Montana Creeds: Logan (4 page)

Teresa, his mother, had been Cassie’s foster daughter, so they weren’t really related, he and this “grandmother” of his. Still, he loved her, and knew she loved him in return.

Cassie looked around, sighed. “The place is a shipwreck,” she said, still petting Sidekick, who was sucking up the attention, snuggling close against Cassie’s side. “You should come and stay in my guest room until the contractors are through.”

“Your guest room,” Logan said, “is a teepee.”

Cassie laughed. “You didn’t mind sleeping out there when you were a boy,” she reminded him. “You used to pretend you were Geronimo, and Dylan and Tyler always fussed at me because you wouldn’t let them be chief.”

The memory—and the mention of his brothers—ached in Logan’s rawest places. “You ever hear from them, Cassie?” he asked, very quietly and at a considerable amount of time.

“Do you?” Cassie immediately countered.

Logan shoved a hand through his hair. He still needed a trim, but there were only so many things a man could do on his first day home. “No,” he said. “And you knew that, so why did you ask?”

“Wanted to hear you say it aloud,” Cassie said. “Maybe it’ll sink in, that way. Dylan and Ty are your
brothers,
Logan. All the blood family you’ve got in the world. You play fast and loose with that, like you’ve got all the time there is to make things right between the three of you, and you’ll be sorry.”

Logan approached at last, found a perch on the bottom step. His first inclination was to get his back up, ask why it was his job to “make things right,” but the question would have been rhetorical bullshit.

He
knew
why it was up to him. Because he was the eldest. Because nobody else was going to open a dialogue. And because he’d been the one
to start the fight, the day of their dad’s funeral, by speaking ill of the dead.

Okay, he’d been drunk.

But he’d meant the things he’d said about Jake—that he wouldn’t miss him, that the world would be a more peaceful place without him, if not a better one.

He’d meant them
then,
anyway.

Cassie reached out and mussed his hair. “Why did you come back here, Logan?” she asked. “I think I know, but, like before, I’d like to hear you say it.”

“To start over,” he said, after another hesitation.

“Sounds like a big job,” Cassie observed. “Getting on some kind of terms with your brothers—even slugging terms would be better than what you have now—that’ll be part of it.”

Logan nodded, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t trust his voice beyond the three-word sentence he’d offered up last.

“I’ll give you their numbers,” Cassie said, shifting enough to extract her purse from between her right thigh and the porch rail, taking out a notepad and a pen. “You call them.”

“What am I going to say?”

For all the figuring he’d done, all the planning and deciding, he’d never come up with a way to close the yawning gap between him and Dylan and Tyler.

Cassie chuckled. “Start with hello,” she said, “and see where it goes from there.”

“I shouldn’t need to tell you where it
might
‘go from there,’” he replied.

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Cassie told him. She scrawled two numbers onto the notepad, quickly and from memory, Logan noted, and tore off the page to hand to him. Having done that, she stood with the elegant grace that always surprised him a little, given her size. She patted Sidekick once more and descended the steps with the slow and purposeful motion of a glacier, leaving Logan to step out of her way or get run over.

Sidekick remained behind on the porch step, but he gave a little snort-sigh, sorry to see Cassie go.

Logan opened the door of her car, like a gentleman. Why Cassie didn’t buy herself something decent to drive was beyond him—she received a chunk of the take from the local casino twice a year, as did the other forty-odd members of her tribe.

“Next time I see you,” she said, shaking a finger at him, “you’d better be able to tell me you’ve spoken to Dylan and Tyler. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to shave and put on something with a collar and buttons.” She paused to tug at his T-shirt. “In my day, these things were
underwear.”

Logan laughed. “I’ve missed you, Cassie,” he said, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Sidekick and I will stop by tomorrow—I’m taking him to the vet and I have a meeting with my contractor. I can promise the shave and the button-down shirt, maybe even a haircut, but whether I’ll have called my brothers or not… well, that’s a crapshoot.”

“Longer you put it off, the harder it will be,” Cassie said, making no move to get into the car. “Are you going to stay, Logan, or are you just blowing through to spit on your father’s grave and sell your share of this land to some actor?”

“I hope you’re not going to stand there and pretend you were the president of Jake Creed’s fan club,” Logan said.

“We had our tussles, Jake and me,” Cassie admitted. “But he was your father, Logan. In his own crazy way, he loved you boys.”

“Yeah, it was right out of
Leave it to Beaver,
the way
we lived,” Logan scoffed. There was a note of respect in his tone, but it was for Cassie, not Jake. “I guess you’ve forgotten the year he cut the Christmas tree in half with a chainsaw. And how about that wonderful Thanksgiving when he decided the turkey was overcooked and threw it through the kitchen window?”

Cassie sighed, laid a hand on Logan’s shoulder. “What about the time you and Dylan decided to run away from home and got lost up in the woods? It was November, and the weatherman was predicting record low temperatures. The sheriff gave up the search when the sun went down, but Jake…? He kept looking. Found you and brought you both home.”

“And hauled us both off to the woodshed.”

“If he’d given up, you’d have been hauled off to the morgue. I know he took a switch to you, and I’d have stopped him if I’d been here, but it wasn’t anger that made him paddle your hind end, Logan Creed. It was plain old ordinary
fear.”

“Today, they call it child abuse,” Logan pointed out.

“Today,” Cassie argued, “they’ve got school shootings and kids who can’t be graded on a test because their self-esteem might be damaged. They call in the social workers if the screen on the TV in their bedroom is too small, or their personal computer isn’t fast enough. I’m not so sure a good switching wouldn’t be a favor to some of those young thugs who hang out behind the pool hall when they’re supposed to be in class.”

“That is so not politically correct,” Logan said, though secretly, he agreed.

“I don’t have to be politically correct,” Cassie retorted, with a sniff.

She was right about that. She didn’t. And she wasn’t.

She ducked behind the wheel of her car. “Welcome back, Logan,” she said, watching him through the open window. “See that you stay.”

He thought of Briana Grant, her lively sons and her fat black dog. The idea of sticking around didn’t seem quite so daunting as before.

“I guess Dylan’s been back,” he ventured. “Long enough to hire a caretaker, anyway.”

Cassie merely nodded, waiting.

“Is he… Are Dylan and Briana…?”

Cassie’s brown eyes warmed with humor and understanding. “Involved?” she said. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Logan grumbled, because he knew she was going to leave him hanging there if he didn’t respond. “That’s what I mean.”

She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “You know Dylan. When he goes after a woman…”

Logan’s knuckles ached where he gripped the lower edge of Cassie’s car window.

Cassie smiled and patted one of his hands. “If you want to know about Dylan and Briana,” she said sweetly, “you’d better ask one of
them.
I’m just an old lady, minding my own business. How would I know what is—or isn’t—going on between those two?”

“You know everything,” Logan said. If he hadn’t been wearing a T-shirt, he’d have been hot under the collar. “About everybody in Stillwater Springs and for fifty miles in all directions.”

Cassie sighed. Shifted the car into Reverse. “You’d better step back,” she said, “if you don’t want me to run over your toes.”

Logan, being no fool, stepped back.

He watched Cassie whip the little car around and chug back down the driveway at a good clip, exhaust pipe belching blue smoke, loose parts rattling. When she topped the rise, then dipped out of sight, he looked down at the paper she’d handed him earlier.

Dylan’s number.

Tyler’s.

Sidekick came down the porch steps to nudge Logan in one thigh, as if urging him to get it over with.

Cassie had been right, of course. It wasn’t going to get any easier.

He got out his cell phone, thumbed in Dylan’s number, half hoping he’d get voice mail.

“Yo,” Dylan said, live and in person. “Dylan Creed.”

Logan plunked down on the porch step, right where Cassie had been sitting earlier. Cleared his throat. “Did you check caller ID before you answered?” he asked.

Silence.

Then, “Logan?”

“It’s me,” Logan said, bracing himself. Prepared for either a backlash of profanity or an instant hang-up.

Neither one came. Dylan seemed stunned, as much at a loss for words as Logan was.

“I’ll be damned,” Dylan said finally. “Where are you?”

“On the ranch,” Logan replied, relieved.

“What are you doing there?” Now there was an edge to Dylan’s tone; he sounded vaguely suspicious.

“Not much of anything, right at the moment,” Logan said, scratching Sidekick’s ears. “The place is going to hell in a wheelbarrow. Thought I’d fix it up a little—my part of it, anyway.”

Another silence followed, pulsing with all the things neither one of them dared say.

“What’ve you been up to, Logan?”

Was it brotherly interest, that question, or an accusation? Logan decided to give Dylan the benefit of the doubt. “Quit the rodeo, got married and divorced a couple of times, started a business. What about you?”

“There are similarities,” Dylan said quietly. “I’m not rodeoing anymore, either. No wives, current or ex, but I do have a two-year-old daughter. Her name’s Bonnie—or it was the last time I heard. Her mother’s changed it half a dozen times since the kid was born.”

Logan closed his eyes. His own brother had a child, his
niece,
and he hadn’t known the little girl existed. “The last time you heard? Don’t you see Bonnie, Dylan?”

For a moment, the connection seemed to crackle, then Dylan took a breath. “Not much,” he admitted. “Sharlene’s supposed to share custody, but she doesn’t.”

“Maybe I could help you with that,” Logan heard himself say.

“Yeah,” Dylan retorted, and the edge was back in his voice. “You’re a lawyer. I keep forgetting.”

I’m also your brother.

“Look, if you decide you need legal advice, give me a call. If not, that’s okay, too. I just called because—”

“Why
did
you call, Logan?” A challenge. That was like Dylan—to assume Logan must be up to something, if he’d made contact after all this time.

“I guess being back home made me a little nostalgic, that’s all,” Logan said.

“Home?” Dylan echoed, downright testy now. “Where’s that?”

Logan said nothing.

“What do you want?”

The words hurt Logan a lot more than he would have admitted. “Nothing,” he said. “I just thought we could talk.”

“You’re planning to sell your share of the ranch, aren’t you? That’s why you’re hiring contractors and buying lumber. So you can nick some Hollywood type for a few million?”

Ah, the grapevine,
Logan thought. Dylan knew he was fixing up the ranch house, because he still had sources in town. Asking where he was had been a formality.

“I’m not selling,” he said evenly. “I’m here to stay. And if you’re thinking of liquidating your share of the place, I’ll match anybody else’s offer.” That train of thought led to Briana Grant, since she was living in Dylan’s house, and following it got Logan into trouble. He was a beat late realizing he’d said the wrong thing.

“If I was going to sell my ten thousand acres—and I’m not—I sure as hell wouldn’t let you buy me out.”

Here we go,
Logan thought. “Why’s that?”

“You
know
why. Because of the things you said about Dad.”

“I was wrong, okay? I should have been more respectful—kept my opinions to myself. I’m sorry, Dylan.”

More silence. Dylan would have been prepared for a counterattack, but the left-field apology probably threw him a little.

“Dylan? Are you still there?”

Dylan sighed audibly. “I’m here.”

“And ‘here’ is where?”

“L.A.,” Dylan said. “I had a meeting with my agent and a few studio people—I’m doing some stunt work for a movie. They’re filming up in Alberta, starting next week.”

“You like that kind of work?” Logan asked. He couldn’t imagine why anybody would, but then it couldn’t be any more dangerous than rodeo, and they’d both taken a turn at that.

“It’s a living,” Dylan answered. “Pays my child support.”

Logan took the plunge, though he knew the water would be cold. “I’m thinking of running some cattle on the ranch. Buying some horses, too. Maybe you’d like to be a partner?”

“We wouldn’t get along for ten minutes,” Dylan said, but there was something wistful in the way he said the words.

Logan laughed. “We never did,” he replied. “But we had a lot of fun in between brawls.”

More silence.

Then Dylan laughed, too. “Yeah,” he said.

It was the first thing they’d agreed on in a decade.

“You going to call Ty?” Dylan asked.

“At some point.”

“Well, tread lightly when you do. And don’t give my name as a reference—he’s seriously pissed at me right now.”

“Why?” Logan asked, though he could imagine a thousand reasons—not the least of which was Tyler’s tendency to be a hothead.

But Dylan shut him down. “Too personal,” he said coolly.
This is between Ty and me. You’re on the outside,

looking in.
“Look, Logan, it was good to hear from you, but I’ve gotta go. Big date.”

“Right,” Logan replied. He and Dylan had been civil to each other. When he saw Cassie the next morning, he could honestly say he’d tried. “Good luck with the movie.”