“I’ve had time to reconsider my position,” Sam said.
“You’re tall, but not too tall, and have nice curves, so you’ll be a stunner pregnant.”
“Ugh,” Seton said, “don’t talk about it.”
“Why?” Sam looked at her. “I just meant that you’d be very beautiful carrying a baby, Seton. And I’m willing to make that happen.”
“How?” she asked. “Didn’t you say that our marriage would be in name only?”
“I’m flexible.” Sam grinned at her, and Seton’s heart jumped.
“Flexible?”
“Sure. See how hard I’m trying to make this agreement work?”
“I wasn’t aware we were negotiating.”
“Sam came later.”
—Jonas Callahan, remembering the arrival of a baby brother after their parents had “gone to heaven.”
“I have a proposition for you,” Sam Callahan said as he sat down in Seton McKinley’s office in the Diablo, New Mexico, courthouse. “A proposal, actually.”
Seton looked at Sam as he lounged in the brand-new leather chair she had situated in front of her brand-new pine desk. It hadn’t been an easy decision to return to Diablo and hang out her shingle. Private investigator work in Washington, D.C., had been lucrative.
She didn’t expect to make a whole lot of money in Diablo, but that wasn’t the primary reason she’d returned. The primary reason was across from her, hunky and completely unaware of how he made her heart race.
At the word proposition, Seton’s senses had gone on full alert. “Are you aware that the Callahans have quite the reputation for your propositions, proposals and plots? And I wouldn’t necessarily call it a good one.”
The handsome cowboy smiled at her, unperturbed. Their relationship over the past couple of years had been what Seton thought of as “friendly adversarial,” with a touch of romantic longing on her side, though she hadn’t breathed a word to anyone about her crush on the cowboy.
“Reputation isn’t something that concerns me,” Sam said, his tone easy.
Seton wasn’t surprised. “Before you share your proposal, be warned that I won’t do any work for you that involves Bode Jenkins. Or the Jenkins family in general.”
Sam’s grin widened the deep clefts around his mouth. “I’m not worried about Jenkins these days. He’s been pretty quiet since my brother married his daughter, Julie.”
“I spend quite a bit of time with Mr. Jenkins. I’m fond of him,” Seton said, just to let Sam know she felt his comment bordered on disrespectful to the Jenkins family.
He shrugged. “Your problem, not mine, beautiful.”
She frowned, studying the cowboy, from his dark, wavy hair to his slanted cheekbones. He looked like a Native American in a chalk portrait she’d seen in an art gallery. Lawyers shouldn’t be so handsome, she thought. It masks the devil in them, fools the eye like a mirage.
If there was one thing she’d learned from spending time at Rancho Diablo, it was that the Callahans played for their own team, and everyone else could get bent.
“I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes,” Seton said. “Why are you here, Sam?”
He gazed at her in silence for a moment, during which Seton felt as if he was trying to decide if he could trust her. Or thinking how he might manipulate her into doing whatever it was he had on his mind. She waited, tapping a pencil on the notepad in front of her with some impatience.
“I don’t really know who I am,” Sam said, his voice soft and husky.
Seton blinked. “Most people feel that way sometimes, don’t you think?”
He shook his head. “No, I really don’t know who I am.”
She put the pencil down and leaned back. Potential clients sat in the leather chairs, the only expensive elements in her new office. She had a wooden swivel chair, which was hard and kept her uncomfortable enough to focus. She looked into Sam’s navy blue eyes and saw that he was serious.
Very strange for him, because he had a tendency to be the footloose charmer of the family. “You’re Sam Callahan. Last of six brothers. Family lawyer and head of the legal team hired to defend Rancho Diablo from a takeover by the state of New Mexico.”
“By Bode Jenkins,” Sam said.
“It’s New Mexico v. Callahan,” Seton reminded him. “You have four married brothers, and one older brother who calls my sister, Sabrina, occasionally. I’m not sure why. She’s not, either. Jonas seems to be quite the chatterer since she moved to D.C.”