sam asked.
His brothers gazed at him silently. Jonas’s heart pounded a ridiculous tattoo that a cardiac guy like him knew meant his body was in fight-or-flight mode. Blast. “Let’s not go getting crazy here.” He gulped his whiskey and looked at them mutinously. “I have not yet asked Sabrina if that is my child, and you don’t know for certain, either, do you?”
They shrugged to a man. Either they weren’t going to enlighten him, or they didn’t know.
“Second, do you realize I was thirty-three when I first met her? I’m now going on nearly thirty-damn-seven. How long was I supposed to wait on her?” He sent a mulish glare around the room, pinpointing each brother. “Look, the common theory is that if a man isn’t married by thirty-five, there’s something wrong with him. I was beginning to wonder about myself!”
“We all were,” Creed said easily. “You’re not the quickest runner in the field, bro.”
Jonas ignored that. “How long was I supposed to hope that she’d crook her little finger and let me know she felt the same way about me as I did about her?” He shook his head. “All you guys went whango-bango! off the market. You jumped into sacks like you were potatoes, and suddenly started sprouting spuds all over the place. Me, I like to be a bit more measured about things.”
“And yet what about little Spud Joe?” Judah asked dryly. “Seems when you were doing your measuring, you forgot to measure for condoms.”
Jonas leaned back in his chair, not about to dignify that with a return shot. How in the world could he have ended up with a baby who wasn’t wearing his name?
It had happened because he couldn’t stay away from her. Sabrina had made him crazy from the day he first saw her. He’d heard bells tinkling and stars falling to earth, and he’d never believed he could fall in love at first sight.
Yet I did.
* * *
“A FIANCÉE!” SABRINA changed into worn gray warm-ups and flopped onto the bed. “Of all the souvenirs I thought Jonas might bring home, a fiancée was not one of them.”
Aunt Corinne shook her head. She sat in the white wicker rocker in Sabrina’s upstairs room, looking as unhappy as Sabrina felt. “That was a shocker, I’ll freely admit.”
“I should never have come back to Diablo.”
Corinne sighed. “Selfishly, perhaps, I like having you here. And while it will be awkward running into Jonas and Chelsea occasionally, you really won’t see them that often.”
Sabrina thought that unlikely. This was Diablo; what wasn’t seen was talked about constantly. “We all live in each other’s business here, Aunt Corinne, you know that. The thing is, I really like Chelsea, so I can’t muster up any jealousy or bad feelings toward her. She seemed kind and interested and…” Sabrina frowned, hunting for the word she wanted. “She seemed like she wasn’t in love with Jonas, actually.”
“I picked up on that myself,” Corinne said cheerfully. “Maybe this engagement isn’t set in stone.”
It was wrong to hope for Jonas’s relationship to fall apart just because Sabrina had had a baby by him. “We’re all adults. We can do the right thing for Joe without hoping for other people’s unhappiness.” Still, her aunt Corinne was right: Jonas and Chelsea hadn’t seemed that gaga over one another. More like “just friends.”
“Oh, I don’t want them to be unhappy,” Corinne said. “It just wouldn’t bother me if the engagement got called off.”
Sabrina rolled over to send her a pointed stare. “Aunt Corinne, you are not to meddle in any way.”
Corinne’s eyes sparkled behind her polka-dotted glasses. “I wouldn’t think of such a thing!”
“And you are not to set the Books’n’Bingo Society, nor anyone else, to interfering with Jonas’s choice,” Sabrina said.
Corinne smiled fondly at her niece. “Well, I can’t promise not to hope that all of you get your heads straight on what needs to happen. I believe in true love, after all.”
Sabrina decided her aunt wasn’t planning to do anything nefarious. “It’s up to Jonas to be happy with his choice, so if he’s happy, then I’m happy for him.”
“That’s very mature of you, dear. I commend you.” Corinne looked down into Joe’s portable crib, where he was sound asleep, undisturbed by their conversation. “A busy time of being passed around by half of Diablo yesterday has tuckered our little man out still. I should let the two of you rest.”
Suddenly, Sabrina felt tired herself. “Good night, Aunt Corinne. Thanks for everything.” She settled her head on her pillow and smiled at her aunt. “It’s all going to work out. I have a feeling about these things.”
“So do I,” Corinne said. “Good night, Sabrina.”
Sabrina closed her eyes, only to start thinking about Jonas. How handsome he’d looked at the wedding! Better than she’d remembered, which was hard to top. The last time she’d seen him had been at Seton’s first wedding.
Several months in Ireland had done nothing but improve him in some way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He seemed more mysterious, somehow more wise.
Definitely more hunk-hot in the way that only Jonas was to her.
Pooh. I’m not going to think about him anymore. Obviously, what we had wasn’t all that special if he’s put a ring on another woman’s hand.
In fact, he’s not hot at all. He’s cold.
* * *
SABRINA WAS SHOCKED when she ran into Jonas bright and early Monday morning while taking Joe to the pediatrician. “Hi, Jonas,” she said, walking past him as nonchalantly as possible. She’d wondered over and over what he thought about her baby—and when she should tell him the truth about little Joe.
“Wait, Sabrina.” He caught up with her, matching her stride. “Can I carry something for you? You look pretty loaded down.”
She had Joe’s diaper bag, her purse and Joe. “No, thanks. I carry this all the time by myself.”
“Well, it’s too much gear for a petite thing like you. Let me take the baby,” Jonas said, reaching for little Joe.
Sabrina gave him up reluctantly, watching Jonas’s expression as he held his son. Interested faces peered out of shop windows, and their friends and neighbors who were walking along Diablo’s sidewalks stopped to watch, even though they acted as if they weren’t. Sabrina felt like a fish in an aquarium. Still, she waited as Jonas carefully studied little Joe.
Finally, Jonas glanced at her. “Is this my son, Sabrina?”
So this was how it was going to be. She hadn’t planned to tell him on a beautiful, sunny May day in front of the hometown crowd, but he’d asked, and she wasn’t going to prevaricate. “Yes. Joe is your son.”
Jonas closed his eyes for a moment, pressed the baby close to his cheek. “What is his full name?”
“Jonas Cavanaugh McKinley. He was born on November 20.”
He studied the baby, and Joe seemed to study him in return. “I assume my name is listed as the father on the birth certificate?”
“Yes, it is. Of course it is.” Sabrina took Joe back, though Jonas seemed reluctant to part with his newfound son. “We have an appointment. I’m sorry.”
She started walking at a brisk pace. Jonas kept up with her.
“What kind of appointment?”
“Six month checkup and shots.” She didn’t mean to be curt, but this was so awkward, so unplanned, that Sabrina didn’t know how to do anything else but put up her defenses.
“I feel I should be there.”
She stopped and looked up at the tall, handsome man she’d once loved with all her heart. “Jonas, I appreciate that you’re going to want to be active in Joe’s life. But not today. I need…time.”
He glowered. “I’m not trying to butt into your life, Sabrina. When Joe sees the doctor, I want to be there. Every time.”
She sighed. “Fine. You can hold him when he cries.”
“He won’t cry,” Jonas said. “He’s a Callahan.”
“He’ll cry,” Sabrina said, “because he’s a baby. And it’ll be loud and unpleasant, and you’ll want to cry, too. But I can’t take care of both of you, so you’ll have to refrain.”
He touched her arm to stop her dash toward the doctor’s office door. “Sabrina, I can tell you’re upset. I’m sorry. This isn’t the way I wanted anything to turn out between us.”
She didn’t want pity. “Jonas, we never had a plan, so there’s nothing to apologize for.”
He nodded. “Still, I think you and I should talk.”
“We will one day. I just don’t know when.” She stepped inside the office, glad that Jonas would have to stop talking to her about Joe now. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. She’d never envisioned him marrying someone else.
Joe squirmed in her arms, getting restless, and Sabrina searched for a bottle.
“Want me to hold him?”
“Sure.” She handed Joe off to his father and kept rummaging until she found what she needed. “I suppose you’ll want to feed him, too?”
