“Process of elimination,” Doreen answered. “I thought it was Carl—a truck driver I knew once upon a time—but he had some tests run and they came back negative.” She looked at Tyler again, her eyes guileless and full of bright hopes. “There was only one other possibility.”
“ That’s why you made me get that blood test,” Davie said. “Mom, you said it was for when school starts in the fall. So I could sign up for the junior rodeo program.”
Doreen chuckled, took a sip of her coffee and set the cup down again. “There are times,” she said, “when a fib comes in handy.”
Tyler felt dazed. Exuberant, but still cautious, too.
After all, Doreen was the mistress of the handy fib. Even now, she might have a game going, with Tyler as the designated mark.
She seemed to know what he was thinking, and it didn’t appear to bother her much. She handed Davie a slip of paper.
“This is where I’ll be,” she said. “My e-mail address, anyhow. Once I light somewhere, I’ll let you know, so we can stay in touch. I want to know all about school, Davie. Don’t you get so busy with the rodeo that you let the math and English slide, all right?”
Davie swallowed, took the paper, glanced at Tyler. “All right,” he said, choking out the words.
“You’re about the only good thing that ever happened to me, Davie,” Doreen went on, and damned if she didn’t sound sincere. “I made lots of mistakes in my life, but you weren’t one of them, and I want you to remember that.”
“You didn’t really mean to kill Roy, did you?” Davie asked, his voice small and shaky now. Carefully, he folded the paper with Doreen’s e-mail address scrawled on it and tucked it into his pocket.
Doreen leaned to touch her forehead to her son’s. “If I’d meant to kill Roy Fifer,” she said, “he’d be dead .”
Davie didn’t laugh at the joke. Didn’t even smile.
Tyler found that more than encouraging.
Doreen stood. Bent to kiss the top of Davie’s head.
The boy trembled, but didn’t look up at her.
“You behave yourself,” she told him hoarsely. “And when you’re eighteen, if you’re so inclined, you come and see me.”
Davie nodded.
Doreen touched Tyler’s shoulder as she passed—and then she was gone.
They sat in silence for a long time, Davie and Tyler.
Finally, Tyler said, “Davie?”
“Wh-What?” the boy asked.
“It’s okay to cry.”
Davie wouldn’t look at him, but his shoulders began to shake. “I thought Creeds were supposed to be tough,” he said.
Tyler’s mouth quirked up at one corner. “Creeds are tough,” he agreed. “Tough enough to cry, when that’s the only thing there is to do.”
Davie cried.
Hard, and for a long time.
Tyler waited it out, his own eyes damp.
But in that way he had, Davie eventually came around. He sniffled, lifted his head, swiped a forearm across his face.
“Can I change my name?” he asked.
Tyler frowned. “To Creed? Sure. You are a Creed.”
“I meant the Davie part,” the boy said.
“What’s wrong with ‘Davie’?”
“It sounds like a kid.”
“Hello? You are a kid.”
“I kind of like Kit Carson, but that’s taken,” Davie mused. “Nobody strong is named ‘Davie.’”
Tyler thought. “Davy Crockett?” he suggested.
“Yeah,” Davie said, nonplussed. “Well.”
Tyler’s appetite was back. He got up, went to the buffet, filled a plate. A gaggle of cheerful gray-haired tourists wandered in.
“Tom?” Davie said, when Tyler rejoined him at the table.
A woman in a uniform came and cleared away Doreen’s plate, pocketed the decent tip she’d left underneath.
“What?” Tyler asked.
“Keep up,” Davie told him. “I’m talking names. What about Joe? That’s a good one.”
“Your name,” Tyler said, “is Davie. Get over it.”
“You’re being a hard-ass again,” Davie said.
“Adjust,” Tyler answered.
Davie got up, went to the buffet table, returned with a plate of his own. “Mike?” he persisted. “Jack?”
“Dave?” Tyler suggested.
“Lame,” Davie said. Things were peaceful for a while, both of them scarfing up the “free” breakfast. When they’d finished, Tyler left a tip and Davie started loading up a plate for Kit Carson.
“I kind of like living in a hotel,” he said. “Except for the part about the dog being a stowaway.”
Tyler laughed. “Easy on the sausage,” he said. “Kit Carson has a delicate stomach.”
“Yeah,” Davie agreed. “He might puke, and that would blow our cover.”
“All too true,” Tyler said.
They left the dining room, headed for the elevators, Davie carrying Kit’s plate with care.
The doors whisked shut.
Davie’s eyes took on a shy expression. “While we’re on the subject of names—”
“ Are we on the subject of names?” Tyler grinned. “I thought we were past that.”
Davie swallowed. Made himself meet Tyler’s gaze.
“Things we call people, I mean,” Davie said.
Tyler waited, raised one eyebrow.
“Would it be okay—” Davie stopped, gulped. “Would it be okay if I called you Dad?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“T HIS ISN’T A TRAILER , it’s a palace,” Lily said, a week later, standing beside Tyler out at his place, still weak-kneed from the private welcome-home he’d given her.
He’d picked her and her dad and Tess up at the airport, as promised, driving a brand-new green pickup with an extended cab and a top-of-the-line sound system. They’d dropped Tess and Hal off at home, with barely a see-you-later, and he’d headed straight for their special place—the cemetery on Stillwater Springs Ranch.
There, Tyler had laid her down in the backseat of that fancy truck—she hadn’t resisted, she blushed to recall—relieved her of her jeans and panties, draped her bare legs over his shoulders and burrowed through to take her into his mouth. Made her come until she didn’t think she could come any more.
But he’d withheld the thing she’d wanted, needed, most.
The thing she still needed.
He smiled at her assessment of the triple-wide, took her hand. “Care for a tour?”
She grinned. “Could we start with the bedroom?”
Tyler laughed. It was a rich, thoroughly masculine sound, and Lily loved it. Loved him.
“Let’s save that for last,” he said.
“You love to torture me,” she accused, smiling.
He stopped, turned to her, touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “No, Lily,” he said seriously, his voice gruff. “I love you .”
She blinked. That was her line. She’d been practicing it for da
ys. Bracing herself to let it be all right, not hearing Tyler say it back. To let it be enough, knowing he’d say it when he was ready.
And now he’d beaten her to the punch.
“You do?” she asked, stunned.
“I do,” he said.
She laughed, startling him a little. Then she leaped at him, flung her arms around his neck. “I love you, Tyler Creed!” she yelled. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”
He wrapped his arms around her, held her close, kissed her.
When it was over, and they were both breathless, he led her inside.
He showed her the state-of-the-art kitchen, Tess’s room and Davie’s. The family room. He made the big-screen TV whir down out of the ceiling in the living room.
“Forget the house,” Lily said, impressed. “This place is good enough.”
Tyler grinned. “That’s what Davie said,” he told her. Then he chuckled. “He’s calling himself ‘Pete’ this week, so play along.”
Lily’s heart fluttered. “He’s yours, Tyler?” she asked, very softly.
He looked deep into her eyes, into her very soul. “He’s mine,” he affirmed, reassured by what he’d seen there. “It’s official.”
“That’s wonderful, ” Lily whispered.
“You don’t know how glad I am that you think so,” Tyler answered, taking her hand again. Pulling her along. “Now, for the bedroom,” he said.
“It’s about time,” Lily retorted.
“You are one horny little hellcat,” Tyler told her. “I like it.”
The bedroom was massive—it was fully furnished, and even had a chandelier. The adjoining bathroom, with its huge sunken tub and enormous shower, would have accommodated a crowd, never mind the two of them.
But Lily was only interested in the bed.
She was out of her clothes in no time.
Tyler chuckled, hauled off his T-shirt, undid his jeans.
He was magnificent when he was fully dressed. Naked, he was downright formidable.
And he was ready for her, she could see that by his erection.
“No foreplay, Tyler,” Lily said. “You had your way in the back of the truck. Now, I want mine.”
He laid her down, not on her back, but on her stomach.
Knelt behind her and raised her onto her knees.
Slammed into her in a long, slow, deep thrust that made her cry out in the first throes of ecstasy.
“Not so fast, Lily,” he crooned, pausing to nibble at the back of her neck, weighing her breasts gently in his hands. “Not so fast.”
“It’s been so long,” Lily protested, gasping out the words. “Oh, Tyler, it’s been so long—”
“We’ve got all the time in the world,” he told her. His tone was soothing, but it only ignited her desire more—she was rapidly reaching flash-point.
“Do me,” she pleaded.
“Oh, I intend to,” he murmured, giving her a little friction, but not quite enough.
Lily’s whole body quivered, went damp with perspiration. “I meant now,” she whimpered.
He chuckled, and teased her a little more, pulling back until he was almost out of her, but not quite.
She thrust her hips back, took him inside her, deep inside, where she wanted him, where she had to have him.
And in that moment, his control was gone.
He stopped fooling around. He didn’t make love to her. He did her and did her hard, until they both caught fire, and fused together at the deepest levels of their bodies and their beings.
When it was over, they both collapsed, gasping, lying entwined in each other’s arms.
“Is this room soundproof?” Lily asked, after a long, long time.
Tyler laughed, hooked an arm around her neck, pulled her close to kiss the top of her head. “No, oh, horny one, it isn’t,” he answered. “You’ll just have to control yourself a little, at least when the kids are around.”
The kids.
Davie and Tess.
And maybe—just maybe—since she was a week late for her period, a third child. It was too soon to tell him, of course—she’d barely dared to tell herself.
How could she have thought she needed time?
She needed Tyler . And so, in a completely different way, did Tess.
“When’s the wedding, cowboy?” she asked.
W HEN’S THE WEDDING, COWBOY ?
Tyler took a few moments to savor those words. He could hardly believe he’d even thought about postponing the beginning of their life together, even though he’d had good reason at the time.
Since then, though, he’d gotten to know Davie a lot better.
Davie. His son.
They’d had a lot of long talks, he and Davie, since Doreen left town, after her interview with Jim Huntinghorse. And Davie had let down his guard, shown Tyler who he really was.
A scared kid who’d had it tough from day one, and still had the guts to hope for something better. Nothing more than that, and nothing less.
“You’re sure you want to sign on with this bunch?” he asked, playing with a tendril of Lily’s soft, sunshine-scented hair. She smelled like Montana—clean and open and fresh—the kind of place where a person could always make a new start. “We’re pretty wild, we Creeds.”
She raised herself onto one elbow, to look down into his face, and her eyes were serious. “I’m sure,” she said, looking and sounding a little worried. “Are you?”
He kissed her, slowly, gently.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he said. And then he rolled her onto her back, eased on top of her. “Except maybe how much I want to have you again—right now.”
EPILOGUE
One year later…
T HEY WERE ALL GATHERED at the main ranch house, and there was so much noise—so much love —in that place that Lily half expected the walls to burst.
The kitchen was bigger now, since the renovations were finally finished, and it was still the heart of the house, just as it had always been.
“You come right in and tell us when you see them coming,” Briana told Alec, for about the third time that morning. It was Logan’s birthday, and they were planning a major celebration, as soon as he and Tyler and Dylan got back from riding the fence lines.
Along with Josh, Alec had been hovering over the antique cradle Logan had rescued from the attic during Briana’s last trimester, admiring his new baby sister.
There was a lot to admire about four-month-old Maggie Creed. She had her mother’s strawberry-blond hair and her father’s dark, solemn eyes—a winning combination.
Dylan and Kristy’s boy, Tim, born a week after Maggie’s arrival, was already trying to sit up. His blue eyes went round whenever he saw his big sister, Bonnie, and he’d reach for her with his chubby little arms.
Three years old now, Bonnie was a miniature lady—when she wasn’t getting into mischief. And she adored her baby brother. If Kristy hadn’t been keeping a close eye on her, in fact, she probably would have climbed right into his playpen with him.
Last, but not least, there were Tyler and Li
ly’s own twins, a boy and a girl. Davie had named his brother Michael, and Tess had chosen Molly’s name—after Lily had dissuaded Tess from calling her Eleanor.
Her heart full, Lily admired her babies, sleeping cozily in the bassinette they shared. They’d come along a week after Tim’s birth, without a problem. Delivered so quickly, in fact, that Lily had almost had them in the truck.
Over at the sink, Eloise was busy peeling potatoes for a salad. It still amused Lily, seeing the woman in jeans, working away in a ranch house kitchen like she’d been raised in the country.
Six months into Lily and Tyler’s marriage, Eloise had called to ask, in a shy and hopeful voice Lily hardly recognized, if she could come to Stillwater Springs and visit Tess.
Lily had agreed almost immediately.
Her relationship with Eloise was still a little tentative—maybe it always would be—but Tess had a grandmother again, and that was the important thing.
There had been no visits to Nantucket, or the mansion in Oak Park, but Lily supposed that was coming. She might never be ready herself, but when Tess was ready, they’d discuss it.
The back door sprang open just then, and Lily’s gaze swung to the opening, expecting Alec to burst in and report that the men were back.
But it was her dad, standing on the threshold. Her dad and his soon-to-be bride, Madeline. She’d been singing in the choir at his church for years, and they’d always been friends. Then, a few months ago, Madeline’s cat had taken sick in the middle of the night, and she’d called Hal in a panic.
He’d rushed over, played big-strong-veterinarian, and the cat had survived.
Since then, the romance had been hot and heavy.
Lily smiled. Her dad was like a new man. He’d cut back his practice to part-time and, after hearing stellar reports from Floyd and Dorothy Book on their cruise to Alaska, he and Madeline spent a lot of time poring over travel brochures.
Lily had already agreed to mind the cat while they were away.
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