Briana brought Alec and Josh in for story hour, and they immediately gravitated toward Bonnie. Both boys were solicitous of her, like big brothers, and the scene made Kristy smile.
Briana, meanwhile, approached the desk. “Is it true?” she asked, with a friendly grin.
Kristy returned the grin—she was peeved at Logan, not Briana—and pretended to be confused. “Is what true?”
“The town’s buzzing,” Briana said, with mock impatience. “You and Dylan had blood tests at the clinic, and then you were seen going into the courthouse together. The supposition is wedding bells.”
Kristy laughed, shook her head. “I’ve lived in this community most of my life,” she said. “And it never fails to surprise me, the way word gets around so fast. It’s almost spooky.”
“It’s true?” Briana asked eagerly. “You and Dylan are getting married?”
“It’s true,” Kristy said, after looking both ways.
Briana made a fist and pumped the air with it once, exuberantly. “Yes!”
“It’ll be a very simple ceremony,” Kristy went on, reassured that no one else had overheard, though she couldn’t think why she should be, since the news had obviously traveled the whole loop already. “Probably in my living room. Of course we want you and…Logan and the kids to be there, but we’re keeping the fuss to an absolute minimum.” She lowered her voice. “And, Briana? Definitely no bridal shower, just in case that idea should cross your mind.”
Some of Briana’s earlier enthusiasm dissolved, and a small frown creased the space between her perfect eyebrows. “Okay,” she said, and sighed. A long pause followed. “What was that little hitch about—the one just before you mentioned Logan’s name?”
“According to Sheriff Book, Logan is defending Caleb Spencer,” Kristy said carefully. She didn’t want her feelings about that coming between her and Briana. They’d been friends from the first, and soon they would be in-laws, after all. Almost sisters. “I just—well—Since Dylan could have been killed—”
Briana sighed. “They’re all out at the main ranch house hashing it out at this very minute,” she said. “Logan, Dylan, Mr. Spencer and Caleb. That’s why I brought the boys to town for ice cream and story hour. So we wouldn’t be underfoot. Logan hasn’t said much about the case, except that it really isn’t a case and he believes Caleb’s version.”
“Why?” Kristy asked. “Why does he believe Caleb?”
“I’m not sure,” Briana admitted. Her gaze swung to her two boys, both of whom were doing their best to entertain a delighted Bonnie, her green eyes full of gentle pride. Her voice went soft. “If I had to guess, though, I’d say he doesn’t want Caleb to wind up in prison if there’s a chance he’s just a kid who made a stupid mistake.”
Kristy recalled Dylan’s reluctance to press charges until he’d spoken to Caleb personally. She’d do her best, she decided, to reserve judgment and let Dylan deal with the situation as he saw fit.
So she simply nodded, and when a good crowd had gathered, she settled herself in the play area and read three more chapters of last time’s Nancy Drew mystery.
*
THE KID LOOKED SORRY, Dylan thought, seated next to his famous father on Logan’s living room couch and fidgeting a lot. Of course, it remained to be seen whether Caleb Spencer was sorry he’d nearly injured or killed a man and a horse, or sorry he’d been caught.
Zachary Spencer, for his part, had faded to gray, and there was a grim set to his mouth. He’d done the right thing, making Caleb face the consequences of his actions, but he clearly intended to do whatever he had to do to look out for his boy, too.
Which made him a father, Dylan concluded.
He wondered what Jake Creed would have done, if he or Logan or Tyler had gotten themselves into a fix like this, and only part of the answer came to him. First order of business: tan their hide, but good.
After that, who knew?
Logan occupied the big armchair, so Dylan, the most recent arrival, pulled the computer chair over to join the circle.
“Tell us your version of what happened yesterday, Caleb,” Logan said, taking the lead.
Perry Mason in jeans, shit-kickers and a T-shirt, Dylan thought, smiling to himself. This was an entirely new aspect of Logan’s persona.
Caleb started to cry. “I’ve already told you,” he sniffled. “I told my dad. I told the sheriff. How many times do I have to go over the same stuff?”
“Tell us again,” Zachary ordered quietly.
Caleb’s gaze moved to Dylan’s face, and the boy made a visible effort to suck it up and carry on. “I was real mad at you when you took that horse away from me,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t have shot you for it.”
“Why bring the gun to the cemetery, Caleb,” Dylan began evenly, “if you were just scouting for a movie location?”
The boy’s sigh seemed to come from the soles of his expensive sneakers. A tremor went through him, and he sniffled again. Wiped his eyes with one forearm. “My friend Toby Phillips was supposed to meet me in the cemetery. I’d told him about the gun—my dad says it used to belong to John Wayne—and Toby wanted to see it for himself.”
Dylan and Logan exchanged glances. Both of them knew Toby—he was Dan Phillips’s kid brother. From what Logan had said on the cell phone, prior to Dylan’s arrival for the powwow, Toby was an honor student, had never been in trouble and aspired to make movies someday.
Logan leaned forward in his chair, rested his forearms on his thighs and regarded the elder Spencer impassively. “As I understand it,” he said, “you were thinking of buying some property around Stillwater Springs.”
Dylan frowned. Waited.
“Yes,” Spencer said, with a sigh. “Some outfit called Tri-Star bought the land I wanted right out from under me, though, so I’m back to square one. If it wasn’t for those bodies found on the Madison place, Caleb and I would have gone back to L.A. and none of this would be happening.”
Ah, yes, Dylan reflected. Spencer had taken out some kind of option on Kristy’s story. Or, more properly, her father’s story.
“Where have you and Caleb been staying?” Logan asked, in the tone of a man who already knew the answer, but wanted everyone else to hear it.
“We’ve got an RV,” Spencer replied, playing the game. “At that park outside of town, just past the casino.”
“Not the kind of digs you’re used to, I suppose,” Logan observed.
Spencer smiled, but it was brittle, that smile, and soon fell off his face. “It’s an adventure,” he said. “You know, father and son. Roughing it.”
Logan nodded sagely. “And you brought a rifle with you from L.A.?” he asked, his tone moderate.
“Just the Duke’s,” Zachary replied. He sure looked the part he was playing—devoted dad, stunned by his otherwise perfect son’s behavior—but, then, he was an actor. “I have a large collection of movie memorabilia—especially items from westerns. That one is a favorite, and since I knew we’d be away from home for the summer, I decided not to leave it behind and risk having it stolen. We’ve had several breakins, for all the security measures I’ve taken. A couple of days ago, I saw a virtual duplicate in a gun shop in Missoula—they’re unbelievably rare, so I bought it. Caleb mistook that rifle—which is real, of course—for the collector’s piece.”
It was a convoluted story, to Dylan’s way of thinking. Just convoluted enough to be true. But there was still an important detail that hadn’t been mentioned.
Dylan looked at Logan.
Logan nodded slightly.
“Why was the gun loaded?” Dylan asked, watching both Spencers the way he would opponents at a high-stakes card game. There would be “tells,” poker jargon for the unconscious ways people gave away exactly what they most wanted to hide.
“I’d taken it to the range to try it out,” Zachary said. “I meant to unload it as soon as I got home, but the phone rang—” He paused, shook his head, looked for a moment as though he might break down and cry, just the way Caleb
had earlier.
It was too late for the loaded-guns-kill speech, and Zachary Spencer probably didn’t need to hear it, anyway. He’d been damn lucky not to learn his lesson the hard way.
Spencer’s eyes were earnest as he looked into Dylan’s face. “If somebody has to be prosecuted,” he said, “it ought to be me. I’m the one who left that rifle where my son could find it. I’m the one who forgot to unload it.”
Now that he’d had a chance to assess the situation, Dylan agreed with Logan’s take on the matter. Caleb Spencer was spoiled, but he wasn’t a killer.
“I won’t press charges,” Dylan said.
Both Caleb and Zachary looked almost sick with relief.
“But,” Dylan stipulated, “I do think I should have some kind of redress. After all, I could have broken my neck—or lost a good horse.”
“You want money?” Caleb’s father asked, patting the front of his golf shirt as though feeling around for a checkbook.
“Not money,” Dylan said, tight-jawed.
“What, then?” Caleb asked, looking wary.
“Help training Sundance,” Dylan answered, watching the boy’s eyes widen. “You’ve got a few things to learn about working with horses. Of course, if you’re not interested—”
“I’m interested,” Caleb broke in, neatly confirming Dylan’s suspicions. “I like horses.”
“You have a mighty peculiar way of showing it,” Dylan observed, recalling how the boy had meant to go after the gelding with a lunge-whip, out there in the road. Would have, if Dylan hadn’t stopped him.
Caleb flushed. “I guess I lost my temper,” he said.
“You lose your temper with that horse, or any other living thing, and I’ll lose mine—with you. Not a pretty sight, I can tell you.”
The boy nodded solemnly.
Logan indulged in a brief grin.
“Until my barn is finished, there won’t be much horse-training going on. Sundance is boarding here at Logan’s for now, but he still needs feeding and currying and regular exercise. His stall has to be shoveled out, once a day anyhow, and Logan has his own horses to take care of, not to mention his lawyering, so I’ll be over regularly to see to the gelding.”
“And I get to—have to help?” Caleb asked, leaning forward from his perch on the edge of the couch.
“Yep,” Dylan said. “Six o’clock, every morning, for the next couple of weeks.” He let his gaze drift to the boy’s feet. “Get yourself some decent shit-kickers,” he advised, in closing. “This is a working ranch, not a basketball court.”
*
AT FIVE SHARP, Dylan pulled into the library parking lot, got out of his truck and sprinted up the front steps. It promised to be a slow night, but Kristy was bushed from keeping up with Bonnie all afternoon. Once story hour was over, and Briana and her boys and the other kids had left, the child had morphed into a holy terror.
She’d helped Kristy pick up all the library toys, and promptly scattered them again at the first opportunity.
She’d pulled a whole row of books off a low shelf before Kristy caught her.
And then she’d screamed “Daddy!” and “Poop!” alternately until the whole place cleared out. Even Susan, the die-hard, had pleaded a headache and made a hasty exit.
Maybe, Kristy thought, sagging with relief when she saw Dylan come up the stairs and through the front door, she’d bring Bonnie to work with her again.
Someday.
The little girl shrieked with joy when she saw Dylan, and ran to him as fast as her toddler’s legs would carry her. He laughed and swung her up into his arms, then planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.
“How was it?” he asked Kristy. The grin in his eyes indicated that he already knew.
Kristy rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands. Sighed so hard that her shoulders rose and fell.
Dylan laughed. “I tried to warn you,” he said.
Was it crazy to be so glad to see a man who wouldn’t say, “I love you”? Kristy wondered. She was glad to see Dylan, and not just because it would mean a respite from taking care of an angelic hellion like Bonnie. Just by being there, he seemed to charge the atmosphere with something entirely new, an unseen electricity, a sense of expectancy and possibility.
She went back to her office to fetch the diaper bag, brought it to Dylan. “I’ll close up around seven,” she told him, “unless there’s a last-minute rush.”
He grinned again, in that slow Dylan-way that curled Kristy’s toes and made things dance inside her. “Nothing worse than a bunch of readers on a rampage,” he teased. “Bonnie and I will have supper ready when you get home.”
Someone promising to have supper ready when she got home.
When had that happened before? Not since she lived on the ranch with her parents, certainly. She’d been coming home to an empty house for a long, long time.
“Okay,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss Bonnie’s cheek.
The little girl giggled and dodged, then craned to kiss her back.
“Did you speak to Caleb?” Kristy asked, following Dylan as far as the front door.
“Yes,” Dylan answered. “I’ll tell you about it over supper.”
With that, he leaned to place a light, brief and very tantalizing kiss on her mouth, then turned, with Bonnie in the curve of his left arm, and the diaper bag slung over his right shoulder.
Somehow, he managed to look drop-dead gorgeous, even walking away with the child and her gear.
Once he’d gone, the library seemed as silent as an undiscovered tomb, somewhere deep beneath the Egyptian sands.
Kristy busied herself neatening shelves, restocking returned books, washing out the employee coffee pot and setting it up for morning. All that time, she had one eye on the clock—she, Kristy Madison, who had never in her whole life been a clock-watcher. In the Madison household, the habit had been on par with Communism.
Just as she was about to close up, a young boy came into the library, dressed in a long black coat. Kristy had seen him before, and though she didn’t know the boy, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that he was an outsider. While there were always a few rebels in any group, most of the high schoolers in Stillwater Springs were ranch or farm kids. They wore jeans and boots and although some of them probably smoked marijuana, beer was still the most popular drug of choice.
She was tired.
She was hungry.
She wanted to get home to Dylan and Bonnie. Yes, Bonnie, even after the hair-raising adventures of the afternoon.
Maybe that was what drew her to the boy—all her usual defenses were down. “We’re closing soon,” she said sunnily, not wanting to discourage further library patronage, or make this obviously different kid feel unwelcome.
“I just want to check my e-mail,” he said.
He had a spider tattooed to his neck, and piercings in his ears, eyebrows and—Kristy winced inwardly—even his lower lip.
“Okay,” Kristy said.
He logged on to the first computer in a row of several. It was the newest one, but still antiquated.
“Do I know you?” Kristy asked.
He turned, looked up at her curiously. Solemnly. Such old eyes, in such a young, if desecrated, face. “I come around sometimes,” he said. Translation: Go away, lady. I’m busy here.
Still, Kristy hovered. She couldn’t help it.
The boy turned back to the computer, his fingers flying deftly over the keyboard.
Presently, he swung around again. “You want something?”
Kristy shook her head. But she didn’t move away. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Davie McCullough,” he answered, his blue eyes dipping to her name tag. At least, she hoped it was her name tag. The bit of plastic was pinned directly above her right breast, and she resisted an urge to unpin it and move it higher up. “What’s yours?”
Kristy didn’t reply.
Davie rounded to face the computer again, sending off go-away vibes i
n the way only teenagers can do.
At last, he gave up. “Okay,” he said. “You win. I’ll leave.”
“Be sure to come back tomorrow,” Kristy replied. “We’ll be open until nine.”
“Right,” Davie mocked, homing in on the front door.
Kristy took a deep breath. Gathered her courage. “Gravesitter?” she asked.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I BEG YOUR PARDON?” Davie said. If he’d recognized the screen name, if he was indeed Gravesitter, he gave no outward indication at all.
“Never mind,” Kristy said, her smile wobbling a little. Color me with one foot in my mouth, she thought.
As soon as Davie had gone, she locked the door and turned the Open sign to Closed. Normally, she would have hurried back to her office for her purse and any books she’d decided to borrow over the course of the day, and leave by the back way. The longer she lingered, after all, the greater the risk of someone showing up and staring at her plaintively through the glass in the door until she let them in for “just one book.” Of course, that one book always evolved into several, all painstakingly chosen.
That night, she stayed where she was, watched Davie McCullough slink away down the sidewalk, head down, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his black opera coat. He seemed to be shrinking inside the huge garment as he moved farther and farther away, almost as if it were swallowing him fold by fold.
It wasn’t dark yet when Kristy reached home—it would be several hours before the sun set—but lights burned in the kitchen, and the glow warmed her heart.
Dylan was inside. Bonnie and Sam, and Winston, too.
A complete world, contained within the walls of a single house in an obscure Montana town.
Kristy quickened her step.
Home wasn’t a house, she thought, or a piece of land.
For her, it was one man, one little girl, a cat and a dog. Wherever they were, that was home.
She paused just inside the gate in her white picket fence, soaking in the present moment—this time, this place. The infinitely precious right now.
The back door was open a little way, and she could hear the washing machine chugging away on the utility porch, dishes clattering in the kitchen beyond, Bonnie’s small voice piping her favorite litany, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Poop!”
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 54
