Blood Brothers

himself. You’re tough. In control.

Oh, yeah.

“M-maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” he whispered hoarsely, pulling back, edging away.

She blinked, looked at him, worried. “N-no?” She sounded crestfallen.

“I want-” But he couldn’t blurt out what he wanted. She knew. He bent his head and sucked in a harsh breath. “I want it to be right.”

He lifted his gaze to see if she understood. He wasn’t even sure he understood exactly what he meant by that. He just knew this wasn’t it.

She looked confused, then her expression cleared. A small smile touched her lips. “Oh, Gabe,” she whispered. And then she leaned toward him and touched her lips to his; her tongue touched his.

So much for control.

“Fred!” He jerked back, gasping.

“Huh? D’ja see ’im?” Charlie’s eyes blinked open.

Freddie yanked herself upright against the headboard. Gabe, aching, gritted his teeth and tried to answer. “Just heard a noise. Pounding sound.”

The blood in his veins. Throbbing. Pulsing. Beating him to death.

Charlie rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Stupid ghost,” he muttered. He scooted up the bed and laid his head in his mother’s lap. His eyes shut. He slept.

Over the children Gabe and Freddie looked at each other. She smiled a little wryly.

“Maybe we should just go home,” he said.

Freddie sang as she folded the laundry. She did clever little dance steps while she dusted the parlor. She hummed as she cooked dinner.

“Glad to see you’re smiling more,” Mrs. Peek had said just this morning when she’d stopped by.

“What?” Freddie hadn’t been aware of any such thing.

“Of course, that han’sum Gabe McBride’d make any woman smile.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Freddie lied.

But Mrs. Peek just smiled. She was in love with Gabe herself, and not just because he was “han’sum.” Because on Monday when she’d come by as Gabe was leaving for the office, he asked her to come work for him.

For the first time in her life, Mrs. Peek had been speechless. She’d stared at him with round, astonished eyes. “You want us to work for ’ee, Mr. McBride?”

“You bet I do. You understand this community a whole lot better than plummy Percy.” And he’d put her bicycle in the back of the Range Rover and the two of them had gone off to the Gazette together.

Later he told Freddie he reckoned Mrs. Peek was a woman to ride the river with.

“What?” Freddie looked at him, mystified.

“It’s what we say about a good hand. You can trust him with your life. Mrs. Peek’s like that. Besides, she’s a natural for the staff. She has a finger in every pie-and an ear in every house. She’s without a doubt the best news gatherer in the county. Stantons might as well pay her for doing what she’s going to do anyway.”

Best of all, Percy had had a fit about it.

It was the beginning of the end for Percy.

Mrs. Peek gathered news. Gabe wrote it.

“I’ll do the editorial this week,” he told Percy the day he hired Mrs. Peek.

“But we’ve never-”

“You bet we haven’t,” Gabe cut in, “but we’re starting to. Now.”

And when Percy had continued to bluster, Gabe had said, “You know how we settle these things in Montana?” He’d curled his fingers into fists.

Percy mumbled, shuffled, and, according to Gabe, “high-tailed it out of the office just like that. He didn’t seem to want to slug it out,” Gabe said. He was wearing a wide, satisfied grin.

Things continued to improve at the Gazette.

Gabe commandeered Beatrice. He made his own coffee, bought a box of tea bags for everyone else and told her she was now in charge of advertising.

“Me?” Beatrice stared at him.

“Why not you? You know everyone in Buckworthy.” He took her door to door in Buckworthy, introducing himself and Beatrice to each and every shopkeeper.

“They all know me,” Beatrice protested.

“That’s the point. They know you, not me. You’re going to help us connect. You’re going to help the Gazette figure out how to help them.”

So with Beatrice at his side, Gabe went around the entire village, shook every hand and sat down to discuss the Gazette. He asked each one how to make the paper best serve the town and the surrounding villages. It was the first time in memory anyone had asked. The shopkeepers talked to him. They talked to Beatrice. And, as always, they talked to Mrs. Peek.

“We need a lot more Mrs. Peeks,” he told Freddie. “One or two per village.”

“Try the Women’s Institute.” She could just imagine what they’d say when a booted, jeans-clad Montana cowboy showed up among those sedate, virtuous ladies. Gabe McBride would really give them something to pray about.

She thought he wouldn’t go. But she learned very quickly not to underestimate Gabe McBride.

“Great idea,” he told her afterward. “It helped that they’d read my editorial in today’s paper. They seemed to know who I was.”

Freddie could have told him they’d known who he was the minute he set foot in the county. But she couldn’t have predicted his success-on his own terms.

“He’s a breath of fresh air,” Mrs. Peek said.

Freddie thought, a whirlwind more like.

Certainly he’d swept through her life and turned it upside down. He’d made her heart beat faster, her pulse race. He’d made her feel alive again.

She was exhilarated. And scared.

She shouldn’t be humming and dancing and singing, and she knew it.

There was no future for her and Gabe McBride.

He’d made no secret that he wasn’t stopping. He was going home to Montana in weeks, days even. He’d made no bones about being single and determined to stay that way.

She wondered about this Claire he’d mentioned, but a few circumspect questions convinced her that he wasn’t interested in Claire-or any other woman. He was playing the field.

And yet…

And yet the night they’d spent together in the bed at the abbey, he hadn’t pressed. Of course he wouldn’t. How could he with Emma and Charlie there. But he’d kissed. His eyes had