Montana Creeds: Tyler

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I don’t know,” Lily said truthfully. She, too, glanced toward the door then, but Tess and Eleanor were still in the backyard. The sweet sound of their laughter came through the screen door. She swallowed, moved by the ordinary joy of two little girls enjoying a summer morning. “Is this the part where you remind me that Tyler is a Creed?”

  Hal shook his head. “Nobody knows that better than you do,” he said.

  Lily’s throat tightened then, cinched closed so she couldn’t speak. Tears stung her eyes.

  “I’m your father, Lily,” Hal went on hoarsely, his own eyes moist. “I love you, and I want you to be happy. With or without Tyler Creed.”

  I’m your father—I love you—I want you to be happy .

  Since when? Lily wondered.

  “I know you don’t believe it,” Hal persisted, watching her in that vaguely unsettling way again. “That I love you, I mean. But I always did and I always will.”

  Lily couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t keep the hurt inside. “Then why? ” she whispered raggedly. “Why did you shut me out the way you did? Why didn’t you call or write or let me visit?”

  Hal wiped his eyes. Cleared his throat again. Looked everywhere but at Lily and then forced himself, visibly, to meet her gaze. “I didn’t want you in Stillwater Springs because Tyler was here,” he said finally. “He’d hurt you so badly, fooling around with that waitress.”

  “But Tyler and I had already broken up—” Lily began, then her voice faltered. She sucked in a shaky breath, stunned by the depth of the pain the mention of Tyler’s long-ago lover caused her.

  Hal smiled sadly. “You would have forgiven him, Lily,” he said. “He would have charmed you into giving him a second chance eventually, and you know it. I grew up with Jake Creed, remember. I saw him buzz-saw his way through three wives, and Tyler and his brothers seemed like chips off the old block back then. I couldn’t bear the idea of seeing you destroyed—”

  Lily didn’t want to believe her father—she’d lived with the grudge for a long time and it had become comfortable in an odd sort of way—but she knew he was telling the truth. He’d been protecting her all along.

  From herself, and from Tyler.

  “I thought—”

  “I know what you thought, sweetheart,” Hal said sadly. “But things had to be that way. I couldn’t have you coming back to Stillwater Springs for any reason, and there was only one thing that would keep you safe—my letting you believe I didn’t want you around anymore.”

  Lily pushed her plate away, set her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands. “You came to my wedding,” she reminded him, reminded herself, her voice muffled by her palms and fingers.

  He patted her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have missed that,” he said. “I had my doubts about Burke, like I told you, but I figured you’d be safe from Tyler, with another man’s wedding ring on your finger. I hoped you and I could find our way back to each other then, but the damage was done. You wanted nothing to do with me, beyond my walking you down the aisle to your bridegroom, and I can’t say I blame you.”

  “Why did you change your mind? About Tyler, I mean?”

  “I saw how Logan and Dylan had grown up,” Hal replied. “And I ran into Tyler a few times, when he came back to Stillwater Springs to hide out in that cabin of his. He seemed like a different person. And I realized I’d been unfair, expecting him to turn out the way Jake did.”

  As kids, Lily and Tyler had had their share of heart-to-heart talks, but Tyler had never been willing to discuss his father. “Was Jake Creed always—well—like he was?”

  Hal sighed, remembering. “No,” he admitted. “His folks were decent, hardworking people. They raised Jake right. But the summer before we all started high school, Jake’s little brother, Pete, drowned in a swimming hole, out there on the ranch. Pete was only ten or so, and he was clowning around. Swam like a fish, that boy, kept up with the rest of us just fine. He went under and got his foot caught between two old logs lying on the bottom, and by the time we missed him and dove to look for him, it was too late. Jake and I pried him loose and hauled him to the bank, tried to revive him, but he was gone.”

  Lily put a hand over her mouth, horrified.

  “Jake’s mother went crazy with grief, as you can imagine. Said she’d trusted Jake to look out for his little brother and he’d let him die—and a whole lot of other things she didn’t mean. Jake was never quite the same after that—he grew up, joined the army, went to Viet Nam. His folks died in a car wreck right before he would have mustered out. The army discharged him early, and he came home for the funeral. Between Pete’s death and the things he’d seen in combat—” Hal stopped, shook his head again. “Jake went wild. That’s all I can say. It was as if he was trying to kill himself the hard way.”

  Lily let all that soak in. Tyler had never said anything about his uncle’s drowning, and it was unlikely that he didn’t know, since Stillwater Springs was such a small place. “You were there when Pete died?” she finally asked, knowing she was a few beats behind. “You never told me—”

  “Would you have told Tess, if you’d had an experience like that?” Hal challenged gently. “Like Jake, I thought I should have been able to save that little boy. I was the Eagle Scout. I knew CPR and all the rest. Instead, I was so busy splashing around in the water, trying to impress some girl, that I didn’t even notice Pete was missing.”

  “You were a child yourself,” Lily reminded him.

  Hal sighed, wiped his eyes again. “I got over it—insofar as you can ever get over a thing like that. Mom and Dad saw me through the worst of it.”

  Lily’s grandparents, like Tyler’s, had died before she was born—both had suffered heart attacks, within a month of each other—so she’d never known them. But their influence lingered—the figurines in the antique cabinet in the dining room had belonged to her grandmother, and she’d been lulled to sleep, as an infant, in her grandfather’s old rocking chair.

  “Did you ever wish you’d had brothers and sisters?” Lily asked her dad. It was the kind of thing she should have known about her own father, would have if she hadn’t been so furious with him all these years. Looking back, she knew he wasn’t entirely to blame—she’d cut him off, too.

  “Yes,” Hal answered. “Did you?”

  Lily considered. Nodded. “Being an only child had its advantages, though,” she added.

  They both chuckled.

  And Tess bounded in at just that moment, filthy from head to foot, an equally messy Eleanor directly behind her.

  “We didn’t find China,” Tess announced.

  Hal laughed, but it was a misty sound, slightly rough. “Well, go figure,” he commented. “I thought you’d be checking out the Great Wall by now.”

  “It must be down there somewhere,” Eleanor reasoned solemnly. “China, I mean.”

  “Go and wash up, both of you,” Lily told the girls. “You look like street urchins.”

  “What’s a street urchin?” Eleanor inquired, with great interest.

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” Tess informed her new friend matter-of-factly. “It means our clothes are dirty and our hair is messed up and people will think we don’t have anybody to take care of us.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “My mom says things like that all the time.”

  Hal raised an eyebrow.

  “I do not,” Lily protested.

  “Then how come I know what ‘street urchin’ means?” Tess retorted sagely. �
��I’m only six, after all. It had to come from somewhere .”

  “Just wash,” Lily said, resigned.

  In the laundry room, the washer banged to a stop, having completed its spin cycle.

  Lily left the table, fetched the dress and took it outside to hang on the clothesline. Tess had gone into the bathroom to clean up and change clothes, and Eleanor crossed the yard to the back gate.

  “My aunt is taking me berry-picking today,” Eleanor said, in parting. “Can Tess go, too?”

  “Not this time,” Lily said, as kindly as she could. She would need to know Eleanor’s aunt and uncle a while before she’d let Tess go anywhere with them.

  Eleanor took the refusal with a shrug and let herself into the adjoining yard, vanishing into the house.

  Lily was still standing near the clothesline, one hand shading her eyes as she surveyed the pitiful state of her dad’s flower garden, when a flashy pickup truck whipped into the dirt driveway between the two houses.

  At first, the pit of her stomach clenched. The equation was: truck=Tyler, and since the vehicle’s windows were tinted, she couldn’t see who was driving.

  She was both relieved and disappointed when Kristy got out of the rig, smiling broadly. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Lily said back. For a moment, it seemed to Lily that both she and Kristy were kids again, as innocent as Eleanor and Tess.

  “Briana is going to teach me to bake bread today,” Kristy announced. “I thought you and Tess might want to come along, spend the day out on the ranch with us.”

  “Don’t you have to run the library?” Lily asked, and instantly felt stupid.

  Kristy was certainly capable of managing her own schedule.

  “Bonnie and I are taking the day off.” Kristy grinned, giving a nod toward the truck. “Letting the volunteers take care of things.”

  Lily nodded, tilted her head to see around the open door on the driver’s side and spotted a little blond girl strapped into a car seat.

  Kristy’s gaze drifted over Lily’s shorts and blouse. “Change into jeans,” she said. “And wear boots, too, if you’ve got any. We could go for a horseback ride while the bread dough is rising.”

  “I’ve never been on a horse in my life,” Lily said, alarmed. But it wasn’t the horse that scared her; as a veterinarian’s daughter, she’d been around animals of all shapes and sizes. It was just that Stillwater Springs Ranch was Tyler’s home ground, and that made an encounter more likely. She didn’t know if she was ready to face him yet.

  “Time you tried it,” Kristy said.

  “A horse! I love horses, and baking stuff, too!” Tess enthused, from just behind Lily. She hadn’t heard the child approaching, and almost jumped out of her skin. “Oh, Mom, we have to go!”

  Kristy chuckled, nodded her agreement with Tess.

  “Is Tyler—” Lily croaked out, and then felt stupid all over again.

  A look of understanding moved in Kristy’s face, along with a certain sadness. “It’s not likely you’ll run into Ty,” she said, very quietly. “Come on, Lily. This would be good for you. And I’d really like for you to meet Briana and her boys.”

  “Please, Mom?” Tess pleaded, standing at Lily’s elbow now and looking up at her plaintively. It was as though the little girl’s whole future hinged on 1) riding a horse and 2) baking bread. If she’d been a few years older, the boys probably would have been a factor, too. “Please?”

  Lily couldn’t think of a reason not to go—her father wanted, and probably needed, to visit the clinic, look in on his furry patients, make sure the veterinary school student filling in for him was taking care of business. Eleanor would be off berry-picking for the day, leaving Tess at loose ends.

  “All right,” she said, slipping an arm around Tess’s shoulders and squeezing her once against her side. “Why don’t you and Bonnie come inside and say hello to my dad while I change.”

  Tess had already swapped out her China-tunneling gear for blue jeans and a T-shirt.

  Kristy’s gaze moved past Lily, and her smile brightened. “Hello, Doc,” she said, as Lily turned to see her father coming toward the fence. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing just fine,” Hal said warmly. “Coffee’s on. Come on in and visit for a few minutes.”

  Kristy looked cheerfully regretful. “Maybe next time,” she said. “If I take Bonnie out of that car seat, it will be half a day before I can wrestle her back in.”

  Tess had Lily by the hand by then, tugging her toward the house. “ Hurry, Mom!” she whispered, as though afraid Kristy would change her mind, rescind the invitation to bake bread and ride horses and go off without them.

  Kristy and Hal went on chatting while Tess practically dragged Lily inside.

  While Tess waited impatiently in the kitchen, Lily donned a long-sleeved pink T-shirt, hoping to protect herself a little from the fierce summer sun, and insisted that Tess switch out her sandals for a sturdy pair of sneakers.

  Neither of them owned a pair of boots.

  Within a few minutes, they were buckled into the flashy extended-cab truck waiting in the driveway, Tess in back with Bonnie, Lily up front with Kristy.

  “This is quite a rig,” Lily said, as they backed out of the driveway, Kristy giving a farewell toot of the horn to Hal, who stood waving in the yard.

  “It’s Dylan’s,” Kristy explained, shifting out of Reverse with admirable skill when they’d reached the street. “Tyler has my Blazer.”

  Tyler.

  Lily drew in a breath.

  It was pretty bad when even the mention of his name threw her off balance.

  “My mom went out to dinner with Tyler last night,” Tess piped up, from the back. “She got home really late and she wore this pretty red dress—that was it hanging on the clothesline in my grampa’s yard—”

  “Tess,” Lily broke in, closing her eyes.

  Kristy merely chuckled.

  “Eleanor is going berry-picking with her aunt today,” Tess prattled on. It was as though she’d stored up words and more words, for months or even years, and the dam had finally broken. Tess was at verbal flood tide. “She wanted me to come with them, but I knew my mom would say no because she doesn’t let me go places with people unless she’s along, too, or she’s been friends with them forever— Wait till I tell Eleanor that I got to go someplace, too, and even ride a horse and make bread—”

  Lily groaned slightly.

  Kristy smiled, reached across the console to pat her arm. “It’s okay, Lily,” she said quietly. “Let her talk.”

  And talk Tess did—all the way to Stillwater Springs Ranch, some twenty minutes outside of town.

  Lily had visited the place once or twice in her teens, while she was dating Tyler, and it had been pretty rundown the last time she’d seen it.

  Now, the hand-carved sign over the front gate arched proudly over their heads as Kristy drove beneath it. The barn had been entirely replaced, and the corral fences were in good repair and painted white. The house retained its original rambling Ponderosa-like design, but the fresh-lumber framework of two large new wings jutted out from either side.

  The yard seemed full of dogs and little boys, though in reality there were only two of each.

  Bonnie began clamoring to get out of her car seat and join the fun, and Tess went silent, but not, Lily sensed, because she
felt shy. The little girl fairly exuded eager curiosity.

  “Stay put, Houdini,” Kristy told Bonnie, bringing the rig to a stop between another truck and a BMW. They all waited while the cloud of dust they’d raised subsided a little.

  The boys—a little older than Tess—bounded toward the truck, the dogs frolicking behind them. The smaller boy jumped up onto the running board on Kristy’s side and gestured for her to roll down the window.

  She did, waving some of the still-roiling dust away from her face. “Hey, Alec. Josh. What’s happening?”

  Alec, it turned out, was the boy standing on the running board. He gave Lily a brief glance, then focused his freckled attention on Tess. “Who’s the girl? ” he asked.

  “That’s my good friend, Tess,” Kristy said, without hesitation. “Tess, this yahoo with his head stuck through the window is Alec. The polite one is his big brother, Josh.”

  “Hello,” Tess said staunchly. Her desire to be part of the afternoon’s adventures was almost palpable.

  One second after she’d spoken, she was out of the truck, springing to the ground, rushing to join in. Bonnie, trapped in her car seat, wailed with frustration.

  “I’m coming,” Kristy told Bonnie calmly, unhooking her seat belt.

  Alec had leaped off the running board by then, so it was safe to open the driver’s door. Kristy did so, and went around to set Bonnie free. Lily was the last one out of the rig.

  A trim woman came out of the house, smiling. She had vivid green eyes and strawberry-blond hair, pulled back into a tidy French braid. Like Kristy, she wore jeans and a cotton print blouse, and the boots on her feet weren’t the for-show kind. They were scuffed, and respectably dirty, with rounded toes and low heels, the kind a rancher’s wife would wear.

  “You must be Lily,” the woman said warmly, putting out a hand in greeting. She had to raise her voice a little to be heard over the gleeful barking of the two dogs and all the kids jabbering at once.

  “And you must be Briana,” Lily responded, offering her own hand, and a smile, too.