Always a McBride (10 page)

Taylor should have been relieved. He'd thought of nothing but her and that damn wedding-ring quilt all night, and by dawn, he'd decided that he had no business going anywhere with her, least of all into the back country, where they would be cut off from the rest of the world for the entire weekend. Granted, Zeke and Elizabeth would be there, so it wasn't as if he would be completely alone with her, but an entire army of people could have been with them and he knew it wouldn't have made a difference. There was just some
thing about Phoebe that he couldn't ignore. The way she moved, the way she kissed…

Irritated with himself for letting his thoughts drift there, he opened his mouth to tell her that he would give the McBrides her regrets, only to hear himself say perversely, “You can't back out at the last minute. Zeke and Elizabeth are expecting you.”

“They'll understand.”

“Maybe they will, but I don't. I thought you wanted to see the wolves.”

“I do.”

“Then why are you looking for an excuse to back out?”

“I'm not!”

“Good. Because if anyone should be going, it's you. The McBrides are your friends—and you're the one who wanted to see the wolves.”

Even as the words rolled off his tongue, Taylor wondered what the hell he was doing. He needed some space, some time to get his head on straight and put this crazy desire he had for her in perspective. So what was he doing? Pushing her to go! He was losing his mind—there was no other explanation. And it was all her fault!

So why are you pushing her to go?
a voice in his head demanded.
You wanted some space—she's giving it to you. Accept it and be grateful for it!

He should have. He meant to. But in the time it took to blink, he heard himself say, “You were the one who told me I needed to play more. The same applies to you. And don't worry about all the work you've got to do. I'll help you.”

Hesitating, Phoebe couldn't believe she was hearing correctly. “You're going to help me with the laundry?”

“If you need me to. Unless you've got a problem with that, of course.”

“You're a guest,” she reminded him. “Guests don't do the laundry.”

“And innkeepers don't drive guests all over the countryside, introducing them to their friends and neighbors,” he pointed out. “But that didn't stop you from helping me. This is your opportunity to see the wolves. I don't think you should miss that.”

She should have thanked him for the offer and politely turned him down. Her eyes only had to meet his for her to know that that would have been the smart thing for her to do. But he touched a yearning in her she couldn't resist, and it had nothing to do with the wolves. She was playing with fire, but she couldn't resist. Giving in, she sighed, “All right. But you're not helping me with the laundry when we get back!”

T
hey were only going to be gone for the weekend, but Zeke and Elizabeth brought enough food and supplies for an army. They were still packing the horses outside the barn behind the homestead when Taylor and Phoebe arrived and added their own bags to the mix. “You never know what you're going to need,” Zeke said with a twinkle in his eye as he looked pointedly at his wife. “Some people insist on eating like they're just going into town to a steak house. We've got T-bones and pork chops and wine—”

Grinning, Elizabeth retorted, “Don't forget the feather bed. It seems to me I heard someone say he wasn't a kid anymore and couldn't be expected to sleep on the ground. I think he even brought his pillow.”

“You must have been talking to Joe again,” he tossed back, flashing his dimples at her. “You know how he is, sweetheart. He's getting old—”

Stepping out of the barn at that moment, Joe warned
teasingly, “Watch who you're calling old, little brother. You're the one who needed help getting off your horse the last time we went riding. If I remember correctly, you weren't moving too good for about a week after that. Elizabeth said you went through a whole tube of Ben-Gay in one day.”

“I own stock in the company,” he retorted. “I do what I can to help my fellow shareholders.”

Rolling his eyes, Joe snorted. “Yeah, right.” Turning to Phoebe and Taylor, he grinned. “Angel and the kids went to visit her dad for a few days, so I thought I'd go check out the wolves with the four of you…just in case you need my help getting Zeke off his horse.”

Phoebe grinned. “This might be the time for me to admit that it's been a while since I've been riding.
I
may be the one you have to help off a horse.”

Far from worried, Joe chuckled. “You've been getting on and off horses by yourself since Janey and I taught you to ride when you were five years old. The day you can't do that, it's time for all of us to get rocking chairs.”

“Actually, you might want to get a ladder, instead,” Taylor said ruefully. “I've never been on a horse in my life.”

“Then it's about time you were,” Joe replied, undaunted. “C'mon, let's get you saddled up. I've got a chestnut in the barn that's just perfect for you.”

 

The chestnut looked as big as a house, but with Joe's assistance and instruction, Taylor soon found himself observing his surroundings from the back of a horse. It was, he had to admit, a different perspective. He hadn't lied when he'd said he'd never ridden, and though he
wouldn't have said he was nervous, he would have been a fool not to have been at least cautious.

He needn't have worried. The minute Joe had him walk his mount around the corral, he felt as comfortable as if he'd been riding all his life.

Pleased, Joe said, “Not bad for a city slicker. I'd say you're a natural.”

Without knowing it, Joe had struck a nerve. If he was a natural, then it had to be in the genes, Taylor thought grimly. Anger, old and familiar, tightened like a fist in his gut, but it wasn't his brothers and sisters he was angry with. It was Gus.
He
was the one who'd been irresponsible, the one who had left a woman pregnant when he returned to the one he claimed to really love. And he'd never looked back, never, apparently, thought there was any need to.

“You're going to be a sore natural by the end of the day,” Zeke warned with a grin. “But then, again, you won't be the only one. Let's go.”

With their gear loaded onto the pack horse, the five of them fell into line and soon left the homestead behind. To the west, the mountains beckoned. Taking the lead, Zeke set an easy pace and headed through the trees toward the first ridge.

When Zeke had invited him to join them on their trip to the back country, Taylor had seen it as a chance to learn more about his family. He hadn't stopped to consider that he would also have an opportunity to explore the ranch where his father—and ancestors—had lived and died.

He'd known the ranch was big, of course—he'd already checked out the deed at the country courthouse—but it was impossible to visualize its vastness until he was actually in the middle of it. Almost in the time it
took to blink, civilization was left behind. He knew the homestead was less than ten miles away, but as they climbed higher into the mountains, it seemed as if there wasn't another living soul for a thousand miles or more. And just that easily, he knew how the first McBrides must have felt when they moved to Colorado after the Civil War.

It was a humbling feeling.

Just weeks ago, he would have deeply resented the fact that his brothers and sisters had grown up with an incredible wilderness right in their backyard. He, on the other hand, had lived in a series of bare-bones apartments that hadn't even had a community playground for the kids, let alone mountains and streams and a vista of trees that stretched for as far as the eye could see. But how could he be angry and resentful in such an incredible setting?

“It's pretty awesome, isn't it?” Phoebe said as she dropped back to ride beside him for a few moments. “The first time I went camping with the McBrides, I was ten years old and I thought we'd stepped back into the Old West. Can you imagine going over these mountains in a covered wagon? Especially in the winter? I don't know how people did it.”

“They had to be pretty tough,” he agreed, and felt a pride in his McBride ancestors that surprised the hell out of him. He knew next to nothing about these people, not their names, where they came from, what they stood for. He might share the same DNA with them, but the McBrides weren't his family and never would be. Regardless of how tough they were, how hardy or tenacious, or what kind of empire they'd managed to carve out of the wilds of Colorado, they and their descendents
meant nothing to him. So where the hell did this feeling of pride come from?

Confused and more than a little annoyed, he discovered a part of him that wanted to come up with an excuse to go back to town. The rest of the crowd wouldn't have to change their plans—Phoebe could give him a key to Myrtle's and continue with the others up into the mountains. Some time by himself might be what he needed to get his head on straight.

But even as he acknowledged the wisdom of that, he couldn't deny the connection he felt to the land, and that surprised him. He'd never considered himself a rural man—he liked cities and all the amenities that they had to offer—but there was something about the ruggedness of the mountains, the whisper of the wind through the pines, the cry of a hawk in the distance, that seemed to call to a hollow spot in his soul. He told himself he was crazy—his imagination was playing tricks on him—but he couldn't bring himself to turn around and ride back down the mountain.

 

When they finally reached the canyon where they planned to spend the night, the afternoon was half gone and a storm was gathering high up in the mountains. Zeke took one look at the darkening sky and said, “I don't like the look of those clouds. We'd better set up the tents before it starts pouring.”

He didn't get any arguments from the others. “Let's set up under those big pines over by the creek,” Joe said. “The ground's not as rocky there, and the trees'll protect us some if it rains.”

They all quickly dismounted and began the task of setting up camp. First, the horses had to be taken care of. They were stripped of the gear they carried and their
saddles, then fed and watered. Only then did Joe and Zeke begin constructing the tents.

Already setting up the camp kitchen, Elizabeth said, “Phoebe, why don't you and Taylor collect some firewood? I'll use the Coleman stove to cook dinner, but we'll need some wood for a fire later. It'll get cold once the sun goes down.”

“We'd better hurry before it rains and the wood gets wet,” Taylor said, casting a wary eye at the darkening sky. “It looks like it's going to pour any minute.”

Phoebe had to agree. Just in the last few minutes, the wind had picked up, and in the distance, the rumble of thunder could clearly be heard. “We'll be back as quickly as we can,” she assured Elizabeth, and hurried away from camp with Taylor at her side.

Later, she couldn't have said how far they wandered from the campsite. Their eyes trained on the ground in front of them, they picked up one piece of fallen wood after another, but much of it was decomposing and wouldn't burn well. So they moved deeper into the canyon and never noticed that the clouds gathering overhead were becoming darker and darker.

Then, from out of nowhere, lightning split the sky with an angry crack of thunder. Startled, they both jumped, and only just then noticed that camp was nowhere in sight. “Damn!” Swearing, Taylor dropped the few pieces of wood he was carrying and grabbed her hand. “C'mon!”

Running, he pulled her with him toward a spot in the canyon wall fifty yards away where a rock jutted out, creating a shallow cave. Breathless, her heart pounding, Phoebe matched him step for step, but they were both running a race they couldn't win. Twenty feet from the
cave, it started to rain. And what began as a few sprinkles quickly turned into a downpour.

Gasping, her hair falling into her eyes, blinding her, Phoebe slipped on a slick rock, but before she could fall, Taylor snatched her up into his arms as if she weighed no more than a baby. With three long strides, he reached the cave.

Taylor released her almost immediately, but he couldn't step back—there was no room. The cave was little more than an alcove big enough for two. If either one of them moved the least little bit, they would find themselves standing in the rain.

Phoebe had never been afraid of storms, but then again, she'd never been trapped in one before. Overhead, lightning ripped across the dark sky with a crack of thunder that seemed to make the very ground tremble beneath their feet. The wind picked up, tearing at the trees, and the rain turned into a downpour.

Her heart racing and her eyes trained on the wild display being put on by Nature, Phoebe didn't realize she'd instinctively crowded closer to Taylor until she found herself pressed against him. Startled, she would have stepped back, but then suddenly, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of something moving through the trees in the rain. Her eyes narrowing, she peered through the misty rain, only to gasp when her gaze locked with the steely dark gaze of a wolf.

Beside her, Taylor went perfectly still, and she knew that he, too, saw the wolf. It stood near the edge of a thick stand of pines, blending into the shadows, its fur wet from the rain as it gazed unblinkingly at the shallow cave where she and Taylor had sought protection from the rain. Watching it, Phoebe felt tears sting her eyes. It was the most beautiful animal she'd ever seen in her
life. It showed no fear, no concern that humans had invaded its territory, but studied them as carefully as they studied it. Then, without warning, it silently slipped off into the trees like a gray ghost, disappearing as quietly as it had appeared. And just that easily, she understood why Zeke and Elizabeth had fought so hard to reintroduce the wolves back into this area of the Colorado Rockies.

How long they stood there, staring at the spot where the wolf had disappeared, she couldn't have said. The magic of the moment was still in her eyes when she made the mistake of looking up at the same time Taylor looked down. Something passed between them, something shared, something hushed and intimate that set her heart pounding.

“That was pretty incredible, wasn't it?”

His low, rough growl reached out and stroked her like a caress, stealing her breath, and it was a long moment before she could find her voice. “I've heard about the wolves for years, but I never expected to feel like this when I saw one,” she said huskily, and prayed he didn't ask for an explanation of what she meant by
this.
Because
this
was the wonder of seeing the wolf…with him, of sharing it…with him. Did he have a clue what his nearness did to her? Could he hear the pounding of her heart? Did he know how much she wanted him to touch her? Hold her? Kiss her?

She prayed her expression wouldn't give her away, but there must have been something in her face, a look in her eyes, that caught his attention. His gaze narrowed on hers, and, for a moment, she couldn't seem to catch her breath. Then he reached for her and stepping into his arms seemed to be the most natural thing in the world.

Lightning flashed overhead, but the world could have stopped rotating on its axis and she never would have noticed. Her heart pounding, every bone in her body melting, she didn't want him to ever let her go. Later, she knew that would bother her, but for now, she didn't want to think, didn't want to do anything but kiss him again and again and again. Crowding closer, she sighed his name, aching for more.

 

He was losing his mind.

Taylor told himself he had to stop this—now, while he still had some measure of his common sense left. But how was he supposed to think straight when the feel and scent and taste of her went straight to his head? He couldn't remember the last woman who had felt so damn good in his arms. She kissed him back with a hunger that matched his own and all he wanted to do was pick her up and carry her off to some dry spot in the woods where he could spend the rest of the day and night making love to her.

Images played in his mind, teasing him, heating his blood, and before he could stop to consider the wisdom of his actions, he gave in to the need and swept her up in his arms. Startled, she gasped softly…and sweetly wound her arms around his neck. That easily, he was lost. Groaning at the feel of her against him, he unthinkingly stepped out from under the protection of the rocky ledge that protected them from the weather.

Cold rain pounded down on their heads and shoulders, bringing them back to their surroundings with a jolt. Startled, they broke apart with a gasp…and looked up at the sky as if they'd never seen rain before. Almost immediately, they were both soaked; the mood was broken.