Montana Creeds: Tyler

by Linda Lael Miller

  Lily glanced nervously in the direction of Tess’s room, dropped her voice to a whisper. “Dad, what if she—Eloise—what if she hires a bunch of lawyers and tries to take away my baby?”

  Hal had returned to his seat on the couch, now that he’d brought Lily the coffee, and his face turned granite-hard. “We’ll fight, if we have to,” he said, and he seemed so serious, and so upset, that Lily was instantly afraid he’d have another heart attack.

  She had to get herself—and the situation—under control. And fast. So she did an emotional 180 and tried to look and sound confident. “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” she said. “I just got a little carried away.”

  “No wonder Burke was such a piece of work,” Hal said. After pulling in some deep, slow breaths, he was still riled, but settling down by visible degrees. “I never liked Eloise Kenyon, and that was when she was a mere acquaintance. Now that I’ve seen her in action, up close and personal, I think I could hate her without half trying.”

  “She’s really not so bad,” Lily insisted, and she meant it. “She did spoil Burke—he was her only child and she’s a widow and, well, I know how I’d feel, in her position.”

  Hal smiled, albeit a little glumly. “I suppose it’s natural that she’s bent out of shape, after the way Tess sprang all this on her before you had a chance to smooth the lady’s feathers.”

  Lily nodded gloomily.

  “So what else is on the schedule for today?” Hal asked, determinedly positive. “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than your mother-in-law.”

  That made Lily laugh. “The first order of business,” she said, setting her cup down on the cocktail table and standing, “is to get dressed. The second is to deal with my daughter—preferably over breakfast. And the third, well, I’ve got to go over to my— the office and empty my desk.”

  “Need any moral support?”

  Lily paused to rest a hand on her dad’s shoulder before heading for her room to get ready for the day. “Yeah,” she said. “I do. But this is something I have to do on my own.”

  Hal nodded. “I’ll look after the munchkin while you’re gone,” he said, with another grin. “Try to get the concept of diplomacy across to her.”

  “Good luck with that,” Lily replied.

  “Y OU WANT TO STOP BY the casino?” Tyler asked Davie quietly, as the two of them, and Kit Carson, drove toward Stillwater Springs. “Say hello to your mother?”

  Davie shook his head. Wouldn’t meet any of the several glances Tyler sent his way. “She’s busy,” he said. “Let’s just go on to Missoula, like we planned, and pick out that redneck castle you promised Miss Lily.”

  Tyler hurt for the boy, but he had to chuckle at the colorful description of the trailer they were about to lease. Dan Phillips was lining up a crew to bulldoze the cabin and set up some kind of temporary rigging to hold up the trailer, once it arrived. Tyler, Davie and good old Kit would be holing up at the Holiday Inn in the interim.

  Both Dylan and Logan had offered them a place to stay between the destruction of the cabin and the delivery and hookup of the trailer, but Tyler hadn’t wanted to impose. Logan had a houseful as it was, and there was construction going on at his place, on top of that. Dylan and Kristy had plenty of room in that big Victorian monstrosity in town, but Kristy had already loaned him her Blazer. Asking her to take in two guys and a dog, even briefly, was over the line. Besides, she and Dylan were still newlyweds, like Logan and Briana, and they were building a house, too. They needed what privacy they could scrape together.

  In fact, it seemed to him, things were moving pretty fast, all around.

  Not fast enough, though, when it came to marrying Lily, he thought ruefully, missing her the way he would have missed an arm or a leg after an amputation. But he’d been at odds with his brothers for a long time, and getting back on solid ground would take a while.

  It was doable, anyway. And that was miracle enough.

  One thing at a time, cowboy, he told himself. Fishing with Dylan and Tyler was one thing, and that trout supper at the main ranch house the night before hadn’t been half bad, either. But signing on the dotted line and becoming a partner in the Tri-Star Cattle Company—well, that was something he needed to think about.

  They made good time getting to Missoula, stopping for cheeseburgers on the way and cleaning up the mess after Kit Carson hurled his share all over the floorboards.

  By noon, they’d looked at every trailer the outfit had to offer—the salesman called them “manufactured homes”—and settled on a four-bedroom triple-wide that was fancier than most of the houses in and around Stillwater Springs. The kitchen even had a special refrigerator for wine, and the cabinets were solid oak.

  The living room boasted a TV that came down out of the ceiling at the push of a button—that was a hit with Davie—and the master bedroom wasn’t just a bedroom, it was a suite, with a “garden” tub in the bathroom. The whole place was wired for sound, another plus in Davie’s opinion, and the “bonus room” was big enough to accommodate a pool table—with no danger of bumping the back end of a cue stick against the wall on a wild shot.

  Tyler signed papers and wrote a whopping check, and he and Davie rejoined Kit Carson, who’d barfed in the truck again.

  “You’re sure you want to build a house?” Davie asked, making faces as he cleaned up the tattered seat with a wad of paper towels. “I wouldn’t mind living in that place for the rest of my life.”

  Tyler chuckled. Wondered how much the smell of dog vomit would lower the trade-in value of the rig. “I’m sure,” he said.

  Davie disposed of the paper towels and sprinted back to the sales office to wash his hands in the john.

  Kit gave an apologetic whine, sounding ashamed of himself.

  “It’s all right, boy,” Tyler told him. “But when it comes to cheeseburgers from now on, it sucks to be you.”

  Davie returned, turned in the passenger seat before hooking up his belt to ruffle Kit Carson’s floppy ears and tell him he wasn’t mad at him for throwing up—again—and grinned at Tyler. “Where to now?” he asked.

  “I guess we’d better get ourselves a new truck,” Tyler said. Lily would be back in two weeks—thirteen days, actually—and he couldn’t haul her and her little girl around in a rig that smelled like dog puke.

  “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.

  D ENISE S UMMERS , 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

  T HE 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 lowlife 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.