She’d planned to stay on Heather’s bumper all the way to the trailer on the other side of Stillwater Springs, but Vance’s bride surprised her by heading for the auto shop where he worked instead. And Briana knew the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with the conversation she and Heather would have had. Would still have to have, at some point.
All the way home, she kept checking her rearview mirror.
*
THEY STOOD AT the fence for a while, Logan and Josh and Alec, after unsaddling the buckskin and turning him back into the corral. To Logan’s amusement, Josh had gathered up Snooks and tucked him inside his T-shirt, “so he wouldn’t get stepped on.” Now, both the dog’s and the boy’s heads were sticking out of the neck-hole. Every so often, Snooks would lick Josh’s cheek.
“Our lunches probably suck,” Alec said.
After a moment, Logan realized the kid was talking about the two brown paper bags still sitting on the hood of his rig.
“Don’t hint, butt-face,” Josh told his brother.
“Who’s hinting, jerk-wad?”
Logan grinned. “Do I have to whistle?” he asked.
Both boys shook their heads, though their eyes snapped with mischief.
“Are there really bears in the orchard?” Alec inquired, scuffing at the dirt with the toe of his sneaker as they started, by tacit agreement, toward the house.
“Sometimes,” Logan said.
“What would you do if you met one?” Alec queried, his eyes huge. His cast was starting to look respectably grubby now—Logan had added his signature, as had all the guys working on the barn restoration.
“Return to the religion of my childhood, probably,” Logan answered.
The two-headed creature—Josh and Snooks sharing a T-shirt—fell into step beside him. “Besides that, what?” Josh asked. “Would you shoot him?”
“I’d hate to do that,” Logan said. He didn’t hunt and, anyway, he’d had enough of guns in Iraq.
“But you would, wouldn’t you?” Alec asked. “If he was going to eat you, or Sidekick, or Snooks or—”
“Or you?” Josh teased, raising both hands like claws and giving a growl.
Alec blushed. Logan’s answer was important to him, that much was obvious.
He rubbed a hand over Alec’s bristly haircut. Snooks’s was almost as short, thanks to the buzz-job with the clippers. “If a buddy was in trouble, like you or Josh, here, I’d shoot the bear.”
“You’ve got a gun?”
“Several,” Logan said. “Old hunting rifles, mostly. Passed down through the family.”
“Can we see them?” Josh asked, as they climbed the porch steps.
“Some other time,” Logan replied. “Right now, we’d better rustle up some lunch. Then I thought we’d go out and see how that fence I’m building for old Cimarron is coming along.”
Logan hadn’t made too much progress on the inside of the house, but it was a comfortable place, without the charge of Jake’s alcoholic temper to keep the air sizzling. He had a bed now, and the couch from his place in Vegas, and his computer was set up in the living room.
Josh immediately zeroed in on it. “Wow,” he said. “State-of-the-art!”
Snooks started to squirm, and Josh took him out of his shirt and set him carefully on the floor, all the while gaping at the three oversize monitors and other gear.
“What do you do with this thing?” the boy enthused. “Run a government missile program or something?”
Logan chuckled. “Sometimes it seems that way,” he admitted. “I sold my business recently, and I’ve had to help the new people iron out a few snags.”
“Our computer is a dinosaur,” Alec said.
“A dinosaur’s grampa,” Josh agreed.
“How do chili dogs sound?” Logan asked, because the current drift of the conversation made him feel as though he’d sneaked a peek at Briana’s checkbook balance or something. It had taken a lot for her to leave Alec and Josh with him, so she wouldn’t miss work and suffer a corresponding hit to her paycheck.
After lunch, Logan piled the dishes in the sink and they headed for the pasture in the Dodge. The fence was three-quarters of the way finished, but the crew was nervous.
A glance told Logan why—Cimarron no longer stayed near the distant copse of birch trees; he was in the middle of the field, snorting and tossing his head every now and then.
“Stay here,” Logan told the boys, climbing out of the truck.
They obeyed, peering over the backseat, along with Snooks and Sidekick.
“There’s nothing in my contract,” the crew boss told him, “that covers getting gored by a bull.”
“The sooner you finish, the lower the risk,” Logan answered, watching the bull thoughtfully. Damn, but that son of a bitch was big. Why did Dylan keep him around, anyhow? He was a freaking menace—or would be, if he ever got loose.
“I should have asked for hazard pay,” the other man joked. His name was Dan Phillips, and he and Logan had gone to high school together, though Phillips had graduated three years before he did.
“Too late,” Logan said, grinning. “I’ve got twenty head of cattle coming in a little under two weeks. The fence has to be done by then.”
“Get ’em here early, why don’t you?” Dan retorted. “Maybe they’d keep that sucker occupied. He’s getting a little closer—and a little testier—every day. Damn near charged yesterday, when one of the guys hit a wasps’ nest driving a post-hole. Ralph started jumpin’ around, yellin’ and wavin’ his arms, and old Cimarron, he put his head down and headed straight for him. It was probably the wasps that turned him back.”
“Probably,” Logan agreed mildly.
He and Dan talked awhile longer, and then he went back to the truck.
“Gross!” Alec yelled, waving one hand in front of his face.
“You’re the one who sneaked Sidekick some of your chili,” Josh retorted.
Logan pretended to reel from the smell, which was pretty ripe.
Sidekick wagged his tail and looked innocent.
Alec and Josh scrambled out of the truck, Josh bringing Snooks along, out of mercy, Logan supposed.
“You should carry that spray stuff in the car,” Alec said, as they all stood waiting for the miasma to dissipate. “Mom does.”
Logan chuckled.
“Bet she’d love knowing you said that,” Josh hooted.
Alec flushed so red his freckles seemed to stand out on his face. “Because of Wanda,” he said. He looked up at Logan. “Wanda farts all the time!”
When it was safe to get back in the truck, they did. “Ever seen a real teepee?” Logan asked.
The idea was a hit, so they motored for Cassie’s place. She was outside when they arrived, clad in polyester shorts and a tank top and watering tomato plants with a bent green hose.
She smiled as boys and dogs tumbled out of the rig.
Logan made introductions, but Alec and Josh barely stood still for them. They were magnetized to the teepee, and Sidekick and Snooks were right on their heels.
“Is that a dog?” Cassie asked, squinting at Snooks.
Now that he’d been shaved within an inch of his hide, the miniature mutt looked even more like a rat than before.
“That’s a dog, all right,” Logan confirmed.
“I wouldn’t take him to the pool hall or anything,” Cassie observed. “Might get you beat up.”
“Snooks and I can take care of ourselves,” Logan said, handing over a dollar for the teepee admission fee.
Cassie waved it away. “A whole busload of tourists stopped here this morning,” she said. “This one’s on the house.” She smiled. “Or the teepee.”
Logan looked around. “Nobody getting their cards read?” he asked.
“I could read yours.”
“No, thanks.”
Cassie watched as the boys and dogs dashed in and out of the teepee. “I don’t need any cards,” she said, “to know where you’re he
aded, Logan Creed.”
“Oh, yeah?” he challenged, though good-naturedly. “Where’s that?”
“Right down the aisle,” Cassie answered. But she seemed troubled all of the sudden, watching Alec and Josh. Maybe they reminded her of him and Dylan and Tyler, when they were young, playing the same kind of games. Innocent kids one day, trying to knock out each other’s teeth after their father’s funeral the next.
“What’s the matter, Cassie?” Logan asked quietly, after a long time.
She met his gaze again. “I had a dream last night. Somebody wants to hurt you, Logan. Maybe hurt Briana and those babies of hers, too, if they happen to get in the way.”
Logan would have discounted the warning, coming from anybody but Cassie. “Who?” he asked. He thought of Vance Grant, and then of Brett Turlow, and shook his head. Vance was a jerk, but mostly bluff. And Turlow was all bluff.
“I think it’s got something to do with Jim Huntinghorse running for sheriff,” Cassie murmured, and though she was standing right in front of Logan, she might as well have been beyond the farthest hills.
“As far as I know,” Logan said, “Jim’s the only one who wants the job.”
“Then you don’t know very much,” Cassie responded. “You mark my words. Half a dozen people will be tacking signs on the power poles before Jim has the first bumper sticker printed. You’ve been away from Stillwater Springs for a while—” She held up a hand when he would have interrupted. “You don’t know the things that go on around here. I know you like Jim, but you’d be better off to keep a low profile around this election. If he’s meant to win it, he will.”
“What ‘things that go on around here,’ Cassie?” Logan asked. If Stillwater Springs had become a hotbed of crime since he left, the Courier hadn’t mentioned it. Nor had Jim, or Sheriff Book—although Floyd had, he remembered, asked him to stop by the office sometime soon.
He’d assumed that was part welcome, part warning—good to have you back, boy, but don’t think you’re going to raise hell in my town.
He moved the drop-in at the sheriff’s office up a notch on his agenda.
“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” Logan asked, frowning.
“I just had the dream last night,” Cassie told him, looking dead serious.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
Cassie nodded. “Round up those yahoos,” she said, gesturing toward Alec and Josh, “and we’ll go inside and have a cold drink.”
She was her old self again—and not.
He called the kids.
Josh’s cell phone rang while they were all swilling cola on ice in Cassie’s small, immaculate kitchen.
“We’re with Logan, Mom,” Josh explained patiently, after listening for a few moments. “We saw a real teepee—” His face changed, and his shoulders tensed.
“Okay.” He sighed. Then he ended the call and looked straight into Logan’s face. “We’ve gotta go home,” he said. “Wanda got out somehow, and Mom can’t find her anyplace.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WANDA?” BRIANA CALLED, pocketing her cell phone as she reached the edge of the old cemetery. She shouldn’t have worried the boys, but the truth was, she’d panicked when she got home and found the back door standing wide open and the dog gone. “Wanda!”
A low yip sounded from the direction of the orchard, and Briana hurried in that direction. “Wanda!”
Reaching the first row of gnarled old apple trees, she stopped cold. Wanda sat almost square in the middle, shadowed by overhanging branches heavy with bird-pecked fruit, looking up and shivering visibly. Her hackles stood straight up.
Instinct froze Briana’s heart, midbeat. Made the tiny hairs rise on her forearms and her nape. The branches only a few feet over Wanda’s head shook violently.
Briana barely dared to lift her eyes. When she did, she saw a massive brown bear clinging to the trunk of that apple tree and looking down at Wanda, almost curiously.
Were there cubs around? Briana had little—make that zero—experience with bears, but she knew if this was a sow, with a baby or two to protect, she and Wanda were in even bigger trouble than she’d thought.
Willing Wanda not to move, Briana slowly got out her cell phone again. Thank God Josh had programmed the thing to speed-dial; she thumbed the one-digit number and waited, her heart pounding so loudly that she was sure the bear could hear it.
“Mom?” Josh said. “We’re almost there—did you find Wanda?”
“I’m in the orchard,” Briana whispered, marveling at the calm flow of her voice. “Wanda’s here, too, and there’s a bear. Tell Logan there’s a bear.”
Josh relayed the message, and Logan came on the line before Briana could let out her breath.
“Do not move,” he told her.
The tree branches began to shudder again, and Wanda gave a soft whimper.
“Hurry,” Briana pleaded. The phone was so slippery against her palm that she nearly dropped it.
“We’re turning in at the ranch road right now,” Logan said. “Stay on the phone with Josh—I need both hands to drive.”
Briana didn’t stay on the line, she hung up. If that bear mauled Wanda—or her—she didn’t want her son to hear it.
The phone didn’t ring again, as she’d half expected, half feared. Logan would have better sense than that—the shrill, unfamiliar sound might set the bear off. And it was on the brink of rage now; the very air seemed charged with a tremulous zing.
Wanda gathered the muscles in her haunches, as if to stand on all fours and try to make it to Briana. Her eyes were huge and full of trust. She believed she’d be all right, if she could just get to her mistress.
Briana knew it wasn’t that simple, and it grieved her to think the dog’s trust might be misplaced.
Hours seemed to pass, though it was surely only a matter of seconds. She thought she heard the roar of Logan’s truck engine, but he was probably too far away to get to them in time.
Never show fear around a dangerous animal. The voice inside her head was her father’s. He’d told her that a dozen times if he’d told her once, and he’d been an expert on the subject, called upon to face angry bulls and excited broncs every time he stepped into an arena in his silly clown getup.
The truck came closer, and Briana felt both exhilaration and alarm. The bear heard it, too, and started down the trunk of that ancient apple tree, the branches shaking so ferociously that it seemed the whole tree might be uprooted.
Wanda broke and ran just as the bear reached the ground.
It stood on hind legs, forepaws raised. A strange, almost mystical calm came over Briana, as some stronger, braver version of herself took charge.
“You will not hurt my dog.” Had she spoken the words, or just thought them? In either case, the bear, still upright, regarded her with its huge head tipped slightly to one side.
Wanda ducked behind Briana; she felt the dog pressing close against the backs of her legs.
The bear gave a tentative growl. Lowered itself to all fours. Power rippled beneath the mangy fur on its haunches; it was gathering itself to spring.
Briana, desperate again, tried to grin.
At the same moment, Logan’s truck came jostling overland at top speed, horn honking, veering right into the orchard.
The bear pondered its options, with an idle grace, and then bounded away, passing within a few feet of Briana and Wanda, in the general direction of the cemetery.
Logan slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the truck, running toward her. He pulled her hard against him, held her tight to his chest.
Briana’s knees buckled; she would have crumpled to the ground if Logan hadn’t been supporting her. Past his shoulder, she saw Josh and Alec in the truck, their faces pale circles against the windows.
“You’re okay,” Logan told her breathlessly. “You’re okay.”
She began to shake, hard. So did Wanda.
A cold sweat broke out all over Briana’s body.
<
br /> “I can walk,” Briana managed to say. “I’m not so sure about the dog.”
Logan held her a few moments longer, until he could be sure she wouldn’t crumple to the ground. Then he reached down and hoisted Wanda into his arms.
Briana stumbled after him, looking back only once, to make sure the bear was still gone.
*
BRETT TURLOW hunkered in the shadowed back booth at Skivvie’s Tavern, his guts roiling like a pot of rancid soup left too long on the stove. His credit was no good at Skivvie’s, but earlier he’d stopped by the real estate office where his sister worked. Freida had been out showing a house to some sucker, so he’d borrowed a few dollars from the cigar box she kept in her desk drawer. Petty cash, she called it.
Everything about Freida was petty, as far as Brett was concerned.
Her constant harping that he ought to get his ass off her couch and into a job, for example. Freida still thought it meant something in Stillwater Springs to be a Turlow. Although three years ago now that snooty librarian, Kristy Madison, had bought the big family house on Maple Street for pennies on the dollar, Freida was saving up to get it back.
It didn’t seem to bother Freida that Kristy had no intention of selling. She worked on the place from dawn ’til dusk, and sometimes longer, every time she had a day off from the library. Brett knew that because he sat out there on Maple in the dark sometimes, in Freida’s ratty Corolla, remembering how things used to be, and the lights burned in that old wreck of a house ’til all hours.
Lived like a spinster, that Kristy. Good-looking woman, too. Prime piece of tail, librarian or not. Word on the street was, she’d gotten her heart good and broken by none other than Dylan Creed, and she was waiting for him to come back.
Made her sound like that pathetic woman in the song—“Delta Dawn,” wasn’t it?—meeting the train every day, hoping her long-lost lover would come rolling in on it.
Brett snorted under his breath and turned his second foaming brewski round and round between his hands, there on the scarred tabletop. Like Dylan would ever trouble himself to visit Stillwater Springs again, with everything going his way out there in the big world.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 17
