Always a McBride (15 page)

With nothing more than words, he touched her heart and set tears welling in her eyes. Embarrassed, she dropped her gaze and tried to shrug off the moment with a self-deprecating laugh. “You won't be saying that if I burn the pie. I need to check on it.”

He should have let her go, but he couldn't, not when her eyes still glistened with the remnants of tears and she was kissing close. Did she know how soft her skin was under his hands? Or how intoxicating she smelled, fresh from her bath? He'd been thinking of nothing but her since he'd pulled her down into the hammock with him, and that only made him want her more. With a soft groan, he growled, “In a minute,” and leaned down to cover her mouth with his.

Sweet. Did she knew how the taste of her went to his head? he wondered, groaning as she kissed him back with a quiet hunger that was nearly his undoing. Given the chance, he would have swept her up in his arms and carried her off to his bed, where he would have spent the rest of the day and night making love to her.

But that wasn't an option, and she knew that as well as he did. “I have to go,” she said huskily, pulling out of his arms. “The guests will be here soon—”

Downstairs, the doorbell rang, startling them both. Horrified, Phoebe looked down at the robe she'd pulled on after her bath. “Oh, my God! They're here and I'm not even dressed! And the pie! It's going to burn—”

She would have turned and rushed down the stairs, but Taylor caught her by the arm, stopping her in her tracks. “I'll take care of the pie and the guests. You get dressed. Go,” he said, gently pushing her toward her room. “Everything's going to be fine.”

She wanted to argue—it was her responsibility to take care of her guests—but she knew he was right. If she rushed downstairs like a madwoman and greeted the new arrivals in nothing but a robe while the pie burned in the oven, Myrtle would probably never again have another paying guest.

“I'll be down as quickly as I can,” she assured him, hurrying toward her room. “Give me five minutes.”

 

It was more like ten minutes than five before she made her way downstairs, but she quickly discovered that Taylor had everything well in hand. The pie was cooling on a wire rack in the kitchen, and Taylor was visiting with an older couple in the front parlor. Surprised, Phoebe stopped short at the sight of them. She was expecting two couples…the Coopers and the Winstons, both of whom were newlyweds. She had forgotten that Myrtle had told her that the Coopers were octogenarians.

Spying her in the doorway, Taylor turned to her with a smile, his brown eyes twinkling. “Here's Phoebe now. Phoebe, this is Lawrence Cooper and his bride, Doris. They just got married this morning in Albuquerque.”

Doris Cooper grinned. “I know, dear. Isn't it outrageous, two old-timers like us getting married? But it was better that than living in sin. Our children would have had a stroke!”

Liking her immediately, Phoebe had to laugh. “I think it's wonderful. How long have you two known each other?”

“Since I was an MP in the Second World War,” Lawrence said with a boyish flash of dimples. “She was a WAC who stole my heart, then got shipped to En
gland. I hadn't seen her in fifty years, then suddenly she tracked me down on the Internet two months ago, after her husband died. We've been together ever since.”

“Our kids wanted to send us on a cruise,” Doris confided, “but we didn't care about all that. We just wanted to go somewhere quiet where we could just relax and enjoy each other.” Glancing around at the parlor, which Myrtle had decorated so beautifully with exquisite antiques, she smiled. “This is perfect. It reminds me of my grandmother's house.”

“It
is
my grandmother's house,” Phoebe told her. “She's on a cross-country trip right now, but she'll be pleased that you like it. Can I show you to your room? I gave you the suite overlooking the garden. It gets the morning sun.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Doris said. “I love waking up with the sun. How early is breakfast served, dear? Can we have coffee in our room?”

“Of course,” Phoebe said easily as she led the way to the stairs. “I'm usually up by five-thirty. All of our pastries and bread are made from scratch each morning, so I have to get an early start. The first rolls are usually ready by seven, but I start the coffee the minute I come downstairs. I can send some up to your room if you'd like. Just call me on the house phone when you wake up.”

Following with the luggage as Phoebe and the Coopers made their way upstairs, Taylor couldn't help but marvel at the way Phoebe treated the older couple. She was as comfortable with them as if she'd known them their entire lives, rather than a matter of moments, so consequently they were completely at ease. Lawrence shared a joke with her, Doris asked if she could trade recipes with her, and by the time they
reached their room, Phoebe knew the names and ages of all their grandchildren.

Amazed, Taylor had to smile when she invited the older couple to join her and Taylor for dinner and they eagerly accepted. How had she known that they would want company for dinner? They were on their honeymoon, for heaven's sake! But they did seem to enjoy meeting and talking to people, and they must have recognized a kindred spirit in Phoebe. How could they not? She was a natural.

The Winstons, however, were a completely different kettle of fish. Phoebe had hardly settled the Coopers in their suite when the other couple arrived. Young and obviously very much in love, Peter and Heather Winston were quiet and private, but Phoebe was still able to draw them out as she showed them to their room. “I was going to put you in the bridal suite on the second floor, but I really think you'll enjoy the third-floor suite more. You'll have the entire floor to yourself, and you'll also have a great view of the mountains. You're going to have to climb two flights of stairs, though. If that's a problem, the second-floor suite is just as nice.”

The decision was theirs. The bride and groom exchanged a silent look, and suddenly, hot color was rising in their cheeks. “This third floor will be fine,” Peter Winston said huskily.

Carrying up their luggage, Taylor liked to think that he was an astute man, but he had to admit that it had never crossed his mind that the young newlyweds might be worried about their privacy—after all, the old Victorian house was huge. Still, the Winstons were young—they looked as if they were barely out of high school—and this was their first night together as man and wife. Phoebe had not only sensed that they were
nervous about spending their wedding night right down the hall from a house full of strangers, but she'd also tactfully found a way to make them more comfortable without stating the obvious.

“If you need anything, just let me know,” she added as Taylor set their luggage just inside the door of their suite. “And champagne and dinner will be served at seven, compliments of the inn. If you'd like, you can have it on the balcony outside your room. It's no trouble to send it up to you—there's a dumbwaiter in the hall right outside your room. When you're finished, you can set your tray of dishes back in the dumbwaiter and send it back down to the kitchen.”

“Oh, that sounds great!” Heather said. “I've never been in a house with a dumbwaiter.”

“Then why don't I send everything up a little before seven?” Phoebe suggested with a smile. “A buzzer will sound in the hall when it reaches your floor.”

Just that easily, Phoebe offered the young couple complete privacy. Watching her, seeing the smiles on her guests' faces, Taylor found himself incredibly proud of her. Just a week ago, that would have scared the hell out of him. Always a cautious man, he'd never allowed himself to get involved enough in a woman's life to feel anything other than desire and liking for her. For no other reason than that, he should have taken a step back from Phoebe and immediately put their relationship back on a less personal level. But the more he got to know her, the more she fascinated him. Considering that, the last thing he could do now was step back.

So, when she went back downstairs to begin the meal for all the newlyweds, he didn't retreat to his room as he normally would have. Instead, he lit the candles in the front parlor and dining-room, then built a fire in the
dining room fireplace. It might have been the middle of June, but the nights were cool, and considering the newlyweds in the house, the evening seemed to call for the romance of a fire.

“Oh, that's nice!” Phoebe said with a pleased smile when she stepped into the dining room carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres and found the room aglow with candlelight. “Doris is going to love it.”

“She seems like an easy touch when it comes to romance. Does your grandmother have any music? It's a good night for a little Frank Sinatra.”

“According to my grandmother, it's always a good night for a little Frankie,” she retorted with a grin. “The music cabinet in the front parlor is filled with his albums. Take your pick.”

Taylor had never considered himself a romantic—he'd never felt the need to give a woman hearts and flowers and candlelight—but he found himself enjoying the idea of setting the stage for Doris's wedding night. Poor Lawrence wasn't going to know what hit him.

Grinning at the thought, he found a Sinatra album he instinctively knew Doris would love and immediately started the phonograph. Within minutes, the familiar strains of Frank Sinatra drifted through the downstairs. Almost immediately, Doris and Lawrence appeared in the doorway of the front parlor. Her blue eyes sparkling with delight, Doris grinned at Taylor, who she caught in the act of adjusting the volume. “Don't touch that dial, young man! Us old folks don't hear as well as we used to.”

“Old folks, my eye,” Taylor retorted, his brown eyes glinting with humor. “You won't be old when you're ninety, Mrs. Cooper.”

“That's Doris to you,” she replied sweetly. “How did you know I liked Frank Sinatra?”

“All the best people do,” he said simply, grinning. “And just for the record, I wasn't turning it down. I was turning it up.”

“A wise man,” Lawrence said with a wink. “She can turn nasty when anyone gets between her and Frank Sinatra.”

“My grandmother's the same way,” Phoebe said from the dining room as she stepped from the kitchen with an ice bucket and a bottle of chilled champagne. “Come to think of it, I'm pretty fond of Old Blue Eyes, myself. There's just something about the way he sings a love song. Speaking of which—”

“What?” Taylor teased. “Love songs?”

“Love,” she corrected him, offering champagne to the newlyweds, then Taylor. “I think it's time for a toast.” With a smile at the Coopers, she held up her glass. “To love…”

“And marriage,” Taylor added, raising his glass.

“And Viagra,” Lawrence said with a wicked smile.

“Lawrence!”

“What?” he asked with pretended innocence when his wife tried to frown reprovingly. “I bought stock in the company. I hope it goes up.”

For a moment, no one said a word. Then Doris's eyes met those of her new husband and she giggled. “Me, too.”

 

Phoebe couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so much…or enjoyed an evening more. When she came downstairs the next morning at five-thirty to start the coffee cakes and pastries that Myrtle had taught her to make when she was just a child, she was still
grinning over the stories Doris and Lawrence had told over dinner. If she ever got married, she hoped she was lucky enough to have the same type of relationship the Coopers shared. They were made for each other.

“Good morning.”

Lost in her thoughts as she gathered the ingredients she would need for the morning baking, she jumped, her heart in her throat, and whirled to find Taylor standing in the kitchen doorway. “Oh! You startled me! I didn't think anyone else was awake. Did you want some coffee? It'll just take a minute—”

“No, I'll do it,” he said, and stepped toward the pantry at the same time she did.

Phoebe couldn't have said who bumped into whom, but suddenly, Taylor's hands were on her arms, holding her just inches away from him, and her body was humming with need. Her heart pounding, she only had to look into his eyes to know that he felt it, too, that same, familiar need that haunted her dreams and made her ache for him whenever he stepped into her thoughts.

“I'll make the coffee,” he said huskily. “You concentrate on your baking. I'll help with the rest of the meal. What do you need done? Is it too early to cook the bacon? Or were you going to serve sausage? What's on the menu?”

Phoebe couldn't have been more surprised if he'd stood on his hands and done a back flip right there in her grandmother's kitchen. “You know how to cook?”

“Watch it, sweetheart,” he said with a grin. “That remark was more than a little bit sexist. Of course I can cook. My mother believed that a man should know how to cook and clean and take care of himself. I may not be a gourmet, but I can handle bacon and eggs, and I make a damn good hollandaise.”

Surprised, she arched a brow at him. “Your mother taught you to make hollandaise?”

“Actually, I worked in a restaurant when I was in college,” he admitted with a wry grin. “So what would you like me to do? Bacon and eggs? Hollandaise? Or my specialty…cinnamon toast?”

“All of the above,” she replied, flashing her dimples at him, “but you need to hold off on the eggs and toast until the newlyweds buzz for their coffee. In the meantime, you could squeeze some fresh orange juice for me, if you wouldn't mind. The oranges are in the refrigerator.”

“No problem,” he said easily. “But first, I'll start the coffee.”

He strode over to the pantry as if he'd lived there all his life, and, within minutes, he had the coffee perking in the coffeemaker and fresh juice squeezed. Without having to ask what needed to be done next, he washed strawberries and grapes for a fresh fruit platter, then cored a pineapple with the skill of a sous chef.