Montana Creeds: Logan (18 page)

A big tear rolled through the smudged makeup on Heather’s cheek. Her grip was strong, crushing Briana’s fingers together. “You’ll still let the boys come to our place, won’t you?”

Briana swallowed, looked up to meet Vance’s eyes, looked down at Heather again. After a long time, she nodded. That was the better angel in action, too. Another part of her seethed.

Without another word, she left the examining room. Stopped at the desk to show her insurance card and sign the necessary papers.

Logan, Josh and Alec had already left the reception area when she got there, so she hurried to the parking lot.

Josh and Alec were settled in the backseat of Logan’s truck. Logan himself was leaning against the left front fender with his arms folded. When he saw Briana, he gave her a wan grin and straightened.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded.

He opened the passenger-side door for her and helped her in. Even buckled her seat belt.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so, well, taken care of. She straightened her spine, told herself not to be a sap. Logan Creed was a nice man; like any good neighbor, he’d been ready to pitch in and help out in a crisis.

It didn’t mean a thing, beyond that.

It really didn’t mean a thing.

A
LEC NODDED OFF
on the way home, probably swamped by excitement, exhaustion and the medications he’d been given at the clinic. Logan parked the truck as close to Briana’s back porch as he could, got out and lifted the sleeping child gently off the seat.

The little boy smelled of fresh plaster, kid sweat and the greasy burgers Logan had bought for him and Josh at the drive-through place on the way out of town.

Standing there in the moonlight, Briana looked poised to take Alec, carry him herself.

Logan put a finger to his lips and shook his head. Even Josh was quiet, scrambling out of the rig to head for the house. Briana and Logan were still standing there in the yard, looking at each other, when he flipped on the lights.

“I can take it from here,” Briana whispered.

“I know,” Logan answered, and went past her with the boy. Carried him all the way inside, Josh leading the way, to the smaller of two bedrooms.

Clearly shaken, Josh looked as though he’d been hit by a car, too. “He can have the bottom bunk,” he said, gesturing. It was a major concession, Logan knew, and it touched him. “He might fall out of the top one.”

With a nod, Logan laid Alec down, passed Briana in the doorway as he left the room.

“Don’t go yet,” she told him. “Please.”

He nodded, waited in the kitchen.

The place was familiar, yet strange, too. Dylan owned the house, but as far as Logan knew, he’d never lived in it. Back when they were still speaking, Dylan had been hell-bent on renovating the place one day. He’d planned to add on bedrooms and a couple of baths, build a barn and keep horses.

Now, in the postemergency quiet, Wanda gave Logan an imploring look, and he assured her that Alec would be okay. You never knew what animals understood; more than they were given credit for, that was for sure.

Presently, Briana came out of the boys’ room. Stood looking at Logan from the doorway into the narrow hall.

“Thanks,” she said. Her eyes were enormous, and full of things she wanted to say, but couldn’t—or wouldn’t. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was just good judgment.

“You’re welcome,” he answered. Such ordinary words, not even skimming the surface of what seemed to be happening between them. He finally crossed to her, kissed the top of her head. Lord, he wanted to do so much more, though. “Get some sleep.”

She leaned into him a little, not quite touching, and then withdrew. Looked up at him. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

The need to kiss her for real was almost palpable, but it wasn’t the time.

Briana gave a belated nod, as though just then registering
the sleep remark. “I could make some coffee,” she said, sounding bemused. Alec’s near miss had taken a lot out of her—she seemed literally beside herself. Another reason to leave her alone—or to stay the night.

Logan grinned. “The
last
thing you need right now is caffeine,” he told her. “Lock up behind me, and then go get some shut-eye. Things will look better in the morning.”

“Will they?” she asked.

Logan had turned to go, but he stopped and looked back at her, his heart snagged on the soft, sad way she’d spoken. “Bring the boys over, if you have to work,” he said, determined not to take advantage, but tempted, too. “I’ll keep an eye on them.”

He saw the struggle in her face—need against pride, fear against courage. What a brave little thing she was—the kind of woman who had helped build the west. Taking things as they came, good and bad, making the best of limited resources.

“I’m not ready to leave them with Heather again,” she admitted. Then she smiled feebly, but the effort was valiant.
“She’s
probably not ready yet, either.”

“Josh has his cell phone,” Logan reminded her. How could his voice sound so normal, with all he was feeling? It was as if a bucking bronc had been turned loose inside him, kicking down fence rails on all sides. “You have yours. If I turn out to be the babysitter from hell, he can call you.”

She laughed at that, but there was a sob in there someplace, too. She’d been carrying a big load, alone, for a long time. It was hard for her to trust, hard to accept help, particularly from a relative stranger. “They
can be a handful,” she said, but she was wavering, and that pleased Logan in a way he hadn’t expected. “Alec and Josh, I mean. They argue constantly—”

“I have brothers of my own,” Logan said. “I can argue with the best of them.” He paused, grinned, one hand on the doorknob, hesitant to go. “And I can whistle, too. Fit to split your eardrums.”

“So I’ve heard,” Briana replied, and now her smile was steady, though her eyes were still moist.

The need to stay and hold her through the night was almost visceral now. If ever a woman had needed holding—just that and nothing more, though God knew he
wanted
more—it was Briana Grant, but there were kids in the house. And he had two dogs at home, waiting for him, and horses to feed in the morning.

The rancher’s life. He’d wanted it; now he had it.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and went out by sheer force of will.

The night was warm and dark, with just a sliver of a moon etched into the sprawling sky. He stood on the porch for a few moments, talking himself out of going back in.

Time enough, he thought, looking up at the clear country stars, following their ancient courses. There would be time enough.

“Y
OU’RE OKAY WITH THIS?”
Briana asked her boys the next morning, as she flipped pancakes at the stove. “You don’t mind going over to Logan’s for the day?”

“Mind?” Josh said, slipping Wanda a morsel of bacon under the table. “It’ll be fun.”

Alec was downright chipper, for somebody who’d been hit by a van the night before. “I want him to sign
my cast,” he said. “Think he’d let us ride one of his horses?”

Briana stopped in midflip. “You are
not
to get on any horse, Alec Grant, unless I’m on it behind you.”

Alec rolled his eyes. “I
know
how to ride, Mom. Dad taught me.”

It was true. Although Vance hadn’t owned a horse of his own for years, he’d had access to plenty of them through the rodeo, and the times he’d settled down for a month or two to take a job as a ranch hand on some spread. Briana had always wanted to stay; Vance had invariably gotten restless and insisted that it was time to move on.

Both Alec and Josh had been on horseback with their dad as soon as they could hold their heads up without help.

“Still,” she said, setting the pancake platter in the center of the table with a thump. “No riding unless I’m there. Got it?”

Thinking of all the places they might have made a life, she and Vance, and all the times they’d packed up and pulled out, leaving some shabby but perfectly good little house behind, she ran square into the old reality. Vance was Vance, and he
would
be leaving Stillwater Springs one day soon, job or no job, wife or no wife—sons or no sons.

How could she prepare them for that?

She couldn’t, of course. She’d have to pick up the pieces afterward, try to explain something she didn’t understand herself, even after years of happy traveling with her dad—the mysterious pull of the rodeo circuit and the open road. The difference was she’d known Bill McIntyre loved her more than the gypsy life, more than
the cheering, laughing spectators, more than the bulls and the broncs.

If she’d asked him to settle down, he would have done it.

The thing he
wouldn’t
have done was leave her behind.

“Mom?” Josh prompted. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

She smiled, shook off the what-makes-Vance-tick quandary. There was no figuring him out, and trying to was a habit she needed to break.

So she ate a pancake, and part of a fried egg, and drank her orange juice. She fed Wanda, let her out and then in again. Put together a peanut-butter-and-jelly sack lunch for the boys.

Then they all piled into the truck—Alec needed a little help—and headed along the county road, toward Logan’s place.

He was straddling the gate beam when they arrived, setting the sign right. He’d ridden the buckskin down from the barn; it stood nearby, saddled and grazing on the high grass.

With a grin and a wave, Logan swung a leg over the beam, hung for a moment by his hands, then dropped to the ground—at least ten feet—to make a nimble landing on both feet.

Briana winced, rolled down the driver’s-side window.

“The sign looks good,” she said.
He
looked good—in jeans, boots and a sleeveless T-shirt that left his biceps gloriously bare.

“Check out the
horse!”
Alec spouted, from the backseat. “You’re here, Mom. Does that mean I can ride it?”

“No,” Briana said.

Logan, standing close enough that she could see the dare in his eyes, waited.

She peered through the windshield, studying the gelding.

“He’s as gentle as they come,” Logan said.

“
Please
, Mom,” Alec wheedled. “I’ve been traumatized. I need positive reinforcement.”

Logan chuckled at that, shoved a hand through his somewhat dusty hair.

“I’m not dressed to ride,” Briana pointed out, referring to her customary casino getup, which amounted to a uniform. She couldn’t show up with horse hair all over her slacks.

“Logan is,” Alec said.

Logan raised both eyebrows.

“All right,” Briana heard herself say, and was astounded.

Alec whooped with delight.

“Can I have a turn after Alec?” Josh wanted to know.

“If it’s okay with your mom,” Logan said. He rounded the truck, opened the left rear passenger door and whisked Alec out of the vehicle and onto the back of the gelding, all in a few strides. Before Briana could even catch her breath, he’d swung expertly into the saddle behind Alec and taken the reins.

The way Logan Creed looked on that horse, like he was part of it, cell for cell and breath for breath, was—Well, it should have been illegal.

Logan gestured toward the house with one hand. “After you,” he said.

Alec beamed.

Josh scrambled out of his seat belt to kneel and watch through the back window of the truck as Briana continued up the driveway, Logan and Alec riding behind. “Cool,” he said, sounding both impressed and resentful.

“You’ll get your turn,” Briana said, resigned.

She only glanced into the rearview mirror a couple of times, making sure Alec hadn’t been bucked off. The second she’d parked in Logan’s front yard, though, she was out of that truck and standing on the ground, shading her eyes from the morning sun and watching as Alec and Logan rode closer, the horse moving at an easy trot.

Sidekick and the Yorkie came to sniff at her pant legs—at least, she
thought
it was the Yorkie. Gone were the blue bow and the flowing dog-tresses.

“What happened to Snooks?” Briana asked, as Logan got down off the gelding’s back and lifted Alec after him.

Logan’s grin was as dazzling as that midsummer sun. “Found some shears in the attic and gave him a haircut this morning,” he said, bending to pick up the dog. “He’s still a scrawny little varmint, but at least he’s got some dignity.”

“Can I have my turn on the horse now?” Josh asked, trying to restrain his eagerness and not succeeding very well.

Briana sighed and took the brown-bag lunches she’d packed for the boys out of the truck. Handed them to Logan, who immediately set them aside on the hood of his Dodge to hold the buckskin’s reins while Josh mounted up.

Why did she bother to set rules, when she always ended up changing them?

Still, she felt a flash of pride, seeing her boy on the back of a horse, and something very much like grief, too. Alec and Josh were growing up so fast. Before she knew it, they’d be men, following faraway dreams of their own. And she’d be on the perimeter of their lives, like a one-time planet demoted to moon status, always waiting for a phone call or an e-mail.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she told Logan, who was watching Josh ride the buckskin around the yard at a walk. It was good of the man to look after the boys, but she couldn’t expect him to do it every day.

“No hurry,” Logan said easily.

Briana got into the truck, started it and headed for work.

Heather was waiting near the main entrance when she arrived, looking particularly forlorn. She wore the usual tight jeans, another skimpy top and a teensy denim jacket against the nonexistent chill.

Briana wondered, briefly and uncharitably, if the woman had developed a gambling habit—or already had one. It galled her that she was supposed to trust a virtual stranger with her children, but the reality was that Josh and Alec needed Vance, and Heather was part of the deal.

“Vance and I talked,” Heather said hurriedly, walking fast to keep pace with Briana as she went toward the office to clock in, the brightly lit, noisy slot machines a colorful blur as she passed them. “And we agreed I shouldn’t work until after school starts this fall. I’ll make sure I’m off before they get out of class, so I can take care of them.”

Briana stopped, speechless.

Heather had the good grace to avert her eyes.

“You did a great job of looking after them last night,” Briana said evenly. Okay, so she wasn’t at her most gracious, and the better angel was off somewhere, bugging somebody else, but Heather wasn’t the only one who’d suffered a shock.

Briana was still jarred, could still hear Vance’s voice, telling her Alec had been hurt.

Heather’s clumpy mascara started turning to liquid.

Off to her left, at the edge of her vision, Briana saw Jim coming toward them, frowning a little.

“Is there a problem?” he asked when he drew up alongside Briana. He was general manager and, as such, chief of security, as well. Any sign of trouble, however subtle, was guaranteed to bring him on the double.

“I’m sorry,” Heather told Briana, lower lip bobbing.

“No problem at all,” Briana said, addressing Jim but looking at Heather.

“I didn’t mean to hit Alec with the van!” Heather protested.

“She hit Alec with a van?” Jim gasped.

“He’s going to be okay,” Briana assured him. The better angel was back, damn it. “Look, Heather,” she added reluctantly, “I’ll stop by your place after work and we’ll talk, okay?”