The question was, of what?
He was sitting on the porch step, looking at the lake, Kit Carson beside him, leaning slightly against his right shoulder as if to anchor him somehow, and sipping strong coffee when his cell phone rang.
His first thought, as he set his cup down to take the phone from his shirt pocket, was that Lily had changed her mind. Come to her senses. She was calling back to tell him she’d thought it over, and thanks, but no thanks….
But the caller, as it turned out, was Dylan.
“The kid’s situation is pretty bad,” Dylan said. Typical. He never bothered with “hello” but, then, Tyler didn’t, either, most of the time. Or Logan. When Tyler got somebody on the horn, it was because he had business with them. He didn’t shoot the breeze—a family trait, he reflected, with some amusement. “Davie’s, I mean.”
Tyler let out the sigh that had been hunkered down inside him, dark and heavy, ever since he’d found Davie McCullough cowering in his john that afternoon. “I figured that,” he said. “Did you talk to Jim?”
“I did,” Dylan answered. “Our new sheriff is up to his ass in alligators right now. He wanted to call in social services and have the boy put into a foster home. Davie said he’d run away first, and I believe him—so I talked Jim into giving it a few days.”
Tyler closed his eyes. “Where’s Davie now?”
“I took him to the casino. He’s hanging out in one of the restaurants till his mother gets off work.” Dylan paused, cleared his throat, and Tyler, who had known something bigger was coming at him since the call began, braced himself. “Ty?” Dylan went on. “The kid’s mom—well—she’s somebody you know.” He stopped again. Tyler had a flash-vision of the bomb doors swaying open in the bay of a fighter jet, of ominous cylinders dropping with slow and deadly grace. “You knew her as Doreen Baron.”
“Holy shit, ” Tyler rasped, when he’d absorbed the impact.
Talk about your emotional mushroom cloud.
Doreen had been a waitress when he knew her, back when Skivvie’s still had a lunch counter and a few tables. Fifteen years his senior, Doreen, with her network of tattoos and what-the-hell attitude, had taught him everything he needed to know about pleasing a woman—and then some.
Still scrambling for some kind of inner foothold, Tyler did some frantic counting—backward, from the age he guessed Davie to be.
“Shit,” he repeated.
Davie could be his son. And some son of a bitch was beating on him, on a regular basis, it would seem.
“You still there?” Dylan queried, somewhat cautiously, when the taut silence had finally stretched itself to the breaking point.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Tyler answered, dizzy with a combination of dread and wild hope. On the one hand, he hoped Davie was his. On the other, such a revelation might make it impossible to find any sort of common ground with Lily.
Did he even want to find common ground with Lily?
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dylan pressed quietly.
“Yes,” Tyler said. “Davie’s about the right age, I guess.” He ducked his head, pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. The dog gave a little whimper and leaned in harder. “Doreen never pretended I was the only game in town, though, and I think if Davie was mine, she’d have hit me up for money somewhere along the way.”
Dylan was silent for a long time. “Look, you’re going to need a rig. I’ve already spoken with Kristy, and she’s willing to lend you her Blazer until your truck is back on the road. We could bring it out when she gets off work at the library, if you want.”
Pride swelled up inside Tyler, fit to split his hide, but he needed transportation. The auto shop wasn’t the kind of place that offered loaners, and rental cars were out, too, unless he wanted to go all the way to Missoula for one—which he didn’t.
“Okay,” he said, finally. “Thanks.”
Dylan laughed. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
It had been plenty hard. Dylan, being a Creed himself, had to know that.
“Don’t start thinking we’re going to buddy-up or something,” Tyler warned.
Again, Dylan laughed, more of a chuckle this time, and the sound of it chafed at some raw places in Tyler. He’d sworn he wouldn’t be beholden to either of his brothers for anything, after that set-to at Skivvie’s following Jake’s funeral, and he’d lived by that vow. Now here he was, borrowing a Blazer like some loser who couldn’t even manage to come up with a set of wheels on his own.
“God forbid,” Dylan said dryly, “that we should ‘buddy-up.’”
“Whatever,” Tyler shot back, and thumbed the disconnect button.
Two hours later—hours Tyler spent alternately pacing and fiddling around with his guitar—two rigs rolled up to the cabin, Dylan driving one, Kristy at the wheel of the other.
Tyler left the doorway, laid his fancy, custom-made guitar in its case and hoped nobody would comment, but Dylan’s gaze swung right to it, as soon as he and Kristy stepped into the house.
Kristy, carrying two-year-old Bonnie on one blue-jeaned hip, went straight over to admire the instrument, giving a low whistle of exclamation.
“A Martin,” she said, with suitable reverence.
“I like a girl who knows her guitars,” Tyler said, giving his sister-in-law a peck on the cheek and then ruffling Bonnie’s blond curls. Kristy was a looker—always had been. Legs that went on forever, and an honest-to-God brain behind that angelic face. And she had a particular glow about her, indicating a very recent orgasm, of the cosmic variety.
Dylan, his eyes peaceful, his body moving as though his joints were greased, had, of course, been the lucky guy.
Tyler felt a stab of pure, undiluted envy.
Smiled to hide it, though he suspected Dylan knew exactly what he’d been thinking.
Kristy pulled the keys to her Blazer from a pocket in her perfectly fitted jeans and jangled them under Tyler’s nose. “Here you go, cowboy,” she said.
“Cowboy,” Bonnie repeated exuberantly, straining to come to him.
Tyler had a weakness for kids, and took his niece into his arms. Crouched to introduce her to Kit Carson.
The little girl giggled with delight.
Kit licked her face.
Tyler stood up again.
Kristy laid the keys on the kitchen table, her dark blue eyes alight with goodwill. “It’s nice to have you back in Stillwater Springs, Ty,” she said. “We’re headed over to Logan and Briana’s for supper. Care to join us?”
“I’m not ready for that,” Tyler said gruffly, after exchanging a glance with Dylan. He was curious about Briana and that ready-made family of Logan’s—two boys, according to Cassie—and all the work going on over at the home place, too, but Logan would be there, and that was reason enough to stay away.
Again, Dylan’s gaze shifted to the guitar. He was probably remembering the incident at Skivvie’s, after they’d laid Jake Creed in his grave, just as Tyler was.
“Bygones,” Dylan said, “ought to be bygones.”
That was easy for him to say, Tyler thought, stung anew by the old fury. He’d written a song about Jake—or the man he’d needed his father to be—and Logan had torn the guitar out of his hands and smashed it to splinters against the bar.
Tyler could still hear the dull hum of the strings.
It had been a mail-order special, that guitar; probably hadn’t cost more than twenty or thirty dollars, even when it was brand-new. It had also been the last thing Tyler’s mother had given him, before she’d gone off to some seedy motel, evidently too weary of being a Creed wife to go on for even one more day, and swallowed a bottle of pills.
“I’ll let you know,” Tyler finally responded, his voice tight, “when bygones get to be bygones. In the meantime, don’t hold your breath.”
Bonnie, picking up on the change in the atmosphere, went back to Kristy, her small face solemn with worry, jamming a thumb into her mouth as she settled against her stepmother’s shoulder.
Kristy’s expression turned troubled, too.
“Bad vibes,” she remarked softly, looking from Tyler to Dylan and back again.
For Kristy’s sake, and even more for Bonnie’s, Tyler worked up what he hoped was a reassuring smile, not a death grimace. “Thanks for the loan of your car, Kristy,” he said. “I do appreciate it.”
Dylan lingered near the open door, ready to leave, now that he’d delivered the rig and thus done his good deed for the day. “If you change your mind about supper, you know where we’ll be,” he told Tyler, and then he went out.
Kristy gave Tyler another puzzled look, then followed with Bonnie.
Tyler waited until they’d all left in Dylan’s truck before grabbing up Kristy’s keys. “Come on, boy,” he said to Kit Carson. “Let’s go find out if I’m somebody’s dear old dad.”
T ESS FELL INTO THE BED in Lily’s old room, the stuffed animals Tyler had won at the carnival so long ago tucked in all around her.
“Can we stay here, Mom?” she asked, when Lily sat down on the edge of the mattress, which was still covered in the ruffly pink-and-white-polka-dot spread she’d received on her eighth birthday. “In Stillwater Springs, I mean, with Grampa?”
Lily stroked a lock of hair, still moist from an after-supper bath, back from her daughter’s forehead. Kissed the place she’d bared. “We have a condo in Chicago,” she said. “And your grandmother Kenyon would miss you something fierce if we moved away.”
“She could visit me here,” Tess said, with an expression of resigned hope shining in her eyes.
The thought of Eloise Kenyon roughing it in a cow-town like Stillwater Springs brought a wistful smile to Lily’s face—the woman probably didn’t own a pair of jeans, let alone the boots or sneakers most people wore. As far as her mother-in-law was concerned, the place might as well have been in a parallel dimension.
“Why do you want to stay in Montana, sweetheart?” Lily asked. “You have so many friends back home—”
“It doesn’t feel lonely here,” Tess told her. She had a way of making statements like that, of pulling the figurative rug out from under Lily’s feet with no warning at all. “I like this house. It feels like it’s hugging me. And Grampa said I could help him take care of all the animals, when he goes back to work.”
Silently, Lily counted to ten. Of course Hal was behind this whole idea of her and Tess moving back to the old hometown—now that he’d come face-to-face with the grim reaper, he was suddenly a family man. Once, he’d taken her, Lily, on his rounds, just as he’d promised to take Tess. Then one day he’d gotten tired of having a daughter, apparently, and written her off, just like that.
By God, he wasn’t going to do that to Tess. He wasn’t going to win the child’s love and trust and then shut her out of his life.
“You were lonely in Chicago?” Lily asked helplessly, because she’d need some time to think before she addressed the other issue. How on earth was she going to warn Tess, a six-year-old child, not to get too attached to her own grandfather? Especially when she so obviously needed a father-figure of some sort?
“It always seemed like Daddy should have been there,” Tess said sagely, with a little shrug. “And I could make new friends right here. Kristy said there were kids around for me to play with, and I really liked story hour, too.”
Lily tried, but tears came to her eyes anyway, and Tess saw them.
She sat up, threw her little arms around Lily’s neck and hugged her tightly. Another child might have clung; Tess was giving comfort, not taking it.
Now, it was Lily who did the clinging.
“Don’t cry, Mom,” Tess pleaded, her breath warm against Lily’s cheek. “Please don’t cry.”
Lily sniffled bravely. “I’m sorry,” she said. “ I’m supposed to be the strong one.”
Tess settled back on her pillows—the very pillows where Lily had dreamed so many Tyler-dreams—and regarded her mother with that singularly serious, too-adult expression that troubled Lily so much.
“Nobody’s strong all the time, Mom,” Tess said. There she was again—the Wise Woman, posing as a child. “You can be happy if you’ll just let yourself. That’s what Grampa said, while you were taking your nap and we were getting supper ready.”
Privately, Lily seethed. Thank you, Parent of the Year, she told her feckless father silently. “I am happy, honey. I’ve got you, after all. What more could I want?” She fussed with the covers a little, looked around at all the mementos of her childhood, thinking, to distract herself, that the room could use updating. New curtains, fresh wallpaper, a few framed watercolors instead of all those dog-eared rock-star posters from her teens…
“You could want a husband,” Tess suggested, in answer to Lily’s question, which had been rhetorical. Not that a six-year-old—even one as precocious as Tess—could be expected to understand rhetoric. “And more kids.”
“I have a job in Chicago, remember?” Lily pointed out. “One I happen to love. And I don’t think I want a husband, if it’s all the same to you.”
Skepticism skewed Tess’s freckled face, wrinkling her nose and etching lines into her forehead. “You don’t love that job, Mom,” she argued. “You’re always saying you’d rather have your own company, so you could do things your way and set your own hours. And anyhow, we don’t need money, do we? Nana Kenyon says you have plenty, thanks to Daddy’s trust fund and the insurance payment.”
Behind her motherly smile, Lily added Eloise Kenyon to the mental hit-list headed up by Hal Ryder. Why would Burke’s mother mention matters like trust funds and insurance settlements to a child, unless she’d wanted the remark to get back to Lily? Using Tess as a go-between was inexcusable, downright passive-aggressive.
As for Burke, whatever his other failings, he had kept his will up to date. He’d looked out for his daughter and, to some extent, his wife.
The trust fund was safely tucked away for Tess, and Lily had used the insurance money to pay off Burke’s many credit card debts and the mortgage on the condo. Her job, though it sometimes made her want to tear out her hair from sheer frustration, paid well, and she and Tess lived simply, anyway.
Lily was nothing if not sensible.
Except when it came to Tyler Creed, of course.
Why had she agreed to have dinner with him, when she knew no other man on earth, not even her own father, had the power to hurt her the way Tyler could?
Was pain getting to be a way of life with her? Had she started to like it?
“We’re both tired,” she said at last. “Let’s talk about this another time.”
She saw the protest brewing in Tess’s eyes. You always say that…and
later never comes.
Lily laid an index finger to her daughter’s lips, to forestall the inevitable challenge.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she said. “I promise.”
Mollified, though barely so, Tess sighed a little-girl sigh. Relaxed visibly.
Lily kissed her again. “Want me to leave the light on for a while?” she asked. Tess had never been afraid of the dark, but the house was strange to her, after all, however much she claimed to love it, and she’d had a very big day.
“I’m not scared, Mom,” Tess said. “I told you, this is a hugging house.”
A hugging house.
For a moment, Lily yearned for the innocence of youth, ached to feel the way Tess did about the old place. As a child, she had—she’d loved living there. Until her parents had torn the concept of home into two jagged pieces, each taking half and leaving her scrambling in midair.
Lily simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying again, and stood. She switched off the bedside lamp, with its time-yellowed, frilly shade, and headed for the hallway.
“You can leave the door open, though,” Tess volunteered gamely, from the darkness.
Lily smiled, knowing she was visible to her daughter in the light from the hall. “Good night, pumpkin.”
“Night,” Tess murmured, in a snuggling-in voice.
A few moments later, Lily joined her father in the living room at the front of the house. He was seated at his ancient rolltop desk, going over what appeared to be a stack of bills.
Lily, who had a bone to pick with him, swallowed. Was her dad all right for money? He ran a small-town veterinary practice, after all, and if she remembered correctly, collecting his fees wasn’t a high priority with him. Especially if his clients happened to be hard up.
Times being what they were, folks were scrambling just to hold on.
Montana Creeds: Tyler Page 5