weathered face.
“More importantly, you know that you protect your parents, Julia and Carlos, and the parents of your Callahan cousins, Jeremiah and Molly, from discovery. From attack. Dark forces have gathered on the land in the canyons and gorges. In the last year, three mercenaries have followed your every move, even kidnapping one of your women.”
Falcon glanced at his brother Sloan. Sloan’s wife, Kendall, had been briefly kidnapped by one of the mercenaries, who’d turned out to be a family relative—Uncle Wolf, brother to Jeremiah and Carlos, and determined to harm his own brothers. Wolf was the dark, fallen angel of the family.
“Now that the Diablo Callahans remain in Hell’s Colony, Texas, it should have become quiet here at Rancho Diablo.” Running Bear looked at the sky for a moment, thoughtful. “You will be stretched a little thin when Dante and Tighe leave.”
Falcon stared at his brothers. The twins looked a bit sheepish in the face of their family’s shock.
“What do you mean?” Ash demanded. “Where are you going?”
“We might try our hand at rodeo,” Dante said. “We’re not cut out for this detail. The constant waiting is making us crazy.”
“Yeah,” Tighe said. “It’s like we’re waiting for a war that never starts.”
“Finks,” Ash told her brothers. “How can you turn your backs on family? Jonas and Aunt Fiona and Uncle Burke wouldn’t turn their backs on you!”
Dante and Tighe looked crestfallen at their sister’s criticism.
“Let them go,” Running Bear said. “Dreams cannot be ignored. They must be lived.”
“Oh, bother.” Ash glared at her brothers. “Well, maybe I’ll go off on a toot myself. Maybe we’ll all just pack up and go off chasing rainbows and unicorns.”
“You can’t,” Dante said. “Who would watch over Fiona?”
“It’s all right,” Falcon said, opting to play the role of peacemaker. “The ranch will survive.”
Ash turned her head away from Dante and Tighe. Falcon thought his brothers seemed to shrink at her obvious censure of them.
“I agree with Falcon,” Galen said. “We’re all following our own dreams. We have to live our lives to some extent. This commission is going to take years. Besides, Falcon’s proposed to a woman in town. Sloan’s married. Life goes on.”
“We just don’t feel like we’re doing anything,” Tighe said. “The mercenaries haven’t been around in months. For all we know, they’re gone.”
They all looked at Running Bear. He shrugged. “Tonight, you must focus on deciding to stay here or to go. This ring of stone and fire is your home, for as long as you want it to be.”
“We’re never going back to the tribe, are we?” Jace asked.
Running Bear shook his head. “That path would lead the enemy to your parents’ door. I remind you that one of you is the hunted one. You must guard against any division that may reside inside you. There will come a time when you have a split second to make a decision, a moment when you stand at a fork in the road. You will not recognize the danger, but the choice you make will live with you, and all of us, forever. Until then, here you stay, until you walk away.”
His grandfather’s ominous words were chosen carefully, a warning. Falcon had only one choice, and that was to stand and fight. “I’m staying. Rancho Diablo’s good as anyplace else to live, and besides, I really like Aunt Fiona and Burke.” For that matter, he liked the town of Diablo. He felt his soul take flight on the rare occasion when the Diablos were spotted in the dusty canyons that were the ancient, stunning backdrop to the ranch. “Family’s first with me. I’m a soldier, and then I’m a family man. Can’t walk away from a good fight, especially since it involves family.” He tossed a handful of dirt into the fire, where it briefly dimmed the flames.
“I’m staying,” Ash said. “I’m hard core.” She flung dirt into the fire and walked to kiss her grandfather on the cheek, then mounted her horse. “I’ve got land to win,” she told her brothers. “The only way to win is to hang tough.”
“And lure Xav Phillips to fall for you,” Dante said.
“Good luck with that,” Tighe said.
“Just because you two got dumped on your heads by the nanny bodyguards is no reason to doubt Ash,” Falcon said. “She’s smarter than all of us. Good luck with the rodeo. Let us know where you’re riding sometime. We might come around.”
He left the stone circle, following his sister off on horseback. He knew who would stay and who would go; there was no need to linger.
Every man had to do what he had to do.
Falcon was called to serve.
* * *
F ALCON KEPT FOLLOWING Ash the second he realized his sister wasn’t heading toward the Tudor-style Rancho Diablo mansion with the seven chimneys, but toward the canyons. He knew Xav practically lived in the canyons, rarely returning to the ranch for supplies, but Ash wasn’t heading in the right direction. It looked as if she was skirting the deep crevasses of the mesas, heading to the opposite side of where Xav kept his camp.
Falcon tried to envision what life would be like if he didn’t have a headstrong sister, and realized it would be dull as dirt. Probably one reason he was attracted to Taylor was that she was a spitfire, cut from a mold similar to Ash and Aunt Fiona, and his own mother, Julia. No wallflowers among the women he knew.
Taylor was more right for him than she knew.
Suddenly, Ash halted her big horse, wheeling around to glare at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Falcon asked. “Have you heard that there are mercs in the canyons who are known to kidnap Callahan women for sport?”
“I can take care of myself.”
This was true. “Let me go with you. I’m feeling a need to ride and clear my head.”
“And babysit me,” Ash said disapprovingly.
“It’s my sense of adventure. If I don’t hang out with you, I’ll probably end up following in Tighe and Dante’s footsteps.”
“Traitors. Both of them.”
“No.” Falcon shook his head. “All of us have a destiny to follow.”
“Whatever. Destiny is just a pansy word for shiftless. Lazy. Spineless. Maybe it was my destiny to get up this morning and eat chocolate chip cookies and drink beer for breakfast, but I didn’t. I told Destiny to get the heck away from me.”
“And ate rocks instead,” Falcon said. “You have to forgive people who aren’t as strong as you.”
“Whatever,” Ash said. “Tighe and Dante are strong. They just want to chase buckle bunnies. Their pride’s a bit stung because they got smacked down by River and Ana. And right they were to turn my brothers
