Montana Creeds: Logan (31 page)

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.”

S
HERIFF 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.

“At least Brett Turlow’s off the hook,” Logan said. “For killing Jake, anyway.”

“Freida says she’ll slap him in long-term treatment if Briana doesn’t press charges for the break-in,” Floyd said. “She’s pretty embarrassed. Already pulled her name out of the hat. Too bad—she’d have made a good sheriff. Just Jim Huntinghorse and Mike Danvers running for my job now. Welcome to it, either one of them.”

“Can we keep the charges pending until we’re sure Turlow follows through on the treatment program?” Briana asked.

“Long as I’m sheriff, we can. After that, it’ll be up to Mike or Jim.”

“What about Heather?” Logan wanted to know.

Book sighed again. “Well,” he said regretfully, causing Briana to tense, “that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Ran her information last night. Seems she has a record, that one—various cons, some petty thefts and the like. At least three aliases that we know about. Skipped out on her bail the last time, after a drug bust—Nevada wants her badly enough to send a couple of suits up here to take her off our hands.” Floyd paused, cleared his throat. “Seems she never bothered to divorce her last husband before she took up with your ex.”

Briana closed her eyes for a moment, relieved, but stricken, too. Poor Vance. He really
had
been trying to start over, put down roots, build a relationship with the boys.

What would he do now? He’d be humiliated, as soon as word of Heather’s rap sheet and extra spouse hit the streets, if it hadn’t already. Past history indicated that he’d simply leave town, find himself another rodeo, and another after that.

Same old, same old.

Alec and Josh would be crushed.

After that, they talked about ordinary things—the weather, cattle prices, the new barn and the pasture fence.

Presently, Sheriff Book finished his coffee, asked Logan for a copy of Jake’s letter and left with the evidence that Brett Turlow, whatever
else he might be guilty of, hadn’t murdered Jake Creed.

“You’d better go talk to Vance,” Logan said, surprising Briana. “I’ll take care of Alec and Josh.”

Briana swallowed, nodded. Got her purse and the keys to Dylan’s rig.

She found Vance at the trailer, after stopping briefly at his job and learning that he wasn’t working that day. The front door stood open, and through the gap, Briana saw her ex-husband hurling things into a beatup suitcase.

She knocked, remaining on the porch.

He turned, scowled at her. Flushed to the roots of his hair. “I guess you’re happy now,” he said. “You got the last laugh, didn’t you?”

Briana stepped over the threshold. “Vance.”

He stopped, looked at her again.

“Nobody’s laughing,” she said.

He flung a pair of jeans into the suitcase and sagged into the patched leather chair where Briana had sat during her recent visit with Heather. Bracing his elbows on his thighs, Vance shoved both hands into his hair and stared at the floor.

Briana remained standing. “So this is it? You’re just going to leave?”

Vance didn’t look up. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“This isn’t about what I want, Vance. It’s about the boys. You’re their father, and they need you.”

“Best if I just move on,” Vance said. “You’re going to marry Logan Creed, aren’t you? He’ll make a decent stepfather—”

“Will you, just for once, stop thinking about yourself? Logan
will
make a good stepfather—probably a great one. You bail out now, and he’ll take up the slack, because that’s the sort of man
he is. But is that really what you want, Vance? What matters more? Your stupid masculine pride, or Alec and Josh?”

When Vance raised his eyes to Briana’s face, she saw tears there. “After what happened last night—” He paused, shook his head. “After all the mistakes and the missed birthdays and the crazy stuff—” Another pause. “How am I supposed to face them, Briana?”

“Like a man,” Briana said, but gently, choking up a little herself. “Like a
father.”

“You’d still let me see them?”

“Yes,” Briana said, though that part wasn’t easy for her. “Provided you don’t do anything stupid, like reconcile with Heather.”

Vance gave a raw, bitter laugh. “That’s the only good thing about this mess,” he said. “Finding out I’m not married to that maniac after all. She’s going to be in jail for a while, and when she gets out—
if
she gets out, ‘cuz if the kidnapping charges stick, it’s federal, according to Floyd Book—she’ll take up with some other sucker and make
his
life hell.”

“Then how about standing your ground, Vance? How about being a real father—present and accounted for—to your sons?”

Vance raised one eyebrow, watching her speculatively. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you if I just signed off, and your new husband adopted Alec and Josh?”

“Much easier,” Briana said, in all honesty. “For me. But we’re not talking about what’s good for me,
or
for you. We’re talking about what’s best for our children.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe Alec and Josh would be better off without you. And maybe there would be a Vance-shaped hole in their lives from ‘so long, Charlie’ on.”

Vance got slowly to his feet. So many emotions moved in his face that Briana couldn’t read any of them.

“If you’re going to leave, I can’t stop you,” Briana went on, when he didn’t say anything. “But at least say goodbye this time. They deserve that much, Vance.” She swallowed a sob. “They deserve that much, damn it!”

“I guess they’re at Creed’s place right now?” Vance asked hoarsely, after a very long time.

Briana bit her lower lip, nodded.

“Then I’ll go out and talk with them,” Vance said, clearly making the decision as he spoke. “See if they even want me to stick around.”

“They want you to stick around,” Briana said, swiping at her cheeks with the back of one hand. “Just ask them, and you’ll know.”

Vance approached her, checking his hip pocket for his wallet, snatching up his keys from the top of the TV. The gestures were familiar ones, the residue of a marriage that had died a long time before the divorce papers were filed. “You love this Logan Creed yahoo, Briana?” he asked gruffly. “You really love him?”

She did, she realized, with dizzying clarity, but Vance certainly wasn’t going to hear it first. Logan was—when the time was right.

“See you at the ranch,” she said, turning to go.

D
YLAN SOUNDED
downright beside himself. “Is this important, Logan?” he demanded, over his cell phone. “Something came up and I—”

“It’s about Jake,” Logan said. He was in the living room, watching as Josh and Alec battled
cybermonsters on all three monitors of his computer.

He eased away, out of the boys’ earshot.

“Did somebody finally prove that shit-heel Brett
Turd-low dumped two tons of logs on Dad up in the woods that day?”

The play on Brett’s last name was by no means original. Thinking of what the other man had endured over the years, Logan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
Old man,
he thought,
you fucked up so many people’s lives.
“No,” Logan said quietly. “He’s been cleared.”

“Then
what,
damn it?” Dylan shot back.

“It’s not something I can tell you over the phone,” Logan replied.

“Is this another gambit to get me back to the homeplace?” Dylan asked, sounding distracted. “Because, brother, I am in no mood for games right now.”

“I did kind of hope you’d show up for the wedding,” Logan said, surprised to feel one corner of his mouth tug upward in a grin.

“The wedding? You and Briana?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t it a little soon—?”

“Can’t be soon enough to suit me,” Logan answered.

“Do I have to remind you that you’ve already got two strikes against you?”

“This is different.”

“That’s what they all say,” Dylan argued. “’This is different.’ Hell, I’ve said it myself.”

“As soon as we get the license and explain things to the kids,” Logan said, “Briana and I are getting married. That would be three or four days from now, give or take ten minutes. Be there, or be square.”

“’Be there, or be
square’?”
Dylan groaned comically. “Have you been watching vintage TV or something? I think they said that in
Dad’s
generation.”

Logan chuckled, but his eyes burned at the mention of his dad, at the reminder. Life had been too painful for Jake, so he’d just checked out. It would take some doing to get over that.

“Is Jim going to be your best man, or is the job open?” Dylan asked.

Logan sensed that everything teetered in the balance, as far as his relationship with Dylan—or lack of one—was concerned. “Job’s open,” Logan said. “If you get here in time, that is.”

“I’ll try,” Dylan grumbled. That was probably as close as he’d get to a promise. He still sounded strange—not just distracted, but beleaguered.

“Is everything all right?” Logan asked.

“Oh, it’s just
peachy,”
Dylan snapped.

“Talk about vintage lingo.”

“Look, Logan, I—Stop that, damn it—”

Another grin warmed Logan’s face. “Are you with a woman?”

“I wish,” Dylan said. “I’ve got to hang up now—I said
stop it
—but I’ll get there when I can. If I don’t show up in time, go ahead without me.”

Logan chuckled, rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Trust me, I will. Vegas is always an option—we wouldn’t have to wait for a license there.”

Dylan sighed in a very un-Dylanlike way. “Vegas,” he muttered. “Bright lights. Good-looking women. Twentyfour-hour poker games. Silver buckles at the National Finals Rodeo. Those, my brother, were the days.”

“Do me one favor,” Logan said quickly, sensing that Dylan was about to hang up.

“What?”

“Get word to Tyler, if you can. Tell him I need to talk to him, in person.”

“He’s not speaking to
me,
Logan—I told you that. Wait—Oh,
shit—”

“Just do it, Dylan.”

Dylan rang off without a goodbye—or a promise.

What the hell was going on with him, anyway? Woman trouble, most likely, though he hadn’t been willing to admit it.

Logan had no time to ponder the question further, because all three dogs started barking, and the boys rushed to the front windows, and in the next moment, they were yelling, “Dad’s here!”

Time to make yourself scarce, Logan told himself.

He left by the back way, made for the barn, stealing a glance at the new arrivals as he went.

Briana got out of Dylan’s truck, and Vance got out of the van.

Vance put a hand on each of his sons’ shoulders and then the three of them crouched in the yard, like a posse picking up a trail in the dirt, and powwowed.

Briana reached the barn a few moments after Logan did, her face puffy, her eyes red-rimmed, smiling from ear-to-ear. Sticking both hands into the pockets of the lightweight pink hoodie she’d put on that morning, along with jeans and
sneakers, she tilted her head back to look up at the new beams overhead.

“Looks pretty sturdy,” she said, with a sniffle.

“Built to last,” Logan agreed, watching her. “You all right?”

She met his gaze again. Sniffled again. “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.

Logan braced himself. He’d lost a lot in his life—his mother, Jake, two wives and a lot of dreams. If Briana backed out, said she wasn’t going to marry him after all, it would be worse than all the other things combined.

They stood about a dozen feet apart, in the shadowy coolness of the barn, with its new stalls and roof. It had stood more than a hundred years, that barn, and now it could stand a hundred more.

None of which would matter, without Briana, without Alec and Josh. Even without
Wanda,
for Pete’s sake.

“I—” She stopped, moistened her lips. She wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup, and yet she looked Botticellibeautiful. “I think you should know—”

“Briana, you’re driving me crazy here.”

“I love you,” she blurted.

The whole universe ground to a stop. “What—?”

Color flared in her cheeks. “I know it’s crazy, but—”