“We must be rich,” Davie said cheerfully. “First you paid off my mom, then you leased that triple-wide and now you’re going to buy a brand-new truck—”
“I’m rich,” Tyler told him. “You don’t have a dime to your name.”
“Speaking of which,” Davie replied, without missing a beat. “I need an allowance.”
“Mow some lawns,” Tyler suggested, thinking of Logan. He’d delivered newspapers, shoveled snow, anything he could do to make a buck, right up until he started rodeoing.
“We live in the country,” Davie reminded him, with good-natured indignation, as they pulled back out onto the road, which was lined on both sides with car places advertising Deals, Deals, Deals! “As far as I can tell, nobody even has a lawn.”
Tyler hid a grin. Whipped into a lot when he heard a blue Chevy extended-cab pickup with excess chrome calling his name. “I think there’s one under all that grass you promised to cut out at the cabin,” he said.
“All you’ve got is that old push mower,” Davie lamented. “And it’s rusted out. Anyhow, the grass is waist-high. I need a machete, not a lawn mower.”
“Cry me a river,” Tyler said.
“You’re not very sympathetic, are you?”
Tyler laughed. “Nope,” he said, bringing the truck to a stop next to the blue Chevy. “If you want money, kid, you’re going to have to get off your backside and earn it.”
“How am I supposed to be a normal kid if I don’t even get an allowance?” Davie persisted. He was enjoying the banter, that much was obvious—probably because it was a lot like having a father.
“Figure it out,” Tyler said.
“Figure it out,” Davie mimicked. “There are limited employment opportunities in our area, you know. Especially for thirteen-year-olds.”
“Dig down to the lawn, then,” Tyler retorted, as an eager salesman approached. He wondered how long the guy’s trust-me-I’m-on-your-side smile would last once he got a whiff of the trade-in.
“Buy me a machete,” Davie shot back.
“Use the push mower,” Tyler told him.
And so it went.
They bought the truck—Tyler took a financial bath on the old one, since it was clearly a junker and stunk like a roadhouse john—and headed back for Stillwater Springs. Davie bitched the whole time about being forced to live under the poverty line, and Kit Carson, riding in the spacious backseat, managed not to upchuck all over the leather upholstery.
All in all, Tyler thought, it was a good day.
One down, thirteen to go.
*
DENISE SUMMERS, Lily’s longtime boss, stood in the doorway of Lily’s office, looking pained. The company sold upscale clothes, accessories and jewelry by catalog and online, along with a growing number of household decorating items, and they’d done so well over the past few years that there was talk of building a few flagship stores around the country, on the model of Chico’s and Coldwater Creek.
“I didn’t think you’d really quit,” Denise said, watching as Lily tucked the last of her things into a single box. Funny how years of hard work and buying trips could boil down to so little. “Lily, nobody has your eye for product. Please reconsider. I think we could swing a substantial raise, even profit-sharing—”
Lily smiled. She wasn’t angry with Denise; they’d been friends, after a fashion. “I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly. “Things change.”
Denise’s carefully made-up face stiffened slightly. “Remember, you signed an agreement. You can’t go to work for the competition within two years without forfeiting your severance package and compromising your retirement plan.”
Two years, Lily reflected happily. Time enough to have at least one baby with Tyler, and a second one if they were lucky.
And the “competition” probably wasn’t planning to set up branch offices or build stores in Stillwater Springs, Montana.
“I won’t break the contract, Denise,” she assured the other woman calmly, hoisting the box into both arms and waiting politely for the doorway to clear so she could leave. As for her tentative plans to start an online business of her own, well, she hadn’t even discussed those with Tyler or her dad yet; she wasn’t about to run the fledgling idea up Denise’s flagpole.
It wasn’t likely she’d salute, anyhow.
Reluctantly, Denise stepped back out Lily’s way. “At least let us throw a going-away party,” she pleaded, all but wringing her hands as she followed Lily through the crowded but stone-silent reception area.
Lily juggled the box to push the elevator button with her left elbow. “A going-away party?” she echoed. “Denise, you basically fired me, remember?”
“I was bluffing! Trying to get you to come back to Chicago, where you belong. I know your father’s sick, but we do have heart specialists here, you know.”
The elevator doors opened, and Lily stepped inside.
Denise dropped the act. She’d probably assured the board of directors that Lily would cave when she offered a raise and profit-sharing. Now, she’d have to face them with the news that they needed a new buyer—fast. Red from the neck up, she blurted, “Don’t think you can come waltzing back here when you come to your senses!”
“Denise?” Lily countered sweetly, as the doors began to close.
“Yes?” Denise asked, looking pleased.
Lily smiled again, warmly. Winningly. Like the Potato Queen at the state fair, or whatever kind of queen Montana might coronate. She’d already collected her severance check, and arranged for her 401(k) to roll over. “May I offer you a little advice?”
“Okay,” Denise said, sounding as lame as she looked. The whole company, it seemed, had collected in the reception area to watch the show.
“Never screw around with a country girl,” Lily answered.
Right on cue, like in a movie, the doors closed.
Alone in the elevator, the last ride out of Dodge, she did a little jig.
Reaching the parking garage, she stashed the box in the trunk of her car, got behind the wheel, locked the doors and fished her cell phone out of her purse.
Her dad, still hanging out at the condo with Tess, answered on the second ring.
“I’m so out of there,” Lily told Hal, fairly bursting with the exhilaration of it all. She hadn’t even realized she was in prison, and now she was free. “How are things going on your end?”
Hal laughed. “We’re doing okay. We had something reasonably healthy for lunch. There hasn’t been a single Eloise sighting, and I’ve sat through The Princess Diaries twice. Tell me you’re going to be home soon, because I think we’re gearing up for an encore.”
Lily beamed. “I’ll be there within half an hour, if the traffic isn’t too bad,” she answered. “Put on your dancing shoes, Daddy-o. You and Tess and I are going out to celebrate!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SON OF A BITCH WAS PASSED out drunk, but Doreen McCullough double-checked to make sure. Standing over him, she considered holding a pillow over Roy’s butt-ugly face, but it wasn’t worth the risk. He was bull-strong, after all; he’d throw her off him for sure, sloshed as he was, and then there’d be hell to pay. Besides, the old lady had only gone next door to feed the neighbors’ cats, since the pair of pensioners were away taking care of a sick relative. Granny would make short work of dumping dry food in a bowl for the felines, snooping through the accumulated mail and probably a few drawers and dashing back home to catch her favorite soap opera on the postage-stamp-size TV.
No, she had to get out of there—pronto.
She’d stashed the few things she could pack without making Roy or Granny suspicious in a thrift-store suitcase the night before, stuck the bag in the trunk of her car, under some stuff she’d been trying to get her bastard boyfriend to haul to the dump for a week.
Roy was in the money now, or so he figured it. Taking trash to the landfill outside of town was beneath a man of his means. In his head, he had most of it spent already—a flashy RV so he and his lowl
ife friends could party on the road, a new hunting rifle or two, a big-screen TV, things like that.
Doreen would have laughed out loud if she’d dared take the chance, and if she hadn’t felt so much like crying. How had she gone from teaching a young stud like Tyler how to keep a woman happy, in or out of bed—and a damn fine student he’d been, too—to letting a fat slob like Roy spend her paychecks, drain the gas out of her car and use his fists on her?
Oh, but things were about to change.
Doreen’s spirits rose, just to think of the welcome waiting for her when she got where she was going. And good ole Roy was SOL—shit out of luck. She almost wished she’d be around to see the look on his face when he realized he hadn’t hit the lottery after all. He’d been shafted, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
Slowly, Doreen backed out of the cramped, cluttered little box of a room, jammed in the ass-end of Granny’s trailer and always smelling of dirty laundry, stale booze and sweat, no matter how often she sprayed it down.
Everything depended on the getaway; she didn’t dare make a sound.
When she came up hard against whoever was standing behind her in the narrow hallway, she about went through the ceiling.
Turned out, it was the old woman she’d collided with.
Doreen put her finger to her lips and made a whispery, “Shh” sound.
“What are you up to?” Granny demanded, ignoring the shushing. Her actual name was Stella, but Doreen always called her Granny, just like Roy did, because it pissed her off. Stella, with her shit-heel trailer and her pitiful Social Security check crawling in every month, thought she was better than Doreen. Better than Davie, too.
Doreen and Roy hadn’t told her about the money.
They hadn’t told her jack-shit, and that was a good thing—Doreen knew that now. The old biddy was suspicious enough by nature—and right now she was acting as if she’d caught Doreen trying to sneak out with her stupid collection of commemorative plates or something.
Every month, another one of them came in the mail, showcasing somebody famous and dead, like Princess Diana or Frank Sinatra. If Stella had been lucky at bingo, or managed to cadge a few dollars out of Doreen or the Deadbeat before the thirty-day trial was up, she found a space on the trailer wall and hung that new plate up like it was fine art.
How she always found room for another one was beyond Doreen.
“I’m not up to anything,” Doreen breathed, not even daring to whisper, taking Stella by the elbow and hustling her back down the hall, away from Roy, who would screw everything up royal—and put her in the hospital—if he came out of his boozy stupor too soon. “And be quiet, will you? Roy’s got himself a job at the lumber mill as of today, working swing shift. He needs to sleep all day if he can.”
Stella looked so pleased at the prospect of a paycheck coming in, even it wasn’t hers, that Doreen almost felt sorry for telling the first whopper that came to mind. Hallelujah, Stella must be thinking, now she could keep every plate, every month, whether the bingo gods had been good to her or not.
“Really?” she asked, sounding almost girlish. “I told Roy he ought to apply at the mill—his daddy and his granddaddy both worked there until they dropped in their tracks. Sure, we lived away for a while, Roy and me, but the name Fifer still means something around there.” By then, she was nearly clapping her hands. “I just never thought he’d want to lower himself to pulling lumber off the green chain, since he went through trucking school and everything—”
Lower himself? Doreen thought, grabbing up her keys and purse, easing toward the front door, the only way out, as fast as she could. How was it possible for Roy Fifer III to get any lower than he already was? Numerals after his name, too, like the Fifers were blue bloods instead of trailer trash.
“You’re going somewhere?” Stella asked, as if they’d been friends all along, as if she hadn’t treated Doreen like a slut trying to sneak into a palace every time she set foot in the Hall of Stupid Plates.
Like she hadn’t called Davie a freak a million times, because of his tattoo and his piercings and those weird clothes he wore.
But Davie would be okay now; she didn’t have to worry about him anymore.
The Creeds, at least this new generation, anyway, did right by their own.
“I’ve got a chance to put in some overtime at the casino,” Doreen explained, making herself sound eager. “They’re shorthanded today, and there’s a tour bus coming in for a slot tournament.”
Doreen put her hand on the screen-door handle.
Down the hall, in the room she’d never set foot in again if there was a God in heaven, Roy let out a bellow and then yelled that he had a belly ache.
Stella’s papery face went pale.
“He’s just having a bad dream,” Doreen assured her, pushing open the screen door and bolting.
“But what if he’s sick?” Stella called after her, from the little porch in front of the door. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor or—”
Doreen didn’t even wait for her to finish the sentence.
She just beat it—ran across the lawn to the curb, her keys slippery in the palm of her hand. She hadn’t been able to resist a few moments of gloating, and now she was out of time.
She’d been so sure Roy was down for the count, after all he’d drunk during the night and then the little bonus she’d put in his Bloody Mary when he got home, saying he needed some “hair of the dog.” Even from the yard, though, she could hear him raging and wailing and carrying on.
As soon as she was inside the Buick, with the engine running and the doors locked, though, she knew she was safe.
Roy Fifer’s old beater of a car had been junked months ago; he’d driven Doreen’s when he couldn’t borrow a rig from one of his drinking buddies, and left her stranded at work more than once, too, so she’d had to bum a ride home from one of the other waitresses.
Anxious, but still needing one more look, Doreen glanced toward the door of the trailer, saw Roy standing on the threshold, whale-big and sick as he deserved to be.
Don’t you worry, she told him silently, as she sped away. Soon as they pump your stomach, you’ll be right as rain.
*
DAVIE FROWNED, laid the phone at the cabin back in its cradle.
Tyler was at the table, prying open one of the two buckets of takeout chicken they’d picked up for supper coming back from Missoula. “Problem?” he asked mildly.
Kit Carson, knowing he wasn’t going to get any of the extra-spicy—with his delicate stomach, Tyler had decided, the dog would have to stick with kibble for the duration—had slunk away to lie, woebegone, on his bed in the corner.
“Mom told me to call her at six, straight up, no matter what,” Davie said. “But there’s no answer at the trailer.”
“Did you try her cell phone?”
“She doesn’t have one,” Davie answered, with a shake of his head. “She made such a big deal about how I had to remember to call her just when she said—”
Tyler didn’t offer a reply. Davie was probably thinking the same thing he was: that Doreen hadn’t been able to last out her final two weeks at the casino after all, with that money burning a hole in her pocket. She and Roy had boogied for the Bright Lights, most likely, and saying goodbye to Davie evidently hadn’t been a priority.
“What if Roy did something to her?” Davie fretted, after a long time. “You know, so he wouldn’t have to share the money?”
The chances of Roy harming Doreen in some way were all too good, especially if he’d talked her into putting his name on the bank account, but Tyler didn’t see any point in saying so. “Why don’t you wait a little while, until after supper, anyhow, and try calling her again. She’s probably just gone to the store or something.” Tyler paused. “If you still can’t reach her, we’ll head into town and look her up, make sure everything’s okay. Fair enough?”
Davie looked somewhat mollified, but he didn’t go the whole way with it, or he’d h
ave put away more of the chicken than he did. That whole second bucket, extra-crispy, was his.
“I wanted to tell her about the triple-wide,” Davie confided, pacing, shoving his hand through his hair every once in a while, a habit he’d probably picked up from Tyler. “And the new truck.”
“You can do that later,” Tyler said, wondering if he shouldn’t give Jim Huntinghorse a call, have the sheriff send a deputy by old Stella Fifer’s trailer to make sure Doreen was all right. At least, as all right as anybody could be, living in that kind of setup.
In that strange way things sometimes happen, the phone rang right then, and Davie scrambled for it, practically yelled his hello.
Tyler watched as the color drained out of the kid’s face. “It’s for you,” he said, after listening for a few seconds and gulping hard. “Sheriff Huntinghorse.”
Tyler took the receiver. What if something had happened to Lily and her little girl? Or to Dylan or Logan or—
“Jim?” He practically barked the name.
The lawman had barely been in office a week, if that long, and he already sounded as though he was looking forward to a quiet retirement. “Ty, have you seen Doreen McCullough today, by any chance?”
The first thing Tyler felt was relief. It wasn’t a sorry-to-inform-you call.
Sighing once, Tyler put a hand on Davie’s shoulder and pressed him back into his chair at the table, afraid the kid’s knees would buckle if he didn’t sit down. Obviously, even if Doreen was just fine, this whole parental changing of the guard thing was harder on Davie than he’d been letting on.
“No,” Tyler said, shifting his attention back to Jim. “Is anything wrong?”
“Plenty,” Jim answered. “Roy Fifer’s down at the clinic, in the emergency room. They pumped his stomach a little while ago, and he swears up and down Doreen tried to kill him with some kind of poison and lit out with a whole lot of money that belonged to both of them.”
Tyler frowned.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 82
