*
“THE PLACE IS pretty clean,” Josh said, whispering into his cell phone. “We picked up all the stuff and hauled it to the dump in Dad’s van, and Heather is making spaghetti and meatballs for supper and—”
Listening to all this while she mixed up the mustard sauce for potato salad, Briana knew what was coming.
“And they want to know if Alec and me can spend the night.”
“Alec and I,” Briana corrected automatically.
“Can we?”
“May we?”
Josh huffed out a sigh. “May Alec and I spend the night?”
Briana frowned, recalling Josh’s earlier misgivings. “You’re sure you’d be okay with that?”
“We’ve got cell phones now, Mom,” Josh said. “If it gets weird, I can call you.”
She smiled, albeit a little sadly. “What’s your definition of weird?”
Josh lowered his voice another notch. “Well, if Dad packed everything in the van and said we were going for a ride, or something.”
“You can spend the night,” Briana said. Her eyes burned with tears and her throat was thick, but she was smiling.
“She said yes,” Josh told his brother.
Alec let out one of his famous whoops.
“What about toothbrushes and pajamas and stuff?” Briana asked, suddenly practical again.
“Dad said we could each use one of his Tshirts, and Heather got extra toothbrushes when we went to the grocery store.”
“Okay,” Briana said, feeling suddenly superfluous.
“Bye, Mom,” Josh said.
“Wait,” Briana interjected. “What time should I pick you guys up tomorrow?”
Josh relayed the question, and then Vance came on the line.
“You have to work tomorrow, right?” he asked.
Briana nodded, then remembered that Vance couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she answered. “But you and Heather do, too, don’t you?”
“I have to be at the shop by eight,” he replied. “Heather doesn’t start her shift until around two in the afternoon. What if she brought the boys by the casino before she goes to work?”
Briana closed her eyes. This was how things were going to be for a while and she’d better accept it. Still, Heather was a stranger to her, and to the boys. What if she had a dark side, or slept until noon, letting Alec and Josh run wild? What if she drank, or took drugs?
What if she was simply a bad driver?
“I don’t know,” Briana said uncertainly.
“You don’t trust Heather?” Vance asked. He’d whispered the words, but everyone in the trailer had probably heard them. After all, it wasn’t a big place.
“I didn’t say that, Vance,” Briana responded. “I don’t know Heather, that’s all.”
“Well, I do, and if I trust her with my kids—”
Like he’d been a devoted father, showing concern for Alec and Josh’s well-being. Like he hadn’t—
Vance sighed. “If the kids are uncomfortable for any reason, Briana,” he said carefully, “they can call you and you can come and get them.”
Briana blinked, ran a forearm across her eyes. “I guess that’s fair,” she said.
Vance was still angry, she could tell. But he kept his temper, and that alone showed progress.
Maybe he really had changed.
And maybe if she put on ruby-red slippers and tapped the heels together, she’d wind up in Kansas.
“Goodbye, Briana,” Vance said, and then he hung up with a clunk that made the inside of her eardrum vibrate.
She replaced the receiver and looked down at Wanda, who was standing close and wagging her tail tentatively.
“I guess it’s you and me tonight, girl,” she said.
Then she went back to work on the potato salad.
It wouldn’t be just her and Wanda that night, she recalled, with mingled excitement and dread.
She’d accepted an invitation to a barbecue at Logan’s.
Of course, at the time, she’d thought Alec and Josh would be going with her, as well as Wanda.
Would she even know what to say to Logan, when it was just the two of them? What should she wear?
She looked good in her blue polka-dot sundress, but she didn’t want her clothes to say come hither.
Did she?
What if he kissed her?
What if it led to sex?
She was definitely not wearing the sundress.
Jeans, that was it. Hadn’t he promised her a horseback ride? Surely the buckskin and the others had mellowed out by now, gotten used to the new place.
Jeans would say good sport, not hubba-hubba.
Did anybody even say hubba-hubba anymore?
She took a shower at five-thirty, keeping the cell phone nearby, on the back of the toilet, in case things got weird at the trailer in town. She put on black jeans and a blue pullover shirt, as planned, then wavered and changed into the sundress after all. Even slipped her feet into a pair of high-heeled sandals.
At six-fifteen, she and Wanda and the potato salad got in the truck and headed next door.
It was too soon for sex, she told herself, sundress or no sundress. She hadn’t known Logan long enough to go to bed with him. This was just a friendly barbecue.
No, sir, they were not going to have sex tonight.
Probably not, anyway.
CHAPTER NINE
OKAY, LOGAN TOLD himself, as he marinated steaks for the barbecue in his unrenovated kitchen, it was too soon for a seduction, anyway. He’d only known Briana Grant for a few days, though it felt like much longer—a sort of cosmic, multiple-lifetimes thing—and he fully expected her to bring the kids along to supper.
If that hadn’t been enough to dampen the action, Jim Huntinghorse would be. He’d called half an hour before to say he wanted to take Logan up on his offer to drop in at any time.
“Any time” turned out to be tonight.
On top of that, the folks at the airport in Missoula had contacted him, as well. Laurie’s dog had arrived—Laurie-like, she’d forgotten the promised heads-up on the airline, flight number and ETA—and he’d arranged, at considerable cost, for the mutt to be delivered to the ranch by private courier.
“The best laid plans,” he told Sidekick, who was keeping a close eye on the steaks as Logan slopped them from one bowl of previously bottled goop to another. Good thing he’d snagged a few extra T-bones at the supermarket—the way things were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if half of his high school class showed up, too, for an impromptu reunion.
While the steaks were soaking up sauce, Logan went out to feed his horses. It felt good to have that to do—all the other work on the ranch was, for the moment, being handled by contractors.
That, of course, would change when the cattle arrived.
He’d found his dad’s old saddle under a pile of junk in the barn earlier in the day, along with some other tack, and brought it inside, meaning to clean it up a little. In the morning, he intended to ride. Get a real look at the state of Stillwater Springs Ranch in the time-honored way—from the back of a horse.
He was tossing hay over the corral fence when Briana drove in, alone except for Wanda riding shotgun in the passenger seat.
No kids, Logan thought, both intrigued and disappointed.
Briana about stopped his heart when she got out of Dylan’s ancient truck, wearing a sundress that left her shoulders bare and showed a lot of leg. She even had on high-heeled sandals, and she looked embarrassed as she tottered toward him. She was a boots-and-jeans kind of girl, uncomfortable in big-city shoes, he thought, and the realization jarred something deep inside him.
He wished he could call Jim, ask him to come another time, but it wouldn’t be right to put him off. Huntinghorse had been his best buddy ever since kindergarten, after all, though they’d been out of touch for a long while. He’d made a lot of other friends, rodeoing and building his company, but he’d never made a better one than Jim.
Logan me
t Briana in the middle of the yard, inclined his head toward Wanda, forgotten in the old beater, pawing at the side window and barking eagerly. “I’ll get her,” he said.
Briana blushed—even her shoulders glowed a fetching shade of pink. It would have been too obvious to check if her legs were affected, too, but he surely wanted to.
“Thanks,” she replied, watching him as he went to the truck, opened the door and hoisted Wanda down to the ground.
“You need to cut back on the chow,” he told the dog. He was painfully aware, the whole time, of his own work clothes, covered with hay dust, in contrast to Briana’s fragrant skin and hair.
There was some guilt, too—always some guilt. Inadvertently, he’d put her on the spot. Jim, after all, was Briana’s boss, and she didn’t know he’d be joining them.
“Thought you’d bring Alec and Josh,” he said, approaching her. He offered his arm because those heels of hers had sunk into the dirt and she looked stuck.
“They’re with their dad,” she replied. Then, with a wince, leaning against him a little, so wildfire raced through every part of him, she added, “Damn these stupid shoes.”
“You could take them off,” Logan said. Oddly, the moment felt as intimate as if he’d asked her to strip to the skin, not just kick away her shoes. They were pretty silly, but sexy as hell. There was another side to Briana Grant, and he was ready to explore it.
She looked at the rough ground, still littered with broken glass here and there, despite the admittedly half-assed cleanup effort he’d been making since he arrived. Shook her head. “I shouldn’t have worn them,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You look really…really nice,” Logan told her.
“Maybe I should go home and change,” she fretted, biting at her lower lip in a way that made it swell slightly and look highly kissable. And in need of serious nibbling by him.
Logan wanted to shoot down the leaving idea, and pronto. If Briana went home, she might not come back, especially if he told her that Jim was probably on his way to the ranch at that moment. “Stay,” he said, and his voice came out sounding hoarse, not at all like his usual Montana-boy drawl.
She looked up at him, and he wondered what was going on behind those spring-green eyes. Was she wishing she hadn’t come?
Just then, before he could warn her, Jim’s sleek black Porsche came over the rise.
“You’ve got to fix that sign,” Huntinghorse said as he got out of the car, carrying a six-pack of beer in one hand. “It almost scratched the roof of my ride.”
Briana didn’t actually stiffen—odds were, she liked Jim, since most people did—but Logan felt her reaction to his arrival, just the same. A sort of tightening up, so subtle that if he’d been standing even an inch farther away, he wouldn’t have caught it.
“I didn’t get a chance to explain,” Logan said quietly, close to her ear. That wasn’t the whole truth, of course—he hadn’t taken the chance to explain. He’d been too busy gaping at her, and wondering if the f-me shoes were meant to convey the message they did.
Jim’s smoky, savage gaze took in Briana’s sundress, and probably the shoulders and legs, too.
Logan felt an elemental stab of purely territorial irritation, the emotional equivalent of pissing a circle around Briana Grant to warn off any male who might catch her scent on the breeze.
“Jim,” Briana said, with friendly surprise.
Jim’s eyes shifted to Logan’s face. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said, putting a point on the words.
“It’s just a neighborly barbecue,” Briana said brightly, still standing there looking delicious, with her shoes sunk deep into the Montana dirt. With the next rain, it would turn to the gluey mud natives called gumbo. She turned her head, looked up into Logan’s face; he saw confusion in hers. “Isn’t that right, Logan?”
“It’s right,” Logan said, taking care not to sigh the words. Then, on a reckless impulse, he scooped Briana up into his arms and carried her toward the house, leaving Jim to follow. If he’d been asked, he’d have said it was because she could break an ankle hiking across a barnyard in those lame shoes, but that wasn’t the whole reason, and he knew it.
Jim followed, probably amused, as did Wanda and Sidekick.
Logan set Briana back on her feet when they reached the front porch.
She looked ruffled and pink all over, and immediately tugged at the sides of her dress, as if afraid it had ridden up. But she hadn’t protested, Logan noted, and that felt better than winning the lottery.
After he’d led Jim and Briana through the house to the kitchen, he dodged into the main bathroom for a quick shower and a change of clothes. When he came out again, both his guests were seated at the picnic table out on the adjoining patio, sipping beer. The dogs lay companionably at their feet, and the whole picture was just a little too cozy for Logan’s liking.
He put down the surge of jealousy he felt, knowing it was stupid. Jim was his closest friend and, besides, he had no claim on Briana Grant.
The smile she turned on Logan as he stepped out the side door soothed him in a way that troubled him even more than the rush of possessiveness had.
“It’s official,” she said. “Jim’s going to run for sheriff.”
She’d taken off her shoes. They lay at a helter-skelter angle under the table.
Heat surged through Logan again. Again, he waited it out.
“That’s…good,” he said, after a protracted silence, during which Jim raised one eyebrow and crooked up a corner of his mouth in a too-knowing grin.
“It’ll be a tough race,” Jim said. “Want a beer?”
Logan shook his head. “Maybe later.” He approached the grill he’d bought that day at the hardware store, lifted the shiny new lid and was assaulted by roiling smoke.
“Guess the fire’s ready,” Jim observed dryly. Then he winked at Briana. “I know these things. It’s the Indian blood.”
Briana laughed.
Logan was not amused, but he grinned at his friend. “I’ll get the steaks,” he said. You’re a conversational genius, Creed, he told himself.
Jim got up and followed him into the kitchen.
“Want me to get out of here?” he asked, as Logan took the marinating steaks out of the fridge. By then, he figured they’d soaked up enough goop.
“No,” Logan replied, but the word came out sounding peevish. He hadn’t intended that, and sighed, setting the baking dish with the steaks in it on the counter with a thump. Shoved a hand through his shower-dampened hair.
Jim chuckled, then let out a low whistle. “Lighten up, man,” he said. “Your primitive masculine instincts are showing.”
“Shit,” Logan said.
Jim laughed, shook his head. “Why didn’t you just tell me not to come, Logan? I would have understood.”
Logan thrust out another sigh. He’d been doing a lot of sighing, since he got back to Stillwater Springs. More accurately, since he’d met Briana Grant, picnicking with her kids and her dog in a graveyard, of all places. “Maybe, on some level,” he admitted, “I didn’t trust myself to be alone with her.”
“She scares you?” Jim asked, grinning, his expressive dark eyes glinting with amusement. “Oh, brother, you are so gone on this woman.”
“I just met her.”
Jim folded his brawny arms. He was wearing, Logan finally noticed, a short-sleeved white polo shirt, neatly pressed black slacks and polished loafers. He looked like…a politician.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know that look when I see it. Reminds me of a bull stuck to the cow-catcher on the front of a speeding locomotive.”
“You’re really going to run for sheriff,” Logan said, but he smiled at the image Jim had raised in his mind’s eye. He felt like that imaginary bull, off his feet, whizzing along an unknown track toward God knew what end.
“Think I can win?” Jim asked, and he sounded serious now. Set his hands on his hips, elbows jutting out.
&n
bsp; “Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m a redskin.”
“Very un-PC,” Logan told him, picking up the dish full of steaks. “You’re supposed to say ‘Native American.’”
“Thanks, white eyes,” Jim retorted, grinning. “I’ll remember that.”
Logan started for the back door. Briana was out there, looking all soft and fluffy and good, pulling at him like a magnet, all the more powerful because she didn’t seem to have a clue she was having that effect on him.
He felt another catch, this time in the middle of his chest, when he saw her bending to stroke Sidekick’s ear, the one with a chunk missing. He must have stopped, too, because Jim slammed into him from behind.
Practically sent him sprawling down the steps.
Picturing himself landing face-first in the dish of raw steak and goop, he jarred loose of the stupor he was in, as best he could.
“You’d better let Big Chief cook the meat, paleface,” Jim said under his breath, easing past Logan and then taking the dish out of his hands. “You seem to be a little off your game tonight.”
He was distracted—he’d probably burn dinner. He took one of the beers Jim had brought and sat down next to Briana at the picnic table, though not too close.
They ate salad, the three of them, and talked about ordinary things, and the steaks turned out okay.
Jim took his time leaving, though. Even when the meal was long over, and the mosquitoes were out, and the dogs had gnawed the steak bones down to nothing, he hung around.
Only when they went inside, to get away from the bugs, did “Big Chief” bid them adieu, head for his Porsche and drive away.
But he’d no more than pulled out when the courier arrived from the airport, bringing Snookums.
The crate looked small, Logan thought, as he went out to meet the guy and accept the delivery. He was conscious of Briana, standing on the porch watching, the whole time.
He sighed, took the crate by the handle and looked inside.
Snookums, it turned out, was one of those prissy little dust-mop terriers with hair that scraped the ground and a blue ribbon tied into his topknot. The kind of dog that yaps at every sound.
“Great,” he muttered.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 14