Creed's Honor

by Linda Lael Miller

  “That’s preposterous,” Tricia sputtered. But gears were turning in her mind. Was she like her mother? Was she incapable of opening her heart and her life to another person?

  Diana smiled. Pushed the car keys closer. “Here. Take my car and drive yourself to Hunter’s studio and tell that egomaniac what he can do with his romantic cruise to Mexico, not to mention all those promises. That will be a start, anyway.”

  Tricia swallowed hard. It didn’t seem like a start to her, but the end of a safe and comfortable and, okay, boring time in her life.

  In the next instant, another possibility occurred to her. “Is there something you should have told me?” Tricia asked, very quietly. But she did reach for the car keys. “Diana, what do you know about Hunter that I don’t?”

  “I’m your best friend,” Diana said, with equal amounts of frustration and affection. “If I had any kind of goods on the guy, I’d have told you in a heartbeat. It’s just a feeling I have, that’s all—that he’s not good enough for you. He’s sort of—shifty.”

  “Shifty.” Tricia sighed. “I’ll be back,” she said.

  A few minutes later, she was driving toward downtown Seattle in her friend’s sporty blue BMW, keeping the comparison Diana had drawn between Tricia and her mother at bay by rehearsing what she’d say when she got to Hunter’s studio.

  I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I know it’s rude to just show up like this.

  Trouble was, she didn’t feel like apologizing. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  There’s this guy in Lonesome Bend…I barely know him, you understand, but I’d like—love—to explore the possibilities.

  No, that wouldn’t do, either. What might or might not happen between her and Conner was flat-out none of Hunter’s business, once they’d agreed to see other people.

  Let’s face it, Hunter. We haven’t been a couple in a long time.

  “Excellent,” Tricia said, out loud and with scorn.

  She took a wrong turn at the next light and, since downtown Seattle was composed of one-way streets, she had to drive even farther out of her way just to backtrack. By the time she pulled into the parking lot in Pioneer Square, she was no closer to deciding what to say to Hunter than she had been when she’d left Diana and Paul’s place.

  And it was only then that she realized she hadn’t even checked her lipstick, let alone done anything with her hair.

  She was decently dressed, though, since she and Diana were planning a trip to the mall later that day. She’d replaced her usual Lonesome Bend garb of jeans and tops—T-shirts in spring and summer, sweatshirts in fall and winter—with a pair of black jeans and a simple white top.

  Breaking up, she decided, marching herself toward the brick building where Hunter lived and painted in an elegantly rustic loft, shouldn’t be all that hard to do.

  The converted warehouse boasted a doorman, as well as a stunning view of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains, and Tony recognized her right away.

  His eyes rounded. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said awkwardly. “How have you been, Ms. McCall?”

  “I’ve been fine, Tony,” Tricia said, stepping into the elevator. “I’ll see myself in, thanks.”

  Tony blinked and, as the door slipped closed, Tricia would have sworn she’d seen him lunge for the intercom.

  Sure enough, when the elevator reached the top floor, Hunter was standing right there, waiting for her.

  He was good-looking, she thought offhandedly, in a game-show-host kind of way. All teeth and hair.

  “Tricia!” he said. “I wasn’t expecting—”

  “I’m sorry,” Tricia said, forgetting her firm decision not to apologize. “I should have called.”

  Hunter sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. He didn’t seem to know what to do or say and, once or twice, he glanced back at the half-open door leading into his loft. “Well,” he finally stammered out, “I guess there’s no harm done.”

  “Good,” Tricia said. Puzzle pieces were falling into place.

  What an idiot she’d been, she was thinking. What a naïve, romantic idiot. Hunter wasn’t alone, and he probably hadn’t been, from the day she left for Colorado, intending to settle her dad’s estate and return right away.

  She smiled. If she’d cared about Hunter, she might have said something catty, like, “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

  If she’d cared, she’d have been hurt and angry, because she knew in every fiber of her being that there was a woman inside, probably listening at the door. Maybe dressed and maybe not.

  Instead, she felt a tremendous sense of relief. And she laughed. “It’s okay, Hunter,” she said. “I just came by to tell you I won’t be coming along on that cruise, but thanks anyway.”

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth dropped open for a moment, before he regained control. Enormously successful in just about every area of his life, he wasn’t used to rejection.

  A face appeared in the opening between the door and the frame. Hunter’s guest was pretty, with spiky blonde hair, and way too young for him.

  “What cruise?” Lolita asked, pouting.

  “Oops,” Tricia said, amused.

  Hunter reddened. “Monica has been doing some modeling for me,” he said.

  Along with a few other things, Tricia thought.

  “Monica,” Hunter snapped, “go back inside.”

  “I want to know about this cruise,” Monica said.

  “It’s all a big mistake,” Tricia told the young woman cheerfully. “I must be in the wrong building.”

  “Oh,” Monica replied, still confused but willing to be mollified. With that, she retreated, and closed the door to Hunter’s loft.

  “It’s just that you were gone so long,” Hunter said, miserably. Then he brightened. “But now that you’re back—”

  Tricia smiled and shook her head. “I’m not back, Hunter,” she told him. “Not the way you mean, anyway.”

  “If you’ll just give me a chance—the cruise—”

  “No cruise,” Tricia said, turning to push the down button that would summon the elevator again. “Goodbye, Hunter. Have an excellent life.”

  She truly meant those words.

  It was over. She was free.

  “Wait,” Hunter protested. “What about all our plans? What about the gallery we were going to open together? What about—?”

  The elevator doors swished open. It hadn’t gone anywhere.

  Tricia stepped inside. Waggled her fingers at Hunter in farewell and mouthed the word Over.

  And that was it.

  Tony, the doorman, was waiting anxiously when she emerged into the lobby seconds later. He was probably used to women coming and going, used to scenes.

  Tricia’s smile obviously took him aback.

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, then scrambled to hold the lobby door for her. “You’re all right?” he asked meekly.

  “Oh, I’m better than all right,” Tricia answered.

  And I am not emotionally distant, like my mother.

  Much.

  THE DOG RAN AWAY TWICE before he figured out that he didn’t live in town anymore.

  Both times, he went straight to Tricia’s place, and both times Conner found him sitting on the landing outside her door, waiting in vain to be admitted.

  The sight choked Conner up a little, and not just because the critter looked so pitiful. He knew how that dog felt, because he missed Tricia, too. Missed her more than he’d ever thought it was possible to miss a woman, especially when he’d never done anything more than kiss her.

  “Tell you what,” Conner said gruffly, after hauling the dog bodily down the stairs and setting him in the passenger seat of his truck. “We’ll go back to calling you Valentino. No more Bill. How would that be?”

  Valentino licked Conner’s cheek and settled himself for the ride back out to the ranch, looking straight out through the windshield.

  It started to rain right after that, and Conner
succumbed to the low mood that had been trying to drag him under ever since Tricia left for Seattle. At home, he did the usual chores, keeping one eye on Valentino while he worked. The dog sat in the open doorway of the barn, his furry back turned to Conner, cutting a forlorn figure against a backdrop of gray drizzle.

  Later, Conner built a fire in the stove in the kitchen and grilled up a good-size T-bone steak for supper.

  He and Valentino shared the meat and a couple of cans of beer.

  When Brody wandered in out of the storm, around eight that night, Conner was damn near glad to see him.

  “Guess I’ve thrown in with a somber outfit,” Brody drawled, shrugging out of his wet coat and hanging it up, along with his hat. “I don’t know which of you looks more down in the mouth, little brother—you or the dog.”

  “His name is Valentino,” Conner said, resting his booted feet on the chrome ledge around the stove. He’d changed and showered after he was through with the chores, but he couldn’t seem to get warm.

  Brody chuckled. “Valentino? I thought it was Bill or something like that.”

  “Bill didn’t work for him,” Conner admitted. “So it’s back to Valentino.”

  “Oh,” Brody said, moving to the refrigerator. He sighed, once he’d seen the contents. “I thought I smelled steak.”

  “You did,” Conner said. “We ate it.”

  Brody hadn’t closed on the property he’d bought from Tricia yet, and Carolyn was still staying up at Kim and Davis’s place, so the brothers had been sharing the main house. Giving each other lots of room and speaking only when it couldn’t be avoided.

  “Kim called today,” Brody said, taking a carton of eggs from the fridge and moving on to the electric stove. “They’re coming back early—her and Davis, I mean—and there’ll be a crowd for Thanksgiving. Boston and his pretty wife and the kids will be here.”

  Boston was and always had been Brody’s name for Steven.

  “That’s good,” Conner said. Brody was in an unusually chatty mood, it seemed to him. Maybe he’d shut up, if Conner kept his responses to a word or two.

  A cast-iron skillet clanged onto a burner, and Brody started cracking eggs.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “No,” Conner answered.

  Right about then, thunder tore open the sky, and hard rain lashed against the sturdy walls of the house, pattered on the windows.

  Valentino scooted closer to Conner’s chair, and Conner reached out to stroke the dog’s head.

  “Weather like this chills a man to the core,” Brody remarked, with an audible shudder. “There ain’t much I wouldn’t give for a nice, warm woman right about now.”

  The statement rankled, though Conner couldn’t have said why. Not without giving it some thought, anyhow. He decided it was the ain’t that got to him.

  “What’s with the yokel routine?” he grumbled. Brody had a college degree, just as he did.

  Brody laughed. “I was waxing colloquial,” he said. “Making conversation.”

  “Well, don’t,” Conner snapped.

  “Don’t wax colloquial?”

  “Don’t make conversation.”

  Brody gave a heavy sigh. “This isn’t about Joleen, I’m guessing,” he said.

  “Nope,” Conner agreed.

  “Then what? The land I bought from Tricia McCall?”

  “Why would I give a damn about that?”

  “Got me,” Brody said. The words had a built-in shrug. “Maybe you figure Tricia goes along with the deal.”

  If it wouldn’t have scared the dog, Conner would have been on his feet, across the room and closing his hands around Brody’s throat, all in the space of a heartbeat.

  “Tricia’s got better sense than to take up with the likes of you,” Conner said, still in his chair in front of the stove. Or me, he added silently. “She plans on moving back to Seattle pretty soon. That’s why I have the dog.”

  “I do believe that’s the most you’ve said to me in ten years,” Brody commented, rattling utensils around in a drawer until he found a spatula to turn the eggs. “You like her, Conner?”

  “She’s all right,” Conner said.

  All right? Kissing her had practically turned him inside out. God only knew what would happen if they ever made love. Fireworks, probably. Meteor showers.

  Earthquakes, without a doubt.

  Again, Brody laughed. It gave Conner that old feeling that he and Brody could see inside each other’s heads.

  “I don’t have designs on Tricia,” Brody said. He’d stacked the eggs onto a plate like a pile of pancakes, and he was headed for the table.

  “None of my concern if you do,” Conner said.

  “Like hell,” Brody responded, busy digging in to the eggs. “You think you know all about me, brother, but you don’t.”

  “Is that right?” Conner asked, wondering if it meant anything that Brody had just said “brother” instead of the usual “little brother.” Deciding it didn’t.

  “Fact is,” Brody reflected, looking at Conner now, “I’m more like you than you’d care to admit, and you’re more like me than anybody else knows.”

  Conner absorbed that statement, swallowed the immediate urge to refute it. Even in friendlier days, he and Brody had lived to disagree with each other—he supposed it was because they’d needed, as kids, to establish separate identities. In most people’s eyes, they were practically interchangeable, each of them only half a person without the other.

  “Where have you been all this time, Brody?” Conner asked, taking himself by surprise. It seemed he was always saying something he hadn’t meant to say, lately. To Brody and to Tricia, anyway.

  “Around,” Brody said.

  “Come on,” Conner said, in an angry rasp, turning his chair around so his back was to the stove now, and he was facing Brody, who was still sitting at the table, though he’d stopped eating. Valentino adjusted himself to the new arrangement, sticking close enough to rest his muzzle on Conner’s right boot.

  “Just around,” Brody reiterated. “For now, Conner, that needs to be enough.”

  Conner didn’t answer.

  Brody wasn’t finished, though. And that was strange, given that this time he’d been the one to pull his punches. “I’ll tell you what I told Boston, back when he asked me the same question,” Brody said. “I wasn’t in jail, or anything like that. There’s no big secret—but there is some stuff I’m not ready to talk about. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Conner replied.

  Brody left the table, carried his plate and his silverware to the sink, set them down. “I’ll be out of town for a few days, as of tomorrow,” he said, as though it mattered. “But I’m coming back to Lonesome Bend, for sure. Soon as I close on that real-estate deal, I’ll be living in that log building at the campground and you’ll be rid of me.”

  “Whatever,” Conner said.

  “Yeah,” Brody said hoarsely. “Well, good night, little brother.”

  “Night,” Conner ground out.

  When he and Valentino were alone in the kitchen again, the dog lifted his head off Conner’s instep and gave an inquiring little whine.

  “We might as well turn in, too,” Conner said.

  Tired as he was, sleep eluded him for a long time.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Conner awakened to a loud pounding at the back door.

  Grumbling, he rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and padded out into the kitchen.

  Dawn hadn’t even cracked the horizon yet, but the porch light was on, and he could see Tricia standing out there, hands cupped on either side of her face, peering in through the window beside the door.

  Conner’s heart did a funny little spin, right up into his throat.

  Valentino, at his side as ever, gave a happy little yelp.

  “I want my dog back,” Tricia said, first thing, when Conner had pulled open the door. With that, she dropped to her knees, right there on the threshold, and hugged Valentino, laughing as he li
cked her face in welcome. “Oh, buddy, I’ve missed you.” she crooned, burying her face in the dog’s ruff.

  Conner rubbed his bare chest with the heel of one palm. “You mind coming inside?” he asked, in a tone that would have led some people to believe things like this—women showing up at his house in what amounted to the middle of the night—happened to him all the time. “So I can shut the door?”

  She got to her feet, smiling, and stepped into the house.

  Conner pushed the door closed, looking her over.

  He saw her eyes widen as she registered that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Hold on,” he said, heading into his old room, the one Brody had taken over, and grabbing the first garment he got his hands on.

  Turned out to be a T-shirt with a lot of holes and a lewd slogan on the front.

  “I guess I woke you up,” Tricia said, sounding chagrined. She’d already hunted up Valentino’s leash, and she was bending to attach it to his collar. He supposed it should have galled him, her certainty that he’d just give back the dog and say nothing about it, but it didn’t.

  “Bound to happen,” Conner observed dryly, glancing at the stove clock, “at three forty-five in the morning.”

  She had the good grace to blush. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I took a red-eye from Seattle to Denver and all the way home, I was thinking about Valentino—”

  Conner tried to remember the last time he’d been jealous of a dog and came up empty. Besides that, his sleep-drugged mind got snagged on the word home. Since when did Tricia McCall consider Lonesome Bend “home”? All she’d wanted was to get the hell out of there.

  Just a figure of speech, he decided, rummy but waking up fast.

  “He’s still your dog,” Conner said, folding his arms. Drinking in the sight of her. For somebody who’d been up all night, Tricia looked good—deliciously so. “Took off twice, after you left, and both times, I found him waiting on your doorstep. Coffee?”

  Tricia blinked, probably at the conversational hairpin turn—Conner was prone to those, since his brain moved a lot faster than his mouth. “I couldn’t impose,” she said.

  Conner laughed. “As if. This from a woman who couldn’t wait till daylight to reclaim her dog?”