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

by Linda Lael Miller

  Lily let all that soak in. Tyler had never said anything about his uncle’s drowning, and it was unlikely that he didn’t know, since Stillwater Springs was such a small place. “You were there when Pete died?” she finally asked, knowing she was a few beats behind. “You never told me—”

  “Would you have told Tess, if you’d had an experience like that?” Hal challenged gently. “Like Jake, I thought I should have been able to save that little boy. I was the Eagle Scout. I knew CPR and all the rest. Instead, I was so busy splashing around in the water, trying to impress some girl, that I didn’t even notice Pete was missing.”

  “You were a child yourself,” Lily reminded him.

  Hal sighed, wiped his eyes again. “I got over it—insofar as you can ever get over a thing like that. Mom and Dad saw me through the worst of it.”

  Lily’s grandparents, like Tyler’s, had died before she was born—both had suffered heart attacks, within a month of each other—so she’d never known them. But their influence lingered—the figurines in the antique cabinet in the dining room had belonged to her grandmother, and she’d been lulled to sleep, as an infant, in her grandfather’s old rocking chair.

  “Did you ever wish you’d had brothers and sisters?” Lily asked her dad. It was the kind of thing she should have known about her own father, would have if she hadn’t been so furious with him all these years. Looking back, she knew he wasn’t entirely to blame—she’d cut him off, too.

  “Yes,” Hal answered. “Did you?”

  Lily considered. Nodded. “Being an only child had its advantages, though,” she added.

  They both chuckled.

  And Tess bounded in at just that moment, filthy from head to foot, an equally messy Eleanor directly behind her.

  “We didn’t find China,” Tess announced.

  Hal laughed, but it was a misty sound, slightly rough. “Well, go figure,” he commented. “I thought you’d be checking out the Great Wall by now.”

  “It must be down there somewhere,” Eleanor reasoned solemnly. “China, I mean.”

  “Go and wash up, both of you,” Lily told the girls. “You look like street urchins.”

  “What’s a street urchin?” Eleanor inquired, with great interest.

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” Tess informed her new friend matter-of-factly. “It means our clothes are dirty and our hair is messed up and people will think we don’t have anybody to take care of us.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “My mom says things like that all the time.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow.

  “I do not,” Lily protested.

  “Then how come I know what ‘street urchin’ means?” Tess retorted sagely. “I’m only six, after all. It had to come from somewhere.”

  “Just wash,” Lily said, resigned.

  In the laundry room, the washer banged to a stop, having completed its spin cycle.

  Lily left the table, fetched the dress and took it outside to hang on the clothesline. Tess had gone into the bathroom to clean up and change clothes, and Eleanor crossed the yard to the back gate.

  “My aunt is taking me berry-picking today,” Eleanor said, in parting. “Can Tess go, too?”

  “Not this time,” Lily said, as kindly as she could. She would need to know Eleanor’s aunt and uncle a while before she’d let Tess go anywhere with them.

  Eleanor took the refusal with a shrug and let herself into the adjoining yard, vanishing into the house.

  Lily was still standing near the clothesline, one hand shading her eyes as she surveyed the pitiful state of her dad’s flower garden, when a flashy pickup truck whipped into the dirt driveway between the two houses.

  At first, the pit of her stomach clenched. The equation was: truck=Tyler, and since the vehicle’s windows were tinted, she couldn’t see who was driving.

  She was both relieved and disappointed when Kristy got out of the rig, smiling broadly. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Lily said back. For a moment, it seemed to Lily that both she and Kristy were kids again, as innocent as Eleanor and Tess.

  “Briana is going to teach me to bake bread today,” Kristy announced. “I thought you and Tess might want to come along, spend the day out on the ranch with us.”

  “Don’t you have to run the library?” Lily asked, and instantly felt stupid.

  Kristy was certainly capable of managing her own schedule.

  “Bonnie and I are taking the day off.” Kristy grinned, giving a nod toward the truck. “Letting the volunteers take care of things.”

  Lily nodded, tilted her head to see around the open door on the driver’s side and spotted a little blond girl strapped into a car seat.

  Kristy’s gaze drifted over Lily’s shorts and blouse. “Change into jeans,” she said. “And wear boots, too, if you’ve got any. We could go for a horseback ride while the bread dough is rising.”

  “I’ve never been on a horse in my life,” Lily said, alarmed. But it wasn’t the horse that scared her; as a veterinarian’s daughter, she’d been around animals of all shapes and sizes. It was just that Stillwater Springs Ranch was Tyler’s home ground, and that made an encounter more likely. She didn’t know if she was ready to face him yet.

  “Time you tried it,” Kristy said.

  “A horse! I love horses, and baking stuff, too!” Tess enthused, from just behind Lily. She hadn’t heard the child approaching, and almost jumped out of her skin. “Oh, Mom, we have to go!”

  Kristy chuckled, nodded her agreement with Tess.

  “Is Tyler—” Lily croaked out, and then felt stupid all over again.

  A look of understanding moved in Kristy’s face, along with a certain sadness. “It’s not likely you’ll run into Ty,” she said, very quietly. “Come on, Lily. This would be good for you. And I’d really like for you to meet Briana and her boys.”

  “Please, Mom?” Tess pleaded, standing at Lily’s elbow now and looking up at her plaintively. It was as though the little girl’s whole future hinged on 1) riding a horse and 2) baking bread. If she’d been a few years older, the boys probably would have been a factor, too. “Please?”

  Lily couldn’t think of a reason not to go—her father wanted, and probably needed, to visit the clinic, look in on his furry patients, make sure the veterinary school student filling in for him was taking care of business. Eleanor would be off berry-picking for the day, leaving Tess at loose ends.

  “All right,” she said, slipping an arm around Tess’s shoulders and squeezing her once against her side. “Why don’t you and Bonnie come inside and say hello to my dad while I change.”

  Tess had already swapped out her China-tunneling gear for blue jeans and a T-shirt.

  Kristy’s gaze moved past Lily, and her smile brightened. “Hello, Doc,” she said, as Lily turned to see her father coming toward the fence. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing just fine,” Hal said warmly. “Coffee’s on. Come on in and visit for a few minutes.”

  Kristy looked cheerfully regretful. “Maybe next time,” she said. “If I take Bonnie out of that car seat, it will be half a day before I can wrestle her back in.”

  Tess had Lily by the hand by then, tugging her toward the house. “Hurry, Mom!” she whispered, as though afraid Kristy would change her mind, rescind the invitation to bake bread and ride horses and go off without them.

  Kristy and Hal went on chatting while Tess practically dragged Lily inside.

  While Tess waited impatiently in the kitchen, Lily donned a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, hoping to protect herself a little from the fierce summer sun, and insisted that Tess switch out her sandals for a sturdy pair of sneakers.

  Neither of them owned a pair of boots.

  Within a few minutes, they were buckled into the flashy extended-cab truck waiting in the driveway, Tess in back with Bonnie, Lily up front with Kristy.

  “This is quite a rig,” Lily said, as they backed out of the driveway, Kristy giving a farewell toot of the horn to Hal, who stood wavi
ng in the yard.

  “It’s Dylan’s,” Kristy explained, shifting out of Reverse with admirable skill when they’d reached the street. “Tyler has my Blazer.”

  Tyler.

  Lily drew in a breath.

  It was pretty bad when even the mention of his name threw her off balance.

  “My mom went out to dinner with Tyler last night,” Tess piped up, from the back. “She got home really late and she wore this pretty red dress—that was it hanging on the clothesline in my grampa’s yard—”

  “Tess,” Lily broke in, closing her eyes.

  Kristy merely chuckled.

  “Eleanor is going berry-picking with her aunt today,” Tess prattled on. It was as though she’d stored up words and more words, for months or even years, and the dam had finally broken. Tess was at verbal flood tide. “She wanted me to come with them, but I knew my mom would say no because she doesn’t let me go places with people unless she’s along, too, or she’s been friends with them forever—Wait till I tell Eleanor that I got to go someplace, too, and even ride a horse and make bread—”

  Lily groaned slightly.

  Kristy smiled, reached across the console to pat her arm. “It’s okay, Lily,” she said quietly. “Let her talk.”

  And talk Tess did—all the way to Stillwater Springs Ranch, some twenty minutes outside of town.

  Lily had visited the place once or twice in her teens, while she was dating Tyler, and it had been pretty rundown the last time she’d seen it.

  Now, the hand-carved sign over the front gate arched proudly over their heads as Kristy drove beneath it. The barn had been entirely replaced, and the corral fences were in good repair and painted white. The house retained its original rambling Ponderosa-like design, but the fresh-lumber framework of two large new wings jutted out from either side.

  The yard seemed full of dogs and little boys, though in reality there were only two of each.

  Bonnie began clamoring to get out of her car seat and join the fun, and Tess went silent, but not, Lily sensed, because she felt shy. The little girl fairly exuded eager curiosity.

  “Stay put, Houdini,” Kristy told Bonnie, bringing the rig to a stop between another truck and a BMW. They all waited while the cloud of dust they’d raised subsided a little.

  The boys—a little older than Tess—bounded toward the truck, the dogs frolicking behind them. The smaller boy jumped up onto the running board on Kristy’s side and gestured for her to roll down the window.

  She did, waving some of the still-roiling dust away from her face. “Hey, Alec. Josh. What’s happening?”

  Alec, it turned out, was the boy standing on the running board. He gave Lily a brief glance, then focused his freckled attention on Tess. “Who’s the girl?” he asked.

  “That’s my good friend, Tess,” Kristy said, without hesitation. “Tess, this yahoo with his head stuck through the window is Alec. The polite one is his big brother, Josh.”

  “Hello,” Tess said staunchly. Her desire to be part of the afternoon’s adventures was almost palpable.

  One second after she’d spoken, she was out of the truck, springing to the ground, rushing to join in. Bonnie, trapped in her car seat, wailed with frustration.

  “I’m coming,” Kristy told Bonnie calmly, unhooking her seat belt.

  Alec had leaped off the running board by then, so it was safe to open the driver’s door. Kristy did so, and went around to set Bonnie free. Lily was the last one out of the rig.

  A trim woman came out of the house, smiling. She had vivid green eyes and strawberry-blond hair, pulled back into a tidy French braid. Like Kristy, she wore jeans and a cotton print blouse, and the boots on her feet weren’t the for-show kind. They were scuffed, and respectably dirty, with rounded toes and low heels, the kind a rancher’s wife would wear.

  “You must be Lily,” the woman said warmly, putting out a hand in greeting. She had to raise her voice a little to be heard over the gleeful barking of the two dogs and all the kids jabbering at once.

  “And you must be Briana,” Lily responded, offering her own hand, and a smile, too.

  Briana’s attention was momentarily diverted to her sons. “Boys,” she said. “Settle down a little, and the dogs will, too. All that yapping and yowling is enough to give me a headache.”

  “We’ve got lots of horses,” Lily heard the older boy, Josh, say to Tess. “Want to see them?”

  Lily bit back an automatic be-careful. She didn’t know Briana Creed, but Kristy was an old friend, and a responsible person, and she didn’t seem one bit worried. Lily took a deep breath, let it out slowly and kept her fears to herself.

  Kristy hoisted Bonnie up onto one hip and offered a hand to Tess. “I’ll go along, too,” she said, and started for the barn.

  Lily didn’t know whether to follow the gaggle of woman, dogs and children, or stay behind with Briana.

  “She’s a regular pied piper,” Briana commented, smiling as she watched Kristy move away, with a trail of kids and canines straggling behind her. “Come inside, Lily. I just brewed a pitcher of iced tea.”

  Again, Lily hesitated—everything inside her was geared to watching over Tess in any and all situations—but there was something about Briana, about the very energy of that place, that reassured her.

  And she trusted Kristy.

  “Your dad gave us quite a scare,” Briana said, as she and Lily headed toward the house. “I guess you know the heart attack happened right here, on our patio, during a barbecue we held for Jim Huntinghorse, when he was running for sheriff.”

  Lily nodded, shuddering a little. The story could so easily have turned out differently—she and Tess might have come back to Stillwater Springs for a funeral, rather than a long summer visit.

  “Dylan and Jim did CPR,” Briana went on, as they stepped into a cool, old-fashioned kitchen. The room, like the rest of the house, was obviously being renovated.

  “I’d like to thank them both in person,” Lily said.

  “You’ll get your chance,” Briana told her, gesturing toward the large round table in the center of the kitchen and heading for the refrigerator. “Have a seat. I’ll pour that tea I promised you.”

  Lily sat down, looking around and trying not to be too obvious about it.

  The Creeds were a local legend, so she knew some of their history. According to Hal, except for the five years since Jake Creed’s death, that house had been continuously occupied for well over a century.

  What would it be like, to live in a place where so many of your ancestors had lived and died?

  “We’re replacing this god-awful flooring with pegged hardwood,” Briana said good-naturedly, arriving at the table with two ice-filled glasses and a pitcher of cold tea. “At the same time, Logan and I don’t want to change things too much.”

  Logan and I.

  Lily smiled. In high school, Logan had had the typical Creed reputation: hell-raiser, heartbreaker, fearless rebel. He’d been reckless to a fault. Now, apparently, he was a family man, concerned with things like pegged hardwood and the integrity of old houses. “I see you’re building on,” she said, mostly because it was her turn to contribute to the conversation.

  Briana smiled, poured tea for herself and then for Lily, and sat down across from her at the table. Schoolbooks and tablet paper had been gathered into a semineat pile and shunted over to one side. “We’re adding a master suite,” she told Lily. “Rooms for the boys, an office for Logan and a big family room.”

  A big family room implied the expectation of a big family. Clearly, Briana and Logan planned to have more children, and Lily felt a swift stab of generous envy. She’d wanted at least four herself, and she and Burke had tried, but after Tess, there had been no more pregnancies.

  She supposed it was for the best, but there was still that bruised place in her heart, where the disappointment lived.

  She must have made some inane comment, because Briana reacted as though she’d spoken.

  Nodding, Briana joked,
“At least we’re not going to have a room with a mechanical bull in it, like Kristy and Dylan.”

  “A mechanical bull?” Lily echoed, confused.

  “You know.” Briana grinned. “Like the ones they have in cowboy bars? A bull-shaped machine that bucks?”

  Lily laughed. Toto, she said silently, we’re not in Chicago anymore.

  “I remember,” she told Briana. “Dylan rode bulls in the rodeo.”

  Again, Briana nodded. “Logan’s event was saddle-bronc riding, and Tyler rode bareback.”

  Tyler. For about five seconds, she’d forgotten about him.

  Silly to think the respite could have lasted. This was Tyler’s childhood home; he’d grown up in this house. And even when Lily was dating him, back when she’d barely gotten the braces off her teeth, he’d been entering every rodeo he could.

  “I guess they must still have the rodeo in their blood,” she said, referring to the mechanical bull Dylan and Kristy were installing.

  Briana smiled again. Or had she ever actually stopped smiling? She and Kristy were about the happiest women Lily had ever seen, and it wasn’t hard to figure out at least one of the reasons. They slept with Creed men, every night of their lives. It figured that they’d glow with perpetual satisfaction, if her own night with Tyler was any indication of what these fabled brothers could do in—or out of—bed.

  “They’re over it,” Briana said, with a note of relief in her voice. “Following the rodeo, I mean. But Logan and Dylan still ride like crazy men when they’re herding cattle.” She paused and, for the first time, her spirits seemed, if not dampened, not high, either. “Then there’s Tyler—”

  “Does he still follow the rodeo?” Lily ventured, hoping she sounded casual. The ice cubes in her tea glass rattled a little, though, as she lifted it to her mouth to take a sip.