Promise-keeping had been a rare thing for Jake Creed, but he’d kept this one. Six months after his death, and the debacle at Skivvie’s that had put an end to so much, an official-looking letter had caught up with Tyler, somewhere on the rodeo circuit, along with a document granting him full title to one-third of Stillwater Springs Ranch.
Tyler and Kit Carson walked to the end of the ancient dock, watched the moonlight dance on the surface of the water. He’d just married Shawna when that letter arrived, and for weeks they’d talked of coming back, spending a “just-the-two-of-us summer,” and maybe conceiving a baby.
But before the winter was over, Shawna, returning from a visit with her folks, had hit a patch of ice on the long, twisting road between Carson City, Nevada, and Reno, and rolled her truck. According to the EMTs called to the scene by a passing motorist, Shawna had died on impact.
The one thing that had kept Tyler sane was knowing she hadn’t suffered.
But there would be no summer at Hidden Lake.
No baby.
No anything.
Tyler had grieved, not just for Shawna, but for all they’d planned, all the things that would never happen.
The guilt had been even worse than the grief—because while Tyler had liked Shawna, he’d soon realized that he’d never really loved her, and the fear that she might have known that all along ate at him whenever he allowed his thoughts to wander down that particular trail.
Which wasn’t often.
Although he hadn’t consciously recognized it when he’d first met Shawna, behind the chutes at a rodeo in Cheyenne, she’d borne a certain casual similarity to Lily. Same compact but lushly feminine build, same blue eyes and blond hair.
He sat down on the end of the creaky old dock—like everything else on the property, it needed replacing—and Kit Carson huddled up close and leaned in.
Tyler put an arm around the dog, trying to reassure the poor critter. They were together for the duration, him and ole Kit Carson, two veterans of a hard-knock world, home at last.
He tried to pinpoint the moment he’d decided to marry Lily; figured it must have been right around the time she’d hung her damp panties on the passenger-side mirror of Kristy’s Blazer. The memory made him smile.
Did he love Lily?
He wasn’t sure. Growing up Creed the way he had, he wasn’t sure he’d know love—the real thing—if it bit him in the ass.
He sure as hell felt something, though. Something deep and undeniable and completely unlike anything he’d ever felt before.
It wasn’t just the sex, though God knew that was good.
He watched, pondering, as moonlight played on the still, dark water, putting on the kind of show he’d missed in the big city, for all the bright lights. New York, Las Vegas, L.A.—he’d tried to put down roots in all three of those places, but he’d never been able to find a soft spot in all that concrete.
No, he needed rich Montana dirt under his feet, and that fabled Big Sky over his head.
He needed Lily.
Maybe he even needed his brothers, though he wasn’t quite prepared to admit that, just yet.
The question was, did Lily need him? She’d responded, body and soul, to every touch of his hands, every brush of his lips, every caress and whispered word and hard, deep thrust of his hips. But there was a lot more to the far side of a wedding than sex; even a marriage-challenged Creed like himself knew that much.
It was possible she’d been telling the truth when she’d informed him, in so many words, that she’d only gone along with the whole thing because she wanted to get him out of her system. And she’d seemed pretty adamant, as they drove back to her dad’s place: the whole night had been about getting off, to hear her tell it.
In the beginning, Tyler had believed that, too. That taking Lily to bed was a way of scratching an old itch. In retrospect, he knew that during their first simultaneous climax, it hadn’t been just their bodies that had connected and then fused in a flash of fire. It had been some other, more elemental dimension of their beings.
Or, at least, that was how it had been for him.
He turned his head, disturbing the leaning tower of dog a little, and looked back at the cabin. From the looks of that house, it might just fall over on one side at any minute, its beams finally giving out under the pressure of too many deep-snow winters weighing down on its roof. Too many hard winds battering its walls, rattling its windows. Too many glaring summer suns warping its timbers.
It was time to tear down and rebuild, the way Dylan was doing on his section of the ranch. Like Dylan, Tyler felt no sentimental attachment to the structure itself; it was the land that mattered to him—the land generations of Creeds had walked on. Good Creeds and bad ones, strong ones and weak ones—a long and winding line of them reaching all the way back to old Josiah himself.
Suddenly, it was as if the ghosts of all Tyler’s ancestors rose up out of that good Montana soil, a horde of them, demanding their due.
We fought for this land, they seemed to say. We lived and died and sweated and bled here. We raised our children and buried our dead, and laughed and wept and shook our fists at heaven itself when the crops failed and the cattle died. And like it or not, you’re one of us. We’re in your blood. No matter where you go or what you do or who you try to turn yourself into, you’re still a Creed.
“Damn it,” Tyler muttered, shoving a hand through his hair.
But the words echoed in his mind. You’re still a Creed.
Kit Carson whimpered, concerned.
“You’re going to have to tough up, dog,” Tyler told him, ruffling the animal’s floppy ears. “You’re a Creed now.”
Slowly, Tyler got to his feet, made his way back down the dock to the shore, made himself go inside the cabin. He knew he wouldn’t sleep in the bed he’d just shared with Lily—those few square yards would feel like an acre of frozen river—so he crashed downstairs on the cot he’d set up for Davie.
He woke to sunlight reddening his eyelids and somebody banging around in the general vicinity of the cookstove.
Raising himself on one elbow, Tyler blinked.
Logan was there, building a pot of coffee, and Kit Carson, who would obviously never go down in the annals of history as one of the great guard dogs, was practically glued to the intruder’s heels, tail wagging, tongue lolling, ears perked.
“Mornin’, little brother,” Logan drawled, as though he had every right to invade another man’s house while he was sleeping. “Nice to know you’re not dead. You must have had yourself one hell of a night.”
“What are you doing here?” Tyler snapped, sitting up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. He’d hauled off his shirt at some point, and slept in his jeans.
“Well, dumb-ass,” Logan answered easily, “what does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks,” Tyler snarled, “like you’re trespassing.”
Logan grinned. “That, too,” he agreed. “But mainly I’m making coffee. Maybe a cup will restore your friendly attitude.” He paused, shook his head. “That’s right,” he corrected himself. “You never had a friendly attitude in the first place.”
“What the hell time is it, anyhow?” Tyler growled. He’d left his watch upstairs, and there wasn’t a clock in the whole damn place.
“Around six,” Logan said, rustling up a couple of mugs and setting them on the table. “Half the day’s gone. If you were any kind of rancher, you’d know that.”
Tyler shook his head. Stumbled into the john, used it, washed his hands at the sink and came out again.
Logan had drawn back a chair and sat down to wait for the java to brew, just as if he was welcome in that house.
“Time we talked,” he said.
“We’ve got nothing to talk about,” Tyler grumbled. Kit Carson was at the door, so he let him out.
“I’m sorry I busted your guitar,” Logan said.
The words were simple ones, but something about the proud, quiet way his brother
said them got to Tyler in a way that made him reinforce his anti-Logan force-field.
“Too little, too late,” Tyler grumbled, glaring at the coffeepot, willing it to perk so he could get some caffeine flowing through his veins.
Logan rolled his eyes, but the set of his mouth was grim. Determined. “Goddamn you’re stubborn,” he said. “I’m your brother, Ty.”
“Spare me the ‘I’m your brother’ crap,” Tyler said. “Five years ago, we decided to go our own ways—with good reason. Let’s keep it like that, okay?”
“You plan on staying here on the ranch?” Logan asked, and Tyler would have thought his brother hadn’t heard a word he’d said, if it hadn’t been for that familiar muscle bunching in Logan’s jaw. That always happened when he was annoyed.
“Maybe,” Tyler ground out.
“Then how do you expect to avoid Dylan and me?”
“There must be a way,” Tyler said.
Logan chuckled. “Haven’t you ever done anything you wished you could take back?” he asked.
There were plenty of things Tyler regretted, but he wasn’t inclined to share them, especially with Logan. “What do you want?” he demanded, clearly enunciating each word, dragging back a chair and sitting down opposite his brother. After all, it was his house. Why should he stand, while Logan lounged at his table?
“Another chance,” Logan answered. This time, he sounded hoarse.
“Why?” Tyler asked, honestly puzzled.
Logan didn’t reply to that. He just folded his arms and sat there looking at Tyler like he was two feet over the border between smart and stupid.
“You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?” Tyler rasped.
“Nope,” Logan said.
“Okay, I forgive you for smashing the guitar. Are you happy now?”
“I’m real happy,” Logan shot back. “Don’t I look happy?”
“You look butt-ugly,” Tyler said. “Now, will you please leave? I’m not a morning person.”
Logan laughed again, reached out, tapped a stack of papers with the tip of one finger. Tyler hadn’t noticed the documents until then. He frowned.
“What—”
“I assume you can read,” Logan said.
Smart-ass son of a bitch.
Tyler picked up the documents, scanned the face page. Something about a corporation called Tri-Star Cattle Company.
“We’re trying to run a ranch here, Dylan and me,” Logan told him. “A third of it’s yours. Are you going to sign on or not?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LILY WAS IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM, peering at the label in her once-beautiful red dress—she went through three different languages before she got to washing instructions in English—when her dad popped his head in through the kitchen doorway.
Blushing a little, Lily stuffed the dress into the washing machine. Barefoot, her hair still damp from the shower, she wore a short cotton bathrobe, tightly cinched at the waist, and nothing else. Except maybe the golden, telling glow of a woman recovering from a night of nonstop orgasms.
“Good morning,” Hal said sunnily. “I took the liberty of making breakfast, since you overslept. We had toaster waffles with jam and canned whipped cream, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
In spite of all her misgivings, those concerning her father’s diet and those having to do with the way she’d carried on with Tyler the night before, Lily chuckled. Shook her head. “Where is my daughter now? Having her stomach pumped?”
“She and Eleanor are in the backyard, trying to dig their way to China. They’ll be pretty dirty by now, I reckon, but they’re happy.”
Lily raised the washer lid, dumped in a sprinkling of powdered soap and set the dial to Delicate. Pulled the knob and spoke over the ensuing roar of water filling the machine. “A little dirt won’t hurt them,” she said.
Hal arched a bushy gray eyebrow and grinned. “And here I expected an argument,” he teased. His gaze was tender as he studied her, though. “Did you have a good time last night, Lily?” he asked gently. “How was dinner?”
She couldn’t tell him the truth, of course—that she and Tyler had never gotten around to eating dinner. They hadn’t even had the scrambled eggs he’d promised her. “Fine,” she said, as he backed out of the doorway so she could pass him and step into the kitchen. “It was fine.”
Fine? taunted her inner hussy.
Oh, Tyler, do me—make me come—
Lily blushed again, ducked into the spare room she’d taken over as a bedroom, and hastily dressed in khaki shorts and a pink-and-white-checked sleeveless blouse.
When she came out, her dad was just plucking a couple of waffles from the toaster. He dumped them on a plate and set them on the table.
“What?” Lily teased, too ravenous to refuse the food. “No tofu?”
“Fresh out,” Hal bantered back. He set the jam jar and canned whipped cream on the table. Got Lily some silverware. “I thought I’d stop by the clinic today,” he ventured. “See how things are going.”
Lily didn’t bother to protest; she knew it wouldn’t do any good and, besides, she felt too mellow to argue.
Hal joined her at the table. Sipped coffee while he watched her demolish the toaster waffles. He glanced toward the back door once, probably to make sure Tess and Eleanor weren’t about to burst on the scene, and cleared his throat. “Be careful, Lily,” he said.
So he’d guessed what had happened between her and Tyler, then. Lily was a little embarrassed, but not surprised. After all, the signs were probably all there, and the man hadn’t been born yesterday. “Too late,” she answered.
Her dad reached across the table, closed his hand over hers. “Is it serious?”
“I don’t know,” Lily said truthfully. She, too, glanced toward the door then, but Tess and Eleanor were still in the backyard. The sweet sound of their laughter came through the screen door. She swallowed, moved by the ordinary joy of two little girls enjoying a summer morning. “Is this the part where you remind me that Tyler is a Creed?”
Hal shook his head. “Nobody knows that better than you do,” he said.
Lily’s throat tightened then, cinched closed so she couldn’t speak. Tears stung her eyes.
“I’m your father, Lily,” Hal went on hoarsely, his own eyes moist. “I love you, and I want you to be happy. With or without Tyler Creed.”
I’m your father—I love you—I want you to be happy.
Since when? Lily wondered.
“I know you don’t believe it,” Hal persisted, watching her in that vaguely unsettling way again. “That I love you, I mean. But I always did and I always will.”
Lily couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t keep the hurt inside. “Then why?” she whispered raggedly. “Why did you shut me out the way you did? Why didn’t you call or write or let me visit?”
Hal wiped his eyes. Cleared his throat again. Looked everywhere but at Lily and then forced himself, visibly, to meet her gaze. “I didn’t want you in Stillwater Springs because Tyler was here,” he said finally. “He’d hurt you so badly, fooling around with that waitress.”
“But Tyler and I had already broken up—” Lily began, then her voice faltered. She sucked in a shaky breath, stunned by the depth of the pain the mention of Tyler’s long-ago lover caused her.
Hal smiled sadly. “You would have forgiven him, Lily,” he said. “He would have charmed you into giving him a second chance eventually, and you know it. I grew up with Jake Creed, remember. I saw him buzz-saw his way through three wives, and Tyler and his brothers seemed like chips off the old block back then. I couldn’t bear the idea of seeing you destroyed—”
Lily didn’t want to believe her father—she’d lived with the grudge for a long time and it had become comfortable in an odd sort of way—but she knew he was telling the truth. He’d been protecting her all along.
From herself, and from Tyler.
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought, swe
etheart,” Hal said sadly. “But things had to be that way. I couldn’t have you coming back to Stillwater Springs for any reason, and there was only one thing that would keep you safe—my letting you believe I didn’t want you around anymore.”
Lily pushed her plate away, set her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. “You came to my wedding,” she reminded him, reminded herself, her voice muffled by her palms and fingers.
He patted her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have missed that,” he said. “I had my doubts about Burke, like I told you, but I figured you’d be safe from Tyler, with another man’s wedding ring on your finger. I hoped you and I could find our way back to each other then, but the damage was done. You wanted nothing to do with me, beyond my walking you down the aisle to your bridegroom, and I can’t say I blame you.”
“Why did you change your mind? About Tyler, I mean?”
“I saw how Logan and Dylan had grown up,” Hal replied. “And I ran into Tyler a few times, when he came back to Stillwater Springs to hide out in that cabin of his. He seemed like a different person. And I realized I’d been unfair, expecting him to turn out the way Jake did.”
As kids, Lily and Tyler had had their share of heart-to-heart talks, but Tyler had never been willing to discuss his father. “Was Jake Creed always—well—like he was?”
Hal sighed, remembering. “No,” he admitted. “His folks were decent, hardworking people. They raised Jake right. But the summer before we all started high school, Jake’s little brother, Pete, drowned in a swimming hole, out there on the ranch. Pete was only ten or so, and he was clowning around. Swam like a fish, that boy, kept up with the rest of us just fine. He went under and got his foot caught between two old logs lying on the bottom, and by the time we missed him and dove to look for him, it was too late. Jake and I pried him loose and hauled him to the bank, tried to revive him, but he was gone.”
Lily put a hand over her mouth, horrified.
“Jake’s mother went crazy with grief, as you can imagine. Said she’d trusted Jake to look out for his little brother and he’d let him die—and a whole lot of other things she didn’t mean. Jake was never quite the same after that—he grew up, joined the army, went to Viet Nam. His folks died in a car wreck right before he would have mustered out. The army discharged him early, and he came home for the funeral. Between Pete’s death and the things he’d seen in combat—” Hal stopped, shook his head again. “Jake went wild. That’s all I can say. It was as if he was trying to kill himself the hard way.”
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 70
