The Creed Legacy

by Linda Lael Miller

  Brody glanced at his uncle, unclamped his jawbones. “What do you want me to say, Davis? That I was wrong to stay away all those years?” A pause. “Well, fine. I was wrong.”

  “It’s not a matter of what’s right or wrong,” Davis countered quietly. “What bothers me is that you must not have known you’d be welcome here.”

  “There was that blowup between Conner and me, over Joleen—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, boy,” Davis broke in, sounding gruffer and more annoyed now. “That could have been settled over a couple of beers after supper, and you damn well know it.” He gave a deep, ragged sigh. “Here’s how I figure it…correct me if I’m mistaken—you were ashamed to come home. You figured it was your fault, what happened to the wife and the boy, and you wouldn’t let yourself turn to your family and your friends.”

  Again, Brody’s back teeth ground together. He had to consciously relax his whole face, and that made it damn near impossible to keep the devil-may-care mask in place.

  “I never loved Lisa,” he heard himself say, straight out.

  It was crazy, because he’d never intended to say anything of the sort.

  “You tried to do right by her, Brody. When you found out she was carrying your baby, you went to her. You took responsibility. That might not amount to the kind of love they print up inside Valentine cards, but it is love. It’s the practical, take-hold, buckle-down-and-get-itdone kind of love that pretty words can’t hold a candle to.”

  Conner thumped on the roof of the cab with one fist, signaling that they’d reached a place where the fence needed mending. Brody stopped the pickup with a lurch that made his brother shout a swear word.

  Brody grinned over at Davis. “You missed your calling, cowboy,” he said. “You ought to sign on with a greeting card company and write poetry.”

  Davis didn’t crack a smile. “You think about what I said, son. What happened, happened. No getting around it—that kind of loss is an awful thing, but it’s over. Your wife and your little boy are gone, and that’s a shame, but you’re alive, and that’s counts for something. Make use of the time you have, Brody.”

  Just then, Conner stepped onto the driver’s-side running board and banged at the window once, with the flat of his hand. He looked seriously pissed.

  “Are you trying to kill me and these dogs, driving like that?” he demanded. “First you’re doing fifty, then you stop on a damn dime!”

  Brody shoved the truck door open, forcing Conner to scramble clear. “Hell, no,” Brody mocked, grinning. “If that were the case, I would surely have succeeded.”

  Davis rolled his eyes. “Don’t start, you two,” he warned. “We’ve got work to do.”

  THE BIDS ON THE GYPSY SKIRT were still climbing, Carolyn learned, later in the morning, when she checked the auction site again. Tricia had a routine doctor’s appointment, so she wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours.

  Meanwhile, Carolyn couldn’t seem to concentrate on the task at hand long enough to get anything done.

  Ideas for more one-of-a-kind garments had been pouring into her head in such plentitude that she had to keep stopping whatever she happened to be doing at the time to rough out a sketch, lest, in her scatterbrained state of mind, she forget.

  A few customers stopped in, and she boxed and addressed several orders for shipping.

  Every time she passed through the main part of the shop, her gaze went straight to the large square package containing the Weaver. She hadn’t given the batik a thought the night before, for obvious reasons, and Brody probably hadn’t, either.

  Too bad, because he could have taken it with him when he headed home, and saved her a trip.

  On the other hand, Brody Creed had a stubborn streak as wide as the river, and he might have refused to take the piece with him just because he wanted her to deliver it.

  Carolyn ran a fingertip over the wrapping, a little smile playing around her mouth but never quite coming in for a landing.

  When the time was right, she would take the batik to Brody’s place, as agreed, but there might be more to the delivery than a piece of art.

  She was thinking this lascivious thought, and flirting with a few others, when the door of the shop opened, bell jingling, and she braced herself for another onslaught of unexpected customers.

  Instead, Primrose Sullivan swept in, wearing one of her brightly colored caftans and lugging more paintings.

  “I’ve been working like a crazy woman,” she enthused. “Any time you want me to stop bringing in artwork, you just tell me.”

  Carolyn laughed, glad to see her friend. And the paintings.

  The last batch was selling fast, via the website.

  Primrose set down her burden with the gentleness of a mother putting a child down for an afternoon nap and beamed at Carolyn, her blue eyes huge behind the lenses of her leopard-skin glasses.

  “It’s all over town,” Primrose announced gleefully.

  This was another OMG moment for Carolyn, but not the pleasant kind. She felt her ears burning and her throat closed up tight. Which was a good thing, as it turned out, because she’d been on the verge of blurting out that Brody hadn’t stayed the whole night, which was true, and that nothing had happened—not true—and that, frankly, she was getting sick of being gossiped about.

  “You’re planning to expand the shop,” Primrose rushed on, making Carolyn almighty thankful that she hadn’t been able to speak before. “I think that’s so exciting! Is it true that you’re planning to hire help?”

  “Y-yes,” Carolyn managed to respond, somewhat weakly. “It’s true. Tricia and I are hoping you might consent to teach some classes…?”

  Primrose rubbed her many-ringed hands together in anticipation. “You bet I will,” she said. “And you might consider bringing Mavis Pawlings in to teach sometime—she knows everything there is to know about scrapbooking and rubber stamps and all that sort of thing. Then there’s Lily Wilde—one of her quilts won best of show last year at the state fair—”

  Carolyn smiled, held up both hands, palms out. “Whoa, Primrose,” she said good-naturedly, “give me a minute to catch up.”

  But Primrose was too excited to be still, even for that long. “Scrapbooking is very big, you know,” she blurted. “And quilts? Heavens, that’s become a regular industry, all by itself.” She looked around speculatively, a comical sight with her magnified eyes. “Knock out a wall or two,” she mused, “and you could sell fabric. This town needs a fabric store—folks have to drive all the way to Denver for a few yards of cotton and spool of thread as it is now.”

  “Primrose,” Carolyn pleaded, grinning, “take a breath.”

  Primrose did take a breath, but the respite was brief. “Handmade items are great,” she continued, “but most of your business comes in over the website, doesn’t it?”

  “Most of it,” Carolyn agreed cautiously. “Why?”

  Primrose was on a real roll. “The sachets and the doilies and all the rest of it are fine—and heaven knows I’m grateful to you and Tricia for selling so many of my batiks—but it might be a better use of floor space to display things people would come in purposely to buy. Like quilting fabric. Maybe even a sewing machine or two.”

  Carolyn smiled. “Primrose?”

  “Yes, dear?” The older woman beamed.

  “How would you like a part-time job?”

  Primrose all but clapped her hands. “Are you offering me one? My friends all say I spend too much time in my studio, and I’m bound to get stale or even burn out, and I’d just love a change of scene for a few hours a day.”

  “I’ll have to double-check with Tricia, of course,” Carolyn said, “but I can’t think of anybody I’d rather hire to help out around here, and I’m sure she’ll agree.”

  Primrose looked around, her expression dreamy now. “Oh,” she said, “I can just see it all, in my mind’s eye.”

  “Me, too,” Carolyn agreed.

  It was then that Primrose noticed the parcel containi
ng the Weaver, still resting on top of a display table. There was something of a caress to the way she touched the wrapping. “I could drop this off at Brody’s place on my way home,” she offered.

  Silently, Carolyn called herself three kinds of crazy— here was her chance to cross an errand off her to-do list and a way to show Brody that she wasn’t about to dance to his tune—but she shook her head. “He’s out at the ranch, working with Davis and Conner,” she said. “And the Weaver is much too valuable to be left on his doorstep.”

  Primrose watched Carolyn closely for a moment, a happy light dancing in her eyes. “You know right where Brody Creed is, at this very minute,” she observed, in a teasing tone. “Now, isn’t that interesting?”

  Carolyn blushed slightly. “I just assumed that’s where he’d be,” she said lamely.

  Primrose chuckled. “It does my old heart good,” she said. Like many older people, Primrose didn’t do segues.

  Carolyn didn’t ask what the woman meant, because she already knew.

  Segues weren’t always necessary, now were they?

  Primrose went on to show Carolyn each of the new pieces she’d just brought in, and Carolyn’s admiration was sincere.

  “What’s it like, to be able to bring people and animals to life on cloth or a canvas, the way you do?” she asked wistfully.

  Primrose patted her gently on the back. “I imagine it’s about the same as being able to sew up something beautiful in no time flat, the way you do,” she replied. “I’ve seen your work, Carolyn. You have an eye for line and color and movement—stop being so all-fired humble all the time and own it.”

  Own it.

  What did that mean, exactly?

  All her life, it seemed to Carolyn, she’d been trying to prove something—she was a foster kid, but— She’d never gone to college, but— She’d fallen head over heels for Brody Creed, back in the day, but—

  But what if everything she’d ever wanted was within her grasp—and all she had to do was own it?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SATURDAY TOOK ITS sweet time rolling around, as far as Brody was concerned, and staying away from Carolyn in the meantime was only possible because he’d been putting in twelve-hour days on the ranch, along with Davis and Conner. There were fences to mend, strays to round up, sick cows to dose with medicine, stalls to muck out and horses to shoe, deworm and exercise.

  A rancher’s work is, quite literally, never done.

  Since he and Kim and the minidogs were heading out to Stone Creek Sunday morning, Davis whistled a lot, and there was a spring in his step. He was a born grandfather, and Brody knew his uncle could hardly wait for Tricia and Conner’s little one to be born so he’d have a Creed youngster readily available for spoiling.

  Conner was in a fairly good mood, too, now that Tricia had agreed to stay home, let Carolyn be in charge of things at the shop and take it easy until after the baby came.

  As for Brody himself, well, he was as jumpy as ice water on a hot griddle. His moods ran the gamut from woe-is-me to yee-haw, and he never knew when one mood would give way to the other.

  He worked a half day on Saturday, appropriated a horse trailer to bring Moonshine back from the ranch to the new barn and, with Barney’s questionable assistance, got the gelding settled in his own stall.

  To Brody’s way of thinking, Moonshine looked a bit on the lonely side, all by himself in that big place, fancy as it was shaping up to be. The stalls were finished and the water and electricity were hooked up, which was more than could be said of the house. The corral fence stood straight and sturdy, too.

  “Maybe you and I ought to move in with Moonshine,” he told Barney, only half kidding. It wasn’t even June yet, and the house wouldn’t be ready to live in until mid-August, according to the contractor.

  Barney trotted happily at his side, panting, as they headed toward the log cabin where he’d been living since he’d bought the River’s Bend property from Tricia.

  He hated the lack of elbow room, the counter running through the middle of the building, the jury-rigged bathroom and the borrowed bed and making do with a knee-high fridge and a microwave the size of a shoebox.

  Most of all, he hated that he was always alone in the place. That definitely sucked.

  But, hallelujah, it was finally Saturday.

  He’d had part of the contractor’s crew up at the Bluebird Drive-in for a couple of days now, cleaning up the snack bar and hooking up a popcorn machine, rented, like the projector, and he’d hired a caterer from Denver to whip up and deliver a fancy meal for two, complete with wine and candlelight.

  Oh, he had definitely outdone himself this time, Brody thought cheerfully. Not that he went around revamping old drive-in theaters for one dinner-and-movie date—there had been a lot of women in his life, and he’d given some of them expensive presents, or paid their bills a time or two, but he’d never done anything quite like this before.

  However things shook out between him and Carolyn, when it was all over but the shoutin’, he’d have this night to remember, and so would she.

  Brody ducked into his makeshift bathroom, stripped off his work clothes and showered.

  After that, he put on clean jeans, a pale blue Western shirt, socks and his second-best boots. It was still too early in the day to go with the custom-made pair, the ones he usually broke out only for weddings and funerals with the Creed brand subtly embossed into each shaft.

  He ran a comb through his hair—he needed barbering, he guessed, but the more clean-cut he was, the more he could have passed for Conner, and something about that chapped his hide a little. Love his brother though he did, Brody figured it was enough that he and his twin had the same face, coloring and build.

  They didn’t need the same haircut and close shave, too.

  Hungry, but downright averse to the idea of yet another half-assed concoction made up of the strange assortment of stuff in his refrigerator, he decided he’d treat himself to a hamburger and a milk shake for lunch.

  With that in mind, he left Barney to snooze on the dog bed, while he drove over to the Birdcage Café for a generous helping of fat, sugar and preservatives.

  The hole-in-the-wall restaurant had been a mainstay in Lonesome Bend since before his dad and Davis were born, and while everybody wondered, nobody recalled why any sensible person would give a food-service establishment—even a greasy spoon like that one—such an unappetizing name.

  For all that, the Birdcage served a mean burger, made from scratch, and they grilled the buns in real butter before slapping a thick patty of ground beef between them. They changed the oil in their deep-fat fryer once a week whether it needed doing or not, and the only thing better than their potato salad was Natty McCall’s secret-recipe chili, available only at the annual rummage sale in late October.

  The parking spaces on the street were full, as usual, so Brody pulled into the dusty gravel lot next to the café, driving slowly so he wouldn’t get his truck too dirty before it was time to pick Carolyn up for their get-together that night.

  He had some high hopes for the together part.

  “Way you was drivin’ two miles an hour, I figured some maiden schoolmarm was fixin’ to get out of that truck,” boomed Will Carlson, one of several old-timers who took turns holding down the peeling wooden bench under the Birdcage’s front window, as Brody walked toward him.

  “How many maiden schoolmarms drive extended-cab pickups, Will?” Brody retorted with a good-natured grin and a tug at the brim of a hat he wasn’t wearing.

  Will eyed him from beneath the bill of a ratty old cap, his face beard-stubbled and loose-skinned. He shifted his jaw around, most likely in an effort to realign his ill-fitting dentures. “You come here to see Joleen?”

  The old man’s question didn’t register with Brody until it was too late—by the time it did, he’d already pushed open the front door and stepped inside.

  And there was Joleen, wearing a waitress uniform and flirting shamelessly with some out-of-
towner in a business suit while she took his order.

  Brody briefly considered bolting, but one, that would be a chickenshit thing to do, since this was still a free country the last time he checked and he had as much right to be there as anybody, and two, he wanted a grease-burger.

  So he stayed put, feeling his neck warm up as everybody in the café turned to look at him.

  Including Joleen.

  Brody nodded a greeting to her and took the last stool at the counter, between two grizzled ranchers who’d lived around Lonesome Bend since the fifth day of Creation. That pair of old buzzards hadn’t spoken to each other in fifty years, it was said—something about a hand of poker and a girl—which was the only reason there was a single place to sit down.

  Joleen, sly-eyed, finished writing up the suit’s order and sashayed behind the counter to stand directly in front of Brody.

  “Well,” she said, almost purring. “If it isn’t Brody Creed.”

  Brody reset his shoulders, set his hands on the counter, fingers interlaced. “Hello, Joleen,” he said casually. “How about a burger with everything and a chocolate milk shake?”

  Joleen made no move to write down the request or relay it to the fry cook back at the grill. All the chatter had ceased, and even the jukebox fell silent.

  Evidently, the folks who patronized the Birdcage had free time aplenty, if they could sit around gawking like they were, with their ears practically tilting forward, like Moonshine’s did when he was trying to decide whether or not he ought to spook.

  Joleen folded her arms, underscoring her ample breasts. You probably thought I’d be long gone by now, didn’t you?” she asked, with acid sweetness.

  “A man can always hope,” Brody replied mildly.

  This brought a few snickers from the onlookers and made Joleen’s green eyes flash with temper.

  Brody wondered idly if her eyes were really green, or if she was wearing another set of contact lenses. He didn’t plan on getting close enough to find out.