Always a McBride (16 page)

Busy with her pastries, Phoebe tried to concentrate on her own work, but he made that nearly impossible. There was just something so sexy about a man who knew his way around the kitchen. She'd never seen him so relaxed before. He hummed “Strangers in the Night” under his breath, and every time he came within touching distance of her, he seemed to brush up against her.

Her blood heating, she told herself the first time it was just an accident, but it happened a second time, then a third. Looking up from the pastry dough she was rolling out, she wasn't surprised to find him watching her with dark eyes that glinted with amusement. He was flirting with her, she realized, and started to smile.
Cocking her head at him, she lifted a delicately arched brow. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said innocently, only to dip a finger in the bowl of flour on the kitchen island, then playfully draw a smudge down her nose. “What did you think I was doing?”

“Oh, nothing,” she replied with a shrug, then slipped around him to retrieve a loaf pan from the cabinet behind him. As she returned to her work station at the kitchen island, she trailed her fingers down the back of his neck and grinned when he caught his breath. He wasn't the only one who could flirt.

 

She was a witch, Taylor thought, swallowing a silent groan. A beautiful, tempting, sensuous witch. Over the course of the next few hours, she took his own game and turned it back on him, teasing and flirting with him until he was so hot for her, he could hardly string two sentences together without help. And he loved it. She made him want her with just a smile. And during breakfast, when her foot played with his under the table and she smiled at him with mischief in her eyes, all he wanted to do was sweep her up in his arms and carry her upstairs to his room.

There was, however, no time for loving. Once both newlywed couples had had breakfast and the dishes were done, she had a busy day running her grandmother's antique store. Locals, as well as tourists on their way to Aspen stopped in to browse and buy, and the old-fashioned cash register rang on and off throughout the late morning and early afternoon.

Taylor knew he should have kept up his pretense of doing research and made himself scarce for the day, but he couldn't bring himself to leave Phoebe. He was en
joying her company too much. She visited with tourists as if they were old friends, greeted locals with true affection, and invited them all into the shop as though she was inviting guests into her home. She even set out a platter of homemade cookies for anyone who might be hungry!

Amused and delighted with her lack of pretension, Taylor volunteered to carry out the customer's purchases to their cars, just like a proud husband helping his wife. That's when he knew he was in trouble.

When had he got so caught up in her life that he forgot his own? he wondered with a scowl. He was in Liberty Hill for one reason and one reason only—to make the McBrides pay for what Gus had done to his mother—and lately, he had even begun to question the wisdom of that. Everything had seemed so clear when he'd first arrived in town, but now, he didn't know what to do. And that annoyed the hell out of him. He was a decisive man, or at least, he always had been in the past. He still felt that his brothers and sisters needed to know what kind of man their father had been, but he was beginning to wonder if telling them would really serve any purpose. They were going to believe what they wanted to believe, regardless of what he said, and he couldn't blame them for that. They'd known Gus all of their lives growing up—he was their father. The odds were better than good that they'd known him better than even his mother had.

Disturbed, troubled, he needed some time to think, to decide what he wanted to do, and he couldn't do that helping Phoebe with her grandmother's antique store. “I've got some errands to do,” he told her gruffly after carrying out a set of Windsor chairs for a woman. “Can
you get someone to carry out the heavier objects if I'm gone for a few hours?”

“Of course,” she assured him. “Is everything okay? You look…upset.”

“I'm fine,” he assured her. “I've just got some things to take care of. I'll be back in a couple of hours.”

Not giving her a chance to ask questions he wasn't prepared to answer, he made a quick exit and headed for his car. A few minutes later, he found himself taking the road from town that led to his father's ranch, and he couldn't even say why. He just knew he had to go there.

T
he ranch was deserted; there wasn't a McBride anywhere in sight. Normally, Taylor wouldn't have felt comfortable trespassing on someone else's property without at least getting their permission first, but Joe and Zeke had made it clear on a number of occasions that he was welcome to look around as much as he liked. Without even thinking about it, he headed straight for the family cemetery.

Nestled under the trees, high on a hill overlooking the homestead, it was just as he'd remembered it…quiet, peaceful, ageless. In the valley below, the house that had been home to countless McBrides was a testament to the survival of the family, but here on the hillside, time was measured not in years, but in the graves.

Surrounded by silence, Taylor stood under the old pine tree that hovered protectively over his father's grave and waited for the old bitterness and anger to
twist in his gut, just as it always did whenever he thought of Gus McBride. This time, however, he was stunned to discover that the only emotion he felt was regret. Regret that he'd never had a chance to know the man his brothers and sisters called Dad. Regret that he'd never shared a holiday with him or a birthday. Regret that Gus McBride had died without ever knowing that his eldest son existed—because everything would have been different if he had.

Pain squeezed his heart at the thought of what might have been. Before he'd come to Liberty Hill, he'd have sworn that nothing could ever change his opinion of Gus McBride. As far as he was concerned, he was a deadbeat father and the biggest loser in the world. He had to be—otherwise, he would have come for him and his mother and taken them out of the nightmare of poverty they'd lived in for all of Taylor's childhood.

His brothers and sisters, however, had shown him that Gus had been nothing like the monster he'd thought he was. He'd been loving and giving and had always been there for his wife and children. After hearing the stories of what a good man he'd been, Taylor was forced to come to only one conclusion. The only reason Gus hadn't been there for him was because he hadn't known of his existence. How could he hate him for that when his mother was the one who'd chosen not to tell him she was pregnant?

With that realization, a load lifted from his shoulders, and he was stunned by the emotions that swamped him like a tidal wave. How long had he hated his father for what he'd done to his mother? It seemed like forever, but the truth was, his mother had never shared his feelings for Gus. In fact, she'd loved him until the day she died…because she'd known he was a man worth loving.
Why had it taken him so long to see that? To realize that he didn't have to hate him, either?

Years. He'd wasted years, made himself bitter and churned with anger. He'd thought revenge would heal the gaping wound in his heart, but he realized now that revenge was a double-edged sword. He was tired of the hate, the anger, the resentment. He wanted a relationship with his family, with the brothers and sisters he hadn't had the opportunity to know as a child. And to do that, he had to tell them who he was. It was the right thing to do. The question was…how was he going to break the news to them after lying to them for weeks?

He would find a way, he promised himself as he returned to his car and headed back to town. He wasn't going to lose the only family he had left now that he'd realized how much they meant to him.

 

The heady scent of flowers floated on the warm summer breeze, along with the quiet hum of honey bees as they busily worked their way through the garden that was just steps away from the dining room's French doors. For as long as Phoebe could remember, Myrtle had talked about thinning out the overgrown plants and bringing some order to the flowers that had taken over the yard years ago, but her granddaughter was thankful that she never had. Roses and rhododendrons, daisies and black-eyed Susans, plus dozens of other blooms that Phoebe didn't know the names of, created a profusion of colors that looked like a Monet painting.

Happily cutting flowers for the dining room and front parlor, their heady scent teasing her senses, Phoebe was unaware that she had company until she heard a step on the crushed gravel path behind her. Startled, she turned to find Taylor heading straight for her, and im
ages of the last time they'd been alone together in the backyard swirled in her head. Almost immediately, her heartbeat jumped into a crazy rhythm, and all she wanted to do was walk into his arms. A quick look at the house next door, however, kept her right where she was. Nadine was working in her own garden and watching everything that was going on in the neighborhood. She must have had super-human hearing, because the second Taylor walked through the side gate, she looked up and made no effort to hide the fact that she was watching both him and Phoebe like a hawk.

Taylor noticed—he shot the older woman a quick look—but if he was concerned by her nosiness, he gave no sign of it. Giving Phoebe a smile that warmed her heart, he said, “Hi, sweetheart. Can I help you with that?” And with no more warning than that, he strode up to her, leaned over and kissed her on the side of the neck.

She melted—there was no other way to describe it—and completely forgot about Nadine. “Hi, yourself,” she said huskily and stepped into his arms for a hug. “I was just cutting some fresh flowers for the house,” she said with a smile as she drew back. “What have you been up to?”

“Not much,” he said easily. “I just went for a drive.”

Her eyes searching his, Phoebe immediately sensed that something was different about him, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. He looked just as he always did, only…more relaxed. And that was a rarity for Taylor. From the moment he'd first knocked at her grandmother's front door, his intensity had been impossible to ignore.

Cocking her head, she frowned. “That must have
been some drive. You look like you don't have a care in the world. What's going on?”

He shrugged, his smile turning wicked as he drew her back into his arms. “Nothing. Can't a man spend some time with a beautiful woman in a garden without raising a fuss?”

“Of course, but—”

“But Mrs. Hawkins is watching,” he said with a grin. “She's not going to stop me from kissing you, you know. I've been thinking about it for hours.”

“Taylor…”

“Say it again,” he murmured, kissing the side of her neck again. “I love it when your voice gets all husky when you say my name.”

She shouldn't have. She would only encourage him and she needed to keep her head about her. And Nadine
was
watching! But when he whispered her name and trailed a string of kisses across her cheek to her mouth, she could no more resist him than she could stop her heart from thundering at his touch. With a sigh that was his name, she slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with a hunger that matched his own.

That's when it hit her. Nadine might be watching…or the entire population of Liberty Hill…it didn't matter. She was never going to be able to summon any defenses against him, even though she knew he was going to break her heart.

In the past, that realization alone would have been enough to send her running into the house to think about the hurt she was opening herself up to. But she didn't want to think about the future, didn't want even to contemplate the day he drove out of her life and returned to California. He was going to leave her with a broken heart, regardless of when he left, and worrying about
that wasn't going to change anything. In the meantime, they had today. Nothing else mattered.

Pulling back, she smiled up at him with her heart in her eyes. “As much as I'm sure Nadine is enjoying the show, I think we should take this upstairs—”

“My sentiments exactly,” he said and grabbed her hand to pull her with him toward the house.

Tugging against his hold, she laughed, “Wait! I didn't mean now. I have to finish cutting flowers and meet with Heather and Doris in the kitchen at four. We're making strawberry jam. Then I have to start dinner.”

Too late, he remembered her guests and wanted to kick himself. She was right, dammit! As much as he didn't want to think of anything but her and how he wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon making love to her, she had a responsibility to her guests that could not be ignored. Their own plans would have to wait.

But only until tonight, he promised himself. As soon as her guests had retired to their own rooms, Phoebe was his. For the rest of the night.

Grinning ruefully, he said, “See what you do to me! I lost my head, and it's all your fault.”

“Thank you,” she replied with twinkling eyes. “I do what I can.”

And she was damn good at it, the little flirt. Fighting the need to sweep her up into his arms and carry her off to bed, he growled, “Shall we make a date for later?”

“Ten o'clock sounds good to me. How about you?”

“Ten it is. My room or yours?”

“Mine,” she said promptly. “I'll wear something special.” With nothing more than a few simple words, she conjured up an image that heated his blood, then
gathered up her flowers and hurried inside. Already aching for her, the feel of her lips still warm against his cheek, Taylor stared after her like a man who hadn't seen a woman in a decade. How, he wondered, groaning, was he going to make it until ten o'clock without going quietly out of his mind?

 

Four hours later, he was still wondering the same thing. The strawberry jam had been made hours ago, dinner was cooked and eaten and the hands of the clock on the mantel in the front parlor seemed frozen in time. He'd been watching them on and off for the past thirty minutes and he'd have sworn they hadn't moved at all.

“Are you all right, Taylor?” Doris asked as she finished telling the story about how Lawrence had asked her to marry him with a cookie bouquet. “You keep looking at the clock.”

Caught in the act, Taylor swallowed a silent curse and forced a smile. “Sorry. I'm waiting for ten o'clock. I'm supposed to take some medication.”

“Oh, I know how that is,” she said, sympathizing. “If you don't take things exactly on time, it can screw up your whole system. I told Lawrence that's why he's dizzy all the time—he never pays attention to the clock. Didn't I tell you that, honey? You need to listen to Taylor. What are you taking, Taylor? Or would you rather not say? I'll talk about anything, but some people like to keep their medical conditions private….”

Fighting a smile, Taylor doubted there was much of anything that Doris kept private, but all he said was, “I really would rather not talk about it. I wouldn't want to raise any eyebrows.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Phoebe bite back a quick smile and wasn't surprised that she'd guessed
she
was the private medical condition he didn't want to talk about. If her eyes had met his, he was sure Doris would have guessed that his clock-watching had nothing to do with medication and everything to do with a date with the lady of the house, but Phoebe luckily kept her gaze focused on the older woman.

Making a quick exit while he could, he rose abruptly to his feet. “I'm sorry to cut the evening short, but it is nearly ten. So if you'll excuse me, I'll say good night. I'll see you all in the morning.”

“That's all right, dear,” Doris assured him as she, too, rose. “It's time we turned in, too. We've got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow. We need to get a good night's sleep. Thank you for a wonderful evening, Phoebe. Dinner was fantastic.”

“My pleasure,” Phoebe said with a smile. “I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

Good-nights were exchanged, then while Phoebe was locking up, the older couple followed Taylor up the stairs and made their way to their room at the end of the hall. Slipping into his own room, Taylor glanced at his watch and wondered how long it would take Phoebe to slip into the special outfit she'd teasingly promised to wear. He'd give her ten minutes, and she'd be lucky to get that. He'd already waited hours for her. He couldn't wait much longer.

His imagination running wild at the thought of what she planned to wear, he didn't notice the disturbance that had erupted down the hall from his room until Doris cried, “Help! Somebody help us! Lawrence fell!”

Taylor didn't wait to hear more. Jerking open his door, he ran out into the hall and reached the Coopers' room just as Phoebe hurried up the back stairs from the kitchen. “What happened?” she asked as she and Tay
lor followed Doris into the suite, where they found Lawrence flat on his back just inside the open bathroom door. “Oh, my God! Lawrence, are you okay? Where did all this water come from? Did the tub overflow?”

“A pipe broke under the sink,” he said, only to groan as he struggled to sit up. “It was already all over the floor when we stepped into our room. I was trying to find the shut-off valve when I slipped.”

Frowning, Taylor stepped over to the sink and took a quick look. “The break's below the shut-off valve,” he said grimly. “The water will have to be cut off outside. Where's the cutoff?”

“Out by the street, next to the front gate,” Phoebe said as she hurriedly moved to Lawrence's side when he tried to stand up. “Maybe you shouldn't get up just yet. You took quite a fall.”

“She's right,” Taylor said with a frown. “You should see a doctor. Let me turn the water off and I'll drive you to the hospital. Just to make sure you didn't crack a bone or something.”

“Aw, heck,” the older man grumbled, “the only thing I cracked was my pride. A man doesn't like to make a fool of himself on his honeymoon.”

“But you could have seriously hurt yourself,” Phoebe argued, “and I feel responsible. Let me at least call Janey McBride and have her check you out. She's a nurse and will know if you need X rays.”

“I don't need a nurse to check me out,” he said stubbornly. “I just jarred my bones. Ask Doris. She'll tell you I'm a tough old goat.”