Creed's Honor (28 page)

“I’m okay,” she said, but she didn’t pull back out of Conner’s embrace. “Really.”

Conner curved a finger under her chin and lifted, looking directly into her eyes. “If you want to do this now,” he said, indicating the photographs with a slight nod of his head, “I’ll help you. If you don’t feel up to it, that’s okay, too. Brody will understand.”

I love you, Conner Creed.

The words rose so suddenly and so vividly in Tricia’s mind that, for a split second, she was afraid she’d said them aloud.

She trembled, tried to look away.

But Conner cupped her face in his hands now—she loved the calloused roughness of his palms, in contrast to the near-reverent gentleness of his touch—and held her gaze. “Tricia?”

“I-I’d rather make a clean break,” she said, and was immediately caught up in a backwash of regret. “With River’s Bend, I mean,” she added anxiously.

Conner chuckled, and his hands remained where
they were. “That’s a relief,” he said. And then he kissed her.

The kiss was deep, and it sent a tingling rush of sweet, vibrant energy through Tricia, from her head to her feet, but it wasn’t the same as the passionate, near-frantic kisses they’d exchanged in Conner’s bed that morning.

No, this kiss wasn’t a prelude to lovemaking. It was an assurance, a promise, as if Conner were telling her, without words,
I’m strong. And I’ll be here, when you want somebody to lean on.

He was the one to end the kiss, as it turned out. He went on holding her, though, and there wasn’t any need for words.

After a minute or two, they separated. Conner disappeared into the storage room and returned right away with a couple of large, empty boxes.

They were both quiet as they took down all the pictures, one by one, wrapping them in old newspaper, also from the storeroom, and setting them carefully inside the boxes.

Valentino, meanwhile, lay curled up in front of the stove, blissfully content to be warm, full of cheeseburger and in the presence of his two all-time favorite humans.

T
AKE IT SLOW AND EASY
, you big dumb cowboy
, Conner told himself, an hour later, after he’d delivered Tricia and Valentino back home and lugged in both boxes of pictures, along with the framed map.

He wanted nothing more than to spend the night right there in Tricia’s apartment—in her
bed,
actually—making love to her. He knew she’d let him stay—it was
in her eyes—but he also knew she’d be going against her own better judgment if she did.

“I need time,” she’d told him, while they were rattling back from River’s Bend in Brody’s clunker, the dog looming like a hairy mountain between them. “You know—to figure things out.”

“Okay,” he’d responded, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.
What
kind
of things?
he’d wanted to ask. Hell, he’d wanted to
demand
an answer. But he’d restrained himself, because this was important.

Tricia
was important.

This was no time to go off half-cocked and ruin everything.

So he stood there, coatless, in Tricia’s kitchen, with one hand resting on the doorknob, looking his fill of the woman, memorizing the dark, silken fall of her hair, the flushed smoothness of her skin, the glow in her eyes, as hungrily as if the memory would have to last him for a long, long time.

I love you, Tricia McCall,
he thought.

She glanced over at Valentino, who was stretched out on his dog bed, with his blue chicken tucked under his muzzle, ready for a nap. So much for Brody’s matchmaking theory.

When Tricia’s gaze returned to Conner’s face, he felt as though the floor had gone soft under the soles of his boots.

“You could stay,” she said, very softly.

He wanted to do just that, big-time. But there was a delicate process going on here and, whatever it was, he wasn’t about to complicate the situation.

Besides, he was a rancher.

“I’ve got horses and cattle to feed,” he said.

Tricia nodded. They were standing a few feet apart, and he was tempted to backtrack far enough to kiss her, but he didn’t give in to the urge, because he knew that if he did that, if he touched his mouth to hers, there would be no leaving after that.

And the livestock
did
need to eat. Six generations of Creeds would roll over in their graves if he let the animals go hungry, even for one night, and he sure as hell couldn’t depend on
Brody
to make sure the work got done.

“Go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked, opening the door a crack to remind himself that he had to leave, whether he wanted to or not. “Without the dog?”

She smiled one of those light-up smiles. “I’d like that,” she said.

Pleased beyond all reason, Conner nodded, promised to call her the next day, and forced himself out of the warmth of her home and her presence and into the bitterly cold twilight of a wintry day.

The snowstorm was beginning to look more like a blizzard as Conner nosed that old truck toward home. Though it had worked just fine earlier, when Tricia and Valentino were riding with him, the rig choked and lurched and backfired its way along the nearly invisible highway.

It died at the bottom of the driveway, just inside the main gate, and Conner, wishing he’d remembered his coat, put his head down and slogged uphill toward the light glowing from the ranch house windows.

Brody was in the kitchen, frying up chicken, when Conner came inside, soaked to the skin and shivering.

“Thanks for taking off with my truck,” he said,
through chattering teeth. He reached for his warmest coat, the leather one lined with sheepskin, and jammed an arm into one of the sleeves. “Yours just gave up the ghost, by the way. Down by the road.”

Brody lifted the lid off a pot and peered in at whatever was cooking. “Spuds are almost ready,” he said, as though Conner hadn’t said anything about the dead truck. “Take off your coat and stay awhile, little brother. I’ve already done the barn chores. Clint and Juan and I fed the range stock, too.”

Conner knew how to be irritated with his brother, but he’d forgotten how to deal with the rough-edged kindness Brody sometimes showed—always at the most unexpected times, of course. The minute a person got to expecting anything from Brody Creed, he’d shoot off in the opposite direction, just to be contrary.

Slowly, stuck for an answer, Conner took off the coat. Hung it on its peg again.

“Davis and Kim got back a little while ago,” Brody went on. “You ought to see our old uncle with those two pint-sized dogs they bought. He’s crazy about them, right down to the pink bows in their topknots. Even lets them ride in his coat pockets.”

Brody was working at the electric stove, but the woodstove was going, too, and Conner went over to it, to warm himself up a little.

“That must have been a sight to see,” he said.

“It was.” Brody laughed, shook his head, went on turning pieces of chicken over in the skillet. The food smelled half again better than good. “Kim’s complaining that they’re supposed to be her dogs, not Davis’s.”

There was a brief silence.

“Since when do you cook?” Conner asked.

This was as close to a civil conversation as he could remember having with Brody since before Joleen. It felt fragile, like something that could break apart at any time.

“I like to eat,” Brody replied. “Therefore, I cook.”

Conner felt his back molars clamp together. He unclamped them so he could talk. “Why’d you take my truck?” he asked for the second time.

Brody looked at him over one shoulder. The chicken sizzled and the pot lids rattled and the whole setup was homey as all get-out.

“I wanted to see if Tricia could tell us apart,” Brody replied, his tone easy, like his manner.

Brody’s blunt honesty could be as much of a surprise as his kindness, and Conner was taken aback.

“She can,” Brody added, with a wicked grin. “Fancy truck or no fancy truck, she knew I wasn’t you.”

Conner swallowed hard, warning himself to be watchful, not to let himself be suckered in. His brother was, after all, a master at hooking fools and reeling them in for the kill. Still, it made something leap inside Conner, hearing those words. Knowing that, to Tricia at least, he wasn’t interchangeable with his twin.

“What if she
hadn’t
known?” he finally asked. His teeth had stopped chattering, but he sounded hoarse, like he was coming down with something. “What if Tricia had thought you were me? What would you have done?”

Brody pushed the skillet off the burner and turned to face Conner squarely. “Nothing,” he said, quietly but with a tinge of anger. His jaw worked, then he ground out, “
Dammit
, Conner, you’re my brother.”

“You were my brother when I thought Joleen and I
were going to get married and raise a family together,” Conner heard himself say, his tone mild and matter-of-fact. “How was that different?”

“I was a kid,”
Brody growled. “So were you, and so was Joleen. But she knew, even if you
didn’t,
little brother, that both of you were too young to think about marriage, let alone making babies.”

Conner wasn’t cold anymore. He walked over to the table, hauled back a chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, and sat down. His shirt and jeans felt clammy against his skin, and he would have sworn that even his socks were wet.

“I trusted you,” he said, without looking at Brody.

“And you were
right
to trust me, brother, because I didn’t sell you out. Not with Joleen or anybody else.”

The truth of that hit Conner like a wall of water.
Cold
water.

“All this time, you let me think you and Joleen—”

Lightning fast, Brody took hold of the front of Conner’s shirt and yanked him to his feet. They were practically nose to nose, Brody already furious, Conner getting there fast. In a moment, they’d be tying into each other, right there in the kitchen, butting heads like a couple of rutting bulls.

“You believed I’d do something that low-down and chicken-shit,”
Brody seethed. “So don’t go talking to me about selling out!”

Conner knocked Brody’s hand away, but the fight had gone out of him and it must have been plain to see. He felt that old-time sensation of having switched bodies with his brother, of seeing himself through Brody’s eyes. “You could have denied it!” he rasped.

“I was too
insulted
to deny anything!” Brody yelled.
“I shouldn’t have
had
to deny it, because you, Conner,
you of all people,
ought to have known what the deal was!”

“You didn’t go to bed with Joleen,” Conner said, in a slow, let-me-get-this-straight voice.

“I sure as hell didn’t,” Brody snapped, breathing hard but no longer yelling. He paused, shoved a hand through his hair in exactly the same way Conner had done, and then he grinned. “Not back then, anyhow,” he clarified.

Conner laughed.

Brody laughed.

“Let’s have ourselves some fried chicken,” he told Conner. Then he frowned. “Maybe you ought to change clothes, first, though. It would be a hell of a note if you came down with pneumonia just when we’re getting so we can stand to be in the same room.”

Conner nodded his agreement and left the kitchen for his room upstairs. The bedcovers were still tangled from his and Tricia’s lovemaking, and he caught the faintest scent of her skin as he headed for the bureau.

Armed with a pair of jeans and a warm sweatshirt, he went on to the bathroom, set the clothes on the counter, stripped off what he was wearing, and stepped into multiple sprays of hot water, coming at him from every direction.

Because he was hungry, because there was so much to tell Brody and so much to ask him about, Conner made quick work of his shower, dried off, dressed again and swiped a comb through his hair a couple of times.

By the time he got downstairs, he was beginning to think he might have imagined the confrontation with Brody, but there was his brother, with the table
set properly and the food steaming fragrantly in the middle.

“All you need,” Conner told Brody, in order to lighten the moment a little, “is a ruffled apron.”

Brody chuckled, hauled back a chair. “Don’t push your luck, little brother,” he said. “I might have decided to let you live, but the jury is still out on whether or not I kick your ass from here to next week.”

Conner sat down at his own place, picked up his fork and stabbed three pieces of chicken onto his plate. “You’re welcome to try that at any time,” he said affably. He looked the whole meal over again, and shook his head. “You even made gravy and mashed the spuds,” he marveled. “What else can you do, brother? Darn socks? Make curtains out of flour sacks?”

“Keep pushing it,” Brody drawled, but there was laughter in his eyes.

For a while, they ate in silence. This was the first real meal Conner could remember having at that table since Kim and Davis moved to their own place up the road.

“You’ve been in prison all this time,” Conner speculated. “And they put you on kitchen duty. That’s the big mystery.”

“There
is
no big mystery,” Brody said, and now his eyes were solemn and his tone was serious. “I was on the rodeo circuit, I told you that.”

“I follow the rodeo circuit,” Conner pointed out, considering a fourth piece of chicken and deciding against it because he was full to the gills. “I saw your name once or twice, Brody, but not often enough to account for
ten years
of being gone.”

Brody sighed. “You are not going to leave this alone, are you?”

“No,” Conner said. “I’m not.”

That was when Brody told him about the woman, and the boy, and the accident that had taken their lives.

T
HE NEXT DAY,
in the small conference room at Lonesome Bend’s one and only bank, Tricia held the cashier’s check in both hands and stared at it in awe. All the papers had been signed and witnessed, and now River’s Bend and the RV park and the Bluebird Drive-in belonged to Brody Creed.

Suddenly, she was free. Suddenly, she had
so many choices
.

Of course, she had to settle the few debts Joe had left behind, and pay off the small balance on her one credit card, and there would be taxes to pay. Even so, she was
rolling
in it.

Possibilities flashed through her mind—none of them were new, but they were all more substantial, now that she didn’t have to live from hand to mouth.

She thought about Paris, about not only visiting the City of Light, but living there for a while.

She thought about Seattle, that bustling, busy place where something was
happening,
everywhere and all the time.

She thought about a gallery, with her name over the door in elegant gold script, a small but tasteful storefront full of vibrant art of all sorts and mediums.

But mostly she thought about Conner.

There were two worlds in Tricia’s personal universe
now, it seemed—one with Conner in it, and one without. Should she choose the world her brain wanted—freedom, counterbalanced by the inevitable times of loneliness—or summon all her courage and follow her heart? Allow herself to take the terrible risk of loving and being loved in return?

Tricia shook off the nagging questions. She had things to do, starting with depositing the funds that would change everything, no matter
what
she decided to do in the end.

Brody, dressed to the nines in a perfectly tailored gray suit and a spiffy tie, looked wan and a little hollow-eyed as he watched her tuck the check back in its envelope and slip that into her purse.

“Buyer’s remorse?” she asked, with a little smile.

“No,” Brody replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Nothing like that.”

She should get going. Head back to Natty’s and help Carolyn supervise the placement of her furniture and unpack. Figure out what to wear for her dinner date with Conner that night.

Oh, and what to do with the rest of her life. Add
that
to the list.

But she liked Brody Creed, and she was grateful to him, so she tarried.

“Thanks,” she said, putting out her hand to Brody.

He smiled and shook it, very businesslike.

She squinted at him. “Are you all right?” she asked, very quietly, so the bankers and Carla, still chatting in the conference room, wouldn’t overhear.

Brody gave a raspy chuckle. “Conner and I were up pretty late last night, talking things through,” he ex
plained. “It’ll be a long road back, but at least we’re on the way.”

“That’s good,” she said, remembering their conversation at her kitchen table, after Brody brought Valentino home from the ranch. She knew it troubled Conner, maybe even grieved him, to be estranged from his only brother, though he hadn’t talked about it much, at least to her.

“It’s good,” Brody agreed. “But we went over some rough ground, my brother and me.” He paused, and the smile drained out of his eyes, replaced by a dark expression she couldn’t put a name to. “It’s some consolation to know that Conner feels like he’s been dragged backwards through a knothole, just as I do.”

Tricia stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek. “Give it some time,” she said. “Things are bound to get better if you don’t give up.”

“If you say so,” Brody joked, but the change in his eyes indicated that something else was going on beneath the surface here.

“Are you moving in over at River’s Bend today?” she asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Yeah,” Brody replied. He smiled again, but there was an edge to it. He nodded, as if to say goodbye, and half turned away from her, only to turn back. “Tricia?”

She waited. Glanced past him to the door of the conference room; she could see Carla’s shadow through the frosted glass. Any moment now, the others would join them.

Brody gave a deep, ragged sigh. Ran a hand through his hair. “I might be way out of line here,” he said hoarsely, “but there’s something I need to say. About
you and Conner, I mean, and whatever is or isn’t going on between you.”

Inwardly, Tricia stiffened. Outwardly, she probably appeared calm. “What’s that?”

“Don’t hurt him,” Brody said. With a nod, he indicated the purse she held, an oblique reference to the cashier’s check inside, most likely. “You have a lot of options now. If your plans don’t include Conner, then I’d appreciate it if you’d back off and leave him alone.”

Heat suffused Tricia’s face. Carla, still chatting with the bank officials who’d overseen the closing, started to open the door.

“You were right before, Brody,” Tricia said evenly, careful to keep her voice down. “You
are
out of line. By a country mile.”

With that, she turned on her heel and stormed along the corridor, practically erupting into the main lobby, where the tellers stood at their windows, between customers and therefore watching her with interest.

Tricia stopped, took a deep breath, released it slowly.

Be calm,
she told herself.

Then she marched over to the nearest teller, opened her purse and took out the envelope with the seven-figure check inside.

“I’d like to make a deposit, please,” she said.

Brody caught up to her outside, several minutes later, as she was about to get into her Pathfinder.

“Tricia, wait,” he said, and he looked pained.

She glared at him. This was one of the biggest days of her life so far, and he’d nearly spoiled it by implying that she might be jerking Conner around, encouraging him
when she had no intention of following through. “What?” she snapped, begrudging him even that one word.

“I might not be the most tactful person in the world,” Brody said.

“Maybe not,” Tricia agreed, settling herself in the driver’s seat and fastening her seat belt with a noisy click. She couldn’t have shut the door if she’d wanted to, because Brody was in the way.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh,” Tricia mocked, with a sweeping gesture of one hand, “
well, then.
That changes everything!”

“Give me a chance, here,” Brody responded. “I’m trying to look out for my bullheaded brother, that’s all. Lonesome Bend is a small town, Tricia, and there’s a lot of talk going around. Is it true that you’re heading back to Seattle as soon as that check of mine clears the bank? That there’s some guy waiting for you there?”

All the steam went out of her.

“There’s no guy,” she said softly. “Not anymore.”

“What about leaving town? Is that what you mean to do?”

Tricia was quiet for a long time. Then she turned the key in the ignition, switched on the heater. With the door open to the cold, much of which seemed to be coming from Brody rather than the environment, the benefits were limited. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “There are a lot of things to consider.”

“Here’s another one for you,” Brody said evenly, gripping the framework of the door and leaning in a little way. “Conner cares about you. It might be a while before he gets around to admitting that, to himself
or
to you, but, believe me, he
does
care. He’s a good man, through and through, and he’s smart as all get-out, but game
playing is something he just doesn’t understand—when he falls for somebody, he falls hard. He’s rock-solid, the original straight shooter, the kind of guy most women think isn’t even out there anymore.”

“Are you finished, Brody?” Tricia’s flippant tone was a bluff. Hurting Conner in any way, shape or form had never crossed her mind, but it
was
true that she might leave Lonesome Bend. After all, without River’s Bend to oversee, she was pretty much at loose ends. Money or no money, she needed something to occupy her days or she’d go crazy.

“Just one more thing,” Brody finally answered, stony-faced. “If you break Conner’s heart, he’ll be alone for the rest of his life, because he’s not the sort to settle.”

With that, Brody stepped back.

Trembling a little, Tricia shut the door.

And then she just sat there for several minutes, waiting until she felt calm enough to drive home.

C
ONNER SPENT THE MORNING
on the range, with Clint and Juan and some of the extra hands Brody had hired on, setting up feed stations for the cattle and horses. Just before noon, he rode back to the ranch house, his coat collar raised against the icy wind, his hat pulled down low over his face. The sky churned with low-bellied clouds, gunmetal gray and, in his opinion, fixing to give birth to the perfect storm.

Kim and Davis drove up in their going-to-town car just as Conner was dismounting in front of the barn. He waited, speaking quietly to the horse, and grinned wide when his uncle eased his big frame from behind the wheel and got out, settling his hat on his head as he approached.

Two tiny dog faces looked out of the deep, wool-lined pockets of Davis’s coat, bright-eyed and clearly enjoying the ride. And damn if they didn’t have little pink bows on the tops of their heads, just as Brody had said.

The sight was so incongruous that Conner had to laugh. Kim, glowing with happiness as usual, looked Conner’s way and shook her head with amusement.

Davis, so comfortable with his own masculinity that it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him to be embarrassed to be seen with a pair of pink-bowed pocket dogs, grinned. He and Conner shook hands, their customary way of greeting each other after a separation of any length. “I hear Brody went ahead and bought Joe McCall’s property,” Davis said.

Conner nodded. The chill bit at the edges of his ears, even with his hat on, and he cast a wary look up at the fitful sky. “He’s in town finalizing the deal right now,” he said. Tricia would be at the closing, too, of course. He was glad for her, glad for Joe, who had held on through thick and thin, having set his heart on leaving something behind for his “little girl.”

“Is the coffee on?” Kim wanted to know, reaching into Davis’s pockets, one by one, and collecting the dogs. Holding them up to her face to nuzzle them between their perked-up ears. “If not, we’ll make some, won’t we?” she asked the pups.

Davis rolled his eyes, but his love for his wife was almost palpable.

He watched her fondly as she headed for the house, being as much at home there as she was at the other place, then walked alongside Conner as he led his horse into the barn and removed the animal’s saddle and bridle inside the stall.

Davis brought a couple of flakes of hay and tossed them into the feeder, while Conner gave the gelding a quick brushing-down. It was an ingrained habit, something he always did after a ride and rarely thought about.

That day, though, he was jumpy as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve—he’d be taking Tricia out for dinner that night—so he made short work of the grooming.

The other horses nickered companionably as he and Davis left the barn. A few enormous flakes of snow were drifting down.

Conner squared his shoulders, adjusted his hat again.

Inside the kitchen, Kim had all the lights on, and she’d started a fire in the cookstove while the coffee was brewing. The little dogs peeked out of a bottom drawer in the china cabinet, keeping a close eye on the proceedings.

“Are you sure those critters are dogs,” Conner teased, grinning at Kim, “and not some kind of fancy rodents?”

Kim made a face at him, then laughed. “They’re Yorkshire terriers,” she said.

For as long as Conner could remember, she’d been like that, lighthearted and easy to get along with, full of mischief and uncomplicated joy, taking things as they came and making the best of the bad as well as the good.

It must have been a disappointment to Kim, Conner thought now, that she and Davis had never had a family of their own, but if it was, she’d never let on. She’d loved him and Brody and Steven full-out, like any mother.

Davis chuckled and hung up his hat, then his coat. “Wait till you hear their names,” he told Conner.

The pups spilled out of the bureau drawer and trotted over to sniff at Davis’s boots. They were pretty damn cute, all right, but Conner was worried that he might step on them. To make sure that didn’t happen, he crouched and scooped them up, one in each hand, and both of them commenced to licking his face as though he’d used gravy for aftershave that morning.

“One’s called Smidgeon,” Davis went on, “and one’s called Little Bit.” His tone was teasing, for Kim’s benefit, but there was a certain pride in his gaze, too. The look on his uncle’s face reminded Conner of Steven, when he’d brought Melissa and Matt and the babies to the ranch to show them off.

“Smidgeon and Little Bit,” Conner mused, with a wink for Kim. “Isn’t that redundant?”

“Your uncle,” Kim said dryly, eyes still twinkling, “wanted to name them Puffy and Fluffy. I had no choice but to intervene.”

Conner put the dogs down carefully and looked over at Davis.
“Puffy and Fluffy?”

Davis colored up a little, under his jawline. “I haven’t had a lot of practice at naming dogs,” he said. “The last one already had a name when we got him.” Conner laughed.

The dogs explored the kitchen, inch by inch, then leaped back into the bureau drawer, snuggled up in a furry little pile and went to sleep.

Kim poured coffee and the three of them sat at the table, sipping the brew, letting the heat thaw the marrow of their bones.

They talked, mainly just about catch-up stuff. Sure
enough, Kim confirmed, Steven and Melissa were coming home for Thanksgiving, and of course they were bringing the kids.

Brody showed up, driving Conner’s truck because his own was still down by the gate, the engine deader than a doornail, just as Davis and Kim were about to take Smidgeon and Little Bit out of the drawer and head for town. Kim thought they ought to stop by the supermarket and stock up on nonperishables, in case the storm turned out to be a humdinger.