Jim grinned, watching as she ducked into his office.
Caroline Huntinghorse answered on the second ring. “Jim?”
Briana cleared her throat. “Er…no. My name is Briana Grant, and I work for your…er…exhusband—”
“Oh,” Caroline said. She had a nice voice, but she didn’t sound too thrilled to get a call from a stranger. “I see.”
Briana closed her eyes for a moment. Every button on Jim’s phone was blinking. She sank into his desk chair, then immediately jumped out of it again.
“As you probably know,” Briana began, wondering if she’d have to do things like this a lot in the if-I-win job Jim had offered her, “Jim’s running for sheriff. I’m helping him with the campaign, and—”
“I’ll just bet you are,” Caroline interrupted.
“It isn’t like that,” Briana said.
“Are you telling me you never went out with my—With Jim?”
“We had dinner, went to the movies. It was nothing—”
Caroline let out a sigh. “Sorry,” she said. “I still get possessive sometimes.” There was something heartbreaking in the little laugh that came next. “So, Ms. Grant—what is it that Jim is so afraid to ask me that he put you up to it?”
I like this woman, Briana thought. “He wondered if you’d pose with him, for some campaign photos, with your son.”
“Being divorced is a political advantage these days?”
Briana smiled. “My question, exactly,” she said. “But Jim seems to think it’s a good idea.”
Caroline was quiet for so long that Briana thought she’d hung up, or they’d been disconnected somehow.
“Tell him,” she finally said, “that he has to ask me himself.”
Briana punched the air with one fist, the way she’d seen her boys do when they were pleased. “You go, girl,” she said.
Caroline laughed. “Tell him to call.”
*
RIGGED UP IN his garbage bag/duct-tape/cast-protector, Alec splashed happily in the swimming hole, trying to drench Josh, while all three dogs barked like crazy on the bank.
“Reminds me of the old days,” Dylan observed, taking a swig from a bottle of water as he sat beside Logan on the familiar log. “When you and Ty and I used to come here.”
Pain knifed through Logan. For all Jake’s disastrous drinking and brawling, and the progression of tenderhearted mothers, he and his brothers had enjoyed a lot of hot summer days in and around this hidden pond.
What happened?
He wanted to ask the question, but he couldn’t force it past his damned Creed pride.
“Those were good times,” he muttered, after a long silence.
Dylan nodded, not looking at him. “It’s nice to see kids on the place,” he said quietly. He turned then, met Logan’s gaze. “You and Briana—?”
“What about us?”
“Come on, Logan. A blind man could see you’re either sleeping with her, or you want to, real bad. Just how serious is this?”
“Serious enough,” Logan said, “that I’ll kick your ass if you mess with her.”
Dylan laughed, shoved a hand through his damned golden hair, which was shaggy, as usual, the way women liked it. “Well, what do you know? I finally got a straight answer out of you.” He fixed his attention on the boys and the dogs again, apparently enjoying their enjoyment. “Whatever else might be going on between you and me, Logan, I won’t move in on your action, so stop worrying about that.”
Logan bristled, realized he was acting like a rooster and made a concerted attempt to mellow out.
“You ever see Kristy around town?” Dylan asked, a few beats later.
“Kristy?”
“Kristy Madison,” Dylan said. “You know, the librarian. When I left Stillwater Springs, she was engaged to Mike Danvers and all set to live the high life.”
A slow smile overtook Logan, but he kept it on the inside, where Dylan wouldn’t see it. Evidently, his brother didn’t subscribe to the Stillwater Springs Courier. Dylan was smart as hell, but he’d been dyslexic as a kid, and he didn’t read for pleasure.
“Mike Danvers married Becky Hammond,” Logan said.
Dylan turned his head so quickly that Logan barely had a chance to change his expression. “No shit?”
“No shit,” Logan confirmed.
“And Kristy—?”
“Far as I know, she’s still working at the library.” Kristy had been the subject of several human-interest stories in the Courier over the past couple of years, and everything Danvers did made the locals page. “Lives in the old Turlow house.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Probably,” Logan joked, “but you could still repent and give your soul to Jesus.”
“Coming from you, brother, that’s ironic advice.” Logan took a swig from his own water bottle. All of a sudden, his throat felt as dry as August dust on a country road. “I’m sorry, Dylan,” he said, and the words hurt like hell, scraping raw across his gullet the way they did. “For the things I said about Jake after the funeral, I mean—”
Dylan slapped his back.
Logan’s eyes burned. He blinked a couple of times.
“He was a mean old son of a bitch,” Dylan said. “But I wasn’t in the mood to hear it the day we buried him.”
“I know,” Logan said grimly. “Neither was Ty. I should have kept my opinions to myself.”
After that, neither of them talked for a good long while. Logan figured Dylan needed some recovery time, like he did. So they watched the boys and the dogs, still seated side by side on a fallen log, remembering other dogs, long gone now, and the boys they’d been themselves, once upon a time.
“What’s up with that damn bull?” Logan asked, when he thought he could trust his voice.
Dylan gave a languid stretch, got to his feet. “Cimarron? He’s the last bull I rode before I quit the rodeo. He had a perfect record—he’d never been ridden—and I’d never been thrown. He won that round, and they were going to retire him, so I bought him and had him trucked to the ranch. Figured to breed him one day.”
Logan stood, too. Whistled for the boys and the dogs.
Reluctantly, Alec and Josh waded out of the swimming hole, and Sidekick, Snooks and Wanda trotted over to him, eager for the next great adventure.
“Chow time,” Logan told the boys. When had he started to care so much about them?
Did Vance Grant even know what a lucky bastard he was?
“Can we go to town for lunch?” Alec asked, shivering in his wet jeans and an old, threadbare bath towel Logan had found in a bathroom cupboard before they left the house.
“Why not?” Logan grinned.
An hour later, they all rolled into the casino parking lot in Dylan’s uptown, movie-cowboy ride. They’d stopped by Briana’s, so the boys could put on dry clothes. Since there were no signs of breaking and entering, they’d left Wanda behind to sleep off the morning’s excitement at the swimming hole.
Briana spotted them right away—mom-radar, Logan supposed. While Alec and Josh jostled for places in the nearest booth, he and Dylan stood, watching her approach.
“Hey, Mom,” Alec crowed, “we went swimming and I didn’t get my cast wet and Wanda swam out to get a stick and shook herself off all over everybody—”
Briana looked at the kid with an expression of such love that a whole new place opened up inside Logan. It felt like a seismic shift, and he actually put a hand to his chest, thinking he might be having a heart attack.
He was, he decided in the next moment, but it had nothing to do with clogged arteries.
“Oh, boy,” Dylan breathed, watching him.
“That’s great,” Briana told Alec, but she was looking at Logan. “That thing I told you about this morning,” she said. “I took care of it.”
“Good,” Logan said, and the word came out rough as gravel. He felt heat climb his neck. She’d gone to the clinic in Choteau, like she said she would, for birth-control pills. Which mean
t—
Don’t go there.
“Join us?” Dylan asked. When it came to women, he always said the right thing, and he said it first.
Though maybe it hadn’t been that way with Kristy Madison.
Briana shook her head. “Gotta work,” she said. Then, with a twinkle, she added, “I’m angling for a promotion.”
Logan wasn’t thrilled. He was feeling pretty much like a caveman right then. He wanted to throw Briana Grant over one shoulder, haul her out of there, get her name changed to Creed and make a baby with her. Support her in style for the rest of her life.
Whoa back, he thought.
“See you tonight?” he said aloud.
“Depends,” she answered. “I’m working late, to make up for some of the time I missed, and Vance called a little while ago.” She turned that glowing goddess face of hers to Alec and Josh. “He and Heather are going to the drive-in tonight to see a movie, and you’re both invited. Your dad has the weekend off, so you can stay over if you want.”
Dylan looked from Briana to Logan, smiled to himself and sat down to open a menu.
“That would be great,” Alec said, always the good-time guy.
“If you remember not to stand behind the van,” Josh pointed out, with an eloquent roll of his eyes.
“I don’t think Dad will let Heather drive if we’re there,” Alec remarked, serious as the heart attack Logan had thought he was having a couple of minutes before.
“Guess it’s settled, then,” Briana said.
“Guess it’s settled,” Logan agreed stupidly.
This time, it was Dylan who rolled his eyes.
*
WALTER, A PORTLY casino security guard old enough to be Briana’s grandfather, walked her to her car when she got off work at nine that night. Vance had picked the boys up at five-thirty, when he was finished for the day, and except for feeding Wanda and letting her out, she was a free woman.
A free woman with birth-control pills in her purse.
“You just can’t be too careful these days,” Walter said kindly, waiting while Briana unlocked the truck.
True enough, she thought, thinking of the pills.
She hadn’t seen Brett Turlow that day, but if Sheriff Book was right, Brett wasn’t a problem, anyway. That only left about a hundred regulars who might be seething behind the understanding smiles they’d given when Briana told them she was too busy working and raising her boys to date.
“Lock up, now,” Walter said, through the open window, when Briana was settled behind the wheel, with her seat belt buckled. It was a nice night, warm and soft. “With these old rigs, you have to push the buttons down manually.”
Briana smiled, leaned across to lock the passenger-side door. If they’d been attacked, she would have had to save Walter, not vice versa, but his heart was in the right place and she liked him.
“All good,” she said. Then she locked the driver’s door, too, and rolled up the window. Tooted merrily at Walter as she drove away.
Conscious of Wanda waiting patiently at home for kibble and some lawn-time, Briana still made a quick pass by Heather and Vance’s place. The van was missing from the driveway, and lights glowed at the trailer windows.
All quiet on the western front.
She headed for home, and was half-surprised, and half-not, to see Logan’s truck parked near the house. The birth-control pills suddenly seemed to pulse inside her purse, like something nuclear about to blow.
After drawing a deep breath and letting it out again, Briana shut off the engine, unlocked the door and got out, pulling her loaded purse after her. She’d taken the first pill before she left the pharmacy in Choteau, washing it down with a glass of diet cola from the old-fashioned soda fountain, but she hadn’t had the nerve to ask the busy doctor at the clinic how long it would be before the things kicked in.
Approaching the house, she decided not to worry. Dylan was probably in there with Logan, which meant there wouldn’t be any sex.
No sex, no pregnancy.
Unless, of course, she and Logan had already conceived a child on his couch.
Her cheeks burned, but she smiled a little, too. She’d loved being pregnant with Alec and Josh, even though she and Vance had had their ups and downs. Always moving from place to place, never enough money, never enough anything.
She’d loved the weight and scent and warmth of a baby nestled in her arms, though. It would be wonderful to have another child—a little girl.
Times change, she told herself, and nobody has everything.
The back door swung open just then, and Logan stood on the threshold, lit from behind. He was a rancher, a cowboy, the kind of man she knew and understood.
Or did she? There was a lot more to Logan Creed than he’d been willing to reveal to her so far, and that made her nervous.
She stopped, right there in the yard.
Wanda pushed past Logan and bounded toward her, wriggling with joy and wagging her tail.
She greeted the dog, steeled herself and started walking again.
“Dylan’s at the other house,” Logan said, though she hadn’t asked.
Briana looked up at him, feeling shy.
He held out a hand, and she realized she’d stopped again.
Went to him.
He drew her up the porch steps and close against his chest, kissed her lightly but thoroughly before pulling her inside. Wanda trotted in behind her, lively as a pup.
“What did you give this dog?” Briana asked. “Speed?”
“It was a good day,” Logan said. “She’s happy.”
Gripping her shoulders from behind, he steered Briana to a chair at the table, sat her down.
“What—”
“I made supper,” Logan told her. “Well, actually, I bought supper.” With a flourish, he opened the oven door, and the scent of takeout fried chicken wafted out.
Briana opened her mouth, closed it again.
He served up the feast—besides the chicken, he’d picked up biscuits, two kinds of pasta salad and a cheesecake.
“Are we celebrating something?” she asked, surveying all the food.
He grinned, executed a waiterlike bow. “Maybe,” he said.
He brought plates and silverware to the table, then went back to the counter and tore off a couple of paper towels for napkins.
Since Briana was ravenous, despite the butterflies beating soft wings inside her stomach, she ate.
“Is this a seduction?” she asked, after the chicken and fixings and before the cheesecake.
“That’s up to you,” Logan replied. “If you’re not too tired from work, I thought we could go out for a ride after supper. There are some places I’d like to show you.”
Briana couldn’t figure out if she was disappointed or relieved—both, probably. “Such as?”
“The swimming hole where Dylan and I took the kids today,” he answered easily. “And a place up on the mountain where the stars seem so close you could almost reach up and grab one.”
Great. On top of being sexy, Logan Creed was romantic. He probably remembered birthdays and anniversaries and bought valentines before Groundhog Day.
The last valentine Vance had given her had been the skimpy nightgown, a gift for himself, not her. God only knew why she’d kept it, and knowing a stranger had handled it…next stop, the burn barrel out back.
“I’m not sure how soon the birth control will start working,” she said, and then immediately wished she could evaporate on the spot.
“You’re not the only one who stopped at a pharmacy today, Briana,” Logan replied. “Relax, will you? Did anybody say we were going straight to bed?”
“You bought supper. You’re talking about reaching out and grabbing stars—”
“And that means I’m going to jump you in the next two minutes?”
“Aren’t you?”
His eyes smoldered with humor and heat as he leaned back in his chair and gave her a slow once-over. “Never let it be said,” he t
old her, “that any Creed was ever less than a gentleman.”
“Don’t look now,” Briana replied, getting up to clear the table, “but I think that’s already been said.”
Logan laid a hand, fingers splayed, to his chest, as though wounded, but his grin sizzled. “Our reputation precedes us,” he lamented.
“Big-time,” Briana replied, but she couldn’t help smiling.
Logan got to his feet. “I’ll clean up,” he said. “You go change into something suitable for catching stars with both hands. We can consider the whole sex angle later.”
“How much later?”
“Whenever you’re ready, Briana. Tonight, tomorrow, next week, next year. It’s gonna happen, we both know that, but there’s no pressure, all right?”
“All right,” she said.
She took a quick shower, put on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. The nights could be cool around Stillwater Springs, even in the summer.
They locked up the house, loaded Wanda into the backseat of Logan’s truck and went jostling through the countryside.
Logan was a country boy, Briana thought. Who needed a road?
They went to the swimming hole first, parked on a high bank with the headlights beaming out over the water. The place seemed almost magical, especially in the moonlight. There was an old, weathered wood raft out in the middle, and a rope hung from a tree branch, for swinging on.
Beyond that, Briana couldn’t see much.
“My brothers and I used to come here a lot when we were kids,” Logan said, gazing out through the windshield as if he could see into that other time.
“You and Dylan and—?”
“Tyler,” Logan disclosed. His voice sounded hoarse. And very sad.
On impulse, Briana reached out, found his hand, squeezed it. “Feel like talking, cowboy?”
He turned his head, looked at her. “Dylan’s leaving in a couple of days,” he said. “He just came back to check on the bull and make sure I wasn’t putting up any fences where he didn’t want them.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Logan thrust a hand through his hair, stared straight ahead for a moment, before starting the truck’s engine again and shifting into Reverse. “Both, I guess. I was hoping—”
“What, Logan? What were you hoping?”
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 23
