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

by Linda Lael Miller

  Dylan had a dozen memories of Gunnar Wilkenson, all of them unpleasant. He was a wizened gnome of a man, perennially dirty, more often drunk than sober. The old fart had been batching it in a tumbledown house a mile or two up in the hills since God started kindergarten.

  He’d have to pay Gunnar a social call, but first he meant to settle the gelding in Logan’s barn and drop Bonnie off at Cassie’s. Since the old man was as likely to shoot as offer a welcome, taking Bonnie along on the visit wasn’t something he meant to do.

  “Where to?” Dan asked, after they’d loaded the gelding.

  “Logan’s barn,” Dylan answered. “I’ll get Doc Ryder to come out and look him over as soon as I’ve been to Gunnar’s place.”

  Dan grinned. “If I hear shots,” he said, being as familiar with the old coot’s temper as Dylan was, since as teenagers both of them had been peppered with rock salt from his shotgun for stealing pears out of his orchard, “I’ll send the sheriff. You’re not taking the munchkin with you, I hope.”

  Dylan shook his head. “Thanks, Dan,” he said.

  Cassie was home watching her after-lunch soap operas, fortunately, and she was ready, willing and able to tend to Bonnie for an hour or two.

  Dylan headed straight for Gunnar’s shack, alone.

  The place looked even worse than it had the last time he’d been there—the yard was overgrown, and crowded with rusted-out wrecks in various stages of disintegration. Bald tires, broken bottles and a lot of other trash practically obscured the house from view.

  Gunnar, short, stout and red-faced from years of swilling cheap booze and nursing grudges, hobbled out to greet Dylan, the familiar shotgun in one hand. Over the years, it had become a fifth limb, as grimy as its owner.

  Everybody has a dream. Dylan would have bet his latest poker winnings that Gunnar’s was to shoot some poor bastard and get away with it.

  “You come to steal my pears?” Gunnar demanded. His voice squeaked like a hinge in need of oil, high-pitched and petulant.

  “No,” Dylan said easily. “I came to buy a horse.”

  “Ain’t got no horse,” Gunnar said. “Not anymore, no-how. I had ole Bingo, but I’m sellin’ him to that movie star’s kid.”

  “He’s out of the horse market,” Dylan said. “And quit waving that damn goose-blaster around before somebody gets hurt.”

  “He said he’d give me five hundred cash for that horse if he could ride it!” Gunnar protested, still clutching the shotgun in both hands, hands streaked and crusted with filth. The man reeked pungently enough to make Dylan’s eyes water. “I was countin’ on that five hundred dollars!”

  Dylan took out his wallet, pulled out a thousand in hundred-dollar bills.

  Gunnar’s shriveled, toothless mouth revealed his interest. He was practically drooling.

  “I’ll need a bill of sale,” Dylan said, keeping the crisp bills just out of snatching distance. Once, as a kid, he’d bought a dog from Gunnar, for the same reason he was buying Bingo, and since the animal was off someplace when the transaction took place, he’d given the devious old son of a bitch the requested twenty dollars and promised to come back for the dog. When Logan, with his brand-new driver’s license burning a hole in his jeans pocket, brought him out to Gunnar’s a couple of hours later, they found the reprobate digging a grave—he’d shot the “stupid mutt,” he claimed, because it “turned on” him.

  The recollection scalded the pit of Dylan’s stomach and roiled up into the back of his throat, even after all this time. Gunnar hadn’t given back the twenty dollars, of course, and when Dylan had complained to his dad later, Jake had laughed and said it served him right for making a fool’s bargain. Let that be a lesson to you, boy. And we don’t need a damn dog around here, anyway.

  “Let me get somethin’ to write on, then,” Gunnar fussed, turning to head for the house at a peculiar little trot, “if you’re going to be an asshole about it.”

  Dylan smiled to himself. Folded his arms and stood in Gunnar’s junked-up yard, waiting. When it came to being an asshole, old man Wilkenson had met his match.

  Gunnar returned pretty quickly, considering the hitch in his get-along, and thrust a receipt at Dylan, hastily scrawled on the back of a piece of cheap lined notebook paper. “Roundin’ up the horse is your problem,” Gunnar warned.

  Dylan withheld the money until he’d examined the receipt. “You got any other four-legged critters on the place, Gunnar?” he asked, with what was calculated to sound like mild curiosity.

  “Just a worthless dog,” Gunnar said. “Tried to run him off, but he still hangs around. Tipped over my garbage, too.”

  Dylan wondered how Gunnar differentiated the garbage from the rest of his yard. And as if on cue, said worthless dog belly-crawled out from under one of the rusted-out junkers. He didn’t look a hell of a lot better off than the horse, being scrawny to the point of emaciation. His brown coat was full of nettles, and his eyes seemed to plead with Dylan.

  Oh, what the hell, Dylan thought. He peeled off another two hundred dollars of his poker winnings and bought the dog, too. Made Gunnar go through the whole exercise of writing a receipt all over again.

  When the process was complete, Dylan hoisted the dog gently into the backseat of his truck, noting that it whimpered a little. Most likely, it had been kicked a time or two, when it got too close to Gunnar.

  Using his trusty cell, he called the veterinarian, Doc Ryder, to arrange a visit to the horse and make an appointment for the dog, too. Doc, who answered his own phone as often as not, said to bring “the little guy” right in—he’d see to the gelding on his rounds the next morning.

  Hal Ryder was a kindly old duffer with white hair and calm, quiet blue eyes. “What’s this fella’s name?” he asked, once Dylan had reached his office and set the dog on the battered examining table.

  “Damned if I know,” Dylan said. “I just got him.”

  “Half-starved and probably wormy to boot,” Doc said, checking the mutt over with the kind of intuitive skill only years of experience could develop. “Where’d you get him?”

  “From Gunnar Wilkenson,” Dylan answered. “The horse, too.”

  Doc flushed. “That old son of a bitch,” he said. “I’ve got half a mind to call Floyd and tell him Gunnar’s broken his probation again. He has a rap sheet for cruelty and neglect that goes back to Noah’s Ark.”

  “I have no objection to that,” Dylan remarked, “but Floyd’s got a lot to reckon with right now.” He wasn’t about to go into detail; if there was a body buried on the old Madison place, he wouldn’t be the one to pass the word.

  In a flash, he knew Doc had already heard the story. It showed in his wrinkled road map of a face.

  “Hell of a thing for Kristy to have to deal with,” Doc said. Keeping one hand on the dog, he dug a sealed packet containing several syringes out of a drawer in the examining table. “Folks will be flapping their jaws about this for years.”

  Dylan watched mutely as Doc brought the dog up to date on his shots. So far that day, he’d acquired a horse and a boot-shy mutt, unable to turn his back on their plights. The urge to rescue Kristy was half again as strong.

  “I’d never have figured Tim Madison for the type to kill a man,” Doc said.

  “Maybe he didn’t,” Dylan suggested, but he was doubtful, and he knew Doc heard that in his voice.

  “I guess if you catch somebody robbing your house, there’s no way of telling what you’d do,” Doc went on. He called in his assistant, and the dog was led off for X-rays and blood tests. It cried pitifully at being separated from Dylan.

  “Guess not,” Dylan said. I’ll be here waiting for you when they’re finished, boy, he promised the dog silently.

  “Reckon you’re back in Stillwater Springs to stay, if you’re acquiring a menagerie,” Doc prattled on. He was good to the bone, Doc was, but he gossiped like an old lady.

  “Reckon so,” Dylan said, getting out his wallet. There were prescriptions, on top of the oth
er charges, and he bought the special food the doc recommended, too.

  “Kristy could use a friend,” Doc said.

  The assistant reappeared with the dog, who seemed both surprised and reassured to see Dylan waiting for him. He licked Dylan’s hand in pathetic gratitude.

  Dylan let Doc’s latest comment slide. He wanted to be a lot more than a friend to Kristy, but instinct told him to move slowly. She was, after all, the only woman who’d ever broken his heart, and if he cared too much, and things blew up, he wasn’t sure he could handle it.

  “Pretty woman like her,” Doc went on, shaking his head. “I can’t believe she isn’t married, with a batch of kids.”

  When Dylan didn’t take the bait and offer a response, Doc followed him and the dog right through the front door of the office and out into the parking lot.

  “Guess maybe she’s been waiting for you all this time,” Doc said.

  “Thanks for taking care of—” Dylan looked down at the dog. “Sam,” he decided. Yes. It suited the mutt.

  Doc chuckled and shook his head. “Still a Creed, through and through,” he said. “Might as well try to get the facts out of a stone wall as you.”

  “It’s a proud family tradition,” Dylan replied. He did like Doc, though, so he smiled.

  Doc nodded, lugging the bag of special chow and heaving it into the back of the truck. He was strong, from years of pulling calves and colts and hefting big dogs on and off his examining table. “I’ll have another gander at Sam tomorrow, once I’ve seen to the horse.”

  Dylan nodded. Sam was in the passenger seat by then, ready to roll.

  “Once his medicine has kicked in and he’s had a few good meals,” Doc said in parting, “Sam will rally pretty quickly.”

  Cheered, Dylan nodded again, got into the truck and drove off.

  “I’ve got a little girl,” Dylan told the dog, once they were under way, “and you’ll have to be nice to her. No biting.”

  Sam perked up his ears and tilted his head to one side, panting. His eyes, formerly dim, were already brightening with cautious hope.

  They went back to Cassie’s to pick Bonnie up—she was immediately taken with Sam, and when she gave one of his ears a happy tug, he licked her face and made her laugh. Finally, they were on the way home, stopping briefly at Logan’s place to make sure the horse had settled in.

  It was standing in the breezeway, the stall door open behind it.

  “So you’re a Houdini type, are you?” Dylan grinned. “An escape artist?”

  He led the gelding back into the stall, made sure it had adequate feed and water and worked the latch again.

  Before he got to the barn door, the horse was out a second time, plodding along after him.

  They repeated the lockup.

  The horse worked the latch.

  “Damn,” Dylan said, more in admiration than frustration. He’d encountered lock-pickers before, but this cayuse seemed to have a special talent for it. Use a padlock, and he’d figure out the combination.

  Just to see what the horse would do, he got into the truck and drove it a few yards down the driveway while Bonnie crowed, “Horsie! Horsie!”

  The animal followed.

  Resigned, Dylan headed slowly for his own place, Bingo ambling doggedly behind the truck.

  *

  AT SIX THAT EVENING, Kristy pulled into Dylan’s yard, gussied to the gills in makeup, a white ruffled top and her best black jeans. The sight of the palomino gelding grazing near the clothesline practically stopped her heart.

  It wasn’t Sugarfoot, of course. But it might have been—the conformation was the same, like the coloring.

  “He followed me home,” Dylan explained, when he appeared on his back porch. His gaze moved over her outfit with a blue glint of frank appreciation.

  Slowly, Kristy approached the horse, drawn to him in the same powerful way she was drawn to Bonnie. “Except for the scars, he looks like—”

  “Sugarfoot,” Dylan finished for her.

  The palomino’s golden coat was still moist from a recent washing. Kristy breathed in the scent of horse, and memories she’d held at bay for a very long time welled up inside her, caught in her throat.

  “I meant to put him up in Logan’s barn until I get my own built,” Dylan went on, appearing at her side now. Bonnie toddled after him, along with a very skinny dog. “But he wouldn’t stay put.”

  “Where did you get him?”

  “He belonged to Gunnar Wilkenson,” Dylan said.

  Kristy’s temper flared. “Gunnar’s not supposed to have—”

  “Bingo’s safe now,” Dylan assured her quietly. “Think we ought to give him a different handle? New life, new name?”

  Kristy didn’t miss the word we. She took a step back from the horse, afraid of caring too much, fearing it was already too late.

  She cared about Dylan.

  She cared about Bonnie.

  And now, here was this horse, a sad, mistreated version of her beautiful, healthy Sugarfoot, a living ghost, come back to haunt her.

  “It’s okay, Kristy,” Dylan said huskily.

  “Poop story!” Bonnie yelled.

  Both Dylan and Kristy laughed, and the tension slackened a little.

  “Did you read that book to her already?” Kristy asked.

  “No,” Dylan answered. “I’m philosophically opposed to the subject matter.”

  “Wimp,” Kristy teased.

  Dylan grinned. “Come on inside,” he said. “I’ll put the steaks on. I’ve already whacked up a halfway decent salad.”

  Leaving the horse, like leaving Bonnie and Dylan the night before, was a tearing-away, the swift removal of a bandage from a raw wound. It left Kristy almost breathless.

  “I think you’re right—he ought to have a different name,” Kristy said, breezily decisive. Now that she was in Dylan’s actual presence again, telling him about the night her father had killed a drifter didn’t seem so urgent as before. “The horse, I mean.”

  “Like what?” Dylan asked.

  Kristy looked back at the gleaming, golden horse. His hide, scarred as it was, glistening with fresh salve, seemed to soak up the fading light of a summer day. “How about Sundance?”

  “I like it,” Dylan said.

  Warmth settled over Kristy’s heart, lingered like some magical mist. “He’s yours?”

  “Yep,” Dylan answered. “I could use some help training him, though. For all I know, he’s never even had a saddle on his back.”

  They entered the kitchen, Bonnie and the dog leading the way. The smell of freshly washed and chopped vegetables offered a singular welcome, and Kristy spotted three giant steaks on the cutting board, seasoned and ready to broil.

  Her stomach growled in anticipation.

  Dylan poured some red wine into a jelly jar and handed it to her.

  “Here’s to stray dogs, old horses and little girls,” he said, picking a beer can up off the counter and raising it slightly.

  “To dogs, horses and little girls,” Kristy replied, wondering why she suddenly felt like crying. She blinked, looked away, gulped down some of the wine. “Are we expecting someone else to join us?” she asked, when her voice returned, referring to the trio of steaks.

  “The third one’s for Sam,” Dylan said, with a nod to the dog. “As you can see, he could stand a little beefing up. Pardon the unintended pun.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Kristy asked, remembering the potato salad she’d left in the Blazer. She’d been so taken with the horse that she’d forgotten all about her deli-bought contribution to the meal.

  “Nothing that ought to happen in front of a two-year-old,” Dylan joked, but his eyes smoldered, a pair of blue blazes in his tanned face. His beard was growing in, a golden stubble, and Kristy refused to remember how that stubble used to feel against the bare skin of her breasts and her belly and her thighs.

  Supper was a deliberately low-key affair, but Kristy felt overheated and pleasantly anxiou
s throughout, even though the back door was open to the cool of the evening and the swamp-cooler was roaring away on a windowsill on the far side of the room.

  Once they’d finished eating, Kristy put Bonnie into pajamas and brushed the child’s teeth, then read her the poop story. Bonnie went directly to sleep.

  Dylan was just finishing up the dishes when Kristy returned to the kitchen, one finger pressed to her lips.

  Dylan dried his hands with a wad of paper towels and offered to pour more wine. Kristy demurred, since she had to drive home later.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” Dylan prodded.

  Kristy sighed, sat down at the table. Nodded.

  He joined her. “What’s up?”

  She watched his face tighten as she described the dream she’d had the night before, the drifter in her room, the scuffle and the shouting—and finally the shot.

  “Did he hurt you?” Dylan asked, just as Sheriff Book had, when she’d related the story to him.

  “No,” Kristy said. “Thanks to my dad.”

  Dylan’s face was ghastly; he looked as though he’d like to dig that drifter up himself and kill him all over again. “Nobody’s going to blame Tim for what he did,” he said gruffly, after shoving a hand through his hair.

  “That won’t stop the talk,” Kristy said.

  “Probably not,” Dylan agreed.

  If Dylan asked her why she’d thought it was so important to relate the resurfacing of that terrible memory to him, Kristy wouldn’t have known how to answer. Fortunately, he didn’t.

  “Will you help me with the horse, Kristy?” he said instead, after another lengthy silence.

  “You don’t need my help,” Kristy replied. “You’re better with horses than I ever was. I’m onto your plan, Dylan. You want me to work with Sundance so I’ll forget about Sugarfoot, and that’s never going to happen.”

  “I’ve got Bonnie, and a custody suit to file and win. A house and barn to build. And that horse—”

  “Don’t you dare say it needs me, Dylan Creed.” Even then, Kristy could feel the animal tugging at her, heart to heart, calling to her in the silent way horses always did.