Always A Mcbride. Linda Turner
really does heal all wounds. She and Dr. Michaels had been friends for years when they suddenly realized they were in love. They’re in Mexico right now on their honeymoon.” Smiling fondly, she said, “They had a wonderful wedding. The whole town turned out for it.”
Taylor almost told her he couldn’t have cared less about Sara McBride or her wedding. She was the woman his father had left his mother for, and for no other reason than that, he wanted nothing to do with her. Phoebe Chandler would no doubt be horrified by that, but dammit, the truth of the matter was, his mother’s life would have been a hell of a lot happier if it hadn’t been for Sara. Considering that, who could blame him for disliking her, sight unseen?
He thought, however, that he was hiding his hostility well. He wasn’t. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his expression because Phoebe’s smile suddenly faded, and her eyes searched his. “What is it?” she asked, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
Wrong? he wanted to growl. What wasn’t wrong? When he’d taken a leave of absence from the firm to track down his old man, everything had seemed so simple. Unfortunately, the joke was on him. Gus was dead, and that was that.
Angry, bitter, his plans all shot to hell, he had to get away, had to think. “Nothing,” he lied. “I just realized that I left my notes at home, and I need them for the book.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there someone you can call to send them to you?”
“No,” he replied shortly. “I’ll just have to redo the research. Is there a library around here? I can probably get what I need from the local history books.”
There was no research, of course, no work he had to do except figure out where he went from here. Phoebe, however, accepted his story without so much as a blink. “It’s down the street on the right,” she said. “Across from the post office. You can’t miss it. It’s in the only redbrick building on Main Street.”
Gruffly thanking her for her help, he turned to leave, but he’d only taken two steps when she cried out, “Wait! What about breakfast? I can have it ready in ten minutes.”
“Save it,” he growled. “I’m not hungry.”
He was gone before she could stop him, leaving her staring after him with her mouth hanging open. That was it? He wasn’t hungry? After she’d gotten up before the crack of dawn to cook breakfast for him? He couldn’t be serious!
But the front door slammed behind him, and just that quickly, she was alone. Glancing at the apple strudel, Virginia ham and croissants she’d already made for breakfast, Phoebe didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Why, out of all the people she could have had for her first guest, had Taylor Bishop landed on her doorstep? Did the man know there was a reason the inn was classified a bed and breakfast? Breakfast was included with the cost of the room! What was she going to do with all this food?
It was a beautiful summer morning, cool and clear, and under other circumstances, Taylor would have enjoyed a brisk walk. But as he strode quickly down the street toward the library, every step he took echoed the anger seething inside him. Damn Gus McBride! For as long as Taylor could remember, he’d hated the faceless, nameless man who hadn’t been there for him as other fathers were for their sons. He’d only wanted the answer to one question—Why?—and now he wasn’t even going to get that. Because Gus McBride was dead and had been for a long time.
And that, more than anything, was what infuriated him the most. For years, he’d resented a man who was already dead, and he hadn’t even known it. He felt like a fool. Somehow, he should have known, dammit. But not even his mother had guessed that Gus McBride was dead. If she had, she would have been devastated, and for the life of him, Gus didn’t know why. The man had never loved her or he wouldn’t have walked away from her. As far as Taylor was concerned, the jackass hadn’t respected her, either, or he wouldn’t have had sex with her without protecting her.
He should have had to answer for that, if nothing else, Taylor thought grimly. It was no more than he deserved. But, no! In this, too, he’d somehow managed to escape the repercussions of his behavior. Taylor knew he was being unreasonable—Gus hadn’t died deliberately so he wouldn’t have to face his illegitimate son—but that’s what it felt like. And it infuriated him that Gus had that much control over his emotions, that this man that he had resented for as long as he could remember could tie him in knots from the grave and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
What the hell was he going to do now?
Fuming, unsure what his next move would be, he almost walked right past the library. There was, he thought grimly, no longer any reason to keep up the charade that he was a writer. He might as well go back to the Mountain View Inn, pack his bags, and head back to San Diego. There was nothing he could do here.
But instead of returning to the inn, he found himself walking up the front steps to the library, after all. This was, he thought bitterly, his one and only chance to find out everything he could about Gus McBride and try to understand what his mother had possibly seen in such a worthless man. Then he planned to go home and forget the man he should have grown up calling Dad ever existed.
His chiseled face set in grim lines, he stepped inside the library and wasn’t surprised to find it practically deserted. After all, it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. An old woman sat at a desk in the genealogy area, obviously working on a family tree, and a thin man with bottle-thick glasses was comfortably ensconced in an old leather chair in the periodical section, reading the Denver paper. Other than the librarian, who was busy dusting the shelves, they had the place to themselves.
Which was just the way he wanted it, Taylor thought as he found the local history section and the newspaper archives. He wanted to be left in peace to satisfy his curiosity about Gus, then he was getting the hell out of Liberty Hill.
Deciding to start with the end of his father’s life and work backwards, he pulled out the newspaper archives and began searching for his obituary. A computer would have made the job go much faster, but the Liberty Hill library was obviously caught in a time warp. There wasn’t a computer anywhere in sight.
Not that that was a problem, he soon discovered. Even though Gus had died years ago, searching for his obituary wasn’t nearly as difficult as it would have been in a city. Liberty Hill was a small community, and there were only a few deaths recorded in the local paper each week. Finding the obits from twenty years ago only took a matter of minutes.
GUS MCBRIDE DIES!
The all-cap headlines of the obituary seemed to jump right off the page and slap him in the face. Taylor stiffened, and just that easily, found himself reading about his father’s life.
Gus McBride died October 3, 1983, at his ranch in Liberty Hill, at the age of 44. He is survived by his loving wife, Sara J. McBride, children: Joseph McBride, Jane McBride, Zeke McBride, and Merry McBride, and numerous nephews and nieces.
A member of one of the founding families of Liberty Hill, Gus was president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association from 1979 to 1983, a Boy Scout leader for the last fifteen years of his life, and a deacon in his church. A loving father and husband, he will be sorely missed.
Visitation will be Tuesday night, October 5, between 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., at Liberty Hill Funeral Chapel. Funeral services will be at 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, October 6, at the funeral home, with interment following at the McBride family cemetery at Twin Pines, the family ranch.
Later, Taylor couldn’t have said how long he sat at one of the library’s time-worn oak tables, staring at his father’s faded obituary, before the words finally sank in. Phoebe had, without being aware of it, already informed him he had a sister. Now, it turned out, he had another sister and two brothers. When he’d planned the trip to Liberty Hill to search for his father, he’d known, of course, that there was a good possibility that he had a couple of half brothers or sisters walking around Colorado that he knew nothing about. He’d never dreamed there were four of them.
And he felt nothing. Nothing but resentment.
If