“Talk to me, Briana,” Logan said, making the rear tires scream and fling up dirt on all sides as he backed into a hard turn.
Her hair was coming loose from that tight braid; she pushed her bangs back with a swift motion of one hand. “I went inside the house,” she said, like someone hypnotized, or talking in their sleep. “Wh-when I didn’t see Alec and Josh in the yard. The—the dogs were there, but—”
“Did you get your cell phone off the counter?” Logan marveled at how calm he sounded; everything inside him was in a churning panic. If Alec and Josh had been his own sons, blood of his blood and flesh of his flesh, he couldn’t have been more frightened than he was.
She nodded, felt around, visibly realized she had her handbag. Fumbled through it, clasped the phone. Almost simultaneously, she raised her backside off the seat, straining against the seat belt, and pried Logan’s phone out of her hip pocket.
He took it as they careened down the long driveway.
*
NAUSEA ROILED in Briana’s stomach. Her palms were clammy with sweat, and somewhere inside her, someone was screaming in helpless hysteria.
Logan.
Thank God for Logan.
At the gate, he wheeled the truck in the direction of town.
And the cell phone rang in Briana’s hand.
She nearly dropped the thing, trying to open it. “Hello?” she blurted. “Josh? Alec?”
“Mom,” Josh said, barely whispering. “I’m scared.”
The back of her throat scalded. She looked frantically at Logan, nodded once. Somehow had the presence of mind to put the phone on Speaker. “Where—where are you?” she croaked.
“In—in the van,” Josh answered, starting to cry. “It’s dark in here, Mom, and Heather—Heather hit Alec when we stopped at the gas station ’cause he yelled for help and now I can’t wake him up—”
Be calm, urged the better angel.
Logan was already thumbing a number into his cell phone. Quietly describing the van to someone, probably the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office.
“Is your dad there?” Briana asked, fighting another rush of panic.
“No,” Josh whispered. “She’s coming back, Mom—I have to hang up—”
“Josh,” Briana said hastily, “put the phone on Vibrate—”
“I already did that—Bye—”
He was gone. Riding in the back of Vance and Heather’s van.
It’s dark in here, Mom… Heather hit Alec… I can’t wake him up…
“My babies,” Briana rasped. “My babies!”
“She couldn’t have gotten far,” Logan pointed out. “The dispatcher is contacting Sheriff Book by radio. She said he’ll have the state patrol block both highways out of town.”
“You heard what Josh said—Alec is hurt…”
Logan reached across, lightly squeezed the back of her neck. “Call Vance,” he said. “He might have some idea where she’d go, and if I were him, I’d sure as hell want to know what was going on.”
Briana opened her phone, begrudging every moment it was tied up because Josh wouldn’t be able to get through if he tried to call again. She didn’t recall her exhusband’s number, but Josh, the technological wiz, had programmed it in.
Vance answered on the second ring. “What now?” he snapped.
Briana drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, because she’d have screamed until her throat bled if she hadn’t. “Heather has the kids, Vance. She hit Alec. Josh says he can’t wake him up.”
“What the—”
“Do you know anything about this, Vance? Because if you do, you’d damned well better tell me!”
“That broad is certifiable,” Vance growled. “We had a fight, and this is her way of getting back at me—”
“Vance. She has the kids.”
“I’ll borrow a rig from one of the guys here at work and find her. Just chill out, will you?”
“No! I will not ‘chill out’! Where would she go, Vance?”
“My guess?” Vance barked. “The casino. She’ll think she can parlay what’s left of the grocery money into a stake—”
“The casino!” Briana yelled at Logan, so loudly that he winced.
Briana shut her phone with a snap, immediately dialed Jim.
“Jim Huntinghorse, your best bet for sheriff!”
“Jim, this is Briana and—”
“A vote for me is a vote for law and order—”
Dear God. It was his voice mail.
Shaking with exasperation and that incipient panic, Briana rang off and called the casino’s main number, asked to be connected to the security desk.
By then, they were speeding along the highway, with both Sheriff Book and Deputy Jenkins hot on their trail in their separate squad cars, sirens shrieking.
Briana explained the situation to casino security as coherently as she could and then hung up, praying Josh would call again, say that Heather had come to her senses, let them go, that he and Alec were all right….
But Josh didn’t call.
The battered van was parked at a reckless slant outside the casino’s west door, in a handicapped-only zone.
Briana bounded from Logan’s truck as the two squad cars screeched in alongside. She was aware of Floyd and the deputy only peripherally—her entire being was focused on getting to that van, pulling open the back doors.
Somehow, Logan and Vance got there first.
Alec and Josh lay inside on the floorboards, blinking in the darkness.
Vance hauled Josh out, since he was closer, and the boy clung to him with both arms, big as he was, hiccuping and saying “Dad,” over and over. Logan stepped aside, and Alec scrabbled, crablike, to Briana, whimpering, his cast thumping against the floor of the van as he moved.
“She—she was going to s-steal us,” Alec murmured, into the curve of Briana’s neck. “She said we’d n-never see you and Dad and Logan again—”
Vance eased Josh to his feet, kept an arm around his son’s shoulders, his gaze bleak as he watched Briana comforting Alec. “I’m sorry, Briana—I never thought she’d—”
Briana silenced him with a look, over the top of Alec’s head. Noted distractedly that Brett Turlow was sitting in the backseat of Sheriff Book’s car. If Floyd and Deputy Jenkins were around, they were somewhere beyond the frayed edges of her vision.
A scuffle at the casino door got everybody’s attention.
Briana, Logan, Vance and the boys all turned, just in time to see Heather being led outside, the sheriff holding one arm, the deputy holding the other. They were flanked by casino security, and Heather fought and screamed shrill invective, trying in vain to break free.
Alec held on tighter to Briana. “Don’t let her get us, Mom,” he pleaded. “Don’t let her get us—”
It was then that Vance broke away from Josh, barreling toward Heather like a charging bull.
“Uh-oh,” Logan said, and went after him at a run, tackled him just before he would have flung himself on Heather in a fury.
“Is Logan going to hurt Dad?” Josh asked anxiously, pressed against Briana’s side.
“No, honey,” Briana said. The adrenaline rush was subsiding now; she felt almost light-headed. She had to set Alec on the floorboard of the van again and grip one of the doors to keep herself upright.
Vance struggled, but Logan was stronger, and restrained him from behind, by the arms.
“You took my kids!” Vance raged at Heather, who walked with her chin high now, between the sheriff and the deputy. She’d stopped fighting them and assumed an almost regal dignity; she seemed to like all the attention she was getting. “You took my kids!”
Logan said something; Vance stiffened, then shook his head.
Logan let him go.
Deputy Jenkins settled Heather in the back of his squad car, and she sat there like some rock-queen about to be whisked away after a sold-out concert.
Sheriff Book approached Briana and the boys, and Logan and Vance took their places ne
arby, Logan at Briana’s right elbow, Vance a few feet to the left.
“You boys all right?” the sheriff asked, favoring Alec and Josh with an engaging, no-big-deal, happens-everyday kind of grin.
Alec nodded.
So did Josh.
Neither of them seemed certain.
“Best take these kids by the clinic for a checkup, just to make sure,” the sheriff said. “Then I’d like you all to come by the office, so we can get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ve got to get that rig back to my buddy,” Vance said, as both squad cars pulled out, lights and sirens blessedly stilled, and the three plainclothes security guards disappeared inside the casino.
Logan, somewhat to Briana’s surprise, laid a hand on Vance’s shoulder. “I’ll drop Briana and the boys off at the clinic, then pick you up at the shop,” he said.
Vance nodded his appreciation, gave Briana a sheepish glance, then went to Alec and Josh and hugged them awkwardly. A few moments later, he climbed into a subcompact and drove away.
Josh, Briana and Alec rode in the backseat of Logan’s truck, Briana keeping an arm around each of her boys as they headed for the clinic.
She didn’t talk, and neither did the kids. There would be plenty of time for that later. Thank God, there would be plenty of time.
*
BETWEEN THE EXAMS both boys received at the clinic—physically, they were both fine—and the stint in Sheriff Book’s office, hours had passed by the time they got back to the ranch house.
Logan carried a sleeping Alec inside, Josh and Briana following, all of them greeted by three barking dogs.
At Briana’s direction, Logan laid Alec on the air mattress in the living room.
“The horses—” he began.
She smiled wearily. “Feed them,” she said, already helping Josh to get undressed for bed. “I can manage this part.”
Logan left the house, taking the dogs with him. The pinto stood, still saddled, in the corral, the gray nearby, reins dangling from his bridle.
He put out hay first, then unsaddled the pinto, removed his bridle and then the gray’s, and set the tack inside his half-finished barn.
While the horses ate and the dogs did what dogs do after being inside for too long, Logan stood at the corral fence, looking up at the star-splattered sky.
Montana, he thought. It was home.
He glanced toward the house, saw the lights glowing golden in the windows. Yes, Montana and this ranch were home—to his body, anyhow. But to the intangible part of him—soul, spirit, whatever —Briana was the center of all universes.
When had he fallen in love with her?
At first sight, that day in the cemetery?
Over supper, at her place?
When they made love on his couch, and rockets went off?
He didn’t know, didn’t care.
He wanted to tell her how he felt, but she’d been through enough that day.
She’d already agreed to marry him, and until right now, that had been enough for Logan. Now, it wasn’t.
Both boys were sleeping when he and the dogs went back into the house, and Briana was in the shower.
Too rattled to sleep, Logan lowered the attic stairs, climbed them and lugged down three more plastic containers full of photographs, letters and other Creed memorabilia.
He was at the table, bent over the last box of pictures, when Briana came in, wearing one of his Tshirts. Her hair was freshly washed, and blazing like fire around her face.
“Hungry?” she asked, sounding for all the world like a wife, at the end of a long day.
“I could eat,” Logan admitted, but the words came out sounding gravelly and rough.
She paused beside his chair, laid a hand on his shoulder, bent to kiss the top of his head.
I love you, he told her silently.
“Scrambled eggs?” she asked.
He smiled, nodded. “That would be good,” he said.
While she cooked, he turned back to the photographs. Dylan. Tyler. Himself. All at different ages—wearing Halloween costumes. Starting school in some long-gone, leaf-fiery September. Even a few shots of them opening presents on Christmas morning, in those glorious years when Jake hadn’t taken a chain saw to the tree.
“What do you suppose will happen to Heather?” Briana asked, almost idly, cracking eggs into a skillet Logan’s great-grandmother had probably used.
“I don’t know,” Logan said, picking up the last picture packet. Two sets of negatives, with an envelope tucked in between. “She needs help, that’s obvious.”
“Vance is pressing charges against Heather,” Briana remarked. “For kidnapping.”
Logan was only vaguely aware of her now—he’d taken the envelope out of the photo packet, seen the names scrawled on the front of it in Jake’s familiar hand.
To my sons.
“That’s nice,” he said.
She came to him, sat down. Smiled. “Logan Creed,” she accused good-naturedly, “you are not listening to me.”
He blinked.
She noticed the envelope. Fell silent.
Hands shaking slightly, Logan opened the letter.
If you’ve looked this far, Jake had written, you’re ready to read this pitiful missive from your soon-to-be dearly departed father…
A chill rippled down Logan’s spine, then back up again.
Briana dragged her chair closer to his and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
I tried, the letter went on, but I could never get the hang of living. It was just too damn hard. So today, I mean to go up on the mountain, just like always, and rig a logging chain…
The kitchen whirled around Logan.
Fragmented images blipped across his brain—Tyler, so young, lapsing into a year-long silence when they told him his mother was dead by her own hand. Dylan, baffled by grief. Himself, sobbing in the privacy of his room for poor, benighted Angela, who had always set out cookies and milk as soon as she heard the school bus squeaking to a loud halt at the end of the long driveway.
“Weak,” Jake had said, the day of Angela’s funeral. “She was weak.”
“Logan?” Briana’s hand rested on the nape of his neck; he realized he’d lowered his head to rest on his folded arms, amidst all those badly focused snapshots. “Logan—?”
“He killed himself,” he said. “Made it look like an accident, so we could collect the insurance money.”
“What?” she asked.
Logan raised his head, feeling drunk. Pole-axed. “That chickenshit, selfish son of a bitch killed himself.” He slammed a hand down on the brief letter lying on the table. “Read it for yourself. He thought he was being noble—”
She scooted her chair nearer, pressed her face into his hair. “Who, Logan? Who killed himself?”
“My father,” Logan answered, after a long time. He straightened. “My father.”
Her eyes were green pools of confusion, concern. “Your father—?”
He shoved the letter at her. He could handle this, once he’d had a little time to absorb the shock. Dylan would handle it, too, though he’d be as pissed as Logan was, for a while. But Tyler? Ty, who had lost his mother to suicide—how was he supposed to take news like that?
While Briana read the letter, tears welling in her eyes as she took in the full meaning of what Jake had written, Logan pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket.
Dialed Dylan’s number.
“Yo, Logan,” Dylan said cheerfully, after the second ring. “What’s up? Did Cimarron get out? I really thought that fence would hold—”
“It isn’t that,” Logan broke in.
“What, then? Look, we just finished shooting a rodeo scene a few minutes ago and I’ve got a party in half an hour and—”
“Dylan,” Logan said. “This is about Dad’s…accident.”
He heard Dylan draw in a breath. And he couldn’t go on.
Briana cupped his face in her hands, looked deeply into his eyes.
“
Logan?” Dylan called from inside the phone, sounding as if he were on another planet, not just in another state.
Logan nodded to Briana.
She took the phone. “Dylan? This is Briana. You need to come home—as soon as you can.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHERIFF BOOK accepted the cup of coffee Briana offered him, there in Logan’s kitchen the next morning, with a grateful nod of his head. Logan, who had been at the computer since he’d come in from feeding the horses, joined them.
He immediately produced Jake’s letter, handed it to the sheriff. Book sat down to read it.
“I’ve already contacted the insurance company,” Logan said, leaning against the counter and folding his arms. “I’ll be reimbursing them, with interest, as soon as they give me the numbers.”
The sheriff gave a low whistle. His whole countenance seemed to brighten, as though he’d shed some crushing weight. He set the letter carefully aside. “I came out here to tell you folks how things stand with Brett Turlow and that Heather woman,” he said. “I sure didn’t expect this.”
Briana cast a sidelong glance at Logan, pulled up a chair at the table. Waited. She needed to know whether or not Heather had been released, if she still presented a continuing danger to Alec and Josh, but for the moment, Jake Creed’s suicide took precedence over everything else.
Sheriff Book sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Logan,” he said. “It’s a hell of a thing, finding out something like this. Poor Jake—it just seemed like he could never get in step with the rest of the world.” He paused, regarding Logan thoughtfully. “You tell Dylan and Tyler yet?”
Logan shook his head. “Dylan’s on his way—he’ll be here in a few days. Tyler still isn’t returning my calls.”
“Ty’s gonna take this hard,” Book said. He’d been the one to find Angela lying dead in a seedy motel room, according to Logan, and he had to be remembering that now. Briana felt almost as sorry for the lawman as she did for Logan and his brothers. “Real hard.”
A muscle bunched in Logan’s jaw—his eyes glinted with weariness and shock. In the night, Briana had comforted him in the only way she knew how—with her body. He’d alternately lost himself in her and lay staring up at the ceiling, his hands cupped behind his head.
Linda Lael Miller Montana Creeds Series Volume 1: Montana Creeds: LoganMontana Creeds: DylanMontana Creeds: Tyler Page 28