Dear Reader,
Welcome to the third of three books about the rowdy McKettrick cousins, the Creeds.
Tyler Creed, the youngest of the Creed brothers and the one with the hottest temper and the biggest chip on his shoulder, is determined NOT to have anything to do with his two brothers or their new enterprise, Tri-Star Cattle Company. The same might go for Lily Ryder Kenyan, the girl he dated and betrayed back in the day. But there’s one problem. Lily isn’t a girl anymore; she’s a beautiful, passionate woman. And the two of them strike sparks off each other in this red-hot, very sexy story.
I also wanted to write today to tell you about a special group of people with whom I’ve recently become involved. It is the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), specifically their Pets for Life program.
The Pets for Life program is one of the best ways to help your local shelter—that is, to help keep animals out of shelters in the first place. It offers tips as basic as keeping a collar and tag on your pet all the time, so if he gets out and gets lost, he can be returned home; being a responsible pet owner; spaying or neutering your pet; and not giving up when things don’t go perfectly. If your dog digs in the yard or your cat scratches the furniture, know that these are problems that can be addressed. You can find all the information about these—and many other common problems—at www.petsforlife.org. This campaign is focused on keeping pets and their people together for a lifetime.
As many of you know, my own household includes two dogs, two cats and four horses, so this is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I hope you’ll get involved along with me.
With love,
Praise for the novels of
LINDA LAEL MILLER
“As hot as the noontime desert…Well-developed, personable characters and a handful of loose ends will leave readers anticipating future installments.”
— Publishers Weekly on The Rustler
“Loaded with hot lead, steamy sex and surprising plot twists.”
— Publishers Weekly on A Wanted Man
“Miller’s prose is smart, and her tough Eastwoodian cowboy cuts a sharp, unexpectedly funny figure in a classroom full of rambunctious frontier kids.”
— Publishers Weekly on The Man from Stone Creek
“[Miller] paints a brilliant portrait of the good, the bad and the ugly, the lost and the lonely, and the power of love to bring light into the darkest of souls. This is western romance at its finest.”
— Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Man from Stone Creek
“Intrigue, danger and greed are up against integrity, kindness and love in this engrossing western romance. Miller has created unforgettable characters and woven a many-faceted yet coherent and lovingly told tale.”
— Booklist on McKettrick’s Choice (starred review)
“An engrossing, contemporary western romance…Miller’s masterful ability to create living, breathing characters never flags…combined with a taut story line and vivid prose, Miller’s romance won’t disappoint.”
— Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Pride (starred review)
“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
LINDA LAEL MILLER
MONTANA CREEDS: TYLER
For Katherine “KO” Orr and Marleah Stout,
my pals. Loves ya’s.
Also available from
LINDA LAEL MILLER
and HQN Books
The Stone Creek series
The Man from Stone Creek
A Wanted Man
The Rustler
The McKettricks series
McKettrick’s Choice
McKettrick’s Luck
McKettrick’s Pride
McKettrick’s Heart
A McKettrick Christmas
The Mojo Sheepshanks series
Deadly Gamble
Deadly Deceptions
Don’t miss all the adventures of the Montana Creeds, available now
Montana Creeds: Logan
Montana Creeds: Dylan
Montana Creeds: Tyler
And in August 2009, return to Stone Creek in
The Bridegroom
MONTANA CREEDS: TYLER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
T YLER C REED SUPPRESSED a grin as the old guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot stared, dumbfounded, at the fancy set of keys resting in his work-roughened palm. Blinked a couple of times, like somebody trying to shake off an illusion, then gave the brim of his well-worn baseball cap an anxious tug. According to the bright yellow stitching on the hat, his name was Walt and he was the world’s greatest dad.
Walt looked at his ten-year-old Chevy truck, the sides streaked with dry dirt, the mud flaps coated, and then shifted to stare at Tyler’s shiny white Escalade.
“I thought you was kiddin’, mister,” he said. “You really want to trade that Cadillac, straight across, for my old rig? It’s got near a hundred thousand miles on it, this junker, and every once in a while, a part falls off. Last week, it was the muffler—”
Tyler nodded, weary of Walt’s prattle but not about to show it. “That’s the idea,” he replied quietly.
The aging redneck approached the Cadillac, touched the hood with something like reverence. “Is this thing stolen?” Walt asked, understandably suspicious. After all, Tyler reflected, a man didn’t run across a deal like that every day, especially in Crap Creek, Montana, or whatever the hell that wide spot in the road was called.
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Tyler chuckled. “No, sir,” he said. “I own it, fair and square. The title’s in the glove compartment. You agree, and I’ll sign off on it right now, and be on my way.”
“Wait till Myrtle comes out with the groceries and sees this,” the old fella marveled, hooking his thumbs in the straps of his greasy bib overalls, shaking his head once and finally cutting loose with a gap-toothed smile. Walt needed dental work.
Tyler waited.
“I still don’t understand why any sane man would want to make a swap like this,” Walt insisted. “Could be, you’re not right in the head.” He paused, squinted up into Tyler’s impassive face. “You look all right, though.”
Involuntarily, Tyler glanced at his watch, an expensive number with a twenty-four-karat-gold rodeo cowboy riding a bronc inlaid in the platinum face. Diamonds glittered at the twelve, three, six and nine spots, and the thing was as incongruous with who he was as the pricey SUV he was virtually giving away, but he’d never considered parting with the watch. His late wife, Shawna, had sold her horse trailer and a jeweled saddle she’d won in a barrel racing event to buy it for him, the day he took his first championship.
“I don’t know as I’m eager to trade with a man in a hurry,” Walt said astutely, narrowing his weary eyes a little. “You’re runnin’ from somethin’, and it might be the law. I don’t need that kind of trouble, I can tell you. Myrtle and me, we got ourselves a nice life—nothin’ fancy—I worked at the lumber mill for thirty years—but the double-wide is paid off and we manage to scrape together ten bucks for each of the grandchildren on their birthdays—”
Tyler suppressed a sigh.
“That’s some watch,” Walt observed, in no particular hurry to finalize the bargain. The wise gaze took in Tyler’s jeans and shirt, newly purchased at rollback prices, lingered on his costly boots, handmade in a specialty shop in Texas. Rose again to his black Western hat, pulled low over his eyes. “You win it rodeoin’ or somethin’?”
“Or something,” Tyler confirmed. His own brothers, Logan and Dylan, didn’t know about his marriage to Shawna, or the accident that had killed her; he wasn’t about to confide in a stranger he’d met in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.
“You look like a bronc-buster,” Walt decided, after another leisurely once-over. “Sorta familiar, too.”
You look like a forklift driver, Tyler responded silently. He looped his thumbs in the waistband of his stiff new jeans. “Deal or no deal?” he asked mildly.
“Let me see that title,” Walt said, still hedging his bets. “And some identification, if you don’t mind.”
Knowing it wouldn’t matter if he did mind, Tyler fetched the requested document from the SUV, pausing to pat the ugly dog he’d found half-starved in another parking lot, in another town, on the long road home.
“Dog part of the swap?” Walt asked, getting cagier now.
“No,” Tyler said. “He stays with me.”
Walt looked regretful. “That’s too bad. Ever since my blue tick hound, Minford, died of old age last winter, I’ve been hankerin’ to get me another dog. They’re good company, and with Myrtle waitin’ tables every day to bank-roll her bingo habit, I’m alone a lot.”
“Plenty of dogs in need of homes,” Tyler pointed out. “The shelters are full of them.”
“Reckon that’s so,” Walt agreed. He studied the title Tyler handed over like it was a summons or something. “Looks all right,” he said. “Let’s see that ID.”
Tyler pulled his wallet from his hip pocket and produced a driver’s license.
Walt’s rheumy eyes widened a little, and he whistled, low and shrill, in exclamation. “Tyler Creed,” he said. “I thought I’d heard that name before, when I saw it on the title to this Caddie of yours. Four times world champion bronc-rider. Seen you on ESPN many a time. In some TV commercials, too. Takes guts to stand in front of a camera wearing nothing but boxer-briefs and a shit-eatin’ grin the way you done, but you pulled it off, sure as hell. My daughter Margie has a calendar full of pictures of you—two years out of date and she still won’t take it down off the wall. Pisses her husband off somethin’ fierce.”
Inwardly, Tyler sighed. Outwardly, he stayed cool.
“Myrtle and me, we’d be glad to have you come to our place for supper,” Walt went on.
“No time,” Tyler said, hoping he sounded regretful.
Walt looked him over once more, shook his head again and got his own paperwork out of that rattletrap truck of his. Signed his name on the dotted line. “Just let me fetch my toolbox out of the back,” he said.
“I’ll get my own gear while you’re doing that,” Tyler answered, relieved.
The switch was made. Tyler had his duffel bag, his dog and his guitar case in the Chevy before Walt set his red metal toolbox in the back of the Escalade.
“Sure you won’t come to supper?” Walt asked, as a woman emerged from Wal-Mart and headed toward them, pushing a cart and looking puzzled.
“Wish I could,” Tyler lied, climbing into the Chevy. If he drove hard, he and Kit Carson, the dog, would be in Stillwater Springs by the time the sun went down. They’d lie low at the cabin overnight, and come morning, he’d find his brother Logan and punch him in the face.
Again.
Maybe he’d put Dylan’s lights out, too, for good measure.
But mainly, heading home was about facing up to some things, settling them in his mind.
“See you,” he told Walt.
And before the old man could answer, Tyler laid rubber.
Five miles outside Crap Creek, the Chevy’s muffler dropped to the blacktop and dragged, with an earsplitting clatter, throwing blue and orange sparks.
“Shit,” Tyler said.
Kit Carson gave a sympathetic whine.
Well, he’d wanted to go back and find out who he’d have been without the rodeo, the money and Shawna. This was country life, for regular folks.
And it wasn’t as if Walt hadn’t warned him, he thought.
With a grimace, Tyler pulled to the side of the road, shut the truck off and scooted underneath the pickup on his back, with damage control on his mind. Just like the bad old days, he reflected, when he and his dad, Jake, had played shade-tree mechanic in the yard at the ranch, trying to keep some piece-of-shit car running until payday.
Whatever Walt’s other talents might be, muffler repair wasn’t among them. He’d duct-taped the part in place, and now the tape hung in smoldering shreds and the muffler looked as though somebody had peppered it with buckshot.
Tyler sighed, shimmied out from under the truck again and got to his feet, dusting off his jeans and trying in vain to get a look at the back of his shirt. Kit sat in the driver’s seat, nose smudging up the window, panting.
Easing the dog back so he could get his cell phone out of the dirt-crusted cup well in the truck’s console, Tyler called 411 and asked to be connected to the nearest towing outfit.
L ILY K ENYON WASN’T HAVING second thoughts about staying on in Montana to look after her ailing father as she and a nurse muscled him into her rented Taurus in front of Missoula General Hospital. She was having forty-third thoughts, seventy-eighth thoughts; she’d left second ones behind about half an hour after she and her six-year-old daughter, Tess, rushed into the admittance office a week before, fresh from the airport.
Lily had remembered her father as a good-natured if somewhat distracted m
an, even-tempered and funny. Until her teens, she’d spent summers in Stillwater Springs, sticking to his heels like a wad of chewing gum as he saw four-legged patients in his veterinary clinic, trailing him from barn to barn while he made his rounds, tending sick cows, horses, goats and barn cats. He’d been kind, referring to her as his assistant and calling her “Doc Ryder,” and it had made her feel proud, because that was what folks in that small Montana community called him .
In those little-girl days, Lily had wanted to be just like her dad.
Now, though, she was having a hard time squaring the man she recalled with the one her bitter, angry mother described after the divorce. The one who never showed up on the doorstep, sent Christmas or birthday cards, or even called to ask how she was.
Let alone sent a plane ticket so she could visit.
Now, after seven long days of putting up with his crotchety ways, she understood her mom’s attitude a little better, even though it still smarted, the way Lucy Ryder Cook could never speak of her ex-husband without pursing her lips afterward. Hal Ryder, aka Doc, seemed fond of Tess, but every time he looked at Lily, she saw angry, baffled pain in his eyes.
Once her father and daughter were buckled in, Hal in the front and Tess in the special booster seat the law required of anyone under a certain age and height, Lily slid behind the wheel and tried to center herself. The day was hot, even for July; the hospital had been blessedly cool, but the vents on the dashboard of the rental were still huffing out blasts of heat.
Sweat dampened the back of Lily’s sleeveless blouse; without even turning a wheel, she was already sticking to the seat.
Montana Creeds: Tyler Page 1