Blood Brothers Read online

  He’d made up his mind to refuse to discuss the Gazette, but Randall hadn’t even asked. Gabe forgot to ask about the ranch.

  He got the video converted to the proper format and showed it to the children with rousing success. He loved watching Charlie and Emma, their jaws dropping at the sight of the spinning, twisting, bucking bull-and the cowboy trying to make his eight-second ride.

  And that led them to wanting to do some riding of their own.

  “Absolutely not!” Freddie said. “You are not teaching my children to ride a bull!”

  “Horses, Fred. Broke ones. They can’t be cowboys-or girls-if they can’t ride.” And, taking Freddie’s reluctant silence as approval, he went looking for some horses to borrow. Mrs. Peek, bless her heart, knew exactly who to contact. And the next day he had horses for all of them.

  Even Freddie.

  At first she protested. Then he reminded her that they were her children. Didn’t she want to supervise what they were learning? Didn’t she want to witness their triumphs? Be there when they succeeded?

  So she came. And she rode. In fact she was a good rider.

  He was the one who fell off!

  It was downright embarrassing. And it wasn’t even his fault. It was the damned pheasant-and the skittish horse-and most especially that ridiculous little English saddle. There was no place to get a grip!

  “Are you all right?” Freddie and the children bent over him worriedly.

  His pride was hurt. And his rear end.

  Gabe scrambled up. “I’m fine,” he muttered, swatting at the mud that caked the back of his jeans.

  “Yoo-hoo!” In the distance, at the edge of the road, he spied Mrs. Peek, red sweater flapping, as she waved from where she’d parked her bicycle. She whipped out a little notebook and began to scribble.

  Gabe groaned.

  Freddie laughed, delighted. “I wonder what the headline will read.”

  “Editor axes new local writer,” Gabe grumbled. “Literally.”

  But Freddie, still laughing, just shook her head. “She’s taking her job seriously.”

  Gabe laughed ruefully, too, acknowledging the old lady’s dedication. She was thrilled to be published. Her first column of local news had come out last Thursday “over Percy’s dead body,” and she’d been walking on air since.

  Everywhere Gabe looked now, he saw a red-sweatered Mrs. Peek, pedaling her bicycle furiously in pursuit of more local coverage, hoping to scoop Mrs. Bolt and Mrs. Nute from the Women’s Institute.

  He could only hope that his getting thrown came during an otherwise heavy news week.

  He seemed happy here.

  Freddie watched him play with the children, teach them to rope and to ride. She watched him cheer Mrs. Peek on and exult with every triumph that brought the moribund Gazette further from the brink of extinction. She watched him sprawl easily in the parlor and look at her from beneath hooded eyes, making it obvious that he was looking for “the right time.”

  And even though she knew she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help thinking things she had no business thinking-about what it would be like to love-and be loved by-Gabe McBride.

  He would leave.

  Of course he would leave. There was never any doubt. He talked about the ranch constantly to the children.

  “Back home…” he would say. “On the ranch…”

  It sounded wonderful-a land so vast and empty with its high snow-capped mountains and broad valleys that she could scarcely imagine it.

  So he called Randall again and asked him to send pictures of the ranch, of the family, of his rodeo career.

  The children were spellbound. So was Freddie.

  “Wow,” Charlie breathed. “It’s awesome.”

  “Is that the bunkhouse?” Emma wanted to know as they sat in the parlor, the pictures spread out all across the table. Gabe held her on his knee. Charlie stood next to him, pushing the photos around, looking at first one and then the next, then going back, as if he couldn’t take it all in.

  “That’s a lot of cows,” Emma said, pointing at one of a round-up.

  “An’ a lot of cowboys,” Charlie said, awestruck. “I wish I could be a cowboy.”

  Gabe ruffled his hair. “Maybe you will be someday.”

  Freddie, seeing the hero-worship in her son’s face, bit her lip to keep from saying sharply, “Don’t hold out false hopes.”

  There was such a light in Charlie’s eyes these days, such a bounce to his step, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. He hadn’t been this bright-eyed and eager since before Mark’s death. And even though she knew she shouldn’t encourage him to pursue this cowboy business, she still couldn’t deflate his hopes.

  Not now. Not yet.

  After all, Charlie knew how unlikely it was. He wasn’t a baby anymore.

  He knew that Gabe would leave. Gabe had never made it a secret that his time in Buckworthy was limited. So Charlie couldn’t be crushed when it actually happened.

  And he would always have the memories later on.

  That’s what Freddie told herself anyway. She hoped it would be enough.

  And not just for Charlie.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” she said briskly after they’d spent most of another evening poring over the pictures. “It’s past bedtime.”

  “But we’ve got all the rodeo pictures to look at!” Charlie protested.

  “Please, Mummy,” Emma beseeched. “I wanta see Gabe ridin’ a bull!”

  “You’ve seen Gabe ride a bull on the video.” She had, too. Until she’d closed her eyes in stark terror.

  “But-”

  Gabe pushed back his chair and set Emma on her feet. “Real cowboys follow orders. Move it.”

  And they did. All it took was one word from Gabe and they scampered off.

  “They were going to do what I told them to,” Freddie muttered.

  “I know.” Gabe smiled at her. “I just wanted to hurry ’em along a little.” The way he was looking at her, smiling at her, sent a shiver of awareness up her spine.

  “Why?” she asked warily.

  “Because of this.” And he reached out, drew her gently into his arms and kissed her.

  It was a hungry kiss, a deep kiss, a kiss that told Freddie that Gabe had been thinking about it for a good long time-probably as long as she had. And it felt so warm, so wonderful, so right, that she was returning it before she had a chance to think.

  It had been so long. She had been so lonely.

  She hadn’t realized until Gabe arrived how lonely her life had become. There were the children, of course. They loved her, and she them. They challenged her, and she tried to keep up with them.

  But until Gabe there had been no man. No one to meet Freddie face-to-face, toe-to-toe, one-to-one.

  She’d thought she didn’t care, had believed she hadn’t had time to miss it.

  She was wrong.

  The touch of him, the heat of him, the strength of him-all of it-told her she’d been very, very wrong.

  And when he sat back down and took her with him, brought her down on his lap and still never stopped kissing her, she went right with him, as hungry as he was, as desperate as he was.

  His fingers tugged her shirttails from her trousers. His hands slid up beneath, caressing her heated skin. She murmured against his lips, felt his tongue press for entrance, and opened up for him. Against her bottom she could feel the press of his need for her, hard and insistent. She shifted, turning in his arms, rubbing against him through wool and denim.

  He groaned.

  “Mummy! I left my-oh!” It was Emma. Halfway down the stairs, eyes popping out of her head, face as red as a beet-as red as her mother’s face.

  Freddie leapt out of Gabe’s arms, shoving away so hard she almost knocked his chair over. With one hand she tried to smooth her hair. With the other she stabbed ineffectually at her shirttails, trying to tuck them back in.

  “You what, Em?” she croaked. Oh, heavens, her voice didn’t even wo
rk!

  “L-left my m-maths book down here.” Still Emma hesitated on the steps, tipping from one foot to the other, her eyes going from her mother to Gabe and back again. She looked as if she might burst.

  “Come get it then. Put it in your book bag or you’ll forget it in the morning.” Freddie gave up on the shirt. She tried to sound brisk and set about scraping the photos into a pile, as if she had been cleaning and the heightened color in her face was merely from exertion. She couldn’t look at Gabe.

  Emma did. She studied both of them as she came slowly down the steps, and Freddie knew she wasn’t fooled. Her eyes sparkled. She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling as she got the book from the sideboard and, with one last look, scurried back upstairs again.

  “Charlie!” Freddie heard her whisper loudly. “Guess what!”

  It was Freddie’s turn to groan.

  Gabe laughed.

  “It isn’t funny!” she said, stricken.

  “Well, not in some respects,” he agreed, adjusting his jeans carefully and wincing as he did so. “But, hey, it happens.”

  “Well, it won’t happen again.” She didn’t look at him. She moved quickly, putting the photos into the folders Lord Stanton had sent them in. Then she stacked them in neat piles. Her hands shook.

  Gabe came up behind her and she felt his breath on her neck. Her fingers curled into tight fists. “We’ll be more careful,” he agreed, dropping a kiss on the nape of her neck and slipping his hands around her waist.

  Freddie darted out of his embrace. She shook her head and spun around and wrapped her arms across her breasts. “No. We can’t.”

  “What do you mean, we can’t? Can’t what?”

  “Can’t…that.” Freddie couldn’t say it. Wouldn’t let herself say it! She shook her head again, angry at herself for having let things get that far. “We can’t,” she repeated.

  “Can’t…kiss?” He sounded somewhere between amused and incredulous.

  She steeled herself against him. “That’s right.”

  “Can’t…touch?”

  “No.”

  He cocked his head. “Why not?”

  As if she could give him a logical reason! “Because…because…it won’t do!”

  “Oh for God’s sake! Don’t do that ‘lady of the manor’ act. ‘It won’t do,”’ he mocked theatrically. “Why the hell not? You want me. I want you!”

  Fortunately, before Freddie could blurt out, “Yes,” she managed a split second’s thought.

  “Our bodies,” she began with the precision of a governess splitting hairs, “are not the sum of us. While our bodies might wish closer contact, our minds, our hearts, our souls…feel otherwise.”

  “Mine doesn’t.” Gabe looked straight at her with his clear blue gaze.

  Freddie turned away. She hugged herself tighter. “Well, mine does.”

  She couldn’t want him-couldn’t love him! Because that’s what it would mean if her heart and mind and soul felt the same way her body clearly did.

  And he didn’t love her, either.

  It was just that she was here. She was handy. He didn’t have anyone else. What would be an evening’s recreation for him would be a blow to the heart for her.

  Determinedly Freddie shook her head again. “No,” she repeated. “Please. It was a…a mistake.”

  “Was it?” Gabe didn’t move, just stood there looking at her. His hands hung loosely at his sides. And then, as if he couldn’t help it, he reached for her. “Freddie.” His voice was soft but insistent. Urgent. Beseeching.

  She shook her bowed head resolutely. “No, Gabe. Please. Don’t ask me.”

  His hands dropped, but still he didn’t move.

  Finally she made herself look up at him, meet his gaze. “You said real cowboys follow orders, do what they’re supposed to.”

  “And we’re not supposed to touch each other?” he challenged her.

  Their gazes locked.

  Gabe stood there, not even breathing while Freddie held her breath, too, and prayed for the strength to resist.

  Resist. Resist.

  She managed to shake her head. “No. We’re not. This is…tempting. But it’s not… It’s too…dangerous.”

  “Dangerous.” He repeated the word as if he was trying it on for size. He seemed to chew on it a bit, then his mouth curved bitterly at one corner. “Final word?”

  One last chance. Are you going to grab it, Freddie? she asked herself. “Final word,” she muttered.

  “Whatever you say, Fred.” And he turned and walked out the door.

  In the morning he called Earl. “I’m outa here.”

  The old man coughed, sounding like he’d choked on a crumpet. “Gabe? Is that you? For God’s sake, man, what’s going on down there? Every time I ring your office some snippy little pigeon tells me you’re too busy to come to the telephone!”

  So, Beatrice had learned. Well, good. Gabe supposed he was glad.

  It was what he’d come for, wasn’t it? To turn things around.

  “What did you say?” Earl demanded. “What are you out of?”

  “Here,” Gabe said flatly. “I’ve been here six weeks. That’s long enough.”

  Earl made a disapproving clucking sound. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be dismayed. You lasted longer than I thought even if you didn’t get the job done.”

  “I got the job done!”

  He told his grandfather he’d remedied the lack of local news. He told him about his new correspondents-Mrs. Peek and her cohorts from the Women’s Institute. He told the old man that the local touch brought back a bit of advertising. Beatrice, given a shot of confidence, had helped out enormously.

  “They’re advertising with us now,” Gabe said. “Revenues have increased sixfold.”

  “Sixfold?” Earl was gasping for air.

  “So far. It’s a risk, admittedly. If they don’t see an increase in business from the ads, chances are they won’t keep it up after six months or so. But I’ve got six-month commitments out of most of them. That ought to give whoever you bring in a chance to solidify things.”

  “That fellow Percy-”

  “Not Percy,” Gabe said. “Not if you want it to work.”

  “Really?” Earl was intrigued. “Who would you suggest?”

  “Beatrice. The one who wouldn’t let you talk to me.”

  “The secretary?” Earl sputtered.

  “She keeps the office running. She’s a quick study. She knows which side her bread is buttered on. She understands the business side of things. And she makes a damn fine cup of coffee.” She’d demanded that he teach her.

  “Humph. Coffee? Ugh. Beatrice, eh? I’ll think about it,” he said. “I want all these recommendations on paper. I want a rundown of all the figures since you arrived. I want a starting point and a current update.”

  “I’ll fax them to you.”

  “Bring them. You’re coming to see me before you leave certainly. Aren’t you?”

  Was he?

  Gabe guessed he was. He would have preferred to simply hightail it right out of the country without having to undergo Earl’s scrutiny. But who knew when he’d see the old badger again? And he wanted the satisfaction of showing his grandfather he’d done far better than the old man had expected, didn’t he?

  Of course he did.

  But mostly he wanted to be gone.

  He didn’t want to have to sit across the table from Freddie any longer and look at the woman who wanted him with her body but not with her heart and soul. He didn’t want to see her, to listen to her, to talk to her.

  There was no point, damn it!

  “When are you coming?” Earl asked.

  “Soon,” Gabe promised. “By the end of the week for sure.”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised when he said he was leaving.

  He’d ridden in, rescued the Gazette, and was about to ride off into the sunset. It was exactly what cowboys did.

  All the same, she felt as if she’d been
punched in the stomach when he said he’d be leaving on Friday.

  Both Charlie and Emma looked positively stricken. Then Charlie said hopefully, “Just to go to London? To see your grandfather?”

  “I’m stopping there,” Gabe agreed. “Then I’m going home. To Montana.” His tone was firm, his words determined, but he didn’t look at any of them.

  After the first instant Freddie didn’t look at him either. She saw Charlie swallow and Emma bite her lip. It was all she could do not to bite her own. At the same time, she told herself it was just as well.

  Better than having him hanging around. Smiling at her. Teasing her.

  Tempting her.

  She didn’t know how long she would be able to resist him on a daily basis. The memories of a night of loving Gabe McBride might be wonderful, but he made no promises-they had no future.

  Not that she wanted one.

  He was like Mark-a man who took risks.

  Freddie couldn’t risk. Not again. She couldn’t even let herself love him and cherish the memories. They would never be enough.

  “But I don’t want him to go,” Emma said plaintively that night when Freddie was tucking her up in bed. Her lower lip stuck out and she looked pleadingly at her mother.

  “You knew he was going to. He only came to get the newspaper sorted out, that’s all,” Freddie said firmly.

  “Doesn’t have to be all,” Charlie said from the doorway where he slouched in his pajamas, arms folded across his chest. “He could stay. You could ask him to stay.”

  “I could do no such thing, Charles Crossman! I would never!”

  “Well, you ought to,” Charlie said stubbornly. “He’d be a good father.”

  As much as she wanted to, Freddie couldn’t deny that. But she pressed her lips into a tight line. “He’s not interested in being a father.” And even if he were, he was not the man she would choose.

  “He likes us,” Emma maintained. “He likes kids. He said so.”

  “I’m sure he does. And perhaps someday he’ll have his own,” Freddie said, and was surprised how much the thought hurt.