Blood Brothers

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.