arms.
“I don’t know why Joe’s fussy,” Corinne said, her voice merry. “Must want his mother.”
The baby wasn’t fussing. Jonas didn’t think he’d ever seen a happier child. The infant had chubby cheeks, big blue eyes, a shock of black hair and a generous mouth that seemed to smile at everyone. Jonas chuckled. People said that babies smiled when they had gas, but this one just looked content. In fact, he’d seen a similar goofy, delighted smile on a baby before. Sam had grinned like that when he was an infant. Jonas remembered it clearly, because he’d been so shocked when a new baby appeared on the ranch after their parents had “gone to heaven.”
Jonas had been old enough to know that a baby shouldn’t come after parents died. Nevertheless, Sam had arrived one day, carried into the house by Fiona. The new baby had been the happiest kid on the planet. He’d smiled all the time, and the five brothers had been quite taken by what Fiona announced was their new brother.
Jonas found himself smiling back at Sabrina’s happy baby in spite of himself—and then, like a lightning bolt sent from above, his brain cleared.
That was a Callahan smile. Those were Callahan navy-blue eyes. That was the black-as-night Callahan hair.
He looked at Sabrina, who was watching him with wide eyes. He glanced at Sam, then at Seton, then at his brother Rafe, who was playing best man. They all stared back at him in silence, and the curtain lifted on his self-denial.
This was his child.
The realization staggered him.
He had a son. A beautiful son. Jonas swallowed hard.
He couldn’t help himself; he reached out to take the baby. The child came to him willingly, and Jonas felt unbidden tears jump into his eyes.
Holy smokes. I’m a father.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“I call him little Joe,” Sabrina answered.
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.
