Always a McBride Read Free Page B

Phoebe didn’t have time. She had guests coming for the weekend. Her thoughts already jumping ahead to the elaborate breakfast she would serve them, she hurried into the house to check to see what staples Myrtle had the pantry stocked with. She had taken only one step into the kitchen when she stopped in surprise, a slow smile spreading across her face. Given the chance, she would have given her grandmother a bear hug if she could have reached her. Because there, on the table, was the old flour tin Myrtle kept her favorite recipes in, including the one for buttermilk biscuits she’d won with at the state fair. Armed with nothing more than that, Phoebe knew she could make the bed and breakfast a success. Now all she needed was a guest!
    Â 
    The thunderstorm descended on the Colorado Rockies like the wrath of God. One moment, Tayler Bishop was cruising through the mountain pass west of Liberty Hill, his thoughts on his father and everything he would say to him when he got the chance, and the next, a driving rain was pounding the windshield of his black Mercedes. Swearing, he jerked his attention back to his driving just as a fierce crosswind buffeted the car, but it was too late. He started to skid. Fighting the wheel and the wind, he didn’t realize he’d left the road until a pine tree appeared right in front of him. He didn’t even have time to hit the brakes before he slammed into it.
    Dazed, he couldn’t have said how long he sat there in the dark as the storm raged around him. He held the steering wheel in a death grip, his knuckles white from the strain, and stared blankly at the air bag that had kept him from hitting the windshield. Overhead, lightning flashed like an exploding bomb, lighting up the night sky and outlining the pine tree that had stopped his car from careening down the mountain. In the dark, it looked as big as a barn.
    He supposed he should have been thankful the damn thing hadn’t killed him. Then he forced open his jammed door and stepped out in the rain to get a good look at what the tree had done to his car. That’s when he started to swear. He was still swearing when a wrecker arrived fifteen minutes later in response to the call he’d made on his cell phone to his road service.
    Dressed in a yellow rain slicker, the wrecker driver took one look at the situation and whistled softly. “You took quite a hit, buddy. Are you okay? Want me to call an ambulance?”
    â€œNo, I’m fine,” Taylor growled, disgusted, as he swept his dripping hair back from his face. “I had my mind on something else and didn’t notice the storm until it was too late.”
    â€œDon’t beat yourself up over it,” the other man advised. “You’re not the first person to take these mountains for granted. At least you were lucky enough to walk away. Where were you headed?”
    â€œLiberty Hill,” he retorted. “The last highway sign said it was ten miles from here.”
    The wrecker driver nodded. “If you’d made it through this last set of S-curves, you could have coasted the rest of the way without ever hitting the gas pedal.” Noting the California plates on Taylor’s car, he arched a brow in surprise. “It must be family bringing you to these parts because it sure ain’t business—there ain’t much in this neck of the woods. So who you visiting? I’ve been working a wrecker in this area for the past twenty years. Maybe I know them.”
    Studying him through narrowed eyes, Taylor didn’t doubt that he probably knew Gus or had at least heard of him—which was why he had no intention of mentioning McBride’s name. He’d planned his revengecarefully and knew the importance of surprise. He’d keep his identity—and his reasons for coming to Liberty Hill—to himself, casually seek out McBride and earn his trust, then find a way to make him pay for abandoning his mother when