Blood Brothers

been very kind of him just to tell you stories.”

“He could show me other stuff,” Emma said stubbornly.

“Like roping.” Charlie followed them out of his bedroom. “I’d like to know how to rope. And brand. And-”

“No branding,” Gabe said, “But I’ll teach you to rope.”

“We don’t have a rope!” Freddie felt like the little boy with his thumb in the dike.

Gabe didn’t even seem to hear. “And maybe we could find a horse or two and go riding.”

“Enough!” Freddie raised her voice. “Bedtime.” She glared at him. “Eight seconds. You promised.”

He opened his mouth. Their eyes met. He closed his mouth. He nodded, then looked sternly from one child to the other.

“Hit the hay now,” he said gently. “Both of you. Cowboys-and cowgirls- do what the boss tells ’em to.”

Unfortunately there were no cowboys or cowgirls working for the Gazette.

So Gabe did it all. He called the local electrician to update the wiring. He ordered three computers and all the relevant software. He bought coffee.

And then he waited expectantly, as no doubt Randall would have done, for the Gazette employees to see which way their leader had pointed and hop to and get things done.

After a week-and-a-half, the lights were brighter. There were power points-the British not only didn’t understand him when he talked, they had different words for everything, even electrical outlets!-galore, but the computers sat on the desks unbooted and the software still hadn’t been opened.

Neither had the coffee.

The editorials were as pompous and as unrelated to village concerns as they’d ever been. And there were no new local advertisers even though he’d told Beatrice to call every shop in town.

Gabe was ready to tear his hair. So much for the voice of authority. So much for being lord and master.

It might work for Randall, but it damn sure didn’t work for him.

Of course Randall’s reputation for hard work and smart decisions preceded him. They knew they could trust him.

Gabe had no reputation. He was, he realized as he sat behind his desk, like a new foreman, untried, untested. Untrusted.

And just like that new straw boss, he’d have to prove himself. That was the problem here. He’d been trying to be Randall when he should have been himself.

He stood up. He flung everything he could find into his briefcase-God, a briefcase! What had he become?-and announced that he was going home.

“Home?” Beatrice looked up, startled. “To America?”

Percy was triumphant. “So much for cowboy ways,” he muttered as Gabe headed toward the door.

Gabe stopped and turned back. “I’m going to Mrs. Crossman’s to map out our route. I’ll be here on Monday bright and early,” he said, his gaze moving from one mystified face to the next and finally settling on Percy. A slow smile spread across Gabe’s. “Get ready to cowboy up.”

Three

There was supposed to be a ghost at Stanton Abbey. A Presence, with a capital P. A monk fretting about how he and his brethren were tossed out on their ears by Henry VIII. Freddie had never met him. She wasn’t inclined to believe in the presence of something not there.

Until Gabe McBride moved into her house.

Then, even when he wasn’t there physically-even when she knew he was well and truly out of the house, down at the Gazette or over at the pub-somehow he was still there.

Of course he was, she thought irritably. Charlie and Emma never stopped talking about him. They lived and breathed Gabe McBride.

“Gabe can do this…Gabe thinks that…Do you think Gabe would like to… Gabe’s teaching me to rope…Gabe’s teaching me to ride…God bless Mummy and Granny and Gran’pa and Gabe.”

Was it any wonder, Freddie thought, that she couldn’t get him out of her mind?

She blamed Charlie and Emma and Gabe himself, but she knew the fault was at least partly hers. There was some fatal flaw deep inside her that worked like a magnet, drawing her toward unsuitable men.

It might have helped if she’d been able to go out to work everyday. She could have distracted herself.

But as caretaker, she spent the day on the grounds and in the abbey where every time she turned around generations of Stantons, many of whom had the same dark hair and deep blue eyes as Gabe McBride, stared down at her. It was like being surrounded with two-dimensional versions of a man already inhabiting her head.

And then at night she went home to the real thing.

He was becoming like a member of the family, just as he preferred. The children were thrilled. Freddie was not. He was too handsome, too active, too…too… male.

He made her want things she knew she shouldn’t want.

He made the kids want things they shouldn’t want either-like adventure, excitement, danger. Risks.

“A little adventure never hurt anyone,” Gabe said. “They’re entirely too sheltered. They need a little excitement.”

Storytelling, Freddie thought. That was excitement enough. Gabe and the children disagreed.

When Freddie woke up Saturday morning, the house was extraordinarily quiet.

For a few minutes she thought that they’d all had a long lie-in. Then she realized that, while Gabe was grown up enough to appreciate the value of a late weekend morning, Charlie and Emma would never waste a Saturday morning on sleep!

Something was seriously amiss.

Freddie bolted out of bed, grabbed her dressing gown and ran to check the bedrooms. As she’d feared, both children were gone. She clattered down the stairs. Cereal bowls were rinsed and stacked on the counter. The table was wiped clean-except for a note.

“We’ve gone to be cowboys,” Charlie had written, “in Bolts’ field.”

Cowboys? In Bolts’ field?