Tina Leonard - Branded by a Callahan

Settle Down, Cowboy!

Marriage isn’t in Dante Callahan’s short-term plans. But Ana St. John is! After the gorgeous nanny bodyguard—and woman of his fantasies—turns the tables and seduces him, Dante is suddenly corralling his inner wild man. Now Ana is having his baby…and refusing to say “I do!”

There’s no denying Ana’s powerful feelings for Dante. But is the footloose rancher—and the hottest cowboy in New Mexico—ready to hang up his spurs for married life? According to the legend of the magic wedding dress, he’s not.

Dante’s not one to fool with family lore. But he’s got to provide a major Cinderella moment to win over his prospective bride. He may be crazy for pulling out all the stops to get Ana to marry him—but that’s part of the fun of being a Callahan!

“You like me.”

He pulled her to him. Dante didn’t allow himself to consider defeat—he knew Ana was crazy about him. No woman made love to a man the way Ana did with him and honestly believed she wasn’t in love with him.

No. Not just in love. She was crazy for him, just as much as he was for her.

It was the baby thing bugging her—he knew it had to be.

“Marry me.”

He surprised both of them by saying it. But he felt great the moment he said it. Ana’s eyes widened, and he thought, bingo, that was the right thing to say.

But then she shook her head, sending his world into dust. “I can’t, Dante. You don’t understand. I— It wouldn’t work. We’re not right for each other.”

“You’re exactly right for me.”

Dear Reader,

In this eleventh book of the Callahan saga, we learn a lot about true love in the face of adventure—which is just what we want from our heroes and heroines! Summer is a wonderful time to dream about brave men and women fighting to do what’s right, even if doing what’s right isn’t easy.

Dante Callahan, the first of the Chacon Callahan twins to suffer what he believes is unrequited love with the beautiful nanny bodyguard Ana St. John, sets out to prove himself on the bull-riding circuit. But he finds his place is back with the family…yet danger lurks. Dante never imagines that the way he’ll finally get the bodyguard of his dreams in his arms is by allowing her to protect him—a difficult thing for a tough guy to accept! Ana St. John isn’t about to give up on her man, however; she’s been waiting a long while to find out if the rangy cowboy is the man of her dreams. According to the magic wedding dress, maybe he’s not…if the Callahan legend is to be believed.

Yet we know there’s always a happy ending at Rancho Diablo! And I hope you’ll join me and the Callahans on this next book in the journey of the Callahan family toward happiness and true love.

Best wishes always,

Tina Leonard

Branded by a Callahan

Tina Leonard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tina Leonard is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of more than fifty projects, including several popular miniseries for Harlequin American Romance. Known for bad-boy heroes and smart, adventurous heroines, her books have made the USA TODAY, Waldenbooks, Ingram and Nielsen BookScan bestseller lists. Born on a military base, Tina lived in many states before eventually marrying the boy who did her crayon printing for her in the first grade. You can visit her at www.tinaleonard.com, and follow her on Facebookand Twitter.

Many thanks to the wonderful readers

who have taken the Callahans into their hearts

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Excerpt

Chapter One

“If someone’s looking for a fight with a Callahan, he’ll sure find one.”

—Bode Jenkins, neighboring ranch owner to a

reporter asking questions about the Callahan legend

Dante Callahan stared at the enormous spotted bull pawing the ground and tossing its huge horns before climbing over the chute with a sense of impending doom. For his ride he’d drawn Firefreak, a bounty bull, and he’d started to wonder why he’d let his twin, Tighe, talk him into this. Dante had been working at the rodeo, practicing being a barrel man, doing a little mutton busting setup for the kiddies on the side, simply trying to keep Tighe out of trouble—though his twin seemed hell-bent on finding said trouble. Today his sole goal was to survive Firefreak, legendary badass rank bull. The last cowboy who’d ridden him—tried to ride him—had ended up in the hospital with broken bones.

All of this was to avoid Dante mooning over Ana St. John, the hot babe bodyguard who worked at Rancho Diablo.

Ana, who’d never glanced his way except by accident.

Dante got on the bull, settled himself with a choke hold on the rope, mashed his hat down on his head. Cowboys yelled encouragement, instructions, some various bits of garbled wisdom and maybe a prayer or two. He took a deep breath, nodded—and the chute burst open.

Hell hit Dante so fast he hung on by reflex. The jaw-grinding, butt-breaking bucking set his insides screaming, and then he was on the ground, staring up at nothing, before adrenaline shot him to his feet to scramble away from the pounding hooves intent on his destruction.

“That was awesome, bro!” Tighe yelled as Dante stumbled out of the arena. “Five seconds!”

Five seconds—of hell. Gasping, Dante held his heaving ribs, some of which ached like sin, and spit out his mouth guard. “My life passed before my eyes,” he said, lurching to sit on a hay bale. “Holy smokes, I think I saw the face of God.”

Tighe laughed, pounded him on the back. “You’re fine. You’re all right.”

“Yeah. He didn’t put me in the hospital.”

Cowboys came by, shouting words at him he heard but that somehow didn’t sink in. “I’ve got to do that again.”

His twin handed him a water bottle. “On Firefreak?”

“Sorry piece of boot leather isn’t going to defeat me.” The thing was, for those glorious five seconds, it had been all about survival, sort of like when he’d been in Afghanistan, only more endurable because Firefreak was an enemy he had control of. Five seconds of nothing but a mind-numbing, desperate attempt to hang on—and he hadn’t donated one of those seconds to thinking about Ana.

It had been glorious relief.

“We have enough points to move on,” Tighe said. “Next rodeo, next ride.”

Dante rubbed his rib, wiped his brow. “I’m going home, bro.”

Tighe straightened, his expression shocked dismay. “Home to Rancho Diablo? Why?”

He couldn’t explain it, not even to his twin. But Tighe must have felt it. The two of them practically shared every thought. “It’s almost Halloween. I want to see the kids trick-or-treat.” He sighed at the memory and felt strength washing over him. “There’s nothing like seeing all the Callahan kinder dressed up like tiny ghosts and ballerinas.”

Tighe smiled. “True.”

“We’ve been gone for months, chasing this dream.” He’d last gone home for a wedding in June, when his brother Falcon had married the light of his life, Taylor Waters. Feeling the call of the wild, Dante and Tighe had quit the family fold, leaving their brothers and sister to keep the enemy stalking Rancho Diablo at bay.