He’d missed sleeping with her these past months. Standing here looking at her brought all the familiar desire back like a screaming banshee.
Yet clearly they had a problem. Best to face facts right up front. “Is that why you went away from Rancho Diablo?” he asked, pointing to her tummy.
She raised her chin. “Are we going on this date or not? Although it won’t surprise me if you back out, Jace. You were never one for commitment.”
Commitment, his boot. Of his six siblings, which consisted of a sister and five brothers, he’d been the one who’d most wanted to settle down, maybe even return to his roots in the tribe. By now he’d been fighting the good fight for Rancho Diablo for such a long time he never thought about living anywhere but here, or at least no farther away than the land across the canyons, which his brother Galen had shocked them all by acquiring, in a direct assault on Aunt Fiona’s marriage raffle for the property.
The siblings thought Galen had cheated, or at least “rigged” the ranch deal in his favor. Jace and Ash hadn’t had a chance to marry and have babies, all prerequisites for Fiona’s ranch raffle. Ash was still steamed as heck with her big brother, Galen, whom she adored—although not when it came to acquiring the ranch she’d already named Sister Wind Ranch, which was actually called Loco Diablo by him and his brothers.
Jace wanted the land for himself, but he’d never pushed hard enough to find a lady with whom he could settle down and start a family, a necessary component of the marriage raffle. He’d been too busy chasing Sawyer night and day—or, to be more precise, letting himself get caught by her.
He gazed at her stomach again, impressed by the righteous size to which she’d grown in the short months since he’d last seen her—and slept with her.
He wished he could drag her to his bed right now.
“I’m your prize, beautiful,” he said. “No worries about that. But before we go, you’re going to admit whether that child you’re carrying is mine or not.” He wouldn’t be able to eat a bite, thinking about another man finding his way into Sawyer’s sweet bed. Jace broke into an uncomfortable sweat just imagining someone else with his adorable darling.
“I’m hungry, and in no mood to chat.” Sawyer turned to walk away, and he caught her hand to stop her, pulling her toward him. That she was avoiding the topic told him everything he needed to know.
“It’s my baby,” he stated quietly, his gaze pinning hers. “Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not.”
Her perfume wrapped around him; her heart-shaped lips were close enough to kiss. His ears rang with her admission, and Jace struggled to take in that he’d awakened this frosty February morning in Diablo, New Mexico, a free man—and would go to bed a caught man, and a father. “You’re having my baby?”
She gazed at him with those blue eyes that had long intoxicated him, even though he knew she was sexy trouble. “I’m having your babies.”
If he hadn’t been such a strong person, a man of steel forged by fire, as he frequently told himself, he’d have raised an eyebrow with surprise. “Babies?”
“Twins. One boy, one girl, if the doctor’s correct.”
Stunned was too gentle a word for the emotion searing him. The vixen who’d avoided him these past four months, not even letting him know where she was—who’d made him believe he was never going to hold her in his arms again—was the sin to which he was now tied.
His family was going to razz him a good one—and they weren’t going to toss confetti in congratulations. They’d say he’d gone over to the dark side, had slept with the enemy’s niece.
Hell, yeah, I did. And she’s having my children.
I’m on top of the world, even if I’m going to Hell.
* * *
SAWYER CASH GREW wary as the handsome cowboy she’d spent months dreaming about steered her toward his truck. She didn’t like the sudden glint in his eye when he’d realized she was pregnant with his children—and she knew the Callahans well enough to know that a glint in the eye meant their wild side was kicking in. “Where are we going?”
“On the date you bid for and won, darling. Be a lamb and hop in my truck,” Jace said, opening the door for her.
She’d always love the wild in Jace Chacon Callahan. His eyes were that navy color all the Callahan men had, but his were both a little distant and a little crazy. His hair was always tousled, dark strands going haywire except when tamed by a cowboy hat. Even his laugh was a bit wild, tinged with the devil-may-care attitude that most of the Callahan men possessed.
She’d always been attracted to Jace—but right now he made her nervous.
“Since I won you, I get to pick the date parameters, right? I mean, I paid for something.”
He smiled, slow and sexy, heating her with memories of snatched passion they should never have shared. “Whatever you want, little darling. Now slide in so I can buckle you up good and tight.”
Warnings howled in her psyche. She didn’t like anything about his sudden determined mood. “There’s a cute little restaurant in Tempest we could check out.”
“Tempest.” He buckled her in with care and stared into her eyes, just inches from her face. “It’s a funny thing, but the night of the Christmas ball, all I learned about the woman who won me was that she was from Tempest.”
“At the time I bid, I was working for your brother Galen in Tempest,” she said, a little breathless at the devilish look in Jace’s eyes. “At Sheriff Carstairs’s place. You know about what happened there.”
He had to have heard about the night Sawyer and her cousin Somer had taken shots at each other, quite by accident. Hired by Galen, Sawyer had been doing her job—and Jace hadn’t had any idea she was only a short truck ride away in Tempest, which was how she’d wanted it.
All the same, it had been hard not to drive “home” to Rancho Diablo to see him. But she’d known that to see Jace meant falling under his spell and into his arms.
She’d done far too much of that. Obviously.
“You covered your tracks real well.” He checked her seat belt again and she smacked his hand away, making him laugh in a throaty, teasing growl. He was just itching to get on her nerves in every way, and he was certainly succeeding. “Disappeared for months, then took a job with Galen, which I consider a bit traitorlike on your part. Then deliberately won me at Aunt Fiona’s auction. As I recall, the bidding went sky-high that night. I, the last Chacon Callahan bachelor to be on the block, fetched the highest price ever. Which you paid, and no one twisted your arm at all.”
She couldn’t look away from the knowing laughter in his eyes. “You’re a bit of an ass, Jace.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He closed the door, went around to the driver’s side. She could hear him guffawing with delight at her admission that she wanted him.
Well, she had wanted him, and she had paid a record amount for him at the Christmas ball, determined that no other woman should win him that night, not when she’d just learned she was pregnant. Five thousand dollars had gone to Fiona’s favorite charity, thanks to her sexy nephew. Jace’s aunt had no idea how many times Sawyer had fallen under Jace’s spell, seduced by the hot cowboy with a wicked penchant for frequent, enthusiastic lovemaking.
She couldn’t even comfort herself with the thought that he was a dud of a lover, or lacked the skills or attributes a female adored. No, he was pretty much perfect as a lover. And darn well aware of it, too. “So, we’ll head to Tempest for dinner?”
He started the truck, pulled out from the driveway at Rancho Diablo, where she’d agreed to meet him as his mystery date. “Sure, we can