Always a McBride (14 page)

And she
was
grateful. She just hadn't realized how much the tediousness of it stifled her soul until she took over running Myrtle's bed and breakfast for her. She loved the house, loved cooking and cleaning for guests, loved the peace and quiet of life in Liberty Hill. How was she going to find the strength to leave it all behind and go back to the lonely existence of a business and life she hated?

Pain squeezing her heart, she reminded herself that she didn't have to do it today. She still had a couple of more weeks before Myrtle came home, and she wasn't going to ruin that time by worrying about the future. One way or the other, it would take care of itself. In the meantime, she had guests to think of. They would be arriving Friday evening and she had a lot to do between now and then. The sooner she got started, the better. Focusing on that, she headed for the kitchen to polish Myrtle's antique silver serving pieces.

 

Long into the night, Phoebe cleaned like a woman possessed. After she polished the silver, she hand-washed Myrtle's prettiest set of china and carefully re
turned it to the French étagère in the dining room that her grandmother had owned as long as Phoebe could remember. Half expecting Taylor to come downstairs for an evening snack, she set out a plate of cheese and fresh fruit, as well as homemade brownies, on the sideboard, but he didn't so much as stick his nose out of his room. Not sure if he was avoiding her or so caught up in his writing that he didn't want to leave it, Phoebe left him alone.

That didn't mean, however, that she didn't think about him.

Every time she let her mind wander, every time she dropped her guard, she found herself listening for his step in the hall upstairs, wondering if he was thinking about her, remembering what it was like to lie in his arms under the stars. Then she would reach for another plate, another glass, another piece of silver. And when she ran out of place settings to clean and polish, she started on the kitchen itself. By the time she went to bed at two o'clock in the morning, the glass doors of the kitchen cabinets were gleaming and her grandmother's antique O'Keefe and Merrit stove was sparkling.

Exhausted, she fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow. But even in sleep, she couldn't escape thoughts of Taylor. He walked into her dreams as though he owned them, and with nothing more than a smile, he charmed her into letting him stay. When the alarm went off at six the next morning, she was still dreaming of him.

Groaning quietly, she dragged herself out of bed and told herself that this had to stop. She had to get the man out of her head! It should have been easy—he obviously
regretted making love with her. If she had a lick of pride, she'd pray that he'd forgotten his promise to help her clean the house and he'd spend the whole damn day in his room working. Better yet, maybe he'd decide to do some research and visit the other ranchers Joe had introduced him to. Then she'd have the house to herself and could forget, at least for a while, that she'd ever met him, let alone started to have feelings for him.

Clinging to that wishful thought, she dressed, then headed downstairs, wondering if Taylor would stick around for breakfast if he was going to spend the day doing research. Surely, he would get an early start….

“Good morning.”

Lost in her thoughts, she stopped short at the sight of him sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal. Before she could say a word, he said, “I hope you don't mind me grabbing some cereal—I thought I'd save you the trouble of cooking breakfast. So where do you want to start cleaning the house? If you'll give me a list of what you want done, I'll get started.”

F
or the rest of the week he helped her get the old house ready for the guests who would be arriving on Friday. Phoebe couldn't believe it. When he'd said he'd help her, she'd never expected him to throw himself into the job with complete abandon. In fact, considering the way he'd holed up in his room after the camping trip with the McBrides, she hadn't held out much hope that he would help her at all. She couldn't have been more wrong.

He not only mowed the lawn for her and trimmed the walkways, he painted the picket fence, front and back, repaired a leaky faucet in one of the bathrooms upstairs, and rehung some of the shutters that had needed fixing for as long as Phoebe could remember. And all without a word of complaint.

“You're doing too much!” Phoebe protested Friday morning when she stepped outside and discovered him scraping all of Myrtle's vintage lawn furniture with a
wire brush in preparation for repainting it. “You're a guest, too. I never expected you to do all this. You should be writing.”

“I promised to help you,” he replied. “And I can work tonight, after your guests arrive. I'm at a standstill right now, anyway. I'm hoping that all this exercise will recharge my brain cells.”

Put that way, Phoebe could hardly complain, but she still felt guilty. As she went back to her own chores inside the house, vacuuming upstairs and down, then dusting the antique furniture and whatnots that made Myrtle's house so perfect for a bed and breakfast, her thoughts kept drifting to Taylor. Every time she passed a window, she found herself looking for him, watching him, dreaming. He was a man she could get used to seeing around the house. Who would have thought that he'd be so handy?

Don't go there,
a voice in her head warned.
Don't get any more ideas about him. He's not interested, remember?

That wasn't something she was likely to forget. Even though he'd gone out of his way to help her, she didn't fool herself into thinking it was for any other reason than that he'd given her his word. He was still keeping his distance. Oh, he was no longer avoiding her like the plague and hiding out in his room, thank God, but there was a reserve in his eyes every time they met hers. He still regretted making love with her, and she'd be a fool to forget that.

Assuring herself she was no one's fool, she threw herself into washing all the windows, upstairs and down, until they were gleaming. The house was huge, and by the time she finished with the last window, a stained glass beauty in the front hall upstairs, she was
hot and sweaty and in need of a break. Realizing that Taylor must be, too, she grabbed her cleaning supplies and hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

In a matter of minutes, she'd made a pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade, arranged some sugar cookies on a dessert plate, and had that and two glasses of ice loaded on a serving tray. Carefully lifting it, she stepped out onto the back porch and went looking for Taylor.

The last time she'd seen him, he'd been on the west side of the house, still working on the lawn furniture. But there were few trees in that part of the yard, and when she followed the veranda around to that side of the house, she wasn't surprised to find it deserted. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun was scorching.

“Taylor?” she called, glancing around. “Where are you?”

“Over here. I'm taking a break.”

Following his voice around to the east side of the house, she said, “Good. So am I. It's too hot to be working so hard. When I was cleaning the windows in the attic, I thought I was going to have heat stroke. I hope you're thirsty. I made a gallon of lemonade. I'm so hot right now, I feel like I could drink the whole gallon by myself—”

Coming around the side of the house, she stopped short at the sight of him lying in the hammock. In the time that he'd been staying there, she'd seen him tense, intense, uptight…but never relaxed. Her eyes traveling over the long, lean length of him as he lay stretched out in the hammock under the shade, she couldn't help but think that he should take it easy more often. Even dressed in dirty jeans and a T-shirt that was damp with sweat, his dark hair mussed, he was one good-looking
devil. Her heart kicked just at the sight of him. Who would have thought that physical labor would agree with him so well?

“Hey, that looks great!” he said, spying the cookies and lemonade. “Here…let me help you with that.”

He jumped up to take the tray from her, and for a split second, they were touching close. Their eyes met, breaths caught, and for a moment, Phoebe thought she saw something flash in his eyes, a spark of heat, that set her heart thumping crazily in her breast. But then he turned away to set the tray on a nearby patio table, and she was sure she must have imagined it.

Irritated with herself—how many times did he have to throw a No Trespassing sign between them before she got the message?—she said stiffly, “I hope you like lemonade. There's some tea in the fridge if you don't.”

“Are you kidding? I can have tea any day. This looks great!” Taking the glass she handed him, he swallowed its contents in five seconds flat.

Amazed, Phoebe had to laugh. “Well, that was impressive. Did you even taste it?”

For the first time in days, a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. Did I mention I was dying of thirst?”

“I would never have guessed,” she said dryly, her own mouth twitching with a grin. “Would you like some more?”

For an answer, he grinned and held out his glass.

Just that easily, the mood changed, and the tension that had been standing between them like a brick wall was gone. Sinking back down into the hammock while she claimed an old-fashioned lawn chair, they laughed and talked as they finished off the lemonade and cookies and didn't even realize how much time had passed until
they both reached for another cookie and discovered they were all gone. Break time was over.

She knew she was in trouble when she wanted to run inside and dump the entire contents of the cookie jar onto the serving tray. But who could blame her? It had been days since he'd relaxed enough with her even to smile, let alone talk and laugh. She didn't want it to end. Unfortunately, she really did have to get back to work. She still had some last-minute chores to do before her guests arrived.

Knowing that, she still had to force herself to rise to her feet and start collecting the dishes. “I hate to break this up,” she told him huskily, “but six o'clock will be here before I'm ready for it, and I've still got a ton of things to do.”

The logical, analytical part of Taylor's brain told him that she was right. She had work to do and he would be wise to let her do it. But his brain didn't always function properly whenever she was within touching distance. Especially when she looked so pretty. How she managed that after she'd been working so hard for the last five days, he didn't know. But there was a sparkle in her eyes and smile on her lips, and even though she wore her worst clothes and she had a streak of dirt across her cheek, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

Take a clue from the lady and go back to work,
a voice in his head growled.
Now!

He should have. He'd been successfully keeping his distance all week, and he'd finally worked out his priorities. He'd do well to remember them.

So why was he still lying there in the damn hammock, teasing himself with the sight of her? he wondered, frowning. The answer came all too easily. Because he'd missed her.

That alone should have been enough to send him running for the hills. But when he moved, it wasn't to run…it was to reach for her.

“Taylor! What are you doing?”

“Something I've been thinking about doing from the moment I first lay down in this hammock,” he growled, and pulled her down into his arms. Before she could do anything but gasp, his mouth covered hers.

Every time he held her, kissed her, was better than the last. Sometime in the future, he knew he was going to have to deal with that, but not yet. Not when her body rested softly against him and her legs tangled with his. Not when he could feel the beat of her heart against his chest. Not when her mouth opened sweetly under his and she told him with nothing but her kiss that the last five days had been just as lonely for her as they had been for him.

“Come upstairs with me,” he rasped, pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear, then trailing kisses down her throat, making her moan. “I want to make love to you.”

Her senses swimming and her heart pounding, Phoebe clung to him and tried to remember why she couldn't do this. There was a reason—a good one—but she couldn't think when he kissed her, couldn't remember anything but his name. Taylor. She wanted to chant it, groan it, call it over and over again until the very rhythm of it echoed in her heart, and it was all because of him, his kiss, the sure, tender knowledge of his touch. His hands roamed over her, trailing down her back to her waist and hips, then back again, stroking her, caressing her, slowly driving her out of her mind with need.

Aching for more, she felt the hammock shift under them and only vaguely recalled that they were outside,
in full view of the neighbors and anyone who cared to drive past Myrtle's corner lot, which was right in the middle of town. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the thought registered that they had to stop, but then he kissed her again and the world just seemed to slip away until there was only Taylor and the heat of his kiss on a lazy summer day.

Lost in the magic of his arms, she didn't see Mighty Mouse, the next-door-neighbor's huge black-and-white cat, suddenly dart into the street with no warning, but luckily, the driver of the UPS truck proceeding down the street at a fast clip did. He slammed on the brakes and hit the horn, just missing the cat by inches. Jerked back to her surroundings, Phoebe stiffened. Dear God, what was she doing? she wondered in horror. Nadine Hawkins, the worst gossip in town, lived right next door to Myrtle, and it was common knowledge that she spent half her day looking out the window for something—preferably
someone
—to talk about. Catching Phoebe and Taylor making out in Myrtle's hammock would make her year. Phoebe could hear her now, telling the preacher and the gossip columnist at the town newspaper all about it. Knowing her luck, she'd already called them both.

Mortified at the thought, she pulled free of his arms and scrambled to her feet. “I have to get back to work,” she told him. “The guests will be here soon.” Her eyes not quite meeting his, she whirled and hurried into the house, hot color turning her cheeks crimson.

You're acting like a sixteen-year-old who got caught necking in the back seat, she told herself sternly, and for the life of her, she didn't know why. So what if Nadine saw them kissing? It wasn't as if she had any
thing to be ashamed of. It was just a kiss, for heaven's sake! Nothing more.

But as much as she tried to convince herself that there was nothing out of the ordinary about what they'd shared, she knew there was nothing ordinary about Taylor's kiss and the feelings he stirred in her so effortlessly. Every time he touched her, every time he kissed her, every time their eyes met, heat lightning seemed to sizzle between them and she wanted him more and more. And sometime in the not-too-distant future, she was going to have to decide what she was going to do about that.

But not yet, she told herself quickly. She didn't have time to make a decision about Taylor now. She put fresh sheets on all the beds and made sure all the rooms had candles and potpourri and other little touches she knew her guests would appreciate. The pièce de résistance, however, was the apple pie she put in the oven. Her grandmother had taught her a long time ago that there was nothing that made people feel more welcome and at home than the scent of fresh-baked apple pie.

Satisfied that she had everything under control, she hurried upstairs to take a bath. Her guests were scheduled to arrive in less than an hour, but as she settled into the old-fashioned tub and slid down into the steaming hot water so that it could close around her shoulders, she couldn't make herself rush. Not when it seemed as if she'd been moving in Fast Forward for the last two days. Sighing in contentment, she closed her eyes and lay her head back against the rim of the tub.

She couldn't have said when Taylor slipped into her thoughts. He was just there, seducing her with memories of his kiss, his lovemaking, the hot, tender moments in the hammock. Her heart started to pound, her blood to
heat, and all she wanted to do was lie there and daydream about him until the water turned cold.

That's when she realized she was in trouble. She had guests who would be there any minute, she reminded herself. She had to stop this!

She tried, but she was fighting a losing battle. When she drained the tub and reached for a towel, she could feel his hands on her. When she stepped in front of the medicine cabinet mirror to comb her hair, all she saw was the dark, turbulent need in her eyes. Frustrated, her heart aching for something she was sure she couldn't have, she forgot all about her wet hair and jerked open the bathroom door, her only thought to escape the emotions that swirled inside her like a storm gathering strength. Instead, she ran full tilt into Taylor, who was, apparently, on his way to his own room across the hall.

“Oh!” Her heart slamming against her ribs, she felt his fingers close around her upper arms and draw her imperceptibly closer. “I need to check on the pie,” she said huskily, the need to melt against him almost more than she could bear. “The guests will be here soon, and I want everything to be just right. My whole future could be riding on this weekend.”

“I know,” he replied softly, drawing her closer still. “I hope you don't mind, but Joe told me all about it.”

Surprised, she said, “He did?”

A wry grin tugged at his mouth. “I think he wanted to make sure that I didn't do anything that would ruin this weekend for you.” At her look of chagrin, he chuckled. “Relax, Phoebe. I wasn't offended. You're like family to the McBrides—they're just looking out for your interests. I assured Joe that he didn't have to worry. You're very good at what you do, and I'll do everything I can to make sure your guests leave on Sun
day singing your praises. Not that that will take much work,” he added.