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

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I guess that things could be different. Between Dylan and Tyler and me.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Dylan and I came to an understanding—at least, the start of one,” Logan said, as they bounced off through the trees, presumably headed for the place where the stars were close enough to catch. He shook his head. “Tyler, though—that’s going to be harder.”

  “What exactly happened between you and your brother?” It was too personal a question, Briana knew, but she’d already asked it, so she simply waited.

  Logan let out a ragged sigh. The truck rattled and banged up a steep hill, and he brought the rig to a stop.

  Overhead, in the big Montana sky, millions of stars shimmered, huge and silvery.

  “There were some hard words spoken,” Logan finally said, “the day of our dad’s funeral. I was grieving, and still a little drunk from the wake the night before. Tyler sang a eulogy at the funeral, all about what a great guy Jake was.” Logan didn’t seem to notice the stars, for all the buildup he’d given them earlier; his profile was rock-hard. “Dylan showed up at the services with the floozy-du-jour—some showgirl in a low-cut red dress—and the three of us passed a flask after everybody else left the graveside.”

  Briana waited, wanting to take Logan’s hand again but not quite daring.

  “After that, we repaired to Skivvies to get drunk in earnest,” Logan went on. “Even the floozy cut out eventually—took off with some truck driver passing through. And Tyler got out his guitar and started singing that damned song again—”

  “Go on,” Briana said gently.

  “I couldn’t take it anymore,” Logan finished. “I jerked Tyler’s guitar out of his hands and smashed it against the bar, yelling that it was all bullshit, that Jake was nothing but a drunk and we were no better.” He paused, dragged in a shaky breath. “It was a piece of junk, that guitar. It was also the only thing Tyler’s mother left behind that Jake didn’t break, give away or burn in the backyard. That’s when the fight broke out. Sheriff Book and two deputies he recruited on the spot dragged us off to jail. End of story.”

  Briana took Logan’s hand again, held it. After a while, she said, “What do you say we get out of this truck and have a firsthand look at those stars?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THEY LAY ON their backs in the deep grass, holding hands and gazing up at the stars, while Briana’s old dog slept peacefully in the truck. The moment was as nearly perfect as any Logan had ever lived, and he wished it could last forever.

  It was like some kind of holy benediction, that sprawling sky, black and velvety and sprinkled with a billion other worlds.

  Briana sighed, warm against his side. They hadn’t made love, but it seemed as if they had—as if they’d joined souls in some inexplicable way, just by lying together under all that eternity. “You’re right,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

  He drew her nearer, so she rested her head on his shoulder. Ran his hand the length of her braid. Dylan would have had some line ready, Logan supposed, but his throat was too thick for speech, too constricted with the sheer wonder of just being alive, and with this particular woman beside him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, spreading her fingers wide on his chest, probably feeling the steady thud of his heartbeat through her palm.

  Women. If you weren’t talking, they thought there was something wrong.

  Logan smiled. “More than okay,” he said.

  She fell silent again.

  He kissed her forehead, propped his chin on her crown.

  A long time passed.

  Briana broke the silence. “Who are you, Logan Creed?” she asked, very softly.

  “Good question,” he answered. “Member of the Nevada State Bar Association. Wannabe rancher. Son of Jake Creed. Beyond that, I really couldn’t tell you.”

  “You lived a different life, before you came back to Stillwater Springs, didn’t you?”

  He gently displaced her to roll onto his side and, propping himself up on one elbow, looked down into her face. “Yeah,” he said. “I have a place in Vegas. I was married a couple of times.” He traced the curve of her cheek. “Wondering if I’ve got any dark secrets?”

  Even in the delicate light of the stars and the moon, he saw her blush. She shook her head. “I’m just trying to understand.”

  “What is there to understand?”

  “You. You have another life, in another place. Why did you come back here?”

  “If I tell you,” he said, “I might scare you off.”

  She smiled. “Give it a shot.”

  “I came back because I can lie in the grass here, and watch the stars. Because this is where I was born, and where I belong.”

  “Not very scary so far,” Briana said.

  He chuckled, kissed her. “Here’s the scary part. I want to rebuild the ranch—return it to its former glory, so to speak. I want a wife and a passel of rowdy kids, and I want to prove—to myself if no one else—that I’m not the kind of man my father was.”

  She absorbed all that. Didn’t jump right up and run for the main road, which was encouraging. “What kind of man was your father?”

  “He was a d—”

  Briana stopped him, put a finger to his lips. “Besides the drinking,” she said, her eyes luminous and flecked with stray shards of starlight.

  Logan thought. “Tough. Jake was tough. He had a temper. He worked as a logger his whole life, and even though we barely held on to the ranch, especially when he got laid off for the winter, we never missed a meal. We had shoes and went to the dentist every six months.”

  “Was he abusive?” She’d worked up her nerve to ask that question; Logan knew that by the sudden tension in her body.

  “Not so much physically,” he said. “He hauled us off to the woodshed a time or two, but it was that way for most kids, back then. When he got drunk, though, and that was often, he went berserk. He couldn’t hold in the rage then, the way he could when he was sober. We always went into hiding at the first sign of a bottle, Dylan and Ty and me, and lay low ’til it blew over.”

  Briana’s hand made a slow circle on his chest. “I haven’t noticed you getting drunk and going berserk,” she said quietly. “Do you?”

  “Not since the funeral,” Logan said, closing his eyes against the memory. “Swore off hard liquor the next day—God, what a hangover that was—and now I can barely finish a beer.”

  “Did your dad want to build up the ranch and have more kids?”

  His throat went tight again. He shook his head. “He didn’t want the three of us, let alone more, and he hated the ranch—a carryover from his father, I guess. The ranch thrived for generations, but when the Depression hit, nobody bought beef. Gradually, they shot and ate the few skinny cattle they had left, and I don’t think my grandparents ever got over it. Jake didn’t, either. Said the land was an albatross around his neck. After Tyler’s mother killed herself, things got a whole lot worse. He drank more, if that was possible.”

  “Logan, can’t you see how different you are? From your father, I mean?”

  “Can we talk about your dad for a while?” Logan countered. Just talking about Jake depressed him, made him feel hopeless, even with more money than he could ever spend. He’d expected wealth to make him happy.

  It hadn’t.

  She smiled, no doubt seeing images of Bill “Wild Man” McIntyre, king of the rodeo clowns, in her mind. “He liked to read,” she said. “We had a whole shoebox full of library cards, all from different towns, in half a dozen states. Once, he forgot to return a book before we left for the next rodeo, and we backtracked almost a hundred miles to turn it in and pay the fine. Fifty cents.”

  “It never bothered you, growing up on the road that way?”

  “I wouldn’t want to do it again,” she said, after a long time. “Not at this point in my life. But it was a wonderful way to live, watching the highway unroll in front of us, singing along with the radio while it blared J
ohnny Cash, or Patsy Cline, or George Jones. Our favorite was Tom T. Hall’s ‘Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine,’ though.” She paused, sighed again. “Every Christmas,” she went on, “we headed back to Boise to visit my Aunt Barbara and her family. There was always a big tree, and special food, and lots of presents, but I could barely enjoy it, because I was so afraid my aunt would finally convince Dad to leave me behind so I could go to ‘real’ school. He never did, though. Not even when I hit my teens. He traded the camper in for a two-bedroom trailer—second-or third-hand, of course—when I turned twelve. Before that, I slept on a fold-down bunk, and he took the couch.”

  “You never wished he’d settle down someplace? Not even once?”

  “A few times, I did. Like when I’d see a bunch of girls my age, giggling in a mall, having lunch with their moms or their friends in the food court. And it would have been nice to have a mother—especially when I got my period, and I started thinking about boys.”

  Logan felt a pang for the girl Briana had been, gave her a slight squeeze.

  “Right before Dad decided to stop following the rodeo and stay in Boise, I met Vance.”

  “Love at first sight?”

  “More like lust,” Briana said.

  Logan chuckled. “I can identify,” he said. “I married both my wives because I was young and stupid and I wanted to have sex with them. It never occurred to me—or to them, either, I guess—that we’d have been better off skipping the weddings and hitting the sack instead.”

  As soon as he’d uttered those words, Logan wondered if he’d regret them.

  “I guess things happen for a reason,” Briana said. “It didn’t work out with Vance, but I have Josh and Alec, so it was worth it.”

  “They’re terrific kids,” Logan said. “And—”

  “And?”

  “And it’s getting cold out here. Let’s go back to your place.”

  Logan sat up, got to his feet, pulled Briana after him.

  “This,” she said, grinning impishly, “would have been a fantastic place to have sex.”

  He laughed, kissed her. “A bed would be better.”

  *

  A WEIRD LITTLE THRILL jiggled in the pit of Briana’s stomach as they turned off the county road, headed for her house. In the backseat, Wanda gave a low growl.

  Even before they pulled in and saw the back door standing open, Briana knew something was wrong.

  Her first thought, as always, was of the boys. It was irrational to worry, she knew—they were at the drive-in movie, with Heather and Vance, probably gorging themselves on popcorn. Still, she groped for her cell phone as Logan slammed on the brakes, shut off the engine and hurtled out of the truck to sprint toward the house.

  No one answered Josh and Alec’s shared cell phone.

  Most likely, they’d shut it off to watch the movie.

  Briana got out of the truck and hurried after Logan, forgetting Wanda, turning to go back for her, then thinking better of it.

  “Logan?” she called.

  He was just coming out of the hallway leading to her bedroom and the bath, and if she hadn’t known he was on her side, the expression on his face would have scared her half to death.

  Someone had been there—and this time, they’d ransacked the kitchen. Emptied all the drawers. Broken every dish and cup.

  She whirled to look at the lock on the back door, but it wasn’t broken. Had the intruder had a key?

  Briana thought of the photo album, with all the pictures of her dad, her younger self, her babies, and ran into the living room.

  The contents of the album were scattered all over the floor, some of them torn. Briana dropped to her knees with a cry of dismay, and started gathering them up with frantic scooping motions of her hands.

  Behind her, she heard Logan on his cell phone, talking to Sheriff Book.

  Her wedding picture, a memento she’d planned to duplicate and pass on to the boys when they were older, had been ripped down the middle. Alec’s first baby photo was in tatters, pieces no bigger than bits of confetti, Josh’s crumpled into a tight little ball.

  Tears slipped down Briana’s cheeks, and she couldn’t stop making those awful sounds, those soft, keening wails of protest and despair and helpless fury.

  Logan pulled her to her feet, wrapped his arms around her. She shuddered violently, trying to get her breath.

  “Why would someone do this?” she cried, against his chest.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Sheriff Book will be here in a few minutes.”

  Briana shoved back from Logan. “Sheriff Book!”she ranted. “What good is that going to do?” In the distance, Wanda’s bark, though muffled, grew more urgent.

  “I’ll get her,” Logan said.

  Briana nodded, made herself look around the living room, past the pool of ruined pictures in the middle of the floor.

  The couch cushions had been ripped open, the curtains torn down. The TV screen was smashed to glinting shards.

  Briana put a hand to her mouth, turning in a slow circle, her stomach roiling. She was on her way through the kitchen, determined to see what had been destroyed in the boys’ room and her own, when Logan came in with Wanda.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t go in there.”

  She broke and ran, trying to beat him to the hall, but he was faster. He caught her by the arm.

  “No, Briana. Not yet.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “It’s worse than bad.”

  She began to shake.

  Logan led her to the table, sat her down in the nearest chair. Handed her her purse.

  She found her cell phone, dialed again.

  Still no answer.

  Her children. What if this person had somehow gotten to Alec and Josh?

  “What’s Vance’s number?” Logan asked calmly.

  Wanda had slumped heavily onto Briana’s feet. She was scared. That made two of them—three, counting Logan, who had turned a dangerous shade of gray at the jawline.

  Briana struggled to remember the number, gave it to Logan when she did. In the distance, a siren shrieked.

  “Vance?” Logan said, into his phone. “Logan Creed. Are Josh and Alec with you?”

  A frown creased his forehead.

  Briana got hold of the phone in a single grab. “Vance?” she croaked. “Where are my children?”

  “Relax,” Vance said. “I got a chance to put in some overtime, so Heather went ahead and took them to the movies.”

  Logan stood still as death, even as the siren grew louder and Wanda began to bark.

  “They’re not answering their cell phone,” Briana said, raising her voice to be heard over the dog and the sheriff’s arrival.

  “They must have gone to that multiscreen place out on the highway,” Vance said. “They’d have had to turn it off. And stop yelling.”

  Sheriff Book loomed in the doorway, then came over the threshold. His gaze sweeping the demolished kitchen, he gave a low whistle.

  “I need to talk to Alec and Josh,” Briana insisted. “If you can get hold of Heather, do it!”

  A bulb must have gone on in Vance’s head around then. “Is something wrong?”

  Duh, Briana thought. “Someone’s been in the house,” she said, finally catching her breath. “They trashed the place. I have to know Alec and Josh are all right, Vance.”

  “I’ll go get them, bring them there—”

  “No!” Briana cried. She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. It didn’t help much. “Not until I can get this place cleaned up. I don’t want them to see it the way it is.”

  “Are you alone out there?” Vance asked.

  “No,” Briana said. “Logan’s here, and Sheriff Book. Track Heather down, Vance. Ask her to have the boys call me right away. Okay? Can you do that?”

  “I can do that,” Vance said wearily.

  They hung up without goodbyes.

  By that time, Sheriff Book and Logan had disappeared from sight. They
were in her bedroom, by the sound of it, their words muffled and sharp around the edges. She caught the occasional muttered expletive.

  Briana clasped her cell phone tightly in her right hand and willed it to ring. She stood, whispered to Wanda that everything would be all right, and made for the bedroom.

  What she saw when she reached the threshold stopped her cold.

  The word bitch was scrawled on closet doors, in what looked like lipstick.

  The bed, the window and the walls were covered in shining red, and Briana thought it was blood, for one terrible moment, before she caught the fumes in the air.

  Spray paint.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, bending to pick up a small tube lying at her feet, halfway under the dresser. The lipstick was hers—she’d bought it at the drugstore in Choteau, when she picked up the birth-control pills.

  Birth-control pills.

  Had she really been lying on the ground with Logan, in a mountain clearing, not even an hour before, marveling at a sky so full of stars it could barely hold them all?

  Logan slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  “That’s it,” Sheriff Book said, snapping his radio off his belt. “I’m having Brett Turlow brought in for questioning. Try not to touch anything until I’ve had the state police bring in their crime-scene people.”

  Briana bit her lower lip, nodded numbly.

  The cell phone rang, vibrating against her palm.

  She answered immediately. “Alec? Josh?”

  “Mom?” Josh said urgently. “Are you okay? Dad said somebody broke into our house—”

  “I’m okay,” Briana said, dizzy with relief. “So is Wanda. H-how was the movie?”

  “We didn’t go,” Josh said. His voice sounded small, and a little shaky.

  Briana’s heartbeat quickened again, like a racehorse hitting its stride on the stretch. “Where are you?”

  “Dad said not to tell you.”

  “I don’t care what your dad said,” Briana retorted. “I want to know where you are—right now.”

  Sheriff Book had left the bedroom, though his radio could be heard crackling in the kitchen, along with the orders he was barking into it. Logan remained at Briana’s side, his arm still around her.