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

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I don’t think so,” Briana answered, after biting her lower lip and looking away for a moment. “He doesn’t come around, and Logan and Dylan don’t talk about him much, so I don’t know for sure.”

  “Oh,” Lily said, much relieved when Kristy, Bonnie, Tess, the boys and the two dogs all came in from outside.

  Kristy carried Bonnie into a nearby bathroom, and when the two of them came out, their faces and hands were scrubbed clean. Briana sent her boys to wash up, and that left Tess standing there in a strange kitchen, looking somewhat at a loss.

  The poignant hope in Tess’s little face struck Lily like a blow. She got up, went to the kitchen sink and moistened a length of paper towels under the faucet.

  “Let’s get you washed up, too,” she told Tess, as briskly as if she were a Creed wife, like Kristy and Briana, and Tess was as much a part of this boisterous household as Bonnie or Alec or Josh.

  Tess’s smile was so quick, and so bright, that Lily’s throat closed up again.

  For a little while, she told herself, she’d let Tess pretend that they both belonged with this family, on this land. And she’d allow herself to pretend a little, too.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WITH KRISTY AND BRIANA laughing and chattering in that venerable old kitchen, and flour flying everywhere as the makings of bread dough were gathered and assembled, it was all too easy for Lily to go right on pretending.

  She imagined what it would be like to be married to Tyler.

  For starters, the sex would be cataclysmic.

  And Tyler would want her to let Tess take more chances, urge Lily not to be overprotective, and they’d argue about that sometimes.

  She was a good cook, so she wouldn’t mind fixing the meals, but, like her dad, Tyler probably wouldn’t be all that crazy about the quantities of tofu she’d feed him.

  They’d probably have words about that, too.

  Heated ones, maybe.

  And then they’d make up in bed, in the sultry darkness of the room they shared, not just one night, but every night, as soon as they were sure Tess was sound asleep and wouldn’t overhear.

  Imagining the making-up process made Lily’s core turn molten and her face burn. She waited until neither Briana nor Kristy was looking, then held her iced tea glass, many times refilled by then, to the base of her throat.

  Her heart was beating too fast, and her breath was shallow. And still she couldn’t make herself put an end to the scenarios unfolding in her mind.

  Tyler would be good with kids—she knew that. He’d be a father to Tess, love her like his own. Teach her to ride and fish and fix things that were broken.

  And Tess would thrive under the warmth of his easy approval, in a way she might never do if it was just her and Lily against the world.

  You’re on dangerous ground, warned the voice in Lily’s head, the one that hadn’t wanted her to go out with Tyler the night before. The one that had scolded her for hanging her panties to dry on the side mirror of the Blazer he’d borrowed from Kristy. The one that would never, ever say the things Lily had not only said but shouted in the delicious, frenzied, slippery-naked heat of lovemaking.

  The iced tea wasn’t helping. And Lily couldn’t stop the fantasies.

  She imagined Tyler assembling things, late on Christmas Eve, to put under the tree for an ever-more Santa-skeptical Tess.

  She imagined washing his back in the shower, even ironing his shirts.

  All of it sounded good.

  Her practical side tried, yet again, to assert itself. And none of it is ever going to happen. You’re torturing yourself, that’s all.

  Her impractical side won out.

  When the bread dough was finally glimmering, buttery-topped and fragrant, in a row of pans on the counter, and they all trooped outside for the promised horseback ride, Lily pictured Tyler saddling a horse, lifting Tess onto the animal’s back, adjusting the stirrups for her, calmly instructing her to hold the reins this way….

  And once Tess was safely settled on some gentle creature, Tyler would give Lily a boost into another saddle, on another horse, and swing up behind her. Reach around her to take the reins, enclosing her in the steely circle of his arms.

  She could almost feel his erection pressing against her buttocks and lower back, hard with heat and promise.

  When we’re alone, he might whisper into her ear, this is what I’m going to do to you….

  “Are you all right?” Kristy asked, breaking into Lily’s reverie. “You look flushed. You’re not sick or scared or anything, are you?”

  Lily wasn’t sick or scared, mounted though she was on a real, live, sweaty, dusty horse. The creature was so old it hadn’t even moved yet, though all the other horses, Tess’s pony included, were moving happily around the grassy pasture just beyond the corral fence.

  Even little Bonnie was riding, safely tucked in front of Kristy, grinning and gripping the saddle horn with both her pudgy little hands.

  “I’m okay,” Lily lied, summoning up a smile. Just terminally horny, that’s all.

  Kristy smiled, believing her. “Good,” she said.

  They’d finished the ride, and put all the horses away by the time Logan and Dylan arrived, crossing the broad pasture on horses of their own. The boy Lily had seen with Tyler the day before, in Wal-Mart, was with them, riding behind Dylan.

  Lily had virtually grown up with Logan and Dylan, and they greeted her exuberantly. Logan sprang down off his horse, picked her up by the waist and spun her around in a circle before planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. She’d barely recovered her equilibrium before Dylan did the same thing.

  Logan and Dylan made short work of unsaddling their horses and turning them loose in the corral.

  “Where’s Tyler?” someone asked as the whole bunch of them headed toward the house. The bread was ready to go into the oven, according to Briana, and Lily knew she and Kristy had planned a huge ranch-style supper to go with it.

  By then, Lily had decided to give Tess, and herself, the gift of letting the pretending go on until the day was over and they were back in the real world.

  A look passed between Logan and Dylan, and the boy—Davie, if Lily recalled correctly, from their brief meeting at Wal-Mart—was the one who answered the question about Tyler’s whereabouts.

  “Maybe his truck is fixed,” Davie said, sounding a little sad. “And he’s gone to pick it up.”

  Dylan slapped the boy on the shoulder and then said something that made him smile tentatively, though Lily didn’t hear what it was.

  The bread turned out perfectly, and the meat loaf and several side dishes Briana had prepared tasted as good as anything Lily had ever eaten.

  But darkness was gathering outside the windows of that well-lit, noisy kitchen. It was the time of day that had always made her homesick after her mom and dad’s divorce; when she was with one, she’d missed the other.

  Now, perhaps because of the silly head games she’d been playing with herself all afternoon, it was Tyler she missed.

  His absence was a yawning ache inside her.

  And she suspected, for all the laughter and the teasing and the second helpings, that some of the others gathered in that enormous kitchen felt it, too.

  He should have been there.

  She and Tess didn’t belong—but he did.

  When the evening finally wound down, it was Dylan who drove Lily and Tess back to town. Tess, exhausted from all the fun, had practically fallen asleep on her plate, and Dylan had carried the child to his truck, buckled her in with the easy skill of a veteran father.

  Tess was out like the proverbial light before they’d even passed under the big sign over the gate.

  Dylan didn’t say much until they’d reached the main road. Then he cleared his throat, glanced into his rearview mirror to make sure Tess was down for the count, and said, just as her father had, “Be careful, Lily.”

  She stiffened, looked over at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked lightly
.

  “You know what it means,” Dylan told her patiently.

  Lily’s face heated again, but this time the phenomenon was rooted in mortification, not fantasy. “He told you?”

  “That the two of you spent the night together?” Dylan asked. “There was no need for that, Lily. He asked Kristy and me to keep Davie with us until this morning, and it wasn’t hard to figure out the rest.”

  “Dylan, you’re a good friend—you saved my father’s life and I’ll always be grateful—and I like you. I especially like your wife. But none of this is any of your business—I hope you know that.”

  He grinned that crooked-at-the-corner Creed grin that had probably been the ruination of more women than a Chinese merchant could tally up on an abacus. “Take it easy. I’m on your side. All I’m saying is, Tyler’s still—Tyler. Of the three of us, he was the wildest. He’s got a temper and a grudge against Logan and a few other people in this town, and I don’t believe he’s thinking straight.”

  Tyler’s still Tyler.

  “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Lily,” Dylan said. “That’s all.”

  Lily bit her lower lip, looked away, changed the subject. Dylan might be satisfied that Tess was actually asleep, but she wasn’t. Like all children, Tess played possum when she wanted to listen in on a grown-up conversation.

  “I really appreciate what you and Jim Huntinghorse did for my dad,” she said. “When he had his heart attack, I mean.”

  Dylan resettled his hat, kept his gaze straight ahead, on the dark highway. The truck’s headlights shone like beacons, but country roads were treacherous—Tyler had barely missed a doe and a fawn early that morning, when he was bringing her home. “I guess the other conversation’s over?” he asked.

  Lily indicated Tess’s presence with a slight motion of her head. “For now,” she said.

  Dylan didn’t say much of anything after that. He delivered Lily and Tess to Hal’s house in town. By the time they arrived, Tess was awake, yawning and dusty and a little sun-burned.

  He walked both of them to the front door, but as soon as Tess had gone inside, calling for her grandfather and probably intending to give him a blow-by-blow account of the afternoon’s events, Dylan stopped Lily on the porch by taking a light grip on her elbow.

  “I can’t let you go in there thinking any of us—the Creeds, I mean—would be unhappy if you and Tyler got together,” he said. “We’d be thrilled, Lily. But he’s still got a lot of things to work through, and I don’t want you or Tess to be caught in the cross fire.”

  Lily nodded, touched by Dylan’s concern. It was almost as if they were already family. “Thank you, Dylan,” she said, and she meant it.

  He leaned forward, planted a light, brotherly kiss on her forehead. “Come back to the ranch again soon,” he told her. “It was real nice having you and Tess around.”

  More emotion welled up inside Lily, so much that she couldn’t speak. She’d felt alone for so long, even before Burke died, and the afternoon on the ranch had been wonderful—like being part of a large, caring family.

  Dylan smiled, turned and walked away.

  Lily stood on the porch, watching until he drove away, and nearly collided with Hal when she turned to go inside.

  “Tess is sleeping in her clothes,” Hal reported, with a smile. “She’s absolutely worn-out, but she promised to tell me all about her day at breakfast.”

  Lily swallowed hard, laughed. “I’d better go in and help her change into pajamas at least,” she said.

  Hal shook his head, urged her toward the rocking chairs at the other end of the porch. “I took her shoes off,” he replied, “and one night sleeping in her clothes won’t do any harm.”

  Lily let her father guide her to a chair, and sat down somewhat heavily.

  “You’re pretty tired, too,” Hal observed gently.

  Lily nodded. “It was quite a day.”

  “Especially after such a late night,” her dad agreed.

  Lily let the remark pass.

  “I brought your dress in from the clothesline after I got back from visiting the clinic,” Hal told her affably, settling into the second rocking chair. In happier days, before and after the divorce, the two of them had sat on the porch lots of nights, talking about everything in general and nothing in particular. “It was dry and I figured it might fade or something if I left it out there.”

  Lily nodded her thanks but let the comment pass. “How are things going at the clinic?” she asked. Hal looked rested, as though he might have had a recent nap, so it seemed safe to assume he hadn’t overextended himself by visiting his office.

  “Great,” Hal answered, with a gruff little chuckle. “It’s almost as if they don’t need me down there at all.”

  “Have you thought about retiring? Selling the practice and just taking it easy?”

  “I’d be dead inside of six months,” Hal wasted no time in saying. He wasn’t looking at Lily, but out into the spill of light pooling beneath the nearest streetlamp. “Nothing like a heart attack to make a man take stock of his life. My veterinary practice—well—it’s about the only thing I’ve done right in a long, long time.”

  Don’t, Lily pleaded silently. Now that the day on Stillwater Springs Ranch was over, and the fantasy of being a Creed wife had passed—all the things she’d imagined seemed silly now—her emotions were raw, and much too close to the surface for comfort.

  It was sinking in now, Dylan’s warning.

  Tyler was indeed still Tyler, always ready to take chances, tangle with fate, face whatever came his way.

  And she was still Lily Ryder Kenyon, basically shy, overly cautious, terrified of so many things.

  Hal took her hand, unaware of her thoughts, of course. Chafed her knuckles with his thumb. “I’m sorry, Lily. I’m sorry for the way your mother and I handled the divorce. Sorry for sending you away. I should have had more faith in you—let you live your life, with or without Tyler Creed.”

  Lily was glad of the relative darkness shrouding that porch, because her eyes filled with tears.

  I should have had more faith in you.

  Her father had been trying to protect her, just as she tried to protect her own child. Would there be a gulf between her and Tess someday, like the one she and her father were trying to bridge now? Did she have the courage to allow Tess to grow up in confidence instead of the continual fear that something bad would happen? Could she allow Tess to make her own mistakes, and suffer the consequences?

  “You did your best,” Lily managed to say, though her voice was hardly more than a murmur. “And maybe you were right. Maybe Tyler would have sweet-talked me into forgiving him, way back when—”

  “And maybe you would have been happy with him, Lily,” Hal broke in quietly.

  “I wouldn’t have had Tess, then. And I can’t imagine that.”

  “I know. But you wouldn’t have known the difference, would you, if your life had taken a different course?” He paused, gave a ragged chortle. “You might have had a son or a daughter with Tyler—maybe several. And then you wouldn’t be able to imagine not being the mother of those children, either.”

  As convoluted as it was, Lily got her father’s point. And a certain sadness possessed her; for a moment or two, she was struck breathless with the loss of the children who had never been born to her and Tyler. It was as if they’d actually existed somewhere, all this time, just out of reach.

  Rowdy, rough-and-tumble boys.

  Sweet, spirited girls.

  She shook off the strange yearnings her father’s words had aroused in her. She had Tess, and Tess was the greatest blessing in her life. It was wrong to want more.

  “I guess it’s making me crazy,” Hal reflected apologetically, after a long, pensive silence. “Recovering from that damn heart attack, that is. I’ve got too much time to think.”

  Lily could identify. Before her return to Stillwater Springs, she’d been too busy with Tess and her very demanding job and, until two years ago
, Burke, to think about Tyler, and the children and home they might have had together. Except, of course, during those moments when memories would ambush her…

  Stop, she told herself.

  There was no reason to believe that, even if she and Tyler had gotten back together, even if she’d married him instead of Burke, things would be all sunshine and roses now.

  Like as not, Tyler would have gotten restless and left her alone to go on the rodeo circuit. And he probably would have found himself another waitress, eventually, too. Maybe a whole bunch of them.

  “Are you planning to see Tyler again, Lily?” Hal asked.

  Lily rose slowly out of her chair. Stretched. She was tired to the bone, and she ached, though whether that was because of that afternoon’s brief horseback ride or Tyler’s lovemaking, she didn’t know.

  “He hasn’t asked,” she said.

  “He will,” Hal said, standing up. “And that isn’t an answer.”

  If Tyler set out to seduce her again, Lily knew, she wouldn’t put up much resistance. Where he was concerned, she seemed to have no willpower at all, which was a scary thing, since she was so independent in every other way. But it went deeper than physical need, beyond desire, into something basic and sacred and mostly inexplicable.

  She knew this much: There was a certain spectacular freedom in letting herself go, the way she had with Tyler. She’d felt powerful, even in surrender, strong, even in weakness. In Tyler’s company, in his arms, in his bed, she was a different person. A person who wasn’t afraid to feel.

  She’d swaddled herself in pretended indifference, not long after Burke’s first affair. And in the rare instances when that apathy had given way, she’d hated herself for not having the backbone to leave him, right then, and start over somewhere else, just her and Tess.

  “Lily?” Hal prompted, rising out of his chair, too. It rocked rhythmically with the motion, as though, in some parallel universe, another Hal was still sitting there.

  She sighed. Her father wasn’t the only one losing his mind. “I’d go,” she admitted, to herself as well as to Hal. “If Tyler asked me out again, I’d say yes.”