Free Cowboy Sam's Quadruplets by Tina Leonard Page B

staring at his older brother. “You old dog. None of us had any idea.”
“I did,” Pete admitted reluctantly. “I just thought Jonas had better sense.”
Sam took a liberal sip from his tumbler and gawked at his oldest brother. “You’re going to be a father, Jonas? Holy hell, that means I don’t have to get married!”
“What?” all his brothers cried, in one giant explosion of disbelief.
“I can’t deal with his issues right now, even though I arranged this gathering for him,” Jonas said. “What do you mean, I’m going to be a father? That’s not my baby Sabrina’s carrying.”
“Who else’s would it be?” Sam asked. “C’mon, Jonas, don’t be a dope.”
They all stared at their eldest brother, who glanced around at them.
“Did you have a relationship of a very personal nature with Sabrina?” Creed demanded.
“Well…” Jonas said, and Pete said, “Be honest. I heard you talking together in your bedroom one night talking.”
“Jonas doesn’t do much talking,” Judah said. “If he’s in a room with a woman, he’s probably—”
“Yes,” Jonas said, before anyone else could dissect his personality or his love life. “Sabrina and I did have a very personal relationship. But then she left for D.C., and it was over. We both agreed it was over. We never dated.” He shrugged. “We were very compatible, is all I’ll say, because I’m not comfortable taking about intimate details regarding a lady friend.”
“You don’t have any lady friends,” Sam said sourly. “We didn’t think you recognized gender. Frankly, we thought you identified humans based on their EKGs and blood pressure readings.”
“That’s nice,” Jonas said. “Thank you for your opinion of me. For your information, I like women. I like them a lot. I’m just pickier than you are. I liked Sabrina a lot.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, feeling slightly proud that he was the architect of the plan to make his brother face his life. “So who else do you think would be the father of her child, Sherlock?”
Jonas held up a hand. “It’s not mine. I know, because she would have told me. Or she would never have left here.”
“Goof,” Judah said, “she might have left because she didn’t think you wanted a serious relationship with her.”
Sam nodded. “It’s true. Any man who only sleeps with a woman is likely to wind up with some communication errors. Like Pete did.” He grinned at his brother.
“Yeah?” Jonas glared at him. “And how is your relationship with Seton going? Since you claim you no longer need to get married now that I’m supposedly going to be a dad?”
Sam swallowed some whiskey, glanced around at his brothers. “Look, there’s history here.” He wasn’t about to admit that he and Seton had a setup going that would make Houdini proud. “Remember in the beginning, when we learned of Fiona’s plot to have us compete for the ranch? Back in the good old simple days of whoever had the biggest family won?”
He glared at his brothers. “And you bunch of turkeys were looking for a scapegoat. Everyone decided it should be me—one, because I’m the youngest and didn’t care if you made me the fall guy. And two, I was willing to turn over the ranch to you guys, anyway. So I was elected to be the patsy.”
He took a deep breath. “I said I’d do it, because this was back before the lawsuit heated up big-time.”
“Wait,” Jonas said, holding up a hand, “let’s get some facts straight. One, you were the best lawyer around.”
“I was all of almost twenty-seven,” Sam said. “I was wet behind the ears.”
“You’d already proved yourself in two major property litigations. You could have been hired on with any firm in the country. You were offered partner at a prestigious law firm. And pardon my saying so,” Jonas said, “but you’d developed quite the reputation in your field as a major butthead to deal with before you so-called retired.”
Sam wrinkled his nose. “I prefer the term