Caleb Morgan [Seven Brothers for McBride 7] by Anitra Lynn McLeod Page A

alert everyone.”
    “Great. But I’ve got something else.” Caleb held up the bell. “When you see someone coming, ring this.” That way, no matter where he and McBride were on the farm, they’d know someone was coming. Caleb had enjoyed their stolen time together, and he wanted to have a hell of a lot more interludes, but he didn’t want McBride worrying while they were getting lusty. A distracted mate wasn’t nearly as much fun as a fully focused one.
    “Very good, sir.”
    On his way out the door, he heard talking coming from the parlor. Curious, he looked around the archway and was surprised to find McBride, Angel, and Ferris sitting close together and chatting.
    “Caleb.” For a split second, McBride looked as if he’d gotten caught doing something he shouldn’t. Caleb dismissed the notion as paranoid, but he couldn’t quite shake the idea he’d walked in on something that he wasn’t meant to see.
    “What’s he doing in the house?” He thought they’d agreed they simply couldn’t trust the thrall and that, though leaving him out alone in Ollie’s old house seemed cruel, it was far kinder than kicking him off the property.
    McBride rose and rather than talking openly in front of the two thralls, he pulled Caleb into the dining room. “Ferris knows him.”
    “So? I don’t see how that changes anything.”
    “I think it does.” McBride cupped the back of Caleb’s neck, pulled him close, and kissed him.
    “What the hell was that for?”
    “You’re practically snarling at me, and I don’t like it.”
    Caleb tried to shake off his unease, but it simply wouldn’t go away. He didn’t like McBride doing something behind his back. When he accused him, McBride lifted his eyebrows and crossed his arms. They stood there at impasse for a moment.
    “I thought if I brought him in here and treated him like a guest and not a criminal, he might warm up to me.”
    “And you need to heat him up for what?”
    “Caleb, I honestly can’t believe you think after everything we’ve done in the last twenty-four hours that I have anything left to give to anyone else.”
    “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—I thought I was running this thing with the slammers.”
    “Really? I thought we were. Remember that we thing? How happy you were that we were in this together?”
    Damn that McBride hadn’t lost his skill at throwing Caleb’s words back in his face. “I just don’t like the idea of something going on that I’m not a part of.”
    “Because you don’t trust me to tell you what I’ve learned?”
    “No. Just—I want to be involved. Why didn’t you just come and get me?”
    “Because Angel—Timon is scared to death of you.”
    “But not of you?”
    “No.”
    Caleb frowned. Why was he always the bad guy? Even when he was doing the right thing he somehow looked like a criminal. “I didn’t do anything to him.”
    McBride’s harsh features softened. “I know you didn’t. But think of it from his point of view. You inspected him, brought him here, tossed him in a little—”
    “I didn’t toss him in there!”
    “Not literally, but to an overwrought thrall who was terrorized for days by a bunch of blood- and body-hungry slammers, you look like a monster.” McBride cut him off before he could answer to that claim. “Look like, not are. Come on, Caleb. You know you were playing a part out there on that road. Don’t be upset that you managed to play it far too well.”
    In one sense Caleb was impressed with his own acting abilities, but in another it hurt. He was sick of being judged for what he looked like. “You’re just as big as me yet no one sees you that way.”
    “It’s different.”
    “How?”
    “I really don’t think this is the time to get into this.”
    Caleb’s ego wanted to argue that point, but his intellect agreed with McBride. “Fine.” And apparently, his childish streak was going to make him stomp off and sulk.
    “Don’t.”
    One word stopped him from