by Linda Turner
But instead of returning to the inn, he found himself walking up the front steps to the library, after all. This was, he thought bitterly, his one and only chance to find out everything he could about Gus McBride and try to understand what his mother had possibly seen in such a worthless man. Then he planned to go home and forget the man he should have grown up calling Dad ever existed.
His chiseled face set in grim lines, he stepped inside the library and wasn’t surprised to find it practically deserted. After all, it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. An old woman sat at a desk in the genealogy area, obviously working on a family tree, and a thin man with bottle-thick glasses was comfortably ensconced in an old leather chair in the periodical section, reading the Denver paper. Other than the librarian, who was busy dusting the shelves, they had the place to themselves.
Which was just the way he wanted it, Taylor thought as he found the local history section and the newspaper archives. He wanted to be left in peace to satisfy his curiosity about Gus, then he was getting the hell out of Liberty Hill.
Deciding to start with the end of his father’s life and work backwards, he pulled out the newspaper archives and began searching for his obituary. A computer would have made the job go much faster, but the Liberty Hill library was obviously caught in a time warp. There wasn’t a computer anywhere in sight.
Not that that was a problem, he soon discovered. Even though Gus had died years ago, searching for his obituary wasn’t nearly as difficult as it would have been in a city. Liberty Hill was a small community, and there were only a few deaths recorded in the local paper each week. Finding the obits from twenty years ago only took a matter of minutes.
GUS MCBRIDE DIES!
The all-cap headlines of the obituary seemed to jump right off the page and slap him in the face. Taylor stiffened, and just that easily, found himself reading about his father’s life.
Gus McBride died October 3, 1983, at his ranch in Liberty Hill, at the age of 44. He is survived by his loving wife, Sara J. McBride, children: Joseph McBride, Jane McBride, Zeke McBride, and Merry McBride, and numerous nephews and nieces.
A member of one of the founding families of Liberty Hill, Gus was president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association from 1979 to 1983, a Boy Scout leader for the last fifteen years of his life, and a deacon in his church. A loving father and husband, he will be sorely missed.
Visitation will be Tuesday night, October 5, between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., at Liberty Hill Funeral Chapel. Funeral services will be at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, October 6, at the funeral home, with interment following at the McBride family cemetery at Twin Pines, the family ranch.
Later, Taylor couldn’t have said how long he sat at one of the library’s time-worn oak tables, staring at his father’s faded obituary, before the words finally sank in. Phoebe had, without being aware of it, already informed him he had a sister. Now, it turned out, he had another sister and two brothers. When he’d planned the trip to Liberty Hill to search for his father, he’d known, of course, that there was a good possibility that he had a couple of half brothers or sisters walking around Colorado that he knew nothing about. He’d never dreamed there were four of them.
And he felt nothing. Nothing but resentment.
If his mother had been alive, she would have been less than pleased with him. In spite of the fact that she’d been disowned by her own parents, she’d valued family and had always regretted the fact that she couldn’t give that to him. Although she’d never discussed the matter with him, he knew she would have wanted him to give his father’s other children a chance if they showed an interest in developing a relationship with him.
It wasn’t going to happen.
At the thought, he could almost hear his mother clicking her tongue at him in disapproval. But it took more than blood to make a family. The legitimate children of Gus McBride had been raised on the family ranch. They had grown up with all the rights and privileges of a McBride. They knew who their father was, their grandfather, where the family came from, where they, themselves would live and die. Hell, they even knew where they would be buried!
And what had been his birthright? Because of Gus McBride, he hadn’t had a father, hadn’t had grandparents—on either side! When he was little, there’d been no father to chase away the boogeyman in the closet when he had bad dreams, no dad to teach him to fish or hunt or the million and one other things a good father taught his children.
His mother had tried to step up and fill the roll of both parents, and he had to give her credit. She’d done a damn good job. But she couldn’t do it all. She was a woman, and there were times when she had to deal with her own fears. She’d needed a man, a husband, to protect her, just as he’d needed a father. They’d had neither.
Because Gus McBride had been halfway across the country, protecting his real family.
And Taylor would bet money that Zeke, Merry, Joe and Jane weren’t scared at night when they were growing up. They hadn’t worried about the bills or having enough money for new clothes for school each year. They didn’t hate the neighborhood they had to live in. They’d grown up in the Colorado Rockies, for heaven’s sake, on a ranch that was started by some of the first settlers in the area. That alone was like growing up in a national park.
Did they know how lucky they were? Growing up, they’d had it all. Taylor wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d thought their daddy was a saint. He wasn’t. Unfortunately, they’d never know that.
Unless he told them.
Deep down inside the very core of him, a voice reminded him that he wasn’t the kind of man—or lawyer—who hurt innocent people. Normally, he would have agreed, but the bitterness that rose in him every time he thought about Gus McBride drowned out his common decency. All he could think of was that it wasn’t fair that his father had escaped the consequences of his actions by dying. The truth had to be told.
And he was just the person to tell it, he thought grimly. The only problem was, it wasn’t just Gus’s children who needed to be told the truth about him. He wanted Sara to know. She was the one Gus had left his mother for. She was the reason he’d grown up without a father. If it hadn’t been for her, his mother would probably have contacted Gus as soon as she found out she was pregnant. She’d loved him. Because of Sara, she’d spent the rest of her life without him.
Nothing he could do now could change that or the heartache his mother had suffered. He still intended to tell Sara just what kind of man her deceased husband was, if for no other reason than it was time the truth came out. The only problem was…she was on her honeymoon and he didn’t know when she was coming back. It didn’t matter, he decided. He could wait.
“Oh, Phoebe, they’re adorable!” Merry McBride Kincaid cooed as she cuddled one of the puppies that had showed up under Myrtle’s back porch earlier that morning. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep one? It seems like fate that they ended up here, almost as if they’re supposed to belong to you. Maybe you should reconsider.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Phoebe laughed. “Don’t even think about trying to pawn one of them off on me. They’re just as sweet as they can be, but a puppy’s the last thing I need.”
“But it would be such company for you,” Merry said, her blue eyes twinkling. “C’mon, Phoebe, at least consider the idea. You know you want to. There’s no better way to get unconditional love.”
Phoebe didn’t doubt that—and there was nothing she loved more than a puppy—but the timing was all wrong. Her future was up in the air, her plans too uncertain. If working at Myrtle’s bed and breakfast turned out to be half as enjoyable as she knew it was going to be, then she had some major career decisions to make when she went back home. If she decided to follow her heart and open her own bed and breakfast, she’d have to find the appropriate location, sell her father’s business, move, get the business up and running. And she couldn’t do that with a puppy underfoot.
“Nice try,” she said with a grin, “but it’s not g
oing to work. I’ve got too much going on right now. Maybe next year.”
“Give me a call when you’re ready,” Merry said, understanding, as she returned the puppy she held to the box where his brothers and sisters were sleeping. “Someone’s always bringing me a stray litter of puppies.”
“You’re the first person I’ll call,” Phoebe assured her as Merry hefted the box of puppies and started down the central hall to the front door. “Here, let me get the door for you.”
Pulling the door open for her, she pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the front porch, only to find herself face to face with Taylor as he came up the steps to the porch. “Oh!” she said, startled, frowning as her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. Why did she always have this crazy reaction whenever she laid eyes on the man? She didn’t even like him! “I thought you were at the library.”
“I found everything I needed,” he replied, and glanced past her to Merry, who’d just stepped through the front door with the box of puppies.
Phoebe saw him catch his breath and wasn’t surprised. Everyone reacted to Merry that way when they met her for the first time. She was drop-dead gorgeous…and one of the nicest women Phoebe knew. Like all the McBrides, she would give the shirt off her back to someone in need.
“Merry, this is my first guest, Taylor Bishop,” she said, breaking the silence that had fallen with Taylor’s arrival. “He’s a writer. He’s doing a book on the ranching families that helped settle Colorado.”
“Oh, really?” Smiling easily, she said, “Then you need to talk to my mother and brothers. And Janey, too,” she added. “She did the family genealogy and traced the McBrides all the way back to Scotland.”
Still dazed, Taylor hardly heard her. This was his half sister? This was unbelievable. She was beautiful. She was—
“Taylor? Are you all right?”
Glancing up from his thoughts, he found both Phoebe and Merry grinning at him. For the first time in a long time, a blush stung his cheeks. “I feel like I just put my foot in my mouth and I didn’t say a word.”
“I seem to have that effect on people,” Merry chuckled. “It’s nice to meet you, Taylor. Welcome to Liberty Hill.”
“Thank you,” he said gruffly, and only just then realized that the puppies she was holding had to be heavy. “Here, let me take those for you. Where did you want them?”
“In my truck,” she said, nodding toward the white Explorer sitting at the curb. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he assured her, and easily carried the puppies to the truck.
“He’s nice,” Merry said quietly to Phoebe, “when he lets down his guard. He should do it more often.”
Phoebe didn’t know if she would have described him as nice or not, but she had to agree with Merry. When he forgot to be so angry, he was devastatingly attractive. Who would have thought it?
Walking with Merry out to her truck as Taylor carefully deposited the puppies in the back seat, she was still marvelling at the change in her guest’s attitude when he turned back to Merry and said solemnly, “Phoebe said your father is dead. I’m sorry to hear that. I was hoping to talk to as many of the old ranchers in the area as possible about the old days.”
“Dad would have enjoyed that,” she said with a smile. “I remember when I was a kid, he used to tell us stories about the ranch that his father told him.”
“How old were you when he died?”
“Twelve,” she replied. “It was a shock for all of us—he was only forty-four. My mother was in shock, of course, but I think it was hardest on my brother Joe. He was eighteen and about to go off to college when Dad died. Mom wanted him to go on and go, but Joe knew she couldn’t run the ranch by herself and raise the rest of us. So he did it for her.”
“What about college?” Taylor asked. “Did he ever go?”
“No,” she said simply. “Zeke went on to get his Ph.D, I went to veterinary school and Janey became an RN, but Joe never went. We owe him a lot. If he hadn’t run the ranch and helped put all of us through school, there’s no telling what any of us would be doing now.”
Taylor doubted that any of them would have ended up waiting tables—they all sounded too intelligent for that—but there was no question that their lives would have been different if it hadn’t been for the fact that Joe had sacrificed his own education for theirs. And that gave him a lot to think about. He’d always thought that if his father had any other children, they’d probably been blessed with a golden childhood, free of the worries and lack of security he’d grown up with. Apparently, they’d gone through rough times, too, if Joe had to give up college to keep the family afloat.
For a moment, he almost felt sorry for the unknown Joe. But then a bitter voice in his head pointed out that while he, himself, had been living in roach-invested government housing as a child, his half brothers and sisters had been growing up on a ranch that was, no doubt, nearly as big as Rocky Mountain National Park. Poor Joe? He didn’t think so.
“You would all have probably still found a way to go to college,” he retorted. “And your brother would still have turned out to be a rancher whether he went to college or not. It’s obviously in his blood.”
“Actually, it’s in all our blood,” Merry replied with a smile. “Janey and I might not be working the ranch like the boys, but we love it as much as they do. I guess that’s why we all built our homes within a few miles of the homestead. It’ll always be home.”
Because she was a McBride, Taylor thought grimly. A legitimate McBride. They all were. He wasn’t and never would be. There would be no home on the range for him, no sense of family, no belonging that they took for granted. Because their father—and his—had not been an honorable man.
“You know, you really should come out and see the ranch,” Merry told him with a smile. “We all get together once a week for dinner, just to keep in touch and find out what’s going on in each other’s lives. We’re going to Joe’s tonight. Why don’t you come? You, too, Phoebe,” she added. “We always have enough food for an army, and I know everyone would love to see you.”
Surprised, Phoebe blinked. “Oh, no, I couldn’t. It’s a family get-together. I wouldn’t want to intrude on that or Taylor’s work. I can see everyone another time.”
Elated—he’d never dreamed he’d be invited to the ranch this quickly!—Taylor was determined not to lose this chance. “You wouldn’t be intruding, Phoebe,” he assured her, “at least, not on my work. Most of my research involves talking to people, recording their conversations, and transcribing the tapes later. There’s no reason why you can’t be there, visiting with your friends. And I don’t have a car. Remember? I called Colorado Springs to see about getting a rental, but it won’t be delivered until tomorrow morning. So, in the meantime, I’m afoot. If you’ve got other plans and can’t go, I understand, but I could really use a ride. And if you’re going to drive me out there, you might as well stay to eat and visit.”
Put on the spot, she couldn’t come up with a reason to turn him down, especially when his plan made perfect sense. Reluctantly, she agreed. “If you’re both sure…”
“It’ll be fun,” Merry assured her, hugging her. “Be at Joe’s at seven. And don’t worry about bringing anything. Like I said, there’ll be plenty to eat.” The puppies chose that moment to cry out from her truck and she grinned. “It sounds like the natives are getting restless. I’ve got to go. See you both tonight.”
She was gone so fast, Phoebe didn’t have time to reconsider what she’d agreed to until it was too late. Then it hit her. For all practical purposes, she had agreed to attend a dinner party with Taylor. Dear God, they had a date and she didn’t even know how it had happened!
She should have backed out immediately. She loved the McBrides and didn’t doubt that she’d enjoy visiting with all of them, but not with Taylor. She hadn’t forgotten how her heart kicked at the sight of him. There was something about him that put her on edge, and for the life of her, she didn’t kn
ow why. She didn’t want to be so aware of him, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. And that troubled her. She hardly knew the man, and what she did know about him she wasn’t sure she liked. He was moody and surly, and too sophisticated for a woman like her. Knowing that, she should have kept her distance, been as cool and reserved as he, and looked forward to the day he checked out. Instead, she’d stupidly agreed to go to the McBrides’ with him. She must have been out of her mind.
At ten minutes to six, Phoebe stood in front of her closet, frowning at the meager supply of clothes she’d brought with her and wondering what in the world she was going to wear on a date that she was determined wasn’t going to be a date at all. She’d had all day to think about it, and she’d realized that the only reason Taylor had pushed her to accept Merry’s invitation was so that he’d have a ride out to the ranch. That should have calmed the butterflies that had fluttered in her stomach all afternoon. She was just giving him a ride, and for convenience’s sake, she’d stay to visit with her friends while he worked. In no way, shape or form, could that be considered a date.
So why did it feel like one?
Frowning at the thought, Phoebe told herself to grab something from the closet, anything. It didn’t matter what she wore—she didn’t have a date! She was just having dinner with some old friends and a guest who wasn’t the least bit interested in her. And that was fine. She wasn’t trying to attract his attention or look pretty for him. She could throw on anything decent, pull a brush through her hair, and she was good to go. No problem.
But knowing that and doing it were two different things. Every time she reached for something simple and comfortable, she found her hand drifting, instead, to something a little nicer, something soft and feminine that brought out the blue of her eyes. It was damned irritating.
Frustrated, she muttered, “You’re running out of time, Phoebe. Pick something!”