“Like I’d let you film what’s going to be happening by then,” Briana murmured, this time into his neck.
At eleven that night, as it happened, both boys had been asleep for several hours.
And the venerable walls of the master bedroom absorbed the sounds of unrestrained pleasure, the cries of a man and a woman who loved each other, and knew it.
EPILOGUE
Three days later…
FRANKLY, BRIANA was a little intimidated.
Logan’s house in Las Vegas could have housed the main concourse of a major shopping mall, with room to spare. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room overlooked the gleaming spectacle of the city by night, punctuated by the forms of colossal cacti and rock formations that could only have carried God’s byline.
The boys were at home, with Vance—Kristy had promised to look in on them and call in case of an emergency, and Josh, as always, had his cell phone.
Logan handed Briana a champagne flute bubbling with ginger ale. He’d worn a tux to their wedding, at a chapel on the Strip, and swapped it out for slacks and a sports shirt after the ceremony. Briana was still sporting the sleek emerald-green evening gown she’d chosen for the occasion, the day before, in one of the Forum shops at Caesar’s.
Briana tapped her flute against Logan’s, studying his face closely for any signs of regret. He bent his head, kissed her with light, lingering leisure.
“I’m sorry Dylan didn’t make it,” she said, once she’d caught her breath. This world—Logan’s world—was so different from anything she’d ever known.
Thank God they’d be going home to Stillwater Springs Ranch first thing in the morning.
Logan chuckled against her mouth. “Classic Dylan,” he murmured. “He’ll turn up when he’s damn good and ready, and so will Tyler.”
“Are we crazy?” Briana asked.
“If this is crazy,” Logan said, “bring on the straitjackets and all the rest.”
Briana giggled, tipsy from the excitement of their delightfully tacky Vegas wedding. Because they were already trying to have a baby, she preferred to skip the champagne. “I love you,” she said. “Did I mention that?”
“Once or twice,” Logan confirmed. Then he took the champagne glass out of her hand. “Did I reply that I love you, too?”
She slipped her arms around his neck, snuggled close, nodded. “It’s been at least two hours since you made love to me, Mr. Creed,” she responded.
He reached behind her, unzipped the back of the gossamer dress, pushed it downward until it pooled at her feet. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, pulled his shirt off over his head.
“Two hours?” he marveled. “Reprehensible neglect on my part.”
They’d had a penthouse suite at a glitzy downtown hotel, changed into their marital finery there. Only the process had been delayed, because Logan had remarked that a bride ought to glow at her wedding, and he’d brought her to four screaming orgasms over the back of the couch to make sure she did.
Intending to honeymoon in the suite, they’d decided to spend the night at Logan’s house instead. End of the old life, beginning of the new, he’d told her.
Now, he bent his head, found her right nipple and suckled.
Briana drew in a sharp breath. No matter how many times Logan pleasured her, it was always new, always a surprise. And he invariably took her to new heights.
Idly, Logan enjoyed her breasts, one and then the other.
All of Vegas, all the world, it seemed, glittered and glowed beneath them, a colorful panorama.
And Logan knelt.
Briana whimpered, knowing what was coming. Craving it, and yet wondering if, this time, she would lose herself completely, and for good.
He drew down her lacy panties, tossed them aside.
“Logan—”
“Shh.” He parted her, flicked her lightly with his tongue, slid her lacy garter down her thigh.
She gave a guttural cry. “Can anyone—will anyone—?”
“No one can see us,” Logan said.
He’d used his mouth on her before, but this was different, more intense. Perhaps because they were married, for better or worse. She groaned and leaned back, his strong hands cupping her bare buttocks, holding her upright.
Oh, this was definitely the “better” part.
He drew on her until she writhed and twisted against his tongue, until her knees threatened to give out. And then he brought her to a shattering climax; she flexed helplessly, her fingers buried in his thick hair as she cried out his name, over and over again, in utter, delicious abandon.
When her knees did give way, Logan eased her gently to the floor, with its sumptuous carpet. He took off his own clothes, and she felt his naked warmth against her flesh and gloried in it.
He was deep inside her in a single, breath-stopping thrust, and all the lights of the city spread out below and around them melded into one dazzling, iridescent flare of color.
The earth and the sky changed places, and in the midst of the maelstrom, a million tiny fragments came together, and Briana Creed was whole in a way she’d never been before. And even as Logan lost control, she knew he’d been transformed, as well, by the same sweet alchemy.
THE CATTLE BAWLED and stirred up dust as they streamed out of the back of the livestock truck and into the newly fenced pasture. Briana watched, mounted on the pinto, while Logan rode the big gray. Alec and Josh, riding tall in the new saddles Logan had brought back from Vegas, especially for them, did a fair job of cowboying.
In the week since he and Briana had gotten back from their honeymoon, there had been no word from Dylan at all, and certainly none from Tyler.
The house was being renovated, and the boys had real beds now, set up in Dylan’s old room, but daily life still felt like a campout. That was fine with Alec and Josh, and Logan had never been happier. Never even dreamed it was possible to feel the things Briana brought out in him, and not just when they were making love.
With her, cooking supper or folding laundry or any of a thousand other ordinary tasks seemed sacred.
Every day he thought it couldn’t possibly get better.
And every day, it did.
Vance had decided to stay on in Stillwater Springs, and the boys were cautiously pleased about that. Like all kids, they lived from moment to moment, fully engaged in the right-now.
Jim Huntinghorse and Mike Danvers were squaring off for a lively campaign, with the special election coming up in a few weeks, and Sheriff Book couldn’t wait to turn in his badge. He and the wife, he said, were signed up for one of those Alaskan cruises, two full weeks, with all the extras. As soon as the new sheriff was sworn in, the Books were out of there.
Logan smiled at the thought. He didn’t mind the dust, or the bawling, or any of it. Because the woman riding that little pinto was his.
His.
“What do you think of that, old man?” he asked Jake, under his breath. The cattle were all in the pasture now, and Briana and the boys had fallen back, turned their horses for the gate. Cimarron was already checking out the heifers.
Logan caught up with his wife and stepsons. “Something I have to do,” he told Briana, shifting in the saddle. She’d given up her job at the casino, to his great relief, and planned on having babies for a few years, maybe taking a college course or two online when time permitted. In the meantime, she’d promised to help Jim with his campaign, though she’d already broken the news that she wouldn’t be signing on as his office manager if Jim was elected.
She nodded, leaned from her saddle to kiss his cheek. “See you at home,” she said. “I’ve got some reading to do. Kristy’s book group meets at the library tonight.”
Logan veered off toward the cemetery, found Jake’s buckshot-pocked grave and swung down out of the saddle. His face was wet; he ran one forearm across it to clear away the sweat.
“I’m going to make the Creed name mean something again, old man,” he said, crouching to pluck a few stray w
eeds away from the base of the headstone. “Live down everything you did, if it takes me the rest of my life.”
There was no answer, of course. Just a soft breeze, playing in his hair and cooling the back of his neck.
“I forgive you, you old son of a bitch.” Logan sniffled, wiped his face again. More than sweat, this time, but it didn’t matter. “I forgive you for everything you did, and everything you should have done and didn’t. I can’t speak for Dylan and Tyler—I don’t know how the hell I’m going to explain the way you died to Ty—but for my own sake, and for Briana’s and those two boys, I’m not going to hate you anymore. I’m not going to try to figure you out. Any kids I have, I’ll tell them the truth about you.”
He stopped, tilted his head back, studied the sprawling Montana sky, bluer than blue, wider than wide.
“And the truth is, Dad,” he went on, when he could, “in spite of all of it, I loved you. Which is not to say, if you were here right now, I wouldn’t try to knock your teeth down your throat on general principle.”
The breeze danced in the grass, and somewhere nearby, a bird sang a lonesome, poignantly beautiful song.
“There’s a new Mrs. Creed now,” Logan told Jake, after some time had passed. “And years and years from now, when they lay me to rest in this place, too, she’ll be here, in widow-black, with my ring still on her finger. And my children, men and women by then, maybe with kids of their own—they’ll have no cause to wonder if I loved them, the way Dylan and Tyler and I wondered about you.”
He stood.
“That was quite a speech,” drawled a voice behind him.
Startled, Logan whirled.
And there was Tyler. His kid brother.
He was tall now, over six feet. His hair was dark, like Logan’s own, his eyes ferociously blue—and snapping with that Creed temper.
Tyler was mad as hell, as likely to take a swing at Logan as not, from the look of him.
Logan grinned. Shoved a hand through his filthy hair.
Tyler was back.
For now, that was all that mattered.
MONTANA CREEDS: DYLAN
LINDA LAEL MILLER
CHAPTER ONE
Las Vegas, Nevada
HE’D KNOWN ALL DAY that something was about to go down, something life-changing and entirely new. The knowledge had prickled in his gut and shivered in the fine hairs on the nape of his neck throughout the marathon poker games played in his favorite seedy, backstreet gambling joint. He’d ignored the subtle mind-buzz as a minor distraction—it didn’t have the usual elements of actual danger. But now, with a wad of folded bills—his winnings—shoved into the shaft of his left boot, Dylan Creed knew he’d better watch it, just the same.
Down in Glitter Gulch, there were crowds of people, security goons hired by the megacasinos to make sure their walking ATMs didn’t get roughed up or rolled, or both, cops and cameras everywhere. Here, behind the Black Rose Cowboy Bar and Card Room, home of the hard-core poker players who scorned glitz, there was one failing streetlight, an overflowing Dumpster, a handful of rusty old cars and, at the periphery of his vision, a rat the size of a raccoon.
While he loved a good fight, being a Creed, born and bred, Dylan was nobody’s fool. A tire iron to the back of the head and being relieved of the day’s take—fifty-odd thousand dollars in cash—was not on his to-do list.
He walked toward his gleaming red extended-cab Ford pickup with his customary confidence, and probably looked like a hapless rube to anybody who might be lurking behind that Dumpster, or one of the other cars or just in the shadows.
Someone was definitely watching him; he could feel it now, a for-sure kind of thing—but it was more annoying than alarming. He’d learned early in his life, though, just by being Jake Creed’s middle son, that the presence of another person, or persons, charged the atmosphere with a crackle of energy.
Just in case, he reached inside his ancient denim jacket, closed his fingers loosely around the handle of the snub-nosed .45 he carried on his frequent gambling junkets. Garth Brooks might have friends in low places like the Black Rose, but he didn’t. Only sore losers, crooks and card sharps hung out in this neighborhood, and Dylan Creed fell into the latter category.
He was within six feet of the truck before he realized there was someone sitting in the passenger seat. He debated whether to draw the .45 or his cell phone in the split second it took to recognize Bonnie.
Bonnie. His two-year-old daughter stood on the seat, grinning at him through the glass.
Dylan sprinted to the driver’s side, scrambled in and lost his hat when the little girl flung herself on him, her arms tight around his neck.
With his elbow, Dylan tapped the lock-button on his armrest.
“Daddy,” Bonnie said. At least, in his mind the kid’s name was Bonnie—Sharlene, her mother, had changed it several times, according to the latest whim.
“Hey, babe,” Dylan said, loosening his grip a little because he was afraid of crushing the munchkin. “Where’s your mom?”
Bonnie drew back to look at him with enormous blue eyes, thick-lashed. Her short blond hair curled in wisps around her ears, and she was wearing beat-up bib overalls, a striped T-shirt and flip-flops for shoes.
I’m only two, her expression seemed to say. How should I know where my mom is?
Dylan turned, keeping one arm around Bonnie, and buzzed down the window. “Sharlene!” he yelled into the dark parking lot.
There was no answer, of course, and he knew by the shift in the vibes he’d been picking up since he stepped through the back door of the Rose that his onetime girlfriend had bailed. Again.
Only this time, she’d left Bonnie behind.
He wanted to swear, even pound the steering wheel once with his fist, but you didn’t do things like that with a kid around. Not if you’d grown up in an alcoholic cement mixer of a home, like he and his brothers, Logan and Tyler, had, jumping at every thump and bump. And there was more to it than that: besides the fact that he didn’t want to scare Bonnie, he felt a strange undercurrent of exhilaration.
He seldom saw his daughter, thanks to Sharlene’s gypsy ways—though she always managed to cash his child-support checks—and being separated from Bonnie, never knowing what was happening to her, ached inside him like a bruise to the soul.
Bonnie settled into his lap, laid her head against his chest, gave a shuddery little sigh. Maybe it was relief, maybe it was resignation.
She’d probably had one hell of a day, given how the night was shaping up.
Dylan propped his chin on top of her head for a moment, his eyes burning and his throat as hot as if he’d tried to swallow a red-ended branding iron. He leaned forward, turned the key in the ignition, shifted gears.
Logan. That was his next thought. He had to get to Logan. His brother was a lawyer, after all. And while Dylan had the money to pay any shyster in the country, and he and Logan were sort of on the outs, he knew there was no one else he could trust with something this important.
Bonnie was his child, as well as Sharlene’s, and by God, she deserved a stable home, decent clothes—the getup she was wearing looked as if it had doubled as a dog bed for a year or two—and at least one responsible parent.
Not that he was all that responsible. He’d been a rodeo bum for years, and now he was a poker bum. He had all the money he’d ever need, thanks to a certain shrewd investment and a spooky tendency to draw a royal flush once in practically every game, and he’d done some high-paying stunt work for the movies, too.
Compared to Sharlene, for all his rambling, he was a contender for Parent of the Year.
He didn’t find the note and the shabby duffel bag on the backseat until he got out to South Point, his favorite hotel. Holding a sleepy Bonnie in the curve of one arm while he stood waiting for a valet to take the truck, he read the note.
I’m having some problems, Sharlene had scrawled in her childlike handwriting, slanting so far to the left that it almost lay flat against the lines
on the cheap notebook paper, and I can’t take care of Aurora anymore. Aurora, now? Jesus, what next—Oprah? I thought giving her to you would be better than putting her in foster care. I went that route, and it sucked. Don’t try to find me. I’ve got a boyfriend and we’re hitting the road. Sharlene.
Dylan unclamped his back molars, shifted Bonnie’s weight so he could take the ticket from the parking guy and then grab the duffel bag. He’d have his own gear sent over from Madeline’s place, where he usually crashed when he was passing through Vegas. Madeline wouldn’t like it, but he wasn’t about to take his two-year-old daughter there.
South Point was a sprawling, brightly lit hotel. Dylan stayed there whenever he came to the National Finals Rodeo—if Madeline, a flight attendant, was on one of her overseas runs or seeing somebody else at the time—and the establishment was family-friendly.
He and Bonnie were family.
There you had it.
After he’d booked a room with two massive beds, he ordered room-service hamburgers, French fries and milk shakes. While they waited, Bonnie, only half-awake, lay curled on her side on the bed farthest from the door, her right thumb jammed into her mouth, her eyes following every move he made.
“You’re gonna be okay, kiddo,” he told her.
She looked so small, and so vulnerable, lying there in her ragbag clothes. “Daddy,” she said, and yawned broadly before pulling on her thumb again, this time with vigor.
“That’s right,” Dylan answered, turning from the phone to the duffel bag. Inside were more clothes like the ones she was wearing, a kid-size toothbrush with the bristles worn flat and a naked plastic baby doll with Ubangi hair and blue ink marks on its face. “I’m your daddy. And it looks like we’ll be doing some shoppin’ in the morning, you and me.”
There were no pajamas. No socks. No real shoes, for that matter. Just two more pairs of overalls, two more sad-looking Tshirts, the doll and the toothbrush.
Rage simmered midway down Dylan’s gullet. Damn it, what was Sharlene doing with the money he sent to that post office box in Topeka every month? He knew by the way the substantial check always cleared his bank before the ink was dry that her grandmother picked it up for her, the day it came in, and overnighted it to wherever “Sharlie” happened to be.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 30
