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

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Holy Christ,” Logan rasped.

  “You know he was capable of it,” Tyler insisted.

  Logan gave one brief, sharp nod of his head, now in profile again. Tyler saw him swallow and knew there was something else, something he was having one hell of a time spitting out.

  “I knew, Tyler,” he said.

  “You knew what?” Tyler snapped.

  “I knew Angie was seeing somebody else. Way back, when it was happening.”

  “What?”

  “It was a couple of weeks before she died,” Logan replied. “You’d gone fishing with Dylan. I was supposed to go, too, but I had some lawns to mow in town. When I was finished, I hitchhiked home, figuring I’d get my gear from the house and catch up with the two of you. There was a strange car parked in the yard, but I didn’t think anything about that—until I got inside. They were in the kitchen, Angie and this man I’d never seen before, and the radio was playing. They were—”

  Tyler didn’t want to think about where that sentence was headed, and he must have made some kind of sound indicating that.

  “They were dancing,” Logan finished, with a sort of mirthless chuckle.

  “Oh,” Tyler said, and immediately felt stupid.

  “They hadn’t noticed me, and I was trying to figure out how to get out of there before they did, when all of the sudden Jake came busting into the house. He came up behind me, threw me to one side and yelled at me to get the hell away and stay gone, and then he went into the kitchen.”

  Tyler closed his eyes.

  I’ve done plenty, he heard Jake say.

  I killed her.

  “What happened then, Logan?”

  “Jake had Angie by the hair, and she was screaming, and the guy—whoever he was—pulled a gun on Jake. I knew he meant to kill him and, God help me, I wished he would, Tyler. I wished he would. But Angie begged him not to. He wanted her to go with him, and she said she couldn’t because—because Jake would take it out on you, and on Dylan and me, if she did.”

  Tyler stared at his brother, full of amazed fury and no little sympathy for the kid Logan had been. He must have been scared shitless, watching a scene like that, knowing there was nothing he could do to make it stop.

  “What happened after that?” Tyler asked slowly, after another long silence had descended on that truck like a cold, wet shroud.

  Logan looked haunted. “I don’t know,” he said gruffly. “I ran, Ty.”

  “You were a kid,” Tyler reminded him. “You couldn’t have changed anything by staying.”

  Logan was back in the past, unhooked from the present. “Jake caught up with me hours later, at Cassie’s,” he went on, almost as though Tyler hadn’t said anything. “She was out of town, as it turned out, so I hid in that teepee of hers, but he found me.”

  Tyler ached inside. Jake would have been roaring drunk by then; he’d been backed down, humiliated in his own house, and Logan had had the misfortune to witness it.

  “He beat the hell out of you, didn’t he?”

  To Tyler’s surprise, Logan shook his head. “It was worse than that,” he answered. “He told me that if I ever said a word to anybody about what I’d seen, he’d kill the whole family, like in one of those slaughter movies, with all the axes and chain saws, and I believed it.”

  Inwardly, Tyler shuddered. He’d have believed it, too.

  Even now, years later, the story brought blood-splashed images to his mind.

  “And you never told anybody?” Tyler marveled hoarsely. “You held a thing like that inside, all this time?”

  “Yeah,” Logan said bleakly, coming back from the long-ago and not-so-far away. “I had my suspicions when your mom died, but Jake was meaner than ever after that, and I was afraid of what he might do to you and Dylan, to all three of us, so I pretended like I didn’t remember.” He paused to clear his throat, blink a couple of times. “I’m sorry, Tyler. Christ, if only I’d told someone—Cassie or Floyd Book or someone—about the man dancing in the kitchen with Angie, and all the rest of it—”

  “Jake might not have caught up to Mom at that motel and forced her to swallow a bottle of pills?” Tyler asked quietly, when Logan’s voice fell away into a miserable, pulsing silence. “You couldn’t have prevented that. You were a kid, Logan.”

  Logan nodded, started up the truck. Neither of them spoke as he shifted it into gear and they left the graveyard.

  Tyler didn’t ask where they were headed, and Logan didn’t say.

  But when they pulled in at the main ranch house, Tyler wasn’t surprised.

  “They weren’t like Jake, the people who lived here before us,” Logan said, after staring at the old place in silence for a long time. “I’ve read their letters, and a lot of old news clippings, and a few of their diaries, too. It doesn’t have to be a curse to be a Creed, that’s what I’m trying to say. You and Dylan and I, we can be like they were—good, honest, hardworking people, most of them. Proud of the Creed name.”

  In that moment, Tyler did something he’d thought he’d never do. He reached over and slapped Logan on the shoulder. “Most of them?” he joked, grinning.

  Logan chuckled, but it wasn’t a broken sound, like back at the cemetery. There was a quiet joy in it, and a sort of relief. “Everybody has a few bastards creeping around in the branches of their family tree,” he said.

  Tyler couldn’t quite manage a laugh—the grin had been a stretch—but he nodded. “What now, Logan?” he asked. “Jake’s dead and gone, and so is my mother. Even if we could prove he forced her to take those pills, what would it change?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Logan said, getting out of the truck. Since his own rig was parked over by the barn, he must have planned on hoofing it to the lake cabin that day, before he got side-lined at the cemetery. “Maybe everything.”

  Maybe nothing, maybe everything.

  That about sized it all up, in Tyler’s opinion.

  Jake couldn’t be executed for the crime—he was already rotting in his grave. Still, Angie’s memory mattered. All those Creeds, who’d lived out their lives doing the best they could, they mattered, too.

  “You want to come inside?” Logan asked. “Briana will have the coffee on, and breakfast started.”

  Tyler shook his head. He wasn’t ready to set foot in that house, after all that had happened within its walls, though he knew Logan and Briana had changed it, not just superficially, but by loving each other there. “I’d like to see those letters, though.”

  Logan hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll get them,” he said.

  A few minutes later, he was back with a little stack of yellowed envelopes, tied with a ribbon, faded to a pinkish ivory.

  “You’re sure you want to read these?” Logan asked. “You know what you needed to know—that your mother didn’t abandon you on purpose. As for the rest of it, well, maybe some things are better just left alone.”

  “I’m sure,” Tyler said. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep Davie here for a while.” Reading the letters, he suspected, would be like walking through an emotional firestorm, and a man needed privacy for things like that.

  “I can drive him to your place later,” Logan agreed. “Just give me a call when you’re ready.”

  Looking down at those letters, holding them in his hands, Tyler couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even raise his eyes to Logan. “Thanks,” he said.

  “For—?”

  “For not giving up on me, on the three of us—”

  “I’m a Creed,” Logan said, before he turned to head for the house. “I don’t know how to give up.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LILY HAD BEEN HOME barely five minutes when Tess padded into the kitchen, looking rumpled and sleep-flushed in her pajamas.

  “You’re still wearing your red dress?” Tess immediately inquired. “Did you sleep in it?”

  Lily, busy setting up a pot of coffee, took a moment to come up with a logical explanation. She hated lying to Tess, or anyone else for that mat
ter, but in this instance, of course, there was no other choice. “I just like it, that’s all,” she said. “The way you like your pink shirt with the sparkly butterflies on it.”

  “Oh,” Tess said, but she looked puzzled just the same.

  Before Lily had to carry the conversation any further, her father appeared from the direction of his study, looking spiffy. Clearly, he’d been up for a while.

  “My doctor e-mailed me back,” he said. “I’m good to go for the Chicago junket.”

  Mercifully, Tess was distracted. “Road trip!” she chimed.

  “Road trip!” Hal confirmed, jutting up a thumb.

  “One way,” Lily reminded them both, and then laughed at the expressions on their faces.

  “Nice dress,” Hal said.

  Full-circle, hello, square one.

  “I’d like to call as little attention to that as possible,” she said brightly, almost singing the words. “Thanks for nothing, Daddy-o.”

  Hal arched an eyebrow, grinning.

  “You called him Daddy-o!” Tess crowed, triumphant. “Instead of ‘Hal’!”

  “Will wonders never cease,” Lily said. “Are you both packed for the trip?” They were taking an evening flight out of Missoula; with luck, she’d be able to grab a few hours of sleep in the meantime.

  “Ready to roll,” her dad said, indicating his best casual outfit. He was obviously looking forward—way forward—to a little break in his routine.

  Tess beamed. “Are you going to wear that dress?” she asked Lily innocently.

  Hal laughed, and Lily blushed a little.

  “I think I’ll branch out and put on something else,” Lily answered. “And it will be hours before we leave for the airport, everybody.”

  “I’ll make breakfast,” Hal offered, letting the reminder pass and watching his daughter with such fondness in his face that she almost hated herself for calling him by his first name ever since she’d arrived—and before that, too, when she’d addressed him at all. “You get some rest.”

  “But it’s morning!” Tess protested.

  “Get dressed, young lady,” Hal told his granddaughter mildly. “You and I will walk down to the Birdhouse Café and order the special.”

  “No specials,” Lily said darkly, thinking bacon and eggs, or corned-beef hash, two of the nutritional disasters her father liked best. Then, to soften the order, she added, “I mean it, Dad.”

  He crossed to her and kissed her forehead while Tess scampered off to switch out her pajamas for an outfit more suited to a big occasion like breakfast at the Birdhouse Café.

  “No specials,” Hal promised. “And it’s good to see you looking so happy.”

  Lily peeked around her father’s shoulder to make sure Tess was safely out of earshot. “Tyler asked me to marry him, Dad,” she said, braced for an immediate objection, even though she knew Hal had changed his opinion of Jake Creed’s boys, Tyler included.

  “Did you say yes?” Hal asked quietly, his eyes shining.

  She nodded, biting her lower lip. Then, unable to hold in her joy, she did a little victory dance around the kitchen.

  Hal laughed with delight.

  Tess, a lightning-quick dresser, reappeared in jean shorts and a red T-shirt, just in time to see Lily’s last whirl.

  “How come everybody’s so happy?” she demanded.

  Hal gave Lily a verbal nudge. “Maybe you ought to go ahead and answer that question.”

  Lily looked at him, looked at her daughter—the little girl who was in danger of growing up too fast. She crossed the room, crouched to look up into Tess’s face and took both the child’s hands in hers.

  “I hope you’re not about to say we’re going to stay in Chicago,” Tess said, “because I don’t want to.”

  Lily laughed, though her eyes burned with sudden tears. “Tyler Creed—you remember, the man with the dog? The one we picked up alongside the highway when his car broke down?”

  Hal cleared his throat expressively.

  “Okay,” Lily admitted, glancing back briefly over one shoulder to acknowledge his point. “Not the best choice of words.”

  “Of course I remember,” Tess said. “Geez, it was only a couple of days ago.”

  “I’ve known Tyler for a long time,” Lily said softly. “We were—friends, even before I met your dad. And he and I—Well—”

  Tess’s face lit up as the possibilities registered. With uncanny perception, even for a child-genius, she blurted, “You’re going to get married? You and Tyler Creed?”

  Lily swallowed hard, nodded.

  And Tess flung herself into her mother’s arms with a whoop of delight and such force that they both toppled over onto the kitchen floor, in a giggling, teary heap of celebration.

  “I’d say she’s okay with the idea,” Hal commented, his own eyes glistening a little. “Let’s go, Tess. If there’s a run on oatmeal down at the Birdhouse, we’ll be out of luck.”

  Tess got back on her feet, solemnly helped Lily up, too.

  “Is there going to be a baby?” the little girl asked, evidently not ready to move on to the prospect of oatmeal.

  Lily laid a hand on her daughter’s hair. “Maybe sometime,” she said, thick-throated. Not wanting to get Tess’s hopes up any more than she already had. What if something went wrong? Should she have waited until they got back from Chicago to tell Tess about the wedding?

  Her dad must have seen the doubts in her face, because he responded to them as surely as if she’d voiced them aloud. “Life is uncertain, Lily. Young or old, we have to learn to take it as it comes.”

  Lily nodded.

  Watched with her heart in her throat as Hal took Tess’s hand and the two of them set out for the Birdhouse Café.

  Lily stood rooted to the floor of that sunny kitchen for a long time, wanting guarantees from God—and knowing she wasn’t going to get any such thing.

  Finally, exhausted, she went into the spare room, took off the red dress, pulled on her old standby, the T-shirt, and toppled into bed.

  She was asleep within moments.

  *

  TYLER SET the forlorn little packet of letters, with their faded pink ribbon, in the middle of his table.

  Now that he was home, much to Kit Carson’s delight, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to read them after all.

  Maybe Logan had been right, stopping after the first paragraph or two. Maybe it was better to just leave things alone—especially his mother’s private dreams, reflected in the words of her unknown lover, for a better life than she’d had with Jake Creed.

  God knew, that wouldn’t have taken much.

  A part of Tyler wanted to prove to the whole world that she hadn’t committed suicide, that Jake had killed her, in a fit of jealous revenge. But why rake all that up? Why not let the dust settle, once and for all?

  The last thing Logan and Dylan needed now, with all their efforts at starting over—the last thing he needed—was a scandal.

  Tyler shoved a hand through his hair.

  At the moment, he was too tired to make a decision, one way or the other.

  He’d made love to Lily all night.

  He’d experienced his first—and, he hoped, his last—haunting, and he and Logan had made a beginning at reconciling their many differences.

  Enough high drama, already.

  He needed sleep.

  So he went upstairs, stripped off his clothes and fell face-first onto the bed.

  He woke, several hours later, to the sound of voices downstairs, on the main floor of the cabin.

  One by one, he registered them in his sleep-fogged brain.

  Dylan.

  Logan.

  Davie.

  Tyler hoisted himself up onto one elbow, grumbling to himself.

  What was this? A family reunion?

  A smile crept onto his mouth and stuck.

  Maybe that was exactly what it was.

  “It’s about time you rolled out of the sack,” Dylan told him a few minutes later, w
hen he’d pulled on yesterday’s jeans, a T-shirt, socks and boots, and made his way down the stairs, finger-combing his hair as he went. “Damn, brother, it’s the middle of the afternoon.”

  Tyler grinned. Looked from Dylan to Logan to Davie. Leaned down to scratch Kit Carson’s scruff when the dog leaned into his right leg. “Is this a party?” he asked.

  “We’re going fishing,” Davie announced. The holes in his face, where the hardware had been, were already starting to heal over, and the wash-off spider tattoo on his neck was a ghost of its former self. “Briana said she’d cook up whatever we caught for supper.”

  Logan’s gaze, he noticed, had dropped to the thin stack of letters on the table and gotten stuck there. With some effort, he met Tyler’s eyes.

  Tyler addressed himself to Davie. “Suppose all we catch,” he joked, “is an old tire or part of a dead tree? What do you suppose Briana will serve for supper then?”

  Davie laughed, and there was relief in the sound, because he’d expected Tyler to refuse to go fishing with his brothers, the way he’d refused the first trail ride. “She could probably make those things taste good, too,” he said.

  “Why don’t you go on out to the truck and fetch those new fishing poles we just bought in town?” Dylan asked, resting a hand on Davie’s shoulder.

  Davie nodded, skillfully dismissed and none the wiser for it, and hurried out, Kit Carson following close behind him.

  That left the three of them, brothers who hadn’t talked to each other all that much, at least in a friendly way, for a very long time.

  “Logan told me about the letters,” Dylan said quietly, watching Tyler. “And about the other thing, too.”

  Tyler nodded, rubbed his chin. His beard was coming in; he needed a shave. But since he didn’t have to worry about giving Lily whisker burn in some delicate places, the razor could wait.

  “What do you want to do, Ty?” Logan asked, after clearing his throat.

  “For right now?” Tyler answered. “Go fishing with my brothers and the kid who might be mine.”

  “What about the letters?” Dylan pressed, though, like Logan, he looked a little confused. Like as not, they’d both expected him to run them off with a shotgun or something.

  “I think they belong at the bottom of the lake,” Tyler said. “And while we’re at it, let’s toss the hatchet in, too. Next best thing to burying it.”