Montana Creeds: Tyler

by Linda Lael Miller

  Davie was Doreen’s son, whether he was genetically a Creed or not. And Lily had been badly hurt by that affair, all those years ago. Once she learned who Davie actually was, or might be, and that was only a matter of time, she’d probably decide to cut her losses and run.

  Could he handle that, especially after the night before?

  He’d have to—he didn’t have a choice. He’d handled his mother’s suicide, Jake’s abuse and the bad blood between him and the two older brothers he’d once nearly worshipped. He’d handled Shawna’s death, and a whole lot of other things.

  And he’d handle whatever Lily decided, too.

  Which didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like hell, if she walked.

  In some ways, now that he knew how things could be between him and Lily, losing her would be the worst loss of all.

  There was nothing to do but tell her, face-to-face, that he might have fathered Davie that long-ago summer, before someone else did. After that, it would be her call: try to make whatever they had work, or call it quits, for good.

  Tyler had been thrown from, and chased by, the meanest broncs on the rodeo circuit. He’d been in brawls where the other guy’s intention wasn’t just to win, it was to kill. Being a Creed, he’d never had the God-given good sense to be scared in any of those situations.

  But he was scared now.

  He was scared as hell.

  Of one little woman.

  He sighed, got out his cell phone and called Doc Ryder’s house. If Lily had a cell, she hadn’t given him the number.

  The phone at the Ryder place rang six times before voice mail picked up, and a recorded message rattled off numbers for the veterinary clinic and Doc’s cell phone.

  Since it was Lily Tyler wanted to talk to, not Doc, he didn’t follow up on either of the alternate numbers.

  He put the phone away, went inside the house, made a bologna sandwich for supper, since it was getting on toward evening by then and he’d forgotten all about lunch. He fed Kit Carson, and when the dog had finished munching his kibble, Tyler rustled up a towel and a bar of soap and, instead of showering inside, headed for the lake.

  He was in bed reading a book, Kit Carson curled up beside him, when he heard Davie come in. Switch on that little TV he’d talked Tyler into buying for him the day before.

  Since there was no cable and no satellite dish, he’d get mostly static and disembodied voices, but that didn’t seem to bother the kid. He banged around downstairs for a while, and finally came up the stairs, just far enough for his head to show above the landing.

  Tyler felt a pang, seeing how happy Davie looked. He didn’t have a clue that his own mother had just put him on the block with a price tag hanging from around his neck.

  “Hey,” Tyler said.

  “Hey,” Davie said. “You should have come along today. We had a lot of fun. And your hot date spent the whole afternoon at the ranch, her and her little girl. We had meat loaf and homemade bread for supper, too.”

  “Is that right?” Tyler asked, deliberately casual. What he was really thinking was, Don’t call her a “hot date.” Her name is Lily. “How’d you get home?”

  The word home sort of hung in the air for a moment or so, unsettling and not quite right. But not wrong, either.

  “Dylan and Kristy dropped me off,” Davie replied, with a slight shrugging motion of one shoulder. “Is that your truck parked outside? If it is, it’s a sorry piece of crap, and you were better off driving Kristy’s Blazer.”

  “Thanks,” Tyler said dryly, opening his book again. The kid had shattered his concentration—now he’d have to go back to the beginning of the chapter, since he couldn’t remember a word of what he’d read so far.

  Davie hung around. “Dylan and Logan are rich. How come you’re so poor?”

  Tyler stifled a grin. “How come you’re so damn nosy?” he countered.

  Davie laughed. “Guess I’ll shut up before I dig myself in any deeper.”

  “Good idea,” Tyler said. “And turn that TV down a little. Static isn’t my favorite sound.”

  Davie, turning away, turned back. “No, you like Andrea Bocelli . I saw all those CDs you have. But I won’t tell anybody, if you pay me.”

  That time, Tyler had to laugh. He also flung the spare pillow, the one he’d tucked under Lily’s delectable backside the night before, to intensify her pleasure as well as his own, and Davie ducked.

  Kit Carson barked for joy and leaped right off the bed, probably thinking there was a game on.

  “Come on, boy,” Davie told the dog. “We’ll play tug-of-war for a while and watch some TV.”

  When the boy and the dog were both gone, Tyler didn’t have to hide what he felt—a peculiar combination of dread and hope, faith and fury.

  Tomorrow, he would have that talk with Lily.

  He’d sign the documents, like Doreen wanted, and write the check.

  Doreen might say goodbye to her son, like she’d said she would, or she might just hit the road, with good ole Roy. Either way, Tyler would have some explaining to do; young as he was, Davie had a right to know the truth.

  Whatever that was.

  Downstairs, Davie and Kit Carson were evidently wrestling, the boy laughing, the dog barking for all he was worth.

  It sounded so—well— normal.

  Too bad it wasn’t.

  Resigned, Tyler gave up on his book, stretched to switch off the light and lay down on those Lily-scented sheets.

  Sleep was a long time coming.

  L ILY SAT, IMMOBILIZED , in the spare room bed, staring at the wall. Trying to absorb what her mother-in-law had told her on the telephone just a few minutes before.

  Burke had had a vasectomy. A secret vasectomy.

  He’d only pretended to want more children after Tess—obviously, he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he just told her, though, instead of letting her get her hopes up, over and over again, only to have them shattered every month when her period came?

  He’d always acted so sympathetic.

  I’m sorry, honey. Maybe next month.

  Dazed, Lily heard her father’s voice in the kitchen, and Tess’s, both of them sounding worried, though she couldn’t make out their actual words. They might as well have been speaking some obscure dialect as English.

  Presently, Hal opened her door a crack and popped his head in. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  For all practical intents and purposes, she’d lost her job.

  She’d just learned that Burke’s deceit had gone well beyond breaking their marriage vows.

  Night before last, she’d engaged in an unprotected sex marathon with a man who was about as likely to be sterile as a jackrabbit.

  Oh, yeah. Everything was okay. It was just peachy.

  And none of it, Lily reminded herself with an inward sigh, was her father’s fault.

  She worked up a smile. “I’m just feeling a little lazy this morning,” she lied.

  “Breakfast is cooking,” Hal said. Whether he believed her or not, she couldn’t tell.

  “Not toaster waffles, I hope,” Lily responded.

  “Oatmeal,” he said, raising both eyebrows and wriggling them a little.


  He’d always been able to make Lily laugh by doing that, for as long as she could remember. And that morning was no exception.

  In spite of everything, Lily giggled.

  And it felt good.

  W HEN T YLER PULLED INTO Doc Ryder’s driveway, around ten o’clock that morning, Doc and Tess were in the backyard, on their knees, digging dead plants out of a flower bed and tossing them into a wheelbarrow.

  Seeing him, they both looked pleased, and Doc hauled himself to his feet. Dusted off his hands on the legs of his tattered khaki pants.

  “Can your dog get out of the truck and play with me?” Tess immediately asked, fairly jumping up and down beside her grandfather while she waited for a yes.

  Tyler looked to Doc for the answer.

  Doc nodded. Smiled. “I could use a little canine company myself,” he said.

  Tyler hesitated. Kit Carson had jumped into the driver’s seat to paw at the window and yip, wanting to socialize. For a shy dog, he was sure coming out of his shell.

  “Is Lily around?” Tyler asked, like he should have done in the first place.

  “She’s in the kitchen, talking on the phone,” Tess volunteered, drawing in close to wait for Tyler to lift the dog down out of the truck.

  “Quitting her job and demanding severance pay,” Doc elaborated.

  As wound up as he was inside, Tyler’s spirits lifted a little. Lily was quitting her job? Did that mean she planned to stay on in Stillwater Springs instead of heading back to Chicago?

  Tyler’s mood took another dive. Considering what he had to say, it might not matter whether Lily stayed in town or not. She might understand—after all, he’d been a kid when he was sneaking around with Doreen, and the whole thing was way back there in the past. But she might tell him to take a flying leap, too, if only because she didn’t want to get involved with him or Davie’s raising.

  “I think this dog needs a walk,” Doc announced, after surveying Kit Carson ponderously. “Tess, there’s a leash in the pantry, hanging on a hook. Would you mind getting it, please?”

  Tess rushed into the house, and Kit Carson bounded after her.

  Tyler started to call the dog back, and Doc stopped him.

  “It’s all right, Tyler,” he said. “I’m a veterinarian, you know. I allow dogs in my house.”

  Tyler wanted to avoid Doc’s gaze—but he didn’t.

  “Is something wrong?” Doc asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Tyler answered awkwardly.

  “But you need to have a private conversation with Lily, and right away, apparently. Which is why Tess and I are taking the dog for a long walk.”

  “I appreciate that,” Tyler said. He felt as nervous around Doc as he had back when he was walking the razor’s edge, dating Lily, saying good-night and then heading straight for Doreen’s bed.

  Just then, Tess burst out of the house with the looped leash, Kit Carson close on her heels. Lily followed, standing on the porch, shading her eyes with one hand and looking way too good in her jeans and a little yellow blouse with no sleeves.

  She had good arms.

  Good everything else, too.

  Tyler steered his thoughts in another direction, but they doubled back.

  Damn, he wanted to take Lily back to bed.

  And once he’d said what he’d come there to say, he’d probably have a snowball’s chance in hell of doing that, ever again.

  Calmly, though he probably felt the lust rolling off Tyler in waves as he watched Lily standing there on the porch, Doc bent and slipped the loop part of the leash around Kit Carson’s neck.

  “We’ll be over at the park if you need us,” he said. Then he looked down at Tess and smiled. “Let’s go, sugarplum.”

  Moments later, they were gone.

  Tyler was still standing in the same place, like a weed that had sprung up out of the lawn overnight.

  “I have something to tell you,” Lily blurted, before Tyler could get a word out.

  That threw him, since he’d been all geared up to spill his guts about Davie.

  “What?” he managed, after untangling his tongue.

  Lily came down the steps, crossed the lawn to stand looking up into his face, kept her voice low in case any of the neighbors had their ears pressed to a keyhole.

  “The other night, when we—” She stopped, blushed, a study in sweet misery. “When we— you know— and I told you I didn’t use birth control because I couldn’t get pregnant—”

  Tyler frowned, confused.

  Lily seemed to squirm, though she hadn’t actually moved. “It turns out I—” Again, she faltered, but this time she couldn’t get going again.

  Was she about to tell him she’d peed on one of those sticks drugstores sold in kits, and they were going to be parents? It was too soon to know if they’d conceived a baby—wasn’t it? Surely science hadn’t come that far since the last time a woman had scared the hell out of him.

  Suddenly, Lily started to cry, all soft and sniffly.

  Stricken, Tyler pulled her into his arms, held her close against his chest. Propped his chin on top of her head.

  “Lily, talk to me,” he said.

  She spoke into the hollow of his throat. “Burke had a vasectomy, Tyler. Without even telling me. All the time I was hoping for another baby, and he knew that, and he let me think—”

  Tyler closed his eyes. He hurt because Lily hurt.

  And what he couldn’t leave without saying might make things infinitely worse.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  W HEN L ILY HAD composed herself a little, Tyler steered her toward the back porch, sat her down on the top step. Joined her and took her hand.

  He waited while she sniffled, attempted several brave little smiles and finally pulled it all together.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “I shouldn’t have dumped on you like that, but after the other night—”

  Tyler squeezed her hand. “You said you wanted more kids,” he reminded her when the moment seemed right. “Isn’t this good news, Lily?”

  “It would be for me,” she replied, after thinking a while, staring at the flower bed her dad and daughter had been digging out when Tyler arrived. Then she met his eyes. “But what about you, Tyler? What if we made a baby when we—when we—”

  Tyler chuckled, chafed her knuckles gently with the pad of his thumb. “Why is it so hard for you to say we had sex, Lily? While it was going on, you didn’t have any trouble calling it what it was—in some pretty graphic terms.”

  She winced, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “Don’t remind me,” she said, yet a little smile teased one corner of her mouth, even though her eyes were serious as she studied him. “And you didn’t answer my question. What if we made a baby night before last, Tyler?”

  “I’d insist on making an honest woman out of you,” he replied, and though his tone might have indicated that he was kidding, he’d never been more serious about anything in his life. “You wouldn’t—well—do anything, would you? To get rid of this theoretical baby?”

  Lily drew in a breath that was almost sharp enough to qualify as a gasp. “Of course I wouldn�
�t. And nobody needs to ‘make an honest woman’ out of me, Tyler Creed, because I’m already honest.”

  Tyler sighed, raked his free hand through his hair. “Now it’s my turn,” he said gravely, unable to look at her, though he could feel her gaze burning into his flesh. “To be honest, I mean.”

  She stiffened slightly and might have withdrawn if it hadn’t been for the firm grip he had on her hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her open her mouth to say something, then close it again.

  He shifted to face her. “Lily—”

  “Is this about Davie?” she prompted.

  He was too surprised to give a verbal answer, though he did manage a partial nod. His heart hammered at the back of his rib cage and his throat was cinched shut, as if somebody had thrown a noose around his neck and put a foot against his chest before pulling the rope tight.

  “Is he yours, Tyler? Yours and Doreen’s?”

  Tyler swallowed, croaked out a hoarse, “Maybe.”

  Lily reached up, smoothed a lock of hair back from his forehead. That wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, and something powerful moved inside him, making it necessary to look away for a moment or two. Compose himself a little.

  “What do you mean, ‘maybe’?” Lily asked gently.

  “He could be,” Tyler said, still sounding like he’d barely escaped a lynching. “Doreen denied it at first, then she came to me with custody papers and swore by all that was holy that he’s mine. She’s willing to sign him over, Lily, like a load of firewood—for a price.”

  “My God,” Lily murmured. Like most women, she probably couldn’t grasp the concept of selling a child. As a man, Tyler didn’t find it any easier to understand. “What are you going to do?”

  “Pay her and sign the papers,” Tyler answered. “Whether he’s mine or not, I can’t turn my back on the kid. I’m not sure why—he’s a little smart-ass and I’ve got no place to keep him—but if Doreen is willing to deal, so am I.”