LITMIR.BIZ

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“Seton is not gentle and shy. She’s more like fireworks in my sky, trust me. Let’s do a further checklist. Judge Julie is a smokin’ pistol set to fire. Jackie was a nurse and keeps order like a general. Darla is a businesswoman, and there are days when I can hear the grocer grinding his teeth from the deals she makes him give her. Aberdeen may be a preacher, but she’s got a soul of iron, don’t let that sweet face kid you. Where are the retiring wallflowers in this family?”

       “This is different,” Jonas said.

       “Only because it’s happening to you this time, you big wienie,” Sam shot back. “Believe me, we all suffered when we fell in love, though we mostly suffered because of our egos. You’re just going to make more noise about it, I’m afraid. We’ll have to resort to earplugs.”

       Jonas snorted. “Sabrina says I have to find myself first. She says I run away from what I don’t want to deal with.”

       Sam snickered. “Guess she didn’t have to be clairvoyant to know that.”

       Jonas looked at his youngest brother. “It’s not true.”

       “Of course it’s true. Every word. Did she set a goal for you, a dragon for you to conquer, in this quest for yourself?”

       Jonas thought about it. “She says that until I’ve figured out the answers in our family, I likely won’t be ready to make a good husband and life partner. Sabrina says that I’ve been avoiding my responsibility for years, and that it probably all goes back to the fact that I was the oldest. She says her hunch is that our parents leaving affected me the most. It’s all a bunch of psychological nonsense, but I’m humoring her. It’s best to let women think they’re figuring us men out, you know.”

       Sam sighed. “That is not a good attitude to take.”

       Jonas was satisfied with his non-emotional approach to his chosen lady. “How would Sabrina know what I need to do to make myself into a good life partner?”

       “Well, you ran off and got engaged to a woman you didn’t love because the woman you did love was pregnant with your child. Call me crazy, but you may have some issues to iron out, bro.”

       He scowled. “Even if I did—and I’m not saying I have any issues at all—I wouldn’t know where to start.”

       Sam raised his glass. “We did the spadework for you. All you have to do is put it all together.”

       Jonas stared at him. “Not that easy, when you consider that it’s taken all five of you to get this far.”

       “Well,” Sam said, easing back into the leather chair more comfortably, “if it’s true what Seton discovered, and our parents are still alive, you have to find out where they are. And why they went away. They had to have left us for some real good reason.”

       “They went into witness protection because they’re hiding from a cartel they turned over to the various authorities involved. You can’t find someone in witness protection, no matter how much you might want to.”

       “Yeah.” Sam scratched his chin. “But someone knows something.”

       Jonas shook his head. “That could only be Fiona—and she would absolutely never tell—only Chief Running Bear might know.”

       Sam nodded. “Bingo.”

       “But so what if we did find our parents? If they wanted us to locate them, they would have given us a signal, a clue.” Jonas wasn’t sure this particular holy grail had a desirable outcome. “The bad guys, whoever they are, might find our parents, too, then. I don’t think it’s worth taking a risk.”

       “You make several good points. Did I tell you, by the way, that Sheriff Cartwright had to release the guy he’d arrested? The one who was living in the canyons, and who rigged Seton’s laptop?”

       “No,” Jonas said slowly. “Why did they release him?”

       “He got bail from someone. A cash bond. And there wasn’t enough to hold him on.”

       Jonas remembered how much trouble the rat had managed to cause over the years for their family. He’d bided his time, waiting for Jeremiah and Molly Callahan to contact the children they’d left behind. “It’s not safe to find them, Sam. We could lead danger right to their door.”

       “I think you may be right.” Sam looked at his boots, then crooked a brow at his brother. “So you’ll just have to tell Sabrina you’re probably never going to find yourself.”

       “Maybe.” Jonas thought it was a real possibility, anyway. He didn’t have the fire in his belly to know more than he did. Were they really alive?

      Maybe finding out more about myself isn’t what I need to quit avoiding the big issues. I’m a surgeon, for God’s sake. I made life-changing, lifesaving decisions, every day of my life. What the hell am I afraid of?

       It was simple enough. He was afraid of being abandoned, left behind once again. What had happened to drive his parents away?

       As a child, he’d figured he must have done something bad. Something horrible, to make his parents leave and go away forever. God wouldn’t take parents away from a boy who was good.

       It had been years before Jonas had understood he had done nothing wrong, that death had come unnaturally early to his parents. The learning process of grief and abandonment might have even stirred his desire to be a saver of lives.

       But the habit of backing away from emotional moments stayed with him. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, hurt anyone, because he or she might leave.

       So much easier just to avoid the big issues.

       “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Sabrina,” he said. “She doesn’t think I’ve got the ability to stick with it for the long haul.”

       “She has a right to be a little antsy,” Sam said. “You pretty much shocked the entire town when you brought Chelsea home. And now what are you going to do with her?”

       “Nothing. She seems happy working at the library and doing her own thing. She’s making lots of friends. I told her I’d send her back to Ireland anytime she wanted to go, on my nickel, but she said she’s having a blast.” Jonas shrugged. “She and Sabrina seem to get along, too. So I guess I just don’t think about her much.”

       “You realize that, out of all of us, you made the biggest boneheaded error of courtship? Bringing another woman home,” Sam said, disgusted. “I didn’t dare even look at another woman when I was trying to catch Seton. I was too afraid she’d head back to Washington. I’m kind of surprised Sabrina hasn’t, actually.”

       Jonas sat straight up. “She wouldn’t.”

       “She might.” His brother shrugged. “She still keeps an apartment there, and you’re the world’s slowest Romeo. She may get impatient with you. I would.” He drank his whiskey and closed his eyes with sheer contentment. “I think she’s spotted you a couple of forgiveness points because everyone recognizes you’re a little impaired in the love arena, but I wouldn’t push my luck.”

       Jonas felt himself go pale. Sabrina was a traveler, and fiercely independent. She did have a job in D.C., but she was on maternity leave.

       He had to make like a retrofitted Romeo—fast.

       “Anyway,” Sam continued, “Sabrina’s right. You do have a pattern. You would never have bought Dark Diablo if you weren’t looking to get away from all of us. It’s called shirking your responsibilities. How did Sabrina know you’d never change?”

       Jonas gawked at his brother, wondering when having a dream had become shirking his responsibilities. “You know, I’m not the bad guy you paint me as.”

       “Nothing bad about being terminally uncommitted and unable to participate in a family.” He shrugged. “We got used to it after you went off to college, then med school, then

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