wasn’t the big zero on the back of a bull they thought he was. “I’ll be fine.” He looked at River, saw the worry on her face, tried to smile reassuringly. “I am fine.”
“I’ll nurse him.” She looked at him, then around at his siblings. “Goodness knows he’s a pain, but I can bring the twins and watch all three of them.”
“Three children,” Ash said. “Somehow seems fitting.” She glared at her brother.
“You guys can be as annoyed as you want,” Tighe said. “As soon as I’m healed, I’m getting right back on that ornery son of a gun.”
“He hit his head.” Jace shook his own numskull, not understanding his brother’s determination. “You must have, or you wouldn’t say something so dumb.”
“I’m getting back on him,” Tighe repeated, “Firefreak is a pussycat.”
“Maybe you can talk some sense into my intelligence-challenged brother,” Ash whispered to River.
Tighe smiled. Dante said that riding Firefreak had brought him closer to Ana, and now River was going to take care of him while he was bed-bound.
Firefreak’s the best thing that ever happened to me. “Awesome,” Tighe said, swallowing back a slight moan as Galen and Jace began fitting a board to his leg so they could get him to a hospital. Tighe winked at River, the woman to whom he’d made love last night—sweet as an angel—the only woman worth pulling his groin over just to get her attention.
* * *
AFTER A TRIP to the hospital and then a visit to an orthopedist that didn’t do much for his mental state, which at the moment was black and aggrieved, Tighe sat in Jace’s truck, his leg up on the backseat, thrilled to be going home. The seven-chimney, Tudor-style mansion that Molly and Jeremiah Callahan had built long ago to house their young family of six sturdy Callahan boys—the Chacon Callahans’ cousins—rose like a beautiful postcard from its New Mexico grounds. Backed by panoramic spools of canyons and gorges, Rancho Diablo was an amazing sight. Tighe didn’t think he’d ever get over the breathtaking beauty of the ranch. He’d been born and raised in the Chacon tribe, then served in the military, where life was a whole lot different than here. He loved the ranch and the small town of Diablo, loved being with his family, enjoying a new closeness they hadn’t been able to share in many years. Even the constant threat of danger couldn’t always rub the shine off Rancho Diablo’s surroundings.
But the truck didn’t turn toward the main house, and Tighe’s radar went on alert. “Why are you taking me to Sloan and Kendall’s house?” Something was most certainly afoot.
“Since River has agreed to be your nurse—I can’t imagine why—” Ash said, “Kendall says it would be best for you to be here. This way River can keep an eye on all her charges. It’ll be better if the twins’ normal schedule isn’t interrupted.”
This didn’t sound good at all. “Much as I love my little nephews,” Tighe said, “I don’t want to stay at Sloan and Kendall’s. I’ll stay in my own room in the bunkhouse.” How could he ever be alone with River if he was sharing space with little Carlos and Isaiah? They were active, trying to pull themselves up on unsteady feet, eager to find their range and explore.
There would be no time for romancing the tall, delicious bodyguard with two busy rug rats taking up her every second. “Not to be selfish or anything,” he said, and Ash said, “Go ahead and admit it, you’re selfish. I can hear the wheels turning in your head. ‘How can I be alone with River if I’m laid up with my darling nephews?’” she added in a high voice, mimicking what she thought he was thinking, and in fact, what he had been thinking.
“I am selfish.” Tighe sighed. “Something’s happened to me. I used to be footloose and, well, footloose.”
“Now it’s just your head that’s loose. Come on, brother. Let me help you inside.” Ash hopped out, opened his door.
He glared at her. “No. Take me to the bunkhouse, or the main house. I would rather suffer in silence than be just another—”
“Helpless person River has to keep an eye on?” Ash prodded.
“The trouble is, you don’t suffer in silence. Come on.” Jace put his shoulder under Tighe’s to give him support as he unsteadily maneuvered himself out of the truck. “You’re lucky we don’t just leave you out in the peacock pens to heal, where we can’t hear you moan and groan.”
It was too humiliating. He wouldn’t look like a warrior, wouldn’t be a hero with badass courageous qualities if his woman tossed him in with the kiddies as an extra responsibility.
“Either you take me to the bunkhouse or I’m going to the canyons.” After making fierce love to that little lady practically all night long, he wasn’t about to appear anything less than a stud—and he couldn’t be that if he was laid out on a sofa. “The weather’s fine. The canyons suit me just as well as anywhere.”
“Be a sitting duck for Uncle Wolf and his cretinous crew,” Jace said. “Come on, be practical, bro.”
Jace didn’t understand practical. Practical was when you could think past the sirens that screamed in your head every time the woman you had a thing for got within ten feet. Tighe had lost his practicality a long time ago. “Canyons or bunkhouse. Take your pick. Can’t promise to stay either place.”
Ash sighed. “Flip a coin. Either decision is bad. Fiona will roost on the bunkhouse if you stay there, she’ll be so worried that you’re an easy mark. The canyons and you’re even more of a sitting duck.”
That sounded very much like conditions he’d lived under in Afghanistan. He could survive there by his wits, and wouldn’t be taking up any of the family’s time. Tighe brightened. “The canyons. Who’s riding canyon right now?”
“You were supposed to,” Jace said sourly. “It was your shift. Now Xav Phillips says he’ll come back and take over, which isn’t a good idea.” Jace glanced at Ash, who was talking on a cell phone to River, complaining that Tighe was a stubborn ass. “We don’t need Xav in the canyons, dude, as you well know, because Ash will find a thousand reasons and ways to get down there to haunt her favorite cowboy.”
“Who’s got a favorite cowboy?” Ash asked, returning. “Apparently, not River right now. She’s annoyed with you, Tighe.” Ash grinned. “She says you have to go to Sloan’s, because she can’t leave the twins to visit you in the bunkhouse.”
Even better. He didn’t want River around while he healed. A lightning flash of intuition told him he’d be better off returning when he was all better, a hero again—not the poor sap everyone was annoyed with. “Really, I’m such a pain in the ass, the only place I can be is the canyons.”
“I agree completely. Still, a bad idea,” Jace said.
“But—” Ash began, and Tighe waved her to silence.
“I’ve made up my mind.” What use was he as a man if he was on par with the twins? “I got myself into this mess and I’ll get myself out. As a matter of fact, just take me to the stone and fire ring. All I need is a bottle of whiskey and some girlie mags. I’ll be fine.”
Ash and Jace stared at him, their expressions dismayed.
“Okay, no girlie mags,” Tighe said, loving messing with his siblings. They thought he wasn’t big and bad right now. Well, he was; he was a monster pain in the butt, and that was just the way a man should be.
“You’ll be unprotected,” Ash said. “Much as you’re the only one among us with such disregard for yourself, you still do not want to put yourself out there with a bull’s-eye on you for Wolf and his gang. Listen to me,” she pleaded. “I’ll worry myself sick.”
“Sick about what?” River asked.
The three Callahans stared at the tall woman who’d just walked up, catching the last words