by Linda Turner
Just thinking about it clogged her throat with tears, but she could no longer put off the inevitable. “I’m upset with good reason,” she choked. “He claims he’s your father’s illegitimate son.”
For a long moment, the only reaction to her announcement was stunned silence. Then Joe growled, “That’s a damn lie!”
“The son of a bitch!”
“Dad would never have cheated on you!”
“He was crazy about you!”
Touched by their faith in their father, Sara couldn’t hold back the tears that filled her eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t believe it,” she sniffed. “There has to be another explanation.”
“Of course there is,” Dan agreed, slipping his arm around Sara’s shoulders. “I knew Gus all of his life. I never saw him look at another woman after he met you, sweetheart. Obviously, this Taylor character’s mistaken or you misunderstood him.”
If she hadn’t loved him before, Sara would have loved him then for standing up for Gus. They had been good friends, and Dan had known Gus all his life. Unfortunately, all the faith in the world couldn’t change what she’d seen with her own two eyes.
“Oh, I understood him, all right,” she sniffed, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “He didn’t need to say a word. I saw the resemblance between him and Gus the second I laid eyes on him.”
For a second, her words didn’t register. When they did, Zeke rasped, “What are you saying, Mom? You can’t really believe that Dad would…that he…”
“Betrayed me and got another woman pregnant?” she finished for him when he couldn’t find the words. “I don’t want to believe it, but what else can I think? He looks so much like your father, it’s frightening. I took one look at him and fainted.”
“Oh, Mom, no!” Merry said, moving to her mother’s side to hug her. “That must have been awful for you.”
“It didn’t get awful until he told me he was Gus’s son.”
“That doesn’t mean he is,” Joe retorted. “Maybe he’s one of Todd Smith’s bastards. People used to say he and Dad looked more like brothers than second cousins. And Todd certainly played the field when he was younger. Every time you saw him, he had a different woman on his arm. He’s still a flirt, and he’s got to be pushing seventy!”
Sara would have given anything to believe that, but she shook her head sadly. “Taylor Bishop’s mother wrote him a letter before she died. I read part of it. It clearly states that his father was Gus McBride of Liberty Hill, Colorado.”
“But Dad loved you!” Janey argued, tears glistening in her eyes. “He wouldn’t have cheated on you. He wasn’t that kind of man.”
“He certainly wasn’t,” Joe said flatly. “Personally, I think this is all nothing but a scam Taylor concocted to try to get his hands on this ranch. Well, he can think again. It’s not going to happen.”
His mouth set in a flat line, he stormed over to the phone and punched in Myrtle’s number. When Phoebe answered, he growled, “Phoebe, this is Joe. I need to talk to Taylor. Is he there?”
“I’ll put you through to his room,” she replied. “Is Sara all right?”
“She’s fine,” he retorted. “She’ll be a lot better when this garbage with Taylor is dealt with.”
“I’ll put you right through,” she said, and patched him through to Taylor’s room.
Taylor answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“I want to know what the hell you think you’re doing, lying to my mother about who your father is.”
Taylor wasn’t surprised that Joe had called—he’d known one of the McBrides would call the minute Sara told her children what had happened. “It’s not a lie,” he said coolly. “Gus was my father.”
“The hell he was! He loved my mother from the moment he met her when he was fourteen. He would never have cheated on her.”
“I didn’t say he did,” Taylor retorted. “You can’t cheat on someone you’re not involved with.”
“What the devil are you talking about? I just told you that my father was in love with my mother ever since he was fourteen. From the time they met, they were never not involved!”
“Oh, yes, they were,” Taylor growled. “If you don’t believe me, ask your mother about the summer of 1962.”
“Why?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. “What happened then?”
“They broke up and Gus went to the Cheyenne rodeo. That’s where he met my mother.”
“That’s a lie!”
“Is it? Ask your mother.”
Even to his own ears, his voice was smug and confident, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Joe heard it, too. His half brother hesitated, and when he finally spoke, his words were cold and hard and held a warning that only a man who felt threatened by the truth would need to make. “If you’re after the ranch, you can forget it. You’re never going to get your hands on it.”
Whatever Taylor had been expecting, it wasn’t that. Stunned, he said, “This has nothing to do with the ranch, Joe. That’s not why I came here.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe sneered. “You come here pretending to be somebody you’re not, and I’m supposed to believe you’re not after what you can get? Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“I never said you were stupid. I just want—”
“What?” he growled when he hesitated. “To be friends? For us to welcome you into the family like a long-lost brother? You’re not our brother. You’re a liar and we want nothing to do with you. If you come anywhere near the ranch or any member of this family again, you’re going to find yourself in more trouble than you ever imagined. Leave us alone!”
Slamming the phone down, Joe turned to find his mother and the rest of the family watching him with expressions of varying degrees of fear and anger. Merry asked the question they were all silently asking. “He still claims to be Dad’s son, doesn’t he? Even though you told him he would have never cheated on Mom.”
Frustrated, he nodded. “He claims Mom and Dad broke up in the summer of ’62, and Dad went to a rodeo in Cheyenne. According to him, that’s when his mother met Dad.”
Up until then, Sara had almost convinced herself that this was all some terrible mistake. But with Joe’s words, the years rolled back, and in the blink of an eye, she was back in that awful summer of ’62, when, without warning, her world had turned upside down and she’d almost lost Gus for good. “Oh, my God!”
Lost in her own private hell, she didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Dan stepped to her side and took her hand. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? You’ve gone pale as a ghost again.”
“Gus and I did break up that summer,” she said, stricken. “It was so many years ago, I’d forgotten about it. We didn’t speak to each other for three weeks.”
“But you still loved each other,” Janey argued. “He wouldn’t have cheated on you just because you weren’t talking for a couple of weeks.”
She made it all sound so simple—and it should have been. The only problem was…nothing was ever simple when it came to love. Tears welling in her eyes, she choked, “You don’t understand, Janey, dear. We thought our breakup was for good. We hadn’t spoken in nearly a month. It was horrible. I was so lonely, I cried myself to sleep every night. Mother was so worried about me, she sent me to Denver to visit my cousin, Harriet. I kept hoping Gus would call, but he never did. Harriet finally convinced me that I had to go on with my life. When the brothers of some of her friends asked me out, I went.”
“Why?” Zeke asked, frowning in confusion. “You were in love with Dad. Why would you go out with someone else?”
“Because I didn’t know how else to get over him,” she replied. “I’d never been so miserable in my life. I hated dating other men—even though they were all very nice. I just wanted Gus. After two weeks, I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I went home. That’s when I discovered that while I was gone, Gus had been on a trip of his own.”
“Let me guess,” Joe said flatly. “He went to Cheyenne.”
&nb
sp; She would have given anything to deny it. They’d have believed her if she’d lied, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. They were entitled to the truth, regardless of how much it hurt. “He’d been thinking about trying bronc riding on the rodeo circuit, but he didn’t want to leave me. After we broke up, there was no longer any reason not to go. The first rodeo was Frontier Days…in Cheyenne.”
“Oh, my God,” Merry whispered, tears filling her eyes. “It’s true, isn’t it? Taylor really is Dad’s son, isn’t he? He’s our brother.”
Her heart aching, Sara nodded. “Yes, dear, I believe he is.”
Chapter 11
For the first time since his mother had died, Taylor was glad she was dead. She would have been thoroughly ashamed of him, and with good reason. In his quest for revenge, he had, no doubt, destroyed the only illusion Sara McBride had left about the man she had loved all of her adult life…his faithfulness.
Just thinking about it sickened him. Pacing the confines of his room, he wandered over to the window and stared blindly out, the hurt in Sara’s eyes forever etched in his memory. Wincing, he silently cursed himself. What the hell had he been thinking? He might be a bastard at times—especially when he was in the courtroom—but he didn’t make a habit of hurting old ladies. Or young ones, either, he added grimly. But within a matter of seconds, he’d not only devastated Sara McBride, he’d done the same to Phoebe.
God, he was a jerk! How could he have ever thought that he would actually enjoy telling Sara that Gus had played around on her? What kind of unfeeling monster was he? He might as well have stabbed her in the heart with a knife. And then there was Phoebe…
She had to hate him, he decided. He’d given her no choice. Just as she’d guessed, he’d used her to get to her friends. From the moment he’d first appeared on her grandmother’s doorstep, he’d done nothing but lie to her. He’d thought he was being so smart, that she wouldn’t find out, and if she did, he wouldn’t care. Talk about arrogance.
He cared, all right. He loved her—and it scared the hell out of him. The lack of a father in his life had taught him at an early age not to let himself care about anyone but his mother. He’d built a wall around his heart and no one had come even close to scaling it until he’d met Phoebe. And like a fool, he’d made her hate him because all he’d thought about was revenge—and his own anger. And now he was paying the price for that.
Idiot! he silently raged. Selfish, self-centered, vindictive idiot. The minute he’d found out his father was dead, he should have immediately turned around and gone back to San Diego. So what if his car was wrecked? He could have hired a taxi—or taken the bus, for that matter—to Colorado Springs, then flown home. Once his car was repaired, he wouldn’t even have had to come back for it. He could have just had it shipped home.
But, no! He’d stayed…and fallen in love with a woman who could now no longer stand the sight of him. Then, to make matters worse, he’d actually started to like his brothers and sisters. And they’d seemed to like him…until they’d found out he was their brother.
God, what a mess! He couldn’t have screwed things up more if he’d tried. For a moment, he considered packing his bags and heading back to San Diego first thing in the morning. After all the hurt he’d caused, it was the least he could do. But, dammit, he cared too much to just give up and walk away. He couldn’t even think about leaving Phoebe. And what about Janey and Merry and his brothers? They were his family now. How could he forget that when he’d wanted siblings his entire life?
They might not want anything to do with him, but that was too damn bad, he thought grimly. He couldn’t turn his back on them any more than he could on Phoebe. He just had to find a way to fix this. The problem was…he didn’t have a clue where to begin.
He went to Ed’s Diner for dinner.
Seated at her grandmother’s kitchen table, her appetite nonexistent as she apathetically pushed around the cereal she’d poured for herself, Phoebe told herself she didn’t care where he was. After the way he’d lied to her, he could go lose himself in the woods, and she wouldn’t so much as blink. In fact, she hoped he did. Then she’d never have to see him again.
That’s right, that irritating little voice in her head mocked. You don’t give a flip about the man at all. That’s why you spent the last hour crying your eyes out—and why you haven’t eaten two bites of that bowl of mush that used to be cereal. You always lose your appetite over people you couldn’t care less about.
Disgusted that she couldn’t lie to herself, Phoebe abruptly rose to her feet and crossed to the sink to dump her cereal. Okay, she thought bitterly, she admitted it. She still loved him, and that infuriated her. How could she have any feelings but contempt for a man who deliberately set out to destroy a family he didn’t even know? He didn’t care about her. How could he? Time and again, he’d done nothing but lie to her—even after they’d made love! While she’d been falling in love with him, the only thing he’d been thinking about was the McBrides and getting revenge.
Images flashed before her eyes…his first morning at her grandmother’s, when she’d introduced him to Merry…the night she’d gone with him to dinner at Joe’s and he’d met the entire family. And then there was the camping trip…the loving they’d shared, the access he’d gained to the ranch, his face as he’d stood at his father’s grave. She should have known then that something was wrong, but she’d never thought to suspect he might not be who he said he was. Why would she? He’d seemed so honest.
So much for trusting her gut, she thought with a sniff. She couldn’t even believe the desire she would have sworn he felt for her. There couldn’t have been any real emotion behind it, no caring for her as a person. She’d been a means to an end, nothing more. If she hadn’t known the McBrides, he probably never would have given her a second glance.
And it was that, more than anything, that hurt. She’d made it so damn easy for him to use her. Had he suspected she was falling in love with him? She’d never said the words, but he had to know that she wasn’t the kind of woman who gave herself to just anyone. Just thinking of the way she’d melted in his arms made her cringe. Even now, was he laughing at how naive and trusting she’d been?
Tears welled in her eyes at the thought, but before she could give in to them, she heard the front door open and knew Taylor was back from his solitary dinner at Ed’s. Horrified, she quickly brushed the tears from her eyes. She would not let him find her moping around the kitchen with wet eyes, crying over him. Her heart might be breaking, but if she had anything to say about it, he’d never know it!
Her chin set at a determined angle, she hurriedly stepped over to the pantry and pulled out everything she needed to make a chocolate cake. Her heart pounding, she couldn’t think of a single recipe, but she didn’t let that stop her. Grabbing a bowl, she began sifting flour, then adding salt, sugar and cocoa to the bowl without measuring anything.
She knew the exact moment he stepped into the open doorway. Suddenly, her mouth was dry and her palms damp and she dropped the wooden spoon she was using to stir the concoction on the floor. Swearing softly, she picked it up and carried it to the sink. With every step she took, she felt Taylor’s eyes on her.
“Are you all right?”
His gruff question reached out and stroked her like a caress, making her want to cry all over again. Don’t! she wanted to yell at him. Don’t pretend you care when we both know you don’t. But she couldn’t say that—not without crying. Instead, she kept her eyes on the awful mixture she was stirring in the bowl and said stiffly, “I’m fine.”
“I thought maybe we could talk.”
So now he wanted to talk to her, she thought, amazed. After weeks of using her and lying to her and not telling her the truth about himself, he now wanted to spill his guts? She didn’t think so. “I don’t have time tonight. I have to get this cake in the oven.”
“Maybe later, then?”
“I doubt it. I’m busy.”
She knew she was being
rude, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to hear his story. He’d lied to her and everyone else in town, and as far as she was concerned, there was no excuse for that. She was sorry that he’d grown up without a father, sorry that he’d never known Gus McBride, but that didn’t justify what he’d done. Two wrongs didn’t make a right.
She couldn’t have said how long he stood there, obviously hoping she would change her mind. It seemed like forever. She finished mixing the cake, then greased and floured a sheet pan, and still he stood there, watching her. Ignoring him, she slipped the pan into the oven. She didn’t realize he was gone until she turned around and found the doorway empty.
The tears came in a flood then, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Collapsing in a chair at the kitchen table, she buried her face in her folded arms and cried and cried. Why did she have to love him so much? she wondered tearfully. She could never trust him again, not after what he’d done. She didn’t even know who he was. Oh, sure, he’d told her that his name really was Taylor Bishop and he was a lawyer from San Diego, but so what? He’d told her a lot of things, and only God knew how much, if any, of it was true. All she could say for sure about him was that she knew next to nothing about the man himself. Had the tenderness of his touch been real or feigned? Had he ever been interested in her or had that just been another part of the lie he’d perpetuated from the moment he hit the city limits of Liberty Hill? She liked to think she could tell when a man was just pretending, but he’d fooled her from the moment he met her.
She didn’t have much faith in her own judgment anymore, and it was all his fault. He’d done this to her, to them, and she hated him for that. He’d destroyed something wonderful, something she’d never felt for anyone else, and it was gone forever.
That was what she cried for—the love she’d lost and would never have again. And it hurt. Just hours ago, she’d thought there would never come a time when she didn’t want to be with him, but now, she just wanted him gone. Maybe then she could start to forget.
