Montana Creeds: Logan

by Linda Lael Miller

  The stranger smiled, spoke quietly to his dog and kept his distance.

  Alec went straight to him. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Alec Grant. That’s my mom, Briana, and my brother, Josh, aka Ditz-butt. Who are you?”

  “Logan Creed,” the man replied, with a slight smile. “Nice to meet you, Alec.” He was looking at Briana, though, his gaze speculative, but languid, too. He took in all five feet, seven inches of her, clad in worn blue jeans and a pink ruffly sun-top, with green eyes and freckles and her long, strawberry-blond hair pulled back, as always, in a French braid. Inspected her as if he might have to identify her in a lineup later on.

  Briana hesitated, uncomfortable as she registered the familiar last name, then advanced, working up a neighborly smile. She put out a hand as she introduced herself. “Briana Grant.”

  “We know somebody named Dylan Creed,” Alec said. Her younger son had never met a stranger, a fact that both pleased and troubled Briana. The don’t-talkto-people-you-don’t-know lecture was wasted on Alec. “Mom and Josh and me take care of his house. He’s got a bull, too. Cimarron.”

  Up close, Logan Creed was even better-looking than he had been from a distance. His hair, a little too long, was ebony, and his eyes were a deep, searching brown, full of intelligence and a few secrets. His cheekbones were high, hinting that there might be native blood somewhere in his background. He looked nothing like his blue-eyed, fair-haired brother, Dylan, and yet there was a resemblance—something in his temperament, perhaps, though she knew little enough of that yet, admittedly, or the way he stood.

  “So Dylan hired a caretaker, did he?” he asked lazily. “And he owns a bull?” His gaze moved past Briana to the graveyard. “Is my kid brother paying you to look after the cemetery, too? If so, he ought to give you a raise. The place looks a lot better than it did the last time I was here.”

  Briana blushed a little, unsure how to answer, and still feeling oddly exposed under this man’s steady regard. Dylan hadn’t mentioned the cemetery when he’d hired her, outside of Wal-Mart on that fateful night. He’d been in town briefly, on some kind of personal business, and happened to see Vance toss a couple of twenty-dollar bills out of the truck window and speed off with his tires screeching.

  Sizing up the situation, Dylan had probably felt sorry for Briana, the kids and the dog. He’d handed her a set of keys, given her directions to the place and strolled off without a backward glance. Warned her about Cimarron, a white bull recently retired from rodeo life; said a neighbor fed the animal and Briana ought to stay clear. She’d taken a cab to the ranch, furious with Vance and really hoping he’d come back after he’d cooled off and find them gone. Serve him right.

  Instead, he’d kept right on going.

  The next day, a load of groceries had arrived, via a delivery service, along with a note from Dylan saying there was an old Chevy truck parked in the barn and she could use it if she could get it running. Since then, they’d had no communication beyond the occasional e-mail or phone call. When something needed fixing and the job was beyond Briana’s limited home-repair skills, Dylan was quick to send a check, and Briana was careful to provide a receipt, though he’d never asked for one.

  Now, Josh stepped up, stood close to her side. The polar opposite of Alec, Josh considered everyone a stranger and thus potential trouble, and proceeded accordingly until they’d proved themselves. “Nobody pays us to take care of the cemetery,” he said. “We do it because it needs doing.”

  Logan’s smile came suddenly, and it set Briana back on her heels a little. She added very white teeth to the inventory she’d taken of him earlier, while he was taking her measure. “Well,” he said, “I appreciate it. And that’s as good a reason to do a thing as any.”

  Cautiously mollified, Josh softened a little, but he didn’t quite smile. He was letting Briana know, by his stiff stance and knotted fists, that he’d protect her, and Alec and Wanda, too, if necessary. Thanks to Vance, Josh was half again too manly for a ten-year-old, too serious and too sad.

  “Where do you live?” he asked Logan solemnly.

  Logan cocked a thumb over one shoulder. “At the main ranch house,” he said.

  “Nobody lives there,” Josh argued.

  “Josh.” Briana sighed.

  “Someone lives there now,” Logan replied affably. “Sidekick and I moved in today.”

  Josh looked at the copper-colored dog. “He’s skinny. Don’t you feed him?”

  “He and I just recently met up,” Logan answered. His voice was easy. “He’ll fill out as time goes by.”

  Wanda bestirred her considerable bulk and ambled over to sniff at Sidekick’s nose. Sidekick sniffed back. Then both of them lost interest in each other.

  “I still think he could use one of our bologna sandwiches,” Josh insisted sagely. Then, as a concession, he added, “He looks pretty clean.”

  “Half drained the well getting that done,” Logan said. “About exhausted the soap supply, too.”

  Josh broke down and grinned.

  It finally occurred to Briana that Logan must have come to the cemetery to visit someone’s grave. And a pilgrimage like that, especially after a long absence, might require privacy.

  “Maybe we should go,” she said.

  But Logan shook his head. “Stay right here and carry on with your picnic,” he told her. Then, addressing Josh, he added, “Sidekick can have that sandwich if the offer’s still good, but it’s only right to warn you that he might hurl. Seems to have a delicate stomach.”

  Hurling being serious business to a ten-year-old, Josh nodded. “Dog food would be better,” he said. “We could lend you some of Wanda’s kibble if you need it.”

  Logan chuckled, looked as though he’d like to ruffle Josh’s hair, but didn’t. “Thanks,” he said. “But we made a run to town for grub earlier, and we’re all set.”

  Briana smiled, herded Wanda and the boys back toward the picnic blanket. Sidekick stayed with Logan, who went to crouch beside one of the graves.

  “Can I take Sidekick some bologna?” Alec whispered.

  “No,” Briana said, watching Logan. “Not now.”

  “It’s a private moment, doofus,” Josh told his brother.

  “Dogs don’t have private moments, stink-breath!” Alec countered.

  “Be quiet,” Briana said, wondering why her hands shook a little as she poured drinks and unwrapped sandwiches.

  LOGAN’S EYES burned as he ran the tips of his fingers over the simple lettering chiseled into his mother’s headstone. Teresa Courtland Creed. Wife and Mother.

  He’d been three years old when his mom lost her battle with breast cancer, and there’d been a gaping hole in his life ever since. His dad, Jake Creed, never a solid citizen in the first place, had gone on a ten-year bender starting the day of the funeral. His grief hadn’t kept him from marrying Dylan’s mother six months later, though. Poor, sweet Maggie had died in a car accident four days after her son’s seventh birthday. True to his pattern, Jake had married again before the year was out—this time to Angela, an idealistic young schoolteacher with no more sense than to marry a raging drunk with two wild kids. Doubtless, she’d thought all Jake needed was the love of a good woman. She’d been a fine stepmother to Logan and Dylan, and had soon given birth to Tyler.

  She’d lasted a whole five years, Angela had.

  But Jake’s carousing had just plain worn her out. One fine summer day, she’d made a batch of fried chicken, told Logan and Dylan and Tyler to be sure to do their chores and say their prayers, and left.

  Jake had turned the whole countryside upside down looking for her. Enraged, he was convinced she’d left him for another man, and he meant to drag her home by the hair if it came to that.

  Instead, Angela had had herself a first-class nervous breakdown. She’d checked into a motel on the outskirts of Missoula, swallowed a bottle of tranquilizers and died.

  Such, Logan thought, was the proud history of the Creeds.

  After that, Jake ha
d given up on marriage. When Logan was a junior in college, the old man had gotten himself killed in a freak logging accident.

  Remembering the funeral made Logan’s stomach roll. As ludicrous as it seemed in retrospect, considering the havoc Jake’s drinking had wreaked on all their lives, the three of them had swilled whiskey, then gotten into the mother of all fistfights and ended the night in separate jail cells, guests of Sheriff Floyd Book.

  They hadn’t spoken since, though Logan kept track of his brothers, mostly via the Internet. Dylan, four-time world champion bull-rider, was apparently a professional celebrity, now that he’d hung up his rodeo gear for good. He’d even been in a couple of movies, though as far as Logan could tell, Dylan was famous for doing not much of anything in particular.

  Only in America.

  Tyler, whose event was bareback bronc busting, was still following the rodeo. He’d been involved in a few well-publicized romantic scrapes, invested his considerable winnings in real estate and signed on as a national spokesman for a designer boot company. Though he was the youngest, Tyler was also the wildest of Jake Creed’s three sons. He had issues aplenty, between the way Jake had raised them and his mother’s death.

  But his brothers’ stories were just that—their stories. Logan knew he’d have his hands full straightening out his own life, and while he regretted it, the fact was, the Creed brothers were estranged. And the estrangement might well be permanent. Given the family pride, not to mention inborn stubbornness, “Sorry” just wasn’t enough.

  Logan was about ready to leave—he had several other places to go. Briana and the kids were folding up their picnic blanket. The younger boy, Alec, approached with a slice of bologna for Sidekick.

  “You a cowboy?” the kid asked, taking notice of Logan’s worn boots while the dog feasted on lunch meat, downing rind and all.

  Logan thrust a hand through his hair. “I was, once,” he said, aware of Briana—now, where the devil had she gotten a name like that?—looking on.

  “My dad’s a cowboy,” Alec said. “We don’t see him much.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Logan replied.

  “He rodeos,” Alec explained. “Mom divorced him online after he left us off in front of Wal-Mart and didn’t come back to get us.”

  Something bit into the pit of Logan’s stomach. He felt fury, certainly—what kind of man abandoned a woman and two little boys and a dog?—but a disturbing amount of relief, too. Once again, his gaze strayed to Briana, who was just opening her mouth to call Alec off. Damn, but she was delectable, all curves and bright hair and smooth, lightly freckled skin.

  “Mom takes real good care of us, though,” Alec went on, when Logan didn’t—couldn’t—speak. Old Jake hadn’t been the father of the year, either, but for all his womanizing, all his drinking, all his brawling, he’d worked steadily and hard up there in the woods, felling trees. On his worst day, he wouldn’t have left his woman or his kids to fend for themselves.

  “Bet she does,” Logan managed to respond, as Briana drew closer.

  “She’s a supervisor over at the casino,” Alex stated, speeding up his words as his mother got nearer.

  Briana arrived, placed a slender hand on Alec’s T-shirted shoulder. Both boys had dark hair and eyes, in contrast to their mother’s fair coloring. A picture of her exhusband formed in Logan’s mind. He was probably a charmer, one of those gypsy types, with a good line and a sad story.

  “That’s enough, Alec,” Briana said calmly. She kept her eyes averted from Logan’s face, as though she’d suddenly turned shy. “We have to go home now. You have chores to do, and lessons.”

  Alec wrinkled his nose. “Mom homeschools us,” he told Logan. “We don’t even get a summer vacation.”

  Logan arched an eyebrow, perched his hands on his hips. Resisted an urge to rub his beard-stubbled chin self-consciously.

  “That,” Briana said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder gently, “is because you goof off so much, you have to put in extra time.”

  “I wish we could go to school in Stillwater Springs, like the other kids,” Alec lamented. “They get to play baseball. They ride a bus and go on field trips and everything.”

  Briana’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, and that flush rose again, along the undersides of her cheekbones. “Alec,” she said firmly, “Mr. Creed is not interested in our personal business. Let’s run along home before the mosquitoes come out, okay?”

  “Mr. Creed” was, in fact, interested, and out of all proportion to good sense, too. “Logan,” he said.

  Briana checked her watch, nodded. “Logan,” she repeated distractedly.

  “Can Josh and me call you ‘Logan,’ too?” Alec asked, his voice hopeful.

  A woman who homeschooled her children might have some pretty strict ideas about etiquette. Logan didn’t want to step on Briana’s toes, so he said, “If it’s all right with your mother.”

  “We’ll see,” Briana said, still flustered. Then, like a hen, but without the clucking, she gathered her brood and herded them off toward the creek. Dylan’s place was just on the other side of a rickety little wooden bridge, hidden from sight by a copse of birch trees in full summer leaf. The black dog waddled after them.

  Logan felt strangely bereft, watching them go. Sidekick must have, too, because he gave a little whimper of protest.

  Logan bent, reassured the dog with a pat on the head. “Let’s go home, boy,” he said. “By now, word will have gotten around that I’m back, and we’re bound to get company.”

  But neither of them moved until Briana, the boys and the dog disappeared from sight.

  Logan paused, thinking he ought to stop by Jake’s grave before he left, but he was afraid he’d spit on it if he did. So he headed toward the orchard instead, Sidekick hurrying to keep up.

  Sure enough, Cassie Greencreek’s eyesore of a car sat beside the house. It sort of classed up the place, which was a sad commentary by anybody’s standards.

  Cassie was waiting for him. She’d settled herself on the top porch step, looking resplendent in a purple polyester dress big enough to hide a Volkswagen. Her waistlength black hair was streaked with silver now, and her brown eyes glinted with a combination of welcome and bad temper.

  “Logan Creed,” she declared, receiving the dog graciously when he went to greet her. “I never thought you’d have the nerve to come back here, after all the goings-on at Jake’s funeral.”

  Logan grinned sheepishly, pausing on the weedchoked walk. Spreading his hands in the time-honored here-I-am gesture.

  “When was the last time you shaved?” Cassie demanded, making room for Sidekick on the step. “You look like some saddle-bum.”

  Logan laughed at that, drew near and bent to kiss the old woman’s upturned face.

  “I love you, too, Grandma,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE HOUSE THAT had sheltered Briana Grant, her sons and her dog for just over two years looked the same as ever, in the gathering dusk, and yet it was different, too.

  A strange little thrill, not in the least unpleasant, danced in the depths of her abdomen as she looked around.

  Same noisy, dented refrigerator, its front all but hidden by Alec and Josh’s artwork.

  Same worn-out linoleum floors.

  Same oldfashioned harvest-gold wall phone with the twisty plastic cord. Beneath it, on the warped wooden counter, the red light on the answering machine winked steadily.

  What had changed?

  It wasn’t the house, of course. She was different, altered somehow, and on a quantum level, too, as if the very structure of her cells had been zapped with some dangerous new energy.

  What the hell? she wondered, biting down hard on her lower lip as the boys engaged in their usual cominghome chaos—Josh logging on to the computer at the desk under the kitchen window, Wanda barking and turning in circles around her water dish, Alec diving for the answering machine when he saw that the tiny red light was blinking.

  “Maybe Da
d called!” Alec shouted, punching buttons.

  “Maybe the president called,” Josh mocked bitterly.

  “Shut up, poop face!”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Briana said, drawing back a chair at the table and dropping onto its cracked red vinyl seat, feeling oddly displaced, as though she’d accidentally stumbled into some neighboring dimension.

  Vance’s voice, rising out of the answering machine like a smoky genie promising three wishes—none of which would come true, of course—sounded throaty and cajoling.

  Wanda stopped barking.

  “Hello, family,” Vance said, and Briana glanced in Josh’s direction, saw his sturdy little back stiffen under his striped T-shirt. “Sorry about that child-support check, Bree. I figured I’d have the money in the bank before it cleared, but I didn’t make it.”

  Briana closed her eyes. Vance loved to toss the word family around, as if just by using it, he could rewrite history and undo the truth—that he’d virtually thrown his wife and children away, like the candy-bar wrappers and burger cartons that collected on the floorboards of his van.

  “I might be passing through Stillwater Springs in a week or so,” the disembodied voice drawled on. “I’ll bunk in on the couch, if it’s all right with you, and see what I can do about making that check good.” A slight pause. “The couch folds out, right?”

  The graveyard supper of bologna and juice roiled in Briana’s stomach.

  Alec erupted with joy, jumping all over the kitchen like one of those Mexican worms trapped inside a dry husk.

  “If he’s coming here,” Josh huffed, fingers flying over the computer keyboard, “I’m running away from home!”

  “See you soon,” Vance crooned. “Love you all.”

  Click.

  See you soon. Love you all.

  Right.

  Briana swore under her breath. The earlier, almost mystical sense of profound change receded into the background of her mind, instantly replaced by a tension headache, bouncing hard between her temples.

  “Go ahead and run away,” Alec taunted his brother. “I’d like to have the bottom bunk, anyway!”