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Blood Brothers
Anne/Lucy Mcallister/Gordon
DOUBLE TROUBLEThat was what you got when cousins Gabe McBride, a Montana cowboy, and Randall Stanton, a British lord, traded places! What Gabe and Randall got was the challenge of their lives!Anything Randall could do, Gabe could do better– but tackling centuries of tradition proved tougher than he thought. Almost as tough as convincing a beautiful widowed mother, Frederica Crossman, that he was a risk worth taking.Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Randall knew anything Gabe could do, he could do, too. He was resourceful, competent, clever. He could handle everything– except gorgeous, feisty Claire Stevens.When Randall and Gabe took on a challenge, they never quit. But to win Claire and Freddie, they' d need all their lordly pluck and cowboy try!
Earl Stanton’s Journal Entry
That was some birthday party! Eighty, and as good as I ever was!
It was great Gabe could make it from Montana—two steps ahead of an outraged husband, if I know Gabe!
Could be brothers, my grandsons—Gabe and Randall. Never saw two men more alike. Only in their looks, mind you. Gabe never grew up. As long as he knows where to find the next whiskey bottle, the next cow to rope and the next woman to fool with, Gabe’s happy.
Not Randall. He grew up too far and too fast. Being heir to an earldom is no joke, and Randall is naturally serious. But he’s in his thirties without ever having been in his twenties, and that’s all wrong.
What they need is the right women, one to knock some sense into Gabe and one to knock it out of Randall.
Though where you could find women crazy enough to take on those two, Lord only knows….
Dear Reader,
This Fourth of July, join in the fireworks of Silhouette’s 20
anniversary year by reading all six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!
July’s MAN OF THE MONTH is a Bachelor Doctor by Barbara Boswell. Sparks ignite when a dedicated doctor discovers his passion for his loyal nurse!
With Midnight Fantasy, beloved author Ann Major launches an exciting new promotion in Desire called BODY & SOUL. Our BODY & SOUL books are among the most sensuous and emotionally intense you’ll ever read. Every woman wants to be loved…BODY & SOUL, and in these books you’ll find a heady combination of breathtaking love and tumultuous desire.
Amy J. Fetzer continues her popular WIFE, INC. miniseries with Wife for Hire. Enjoy Ride a Wild Heart, the first sexy installment of Peggy Moreland’s miniseries TEXAS GROOMS. This month, Desire offers you a terrific two-books-in-one value—Blood Brothers by Anne McAllister and Lucy Gordon. A British lord and an American cowboy are look-alike cousins who switch lives temporarily…and lose their hearts for good in this romance equivalent of a doubleheader. And don’t miss the debut of Kristi Gold, with her moving love story Cowboy for Keeps—it’s a keeper!
So make your summer sizzle—treat yourself to all six of these sultry Desire romances!
Happy Reading!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Blood Brothers
Anne McAllister
Lucy Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
In darkest Devon…GABE
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…RANDALL
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
Dear Reader,
Two years ago on a cold damp night in Bath, England, the two of us were sitting in a restaurant talking—as writers are wont to do—about what if…
What if we wrote a book together…what if we each had a hero…what if one was British and the other American…?
Of course, one what if led to another, and when Anne went home to America and Lucy went home to Northampton, we e-mailed each other more what ifs…and Gabe and Randall—and their crusty grandfather, the earl—were born.
What we’ve written is a book about two men who look alike but think differently, cousins from opposite sides of the Atlantic, cast adrift in each other’s world, floundering until two feisty, loving women take them in hand.
We wrote the Prologue and Epilogue jointly. Individually, Anne wrote about Gabe and Frederica (and counted on Lucy for advice on “darkest” Devon) and Lucy wrote about Randall and Claire (and depended on Anne to get her unscathed through a Montana winter).
Working together was a fresh and fun experience. We had a great time. We hope you do, too.
In darkest Devon…
GABE
ANNE MCALLISTER
RITA Award-winning author Anne McAllister fell in love with a cowboy when she was five years old. Tall, dark, handsome lone-wolf types have appealed to her ever since. “Me, for instance,” her college professor husband says. Well, yes. But even though she’s been married to the man of her dreams for over thirty years, she still likes writing about those men of the West! And even though she may take a break from cowboy heroes now and then, she has lots more stories planned for CODE OF THE WEST. She is always happy to hear from readers, and if you’d like, you can write to Anne at P.O. Box 3904, Bozeman, Montana 59772. SASE appreciated.
Prologue
As Gabe McBride’s plane touched down in England he didn’t have a clue that he was about to have a meeting with Destiny.
His cousin, Lord Randall Stanton, waiting for him outside Customs, didn’t look like Destiny. Randall looked, as he always had, like an English version of Gabe: same tall figure and broad shoulders, same dark hair and eyes, and lean, handsome features that had a strong family likeness. Their differences lay less in looks than mannerisms.
Randall carried his head with the proud air of an English toffee.
“You’d know he was a lord, just looking at him,” Gabe thought with an inward grin.
His own “air” suggested something entirely different. Generally it was one part horse, one part leather, one part bull rope rosin and several parts substances that polite society didn’t talk about. At the moment he’d done his best to scrub all that away. No sense walking into the drawing room smelling like a barn.
Drawing room! Now there was a term he didn’t use often. Didn’t reckon he’d said it aloud since the last time he was here—and that had been fifteen years ago. The very notion made him smile, a drawing room was such a far cry from the homely lived-in clutter of the Montana ranch he called home—when he was home.
Usually he wasn’t.
Usually he was going down the road from rodeo to rodeo. He’d be doing it now if it hadn’t been for getting hung up on that little spinning bull at the National Finals in Vegas last month.
“Shoulder separation,” the doc had said. “Again.” He’d looked at Gabe over the top of his glasses. “How many is that?”
“Five,” Gabe had admitted.
He didn’t like to think about it even now. Didn’t like to think about the surgery that had become inevitable, the months of recovery that would follow, the enforced idleness. A guy could get into trouble if he didn’t have something to keep him busy. A guy could meet a girl like Tracy…
Even now his mouth curved instinctively at the thought of Tracy. He’d known she was trouble from the moment he saw her, but that was how he liked ’em. Trouble, and sassy and all woman. She’d lured him into her bed, with no resistance from him, and had cost him a fortune in gee-gaws, which was fine.
It was her uptight brother with the shotgun who hadn’t been fine. Nor had the lively conversation they’d had in which the words “marriage”, “honest woman” and “decent thing” had occurred with alarming frequency.
Gabe, who had been taught from the cradle never to badmouth a woman, didn’t say that the words “honest” and “decent” were not exactly terms he would have used to describe Tracy. He’d just done his damnedest to assure the shotgun-toting brother that Tracy wouldn’t want to tie herself to a no-account bull rider with no more morals than a monkey. And then he’d promised to hightail it out of the country so she could find herself a “respectable” man.
Gabe wished all the respectable men in the good ol’ U.S. of A. the best of luck. He was off to visit his kin on the other side of the world.
That would keep him out of harm’s—and Tracy’s—way, and besides, it had the added benefit of pleasing his mother who couldn’t go because she was just recovering from the flu and Martha, his sister, who was spending the semester abroad in Brazil.
In fact, Gabe was rather looking forward to a brief vacation visiting his English relatives—especially his mother’s father, Earl Stanton, who was about to celebrate the fact that, in Randall’s words, “Someone let the old devil live to be eighty, without strangling him.”
But Destiny? Who needed it?
When you were young, healthy and in your prime, when there were always more ladies besides Tracy eager for your company, and you had enough money to indulge yourself, you made your own Destiny.
Which went to show how wrong a man could be!
Lord Randall Stanton broke into a grin at the sight of his scapegrace cousin loping out of the Customs Hall, and let out a yell that sat oddly with his elegant tailoring. It was met by an answering yell from Gabe, and for a moment the two young men pounded each other like schoolboys.
“It’s good to see you,” Randall said. “Even if it did take a scandal to get you here.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabe declared innocently. “The old man’s eightieth—family duty, etc., etc., etc.—”
Randall just grinned. “Your mother called Grandpa just as I was leaving. Your secrets aren’t secrets any more.”
Gabe groaned. “Can’t trust ’em to keep their mouths shut, can you?”
“I’m sure Aunt Elaine is the soul of discretion. Usually. Wait until we’re in the car, and you can tell all,” Randall said.
Like hell he would. He and Randall might have shared a thousand secrets as boys, but when it came to women, Gabe drew the line. He followed Randall out to the parking garage, and whistled at the sight of Randall’s silver-colored Rolls-Royce.
“Does this come from the ancient family fortunes, or did Stanton Publications pay for it?”
“Stanton Publications,” Randall told him. “All the family estates do is soak up money. It’s the firm that makes it.” He settled behind the wheel and looked avidly at his cousin. “Come on. Give. All I know is, it’s something to do with a floozie called Tracy.”
Gabe cocked his head. “Do I detect a little envy in your voice, cuz?”
Randall scowled, then shifted his gaze to focus intently on fitting the key into the ignition. “Of course not.”
“It’s not a crime, you know. Every red-blooded male ought to meet a Tracy or two.”
“Or twelve or twenty,” Randall said drily. “Or have you had more than that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Gabe grinned as he leaned back against the leather seat and flexed his shoulders. “You should have a few floozies in your life, bud. It would make you a better human being.”
“Like you, I suppose?” Randall snorted.
Gabe shrugged negligently. “All work and no play makes Randall a dull boy.”
“Better than all play and no work,” Randall said firmly.
One of Gabe’s dark brows lifted. “Just a little testy, are we?” he asked as Randall negotiated the narrow lanes of the parking garage.
“You’d be testy too if you had Earl breathing down your neck every minute of every day.”
They called Cedric Stanton “Grandfather” to his face; they called him “the earl” when speaking about him to acquaintances; but they called him “Earl” behind his back because one summer in Montana when they were boys, an old camp cook had actually thought it was the old man’s name and kept yelling, “Hey, Earl! Come an’ get it, Earl!”
Now Gabe grinned. “Hey, that’s Earl. Just tell him to buzz off.”
Randall gave a short sharp laugh. “I’d as soon tell a pit bull to play nice.”
“So buzz off yourself. I don’t see any chain around your neck. Invisible leash, is it?”
Randall almost unconsciously tugged at his collar. “Feels like it sometimes.” He didn’t say anything else, just concentrated on the road. Morning traffic around Heathrow was a good excuse for silence. But in fact, he had to admit Gabe had touched a raw nerve.
The death of Randall’s parents in a car crash when he was eight had made him heir to the earldom and all its rights and responsibilities. His fearsome grandfather had left him in no doubt that he expected both sides of the equation to be kept up. Randall had learned estate management so that he could run the ancient family domains. He’d loved that part of his life. But it hadn’t been profitable. At least not profitable enough. He’d also needed the skills to run the publishing empire by which the Stantons stayed one step ahead of the game.
He enjoyed that work, too, but he hadn’t bargained for it eating away so much of his life. He’d bowed his head to the burdens, but sometimes a voice whispered in his ear that there was more to life than this; that it would be great to toss his cap over the windmill and forget the duties for awhile.
And when he was with his charming, light-hearted, devil-may-care cousin, the whisper threatened to become a roar.
Now his hands tightened on the steering wheel, so slightly that only the sharp-eyed Gabe could have noticed.
“So when do we hear of your engagement?” Gabe asked him.
