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.”
