Blood Brothers

promised. And he’d said, “I want it to be right.”

As if sometime it would be.

Freddie wanted it, too. Desperately. She wanted Gabe.

She was a fool.

She couldn’t help it.

Four

Percy didn’t give in easily.

Gabe didn’t care. And not only because he relished a good fight.

Once he figured out that the same determination that went into riding a bull and working cattle would help him with the Gazette, once he understood that he didn’t have to be Randall to succeed, life got a whole lot easier.

And if Percy wanted to draw himself up to his full five feet seven and say, “Over my dead body,” every day, well, that was fine with Gabe.

It would give him that much more time to stay with Freddie and the kids.

It amazed him how involved he’d become with Freddie and her family in a few short weeks. The sheep roping led to the cow roping. Nightly stories of life in the west led to him tracking down videos of movies about cowboys and about rodeo. Charlie and Emma had never seen a bull ride. So he called Randall and made him overnight them a video of the National Finals.

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.