Alec made a face. “Josh is right,” he said, in an Ihate-to-admit-it kind of tone. “Cowboys like steak and stuff like that.”
“Sorry,” Briana said, sounding a bit manic. Wanda was scratching at the door again. “No steak. Somebody let the dog in, please.”
Josh did the honors, after a brief stare-down with Alec. “And then feed her,” Briana added.
“We’ve been cooped up in the house all day,” Josh said, looking like a slave hauling construction materials to a pyramid as he dipped Wanda’s bowl into the kibble bag, brought it out overflowing and set it down on the floor for her. “I was hoping we could have another picnic at the cemetery.”
“I told you what Mr. Cre—Logan said about bears.”
“When was the last time you saw a bear, Mom?” Josh persisted.
Briana sighed. She’d never seen a bear, at least not around Stillwater Springs, which was probably why Dylan hadn’t warned her when she and the boys moved in. He had told her, during one of their rare phone conversations, that the cellar floor was rotting in places and the furnace needed three good kicks to get going when the temperature fell below freezing in the winter and that she should let the neighbor feed Cimarron and keep away from him herself.
If bears were a threat, wouldn’t he have said something?
Wouldn’t Jim Huntinghorse or one of the dozens of other people she knew in town have said something?
Her mood, already slightly frenzied, darkened a little. Logan was either paranoid about bears, or he simply didn’t want her and her sons having the run of the property.
For a moment, she wished she hadn’t invited him over, that or any night. What other ridiculous fears was he going to plant in her head?
“When, Mom?” Josh prodded, because he never let any subject drop before he was satisfied that all the angles had been covered.
“Okay,” she said. “We can still go to the cemetery for picnics—but not tonight. I am not lugging a hot casserole across the creek.”
Josh and Alec gave each other high fives, in an unusual show of accord.
Hastily, she browned the hamburger in a cast-iron skillet, drained it, mixed it in with the cream of mushroom soup and a few dehydrated onions, poured the potato thingies over the top and put the whole concoction into the oven at three-fifty.
The phone rang as she was stepping out of the shower.
Vance, calling to say he’d be arriving early or not coming at all?
Logan, begging off on supper?
The bathroom door creaked open and Alec stuck his head through the crack, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Mom!”
Briana, wrapped in a towel, chuckled at the sight. “What?”
“We won a week’s vacation at Lake Tahoe,” Alec said. “All we have to do is look at a time share and watch a video. They’ll even fly us down there!”
“It’s a sales pitch,” Briana said, reaching for her robe with her free hand. “Hang up.”
“But I told the guy you were in the shower and I’d come and get you. Mom, we won.”
Briana was in her robe by then, belt pulled tight. “You can open your eyes now, Alec,” she said. “I’m decent. Go back, tell ‘the guy’ we’re not interested and hang up.”
Alec dragged off to the kitchen to do as he was told—Briana hoped—and she slipped into her bedroom to put on clean underwear, cut-off jeans and a white tank top. She slipped her feet into sandals, pinned up her hair, applied a spritz of the drugstore perfume the boys had given her for Christmas and examined her reflection in the blurry mirror above the bureau.
She definitely needed mascara and lip gloss, she decided.
The savory scent of the casserole filled the kitchen when she made her entrance. She drew up, a little thrown, when she saw Logan sitting at the kitchen table, with Josh seated at his right side and Alec at his left.
“I’m early,” he said, looking apologetic as he rose from his chair. He’d brought wildflowers in a canning jar and a bottle of light wine, both of which were sitting on the table.
She gave him credit for good manners. But he looked too fine in his new jeans and pressed white shirt, open at the throat. His dark hair was still damp from a shower, and there were little ridges where he’d run a comb through it.
The back door was open, and through the screen, Briana saw Sidekick sleeping contentedly on the porch. She’d had to look away from Logan for a moment, in order to steady her nerves, but now she made herself look back.
“That’s okay,” she said, too brightly and a beat too late. “Supper’s ready.”
“Smells good,” Logan said. He sounded shy. She knew he wasn’t.
Was he putting on an act?
“It’s Wild Man’s Spud Extravaganza,” Alec announced proudly, evidently over his earlier fixation about serving steak.
Logan, sitting down again at a nod from Briana, raised an eyebrow, and a slight grin quirked one corner of his mouth. “Who’s Wild Man?” he asked.
“Our Grampa,” Josh answered. “He was a famous rodeo clown.”
“Oh,” Logan said, his eyes never leaving Briana’s face. “That Wild Man.”
“You knew him?” Alec asked, hyperintrigued. This, his expression seemed to say, was even better than “winning” a free trip to Lake Tahoe. Even his freckles were jazzed.
“I saw him perform a few times, when I was about your age,” Logan answered, shifting his gaze to Alec, somehow managing to pull Josh into his orbit, too. “I wanted to be Wild Man McIntyre when I grew up. Turned out to be myself instead.”
Briana busied herself setting the table. Logan had probably eaten off the same dishes they’d be using that night, she thought fitfully, back when he and Dylan were like regular brothers. If indeed they’d ever been regular brothers.
“We’ve got a whole album full of pictures of him!” Alec said.
“After supper,” Briana interjected, her smile a little tight-lipped.
The boys missed it.
Logan didn’t. His eyes lingered on her face, making every single cell in her body throb before going back to Alec. “I’d like that fine,” he said. “When the time is right.”
Briana gave herself strict orders to calm down, stop being such a ninny, but herself didn’t listen. This was just supper with a neighbor, that was all, but it felt like more.
It felt like some kind of beginning.
Briana didn’t like beginnings, because they inevitably turned into endings. Given her druthers, she’d have spent the rest of her life somewhere in the middle, between major events. The present, for all its problems, was a terrain she knew.
She had her boys, and a place to live, and a job that paid the bills.
And that was enough—wasn’t it?
The casserole went over big. Logan had two helpings, though he didn’t touch the wine. Since he’d opened the bottle at some point, Briana accepted a glass, took a couple of jittery sips and decided she’d be better off without a buzz. Even a very mild one.
The truth was she had enough of a buzz going in her nerve endings already, without adding alcohol to the mix. Maybe Vance had been right, when he’d accused her of being sex-starved.
She went weeks without thinking about sex.
Now, with Logan Creed sitting at her table, looking ruggedly handsome in his cowboy dress-up clothes, something primitive was streaking through certain parts of her anatomy.
It simply wouldn’t do.
As soon as everybody was finished eating, Briana jumped up and started bustling around, cleaning up. Usually, she made Alec and Josh do the dishes, but tonight she needed to be busy.
So she bounced around that kitchen like a bumblebee trapped in a sealed jelly jar. Even Wanda regarded her with curiosity.
Logan tried to help with the dishes, but she sort of elbowed him aside. All she needed was that man standing hip-to-hip with her in front of the sink, or anywhere else. The scent of his cologne—if that was what it was—made her feel light-headed. He smelled like sun-dried sheets,
fresh-cut grass and summer.
Josh fetched the photo album from its honored place in the living room, and opened it on the freshly cleared table. “This is him,” he told Logan, tapping at a faded black-and-white image with one index finger. “This is my Grampa, Bill ‘Wild Man’ McIntyre.”
Briana had long since come to grips with the fact that her boys would never actually know their grandfather. Just the same, her eyes were suddenly scalding, and her throat was tight.
The angle of Logan’s head, bent over the album, touched something tender inside her. She wished he’d just get up and leave. Wished even more that he would stay.
She was losing her mind.
As if he’d felt her watching him, Logan lifted his eyes.
“Mom says the clowns are the bravest men in rodeo,” Alec said, preening a little.
“She’s right about that,” Logan said, still watching her. “They’ve saved my…life a time or two.”
Briana tried her damnedest to look away, found she couldn’t.
“See?” Josh chirped, delighted to be right. “I told you Logan was a cowboy!”
Briana’s cheeks stung. Look away, she pleaded silently, because I can’t.
As if he’d heard her, Logan averted his eyes. Fixed his attention on Alec and Josh. “I was a cowboy, once upon a time,” he told the boys quietly. “Gave it up to join the service.”
“Were you in the war?” Alec asked, impressed again. Or still.
“Yeah,” Logan said. His voice came out sounding hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “Didn’t care much for that.”
Didn’t care much for that.
The very way he’d said the words marked them as the understatement of the ages.
“We usually take Wanda for a walk after supper,” Josh said.
Logan was clearly grateful for the change of subject. He pushed back his chair, smiling. “Sounds like a good idea,” he replied. “Maybe Sidekick and I could tag along?”
“What if we should stumble across a bear?” Briana asked, raising both eyebrows. She’d finished with the washing up by then, draped the dish towel over the plates and glasses and silverware stacked on the drain-board.
Logan chuckled. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t recommend running. A bear can beat a fast horse. Climbing a tree is out, since they’re pretty handy at that, too. Guess I’d just have to grin him down, like ol’ Dan’l Boone.”
“We’re related to Daniel Boone,” Josh said.
“Isn’t everybody?” Logan teased.
Josh laughed.
Logan opened the screen door, and they all went out, Briana bringing up the rear.
She would have sworn Logan was looking at her—well, rear—as she passed.
Sidekick and Wanda trotted ahead, happy at the prospect of a walk, with the boys close behind them.
“They like you,” Briana told Logan.
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
She turned her head, looked up at his face. “Depends,” she said. “They miss their dad. It would be easy for them to—”
“To what?” Logan asked quietly.
“To like you too much,” Briana answered, embarrassed.
“I’m harmless,” Logan said.
“I don’t think so,” Briana replied.
And they walked in silence for a while, watching the two boys and the two dogs cavorting up ahead.
Although the sun would be up for at least another hour, the first stars were popping out, and the moon was clearly visible. The country air smelled of hay and grass and fertile earth.
Or was that Logan?
She’d barely touched her wine, but Briana Grant felt moderately drunk. “Why did you tell me to watch out for bears?” she asked. “I was almost afraid to let the boys leave the house.”
He didn’t take her hand, but he moved closer, their knuckles touched and a hard, burning thrill ripped through Briana’s system.
“I wasn’t trying to scare you,” Logan said. “Bears feed at the landfill, mostly, on the other side of town. But once in a while, they pay a visit to the orchard. I’d say it was because of people encroaching on their habitat, but the fact is, they’ve been raiding those pear and apple trees since the first season they bore fruit. And that was back in old Josiah Creed’s time.”
Briana shivered, hugged herself, though the night was warm.
“Bears are like most wild animals,” Logan went on. “They’re only dangerous if they feel threatened, and that happens when you take them by surprise.”
“I guess I could beat a spoon against the bottom of a pan or something,” Briana said seriously. “When we go to the cemetery, I mean. We don’t have much reason to pass through the orchard.”
Logan grinned. “You could do that,” he said.
Was he laughing at her?
Briana got her back up a little. “I don’t want my boys to be afraid,” she said. “Not even of bears.”
“A little fear is a healthy thing sometimes,” Logan retorted. “Especially where bears are concerned. And that old bull of Dylan’s.”
She stole a sidelong glance at Logan, but whatever she’d heard in his voice as he mentioned his brother didn’t show in his face or bearing. “We’ve never had any trouble with Cimarron,” she said.
“God only knows why he keeps that bull anyhow,” Logan mused, with a distracted shake of his head. “He doesn’t run cattle. It would make sense if he had heifers to breed.”
“You don’t like him much, do you?”
“Cimarron?” Logan asked, hedging.
“Dylan,” Briana said.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“What would you say, then?”
“That we had a falling-out a long time ago,” Logan told her. His tone was stiff; she’d crossed a line. “It happens with brothers.”
Briana looked up ahead, at her boys, and felt the usual surge of wild, helpless love for them. “Alec and Josh argue all the time,” she confessed. “But if they grew up and hated each other, I don’t think I could stand it.”
Logan didn’t answer for a few moments. “I don’t hate Dylan,” he said.
Briana glanced at him, saw that his jawline had tightened. Since she’d already said too much, she decided to hold her tongue. No sense in digging herself in deeper.
Logan whistled, the sound low and distinctly masculine, and both boys and both dogs turned at the sound, sprinted back toward him.
“Thanks for supper,” Logan said. “Sidekick and I had better be getting back home now. Big day tomorrow.”
Briana merely nodded.
Logan said goodbye to the boys, and then he and Sidekick headed off toward the orchard. If either one of them were worried about encountering a bear, it didn’t show in the easy way they strolled that country road.
CHAPTER FIVE
LOGAN’S CELL PHONE rang as he walked through the twilight-shadowed orchard, the dog prancing briskly alongside. He squinted at the caller ID panel, swallowed hard and thumbed the appropriate button.
“Hello, Ty,” he said.
The responding chill was transmitted in milliseconds, bouncing from Tyler to some satellite and straight into Logan’s right ear to pulse through his whole head.
“You left a message?” Tyler asked. His voice was deep—the last time they’d spoken, it had still been changing.
Logan suppressed a sigh. “We need to talk,” he said.
“Maybe you need to talk, big brother,” Tyler countered, “but I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
Logan stopped in the middle of the orchard, looked up into the branches arching over his head, in case a bear was about to land on him. The weight of what lay between him and Tyler was heavier than anything that could have dropped out of a tree, though.
“Don’t hang up, okay?” he asked. He’d had to swallow a measure of pride before he could get the words out.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t,” Tyler snapped, but at least he was still there. Still listening—if th
at stony stillness could be considered listening.
“Because we’re brothers?”
Ty laughed, but there was no humor in the sound, only the numbing coldness that had greeted Logan’s initial hello and expanded like a low-crawling fog drifting over a rain-soaked landscape. “That was a reach,” he said. “And we’re half brothers. Guess which half is my favorite?”
“Too easy,” Logan said, moving again, but slowly. Sidekick was looking up at him, every few steps, in that worried way of his. “The half that isn’t related to me.”
“Right. What do you want, Logan? It can’t be money—you’ve got plenty of that. If it’s my signature on a sales contract for the ranch, you can forget it.”
Logan had to unclamp his back molars to go on. “Nobody said anything about selling the ranch,” he snarled. “Dylan reacted the same—”
“You talked to Dylan?”
“Yeah, yesterday.”
“If you talk to him again, tell him he’s a chickenshit son of a bitch.”
In spite of everything, Logan grinned. He and Sidekick cleared the orchard, and the dog dashed ahead to sniff at the mega-load of steel fence rails, lumber and other building materials that must have been delivered while he was having supper with Briana and her kids.
“Tell him yourself,” he said.
A second silence ensued. Then Tyler repeated the pertinent question. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Logan had given that a lot of thought, since he and Dylan had had a similar conversation. He didn’t exactly know, specifically, so he made something up. “I’m planning to renovate the main house. Build a new barn. Replace some fences. Since you and Dylan own equal shares of the ranch, I thought you might want to look things over. Approve the changes.”
Another silence.
“Are you still there?” Logan finally asked. He’d reached the front porch by then, but he wasn’t ready to go inside, so he sat down on the step. Sidekick chased a low-flying bug through the high grass, snapping his jaws and missing every time.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 7
