Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler

by Linda Lael Miller

  “And hauled us both off to the woodshed.”

  “If he’d given up, you’d have been hauled off to the morgue. I know he took a switch to you, and I’d have stopped him if I’d been here, but it wasn’t anger that made him paddle your hind end, Logan Creed. It was plain old ordinary fear.”

  “Today, they call it child abuse,” Logan pointed out.

  “Today,” Cassie argued, “they’ve got school shootings and kids who can’t be graded on a test because their self-esteem might be damaged. They call in the social workers if the screen on the TV in their bedroom is too small, or their personal computer isn’t fast enough. I’m not so sure a good switching wouldn’t be a favor to some of those young thugs who hang out behind the pool hall when they’re supposed to be in class.”

  “That is so not politically correct,” Logan said, though secretly, he agreed.

  “I don’t have to be politically correct,” Cassie retorted, with a sniff.

  She was right about that. She didn’t. And she wasn’t.

  She ducked behind the wheel of her car. “Welcome back, Logan,” she said, watching him through the open window. “See that you stay.”

  He thought of Briana Grant, her lively sons and her fat black dog. The idea of sticking around didn’t seem quite so daunting as before.

  “I guess Dylan’s been back,” he ventured. “Long enough to hire a caretaker, anyway.”

  Cassie merely nodded, waiting.

  “Is he… Are Dylan and Briana…?”

  Cassie’s brown eyes warmed with humor and understanding. “Involved?” she said. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Yes,” Logan grumbled, because he knew she was going to leave him hanging there if he didn’t respond. “That’s what I mean.”

  She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “You know Dylan. When he goes after a woman…”

  Logan’s knuckles ached where he gripped the lower edge of Cassie’s car window.

  Cassie smiled and patted one of his hands. “If you want to know about Dylan and Briana,” she said sweetly, “you’d better ask one of them. I’m just an old lady, minding my own business. How would I know what is—or isn’t—going on between those two?”

  “You know everything,” Logan said. If he hadn’t been wearing a T-shirt, he’d have been hot under the collar. “About everybody in Stillwater Springs and for fifty miles in all directions.”

  Cassie sighed. Shifted the car into Reverse. “You’d better step back,” she said, “if you don’t want me to run over your toes.”

  Logan, being no fool, stepped back.

  He watched Cassie whip the little car around and chug back down the driveway at a good clip, exhaust pipe belching blue smoke, loose parts rattling. When she topped the rise, then dipped out of sight, he looked down at the paper she’d handed him earlier.

  Dylan’s number.

  Tyler’s.

  Sidekick came down the porch steps to nudge Logan in one thigh, as if urging him to get it over with.

  Cassie had been right, of course. It wasn’t going to get any easier.

  He got out his cell phone, thumbed in Dylan’s number, half hoping he’d get voice mail.

  “Yo,” Dylan said, live and in person. “Dylan Creed.” Logan plunked down on the porch step, right where Cassie had been sitting earlier. Cleared his throat. “Did you check caller ID before you answered?” he asked.

  Silence.

  Then, “Logan?”

  “It’s me,” Logan said, bracing himself. Prepared for either a backlash of profanity or an instant hang-up.

  Neither one came. Dylan seemed stunned, as much at a loss for words as Logan was.

  “I’ll be damned,” Dylan said finally. “Where are you?”

  “On the ranch,” Logan replied, relieved.

  “What are you doing there?” Now there was an edge to Dylan’s tone; he sounded vaguely suspicious.

  “Not much of anything, right at the moment,” Logan said, scratching Sidekick’s ears. “The place is going to hell in a wheelbarrow. Thought I’d fix it up a little—my part of it, anyway.”

  Another silence followed, pulsing with all the things neither one of them dared say.

  “What’ve you been up to, Logan?”

  Was it brotherly interest, that question, or an accusation? Logan decided to give Dylan the benefit of the doubt. “Quit the rodeo, got married and divorced a couple of times, started a business. What about you?”

  “There are similarities,” Dylan said quietly. “I’m not rodeoing anymore, either. No wives, current or ex, but I do have a two-year-old daughter. Her name’s Bonnie—or it was the last time I heard. Her mother’s changed it half a dozen times since the kid was born.”

  Logan closed his eyes. His own brother had a child, his niece, and he hadn’t known the little girl existed. “The last time you heard? Don’t you see Bonnie, Dylan?”

  For a moment, the connection seemed to crackle, then Dylan took a breath. “Not much,” he admitted. “Sharlene’s supposed to share custody, but she doesn’t.”

  “Maybe I could help you with that,” Logan heard himself say.

  “Yeah,” Dylan retorted, and the edge was back in his voice. “You’re a lawyer. I keep forgetting.”

  I’m also your brother.

  “Look, if you decide you need legal advice, give me a call. If not, that’s okay, too. I just called because—”

  “Why did you call, Logan?” A challenge. That was like Dylan—to assume Logan must be up to something, if he’d made contact after all this time.

  “I guess being back home made me a little nostalgic, that’s all,” Logan said.

  “Home?” Dylan echoed, downright testy now. “Where’s that?”

  Logan said nothing.

  “What do you want?”

  The words hurt Logan a lot more than he would have admitted. “Nothing,” he said. “I just thought we could talk.”

  “You’re planning to sell your share of the ranch, aren’t you? That’s why you’re hiring contractors and buying lumber. So you can nick some Hollywood type for a few million?”

  Ah, the grapevine, Logan thought. Dylan knew he was fixing up the ranch house, because he still had sources in town. Asking where he was had been a formality.

  “I’m not selling,” he said evenly. “I’m here to stay. And if you’re thinking of liquidating your share of the place, I’ll match anybody else’s offer.” That train of thought led to Briana Grant, since she was living in Dylan’s house, and following it got Logan into trouble. He was a beat late realizing he’d said the wrong thing.

  “If I was going to sell my ten thousand acres—and I’m not—I sure as hell wouldn’t let you buy me out.”

  Here we go, Logan thought. “Why’s that?”

  “You know why. Because of the things you said about Dad.”

  “I was wrong, okay? I should have been more respectful—kept my opinions to myself. I’m sorry, Dylan.”

  More silence. Dylan would have been prepared for a counterattack, but the left-field apology probably threw him a little.

  “Dylan? Are you still there?”

  Dylan sighed audibly. “I’m here.”

  “And ‘here’ is where?”

  “L.A.,” Dylan said. “I had a meeting with my agent and a few studio people—I’m doing some stunt work for a movie. They’re filming up in Alberta, starting next week.”

  “You like that kind of work?” Logan asked. He couldn’t imagine why anybody would, but then it couldn’t be any more dangerous than rodeo, and they’d both taken a turn at that.

  “It’s a living,” Dylan answered. “Pays my child support.”

  Logan took the plunge, though he knew the water would be cold. “I’m thinking of running some cattle on the ranch. Buying some horses, too. Maybe you’d like to be a partner?”

  “We wouldn’t get along for ten minutes,” Dylan said, but there was something wistful in the way he said the words.

  Logan laughed. “We neve
r did,” he replied. “But we had a lot of fun in between brawls.”

  More silence.

  Then Dylan laughed, too. “Yeah,” he said.

  It was the first thing they’d agreed on in a decade.

  “You going to call Ty?” Dylan asked.

  “At some point.”

  “Well, tread lightly when you do. And don’t give my name as a reference—he’s seriously pissed at me right now.”

  “Why?” Logan asked, though he could imagine a thousand reasons—not the least of which was Tyler’s tendency to be a hothead.

  But Dylan shut him down. “Too personal,” he said coolly. This is between Ty and me. You’re on the outside, looking in. “Look, Logan, it was good to hear from you, but I’ve gotta go. Big date.”

  “Right,” Logan replied. He and Dylan had been civil to each other. When he saw Cassie the next morning, he could honestly say he’d tried. “Good luck with the movie.”

  Dylan said thanks and hung up.

  Logan looked down at Sidekick, who was gazing soulfully into his eyes.

  “One down, one to go,” he told the dog.

  Sidekick whimpered.

  Logan consulted Cassie’s note again, then dialed the number scrawled next to Tyler’s name.

  One ring.

  Two.

  Three.

  Then, the recording. “This is Tyler Creed. I’m busy right now, but I’ll call you back unless you’re selling something. In that case, you’re SOL. Wait for the beep, and spill it.”

  Logan chuckled, waited for the beep.

  “This is Logan,” he said. He recited both his cell number and the new one for the ranch phone. “Call me. I’m not selling anything.”

  Like hell he wasn’t.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SOLEMNLY, Alec presented Briana with a tattered piece of notebook paper. The pencil marks forming Vance’s number were pressed in hard, as though Alec had been afraid they would fade if he didn’t copy them down with all his might.

  The sorrow Briana felt in that moment weighed down her heart. Even Alec, Vance’s most loyal supporter, knew that the precious digits in that phone number were elusive. Like his father.

  Tears scalded the backs of her eyes, and she touched the pendant she always wore—she’d made it herself, scanning an old photo of her dad, resizing it, setting it in resin. He’d been a rambler, too, Bill McIntyre had, a well-known rodeo clown following the circuit during the season, parking his camper in his sister’s backyard in Boise when there were no rodeos to perform in. The difference was, he’d taken Briana on the road with him, after her mother died. She’d been Alec’s age then.

  Her aunt Barbara had objected, of course, to all the travel and Briana doing her schoolwork by correspondence instead of attending a real school. A young girl needed friends, Barbara had argued. Needed dance lessons and Sunday school and security.

  Every time they’d returned to Boise, Briana’s bossy but beloved aunt had hustled her off to the school for tests; every time, Briana had proved to be far above her grade level. In fact, she’d completed high school by the time she was fifteen. Bill had immediately signed her up for college-level courses, and she’d aced those, too, with his help.

  She treasured the recollection of the two of them sitting at the little fold-down table in the camper, lamplight casting a golden benediction from over their heads, bent over one textbook or another.

  Now, with her son standing hopefully before her, she missed her dad more poignantly than ever. Sure, he’d dragged her all over the United States in that old camper, but he’d been rock-solid, too. There for her, no matter what.

  Her greatest regret, where her children were concerned, was that she hadn’t given them the kind of father Bill had been to her. Instead, she’d been swept away by Vance’s good looks, charm and easy drawl.

  “Are you going to call Dad?” Alec asked, his voice small.

  Briana smiled. “Yes,” she said. “But only to ask how long he’ll be staying.”

  Alec looked desperately relieved. His gaze slipped to the pendant, on its simple leather cord, and the image of Bill “Wild Man” McIntyre, clad in full clown regalia. “You miss Grampa, huh?”

  “Lots,” Briana admitted. Her dad had retired from rodeo soon after she married Vance, giving up his beloved camper for a modest house a few blocks from Barbara and her family, saying he was all set to fish every day and wait for his grandchildren to come along.

  A month later, he’d passed away very suddenly, after a particularly nasty case of the flu had turned to pneumonia.

  The irony of that still bothered Briana. Her dad had been gored by bulls and trampled by broncs in his long career as a rodeo clown, and in the end, he’d died of an ailment a simple injection might have prevented.

  Alec leaned in, planted a kiss on Briana’s cheek. “’Night, Mom,” he said. “And thanks.”

  Briana waited until Alec and Josh had both settled in for the night, keeping herself busy by puttering around the kitchen, washing up dishes she’d left in the sink that morning, making up a grocery list, checking and rechecking her work schedule for the coming week. Finally, sweaty-palmed, she took the phone receiver off the hook on the wall and called Vance.

  “That number,” an automated operator responded, after three rings, “is no longer in service.”

  Of course it wasn’t, Briana thought, hanging up with a slight bang, feeling both relieved and annoyed. Vance would have had to buy more minutes to keep that particular line of communication open; instead, he’d simply gotten another phone, in another convenience store, with a new number he hadn’t troubled himself to share with her.

  She rarely had anything to say to Vance, but suppose one of the boys were sick or hurt? How would she reach him?

  Resigned, Briana sighed and checked the clock on the stove. Too early to turn in, especially with all that caffeine coursing through her system, and she didn’t feel like watching television or cruising the Internet.

  Wandering into the living room, she peered through the lace curtains toward the main ranch house. Saw its lights shining through the trees in the orchard for the first time since she’d moved into Dylan’s place as caretaker-in-residence. The sight was comforting, made her feel less isolated and alone. Not that she meant to get too friendly with Logan Creed—he was easy on the eyes, and she’d liked him right away, even if he did make her nervous, but he was a cowboy.

  Like Vance.

  He’d blown in on a stray wind, like some tumbleweed, Logan had, and he was likely to blow right out again, when the right breeze came along.

  Biting her lower lip, Briana turned away from the window.

  In the distance, the phone jangled.

  She ran to answer, smacking her shin on one of the kitchen chairs as she passed. Wincing, she grabbed up the receiver and said, “Hello? Vance?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?” Briana repeated.

  “It’s Logan,” her neighbor said quietly.

  “Oh,” Briana said.

  “I’ll make this quick, since you’re expecting another call,” Logan replied affably. “I checked out Dylan’s pasture fence, and I don’t think it would hold that bull if he decided to charge. Since I’m planning to do a lot of work around the place anyway, I’m having new posts and rails put in. Just thought I’d let you know before the work crews showed up.”

  I’m not expecting another call. That was what Briana wanted to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to let on that she was glad he’d phoned, glad to hear another adult human voice on a dark summer night. He’d think she was needy if she did. In the market for a man.

  “Did you clear that with Dylan?” she said instead, rubbing her bruised shin, and then wished she’d gone the needy route anyway. That would have been better than the unintentionally snippy way she’d put the question.

  Logan waited a beat before answering, to let her know he’d registered the tone. “I don’t imagine he’d object, since I’m footing the bill. If that
bull got out and did some damage, it would be Dylan’s hide the lawyers nailed to the barn wall, not mine.”

  The thought of Cimarron running amok, with Josh or Alec in his path, pushed all concerns about how she might have sounded to Logan right out of Briana’s mind. Having watched hundreds of rodeos in her time, she’d seen bulls send cowboys and clowns into midair somersaults and, once or twice, cave in their rib cages when they landed.

  “You really think he could get loose? Cimarron, I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Logan replied. She heard Isn’t that what I just said? in his intonation, though that part went unspoken.

  “Oh my God,” Briana murmured, closing her eyes. Child care was hard to find in Stillwater Springs, so when she couldn’t take the boys to work with her, leaving them to study or play handheld video games in the casino’s coffee shop, she left them home to play, study or do chores. They had strict orders to call at any sign of a problem, and stay close to the house while she was away, but they were boys, after all. Lively and adventurous. She knew they probably ranged over most of the ranch when she wasn’t around.

  “Is something wrong?” Logan asked moderately.

  “I was just worrying,” Briana said, trying to smile, though she couldn’t think why, since she was alone in the kitchen and Logan couldn’t see her. “It’s a mother thing.”

  “I’ll take care of the fence,” Logan assured her. “In the meantime, see that the boys stay clear of Cimarron.” A pause. “Dylan did warn you about the bears, didn’t he?”

  Briana gulped. “Bears?”

  “They like to raid the orchard every now and then,” Logan said.

  “In two years,” Briana said, her stomach doing a slow backward roll, “I haven’t seen a single bear.”

  “They’re around,” Logan replied. “Mostly browns and blacks, but there is the occasional grizzly, too, and they’re bad news.”

  “G-Grizzlies?” Briana echoed stupidly.

  Logan sighed. “Dylan should have told you,” he said.

  Briana barely knew Dylan Creed, but she had every reason to be grateful to him since he’d given her a place to stay when she needed it most, along with a generous supply of groceries and an old pickup to drive, and the faintly critical note in Logan’s voice put her on the defensive. “I guess the subject never came up,” she said stiffly.