Montana Creeds: Tyler

“This is a house? Looks more like a chicken coop to me.”

Standing somewhere behind him, Dylan chuckled. He’d set Tyler’s guitar case and duffel bag down and, from the clanking and splashing, started working the pump at the main sink.

“Okay, Brutus,” Tyler said, looking down at the dog, “get him.”

Kit Carson looked up at him in confusion, probably wondering who the hell Brutus was.

“Davie McCullough!” the kid burst out, scrambling to his feet and, at the same time, trying to melt into the bathroom wall, which was papered with old catalog pages and peeling in a lot of places. “All right? My name is Davie McCullough! ”

“Take a breath, Davie,” Tyler told him. “The dog won’t hurt you, and neither will I.”

Somebody had hurt him, though. Now that the kid was up off the floor, and dusty light from the high window illuminated his face, Tyler saw bruises along his jawline, fading to a yellowish purple.

Again, Tyler flinched. Either Davie McCullough had been in a tussle with some other kid recently, or an adult had beaten the hell out of him. Having had an alcoholic father himself, Tyler tended toward the latter theory.

“What happened to your face?” Dylan asked, poking wood into the stove to boil up some java, as soon as Davie edged out of the bathroom, past both Tyler and the dog.

Davie kept a careful distance from everybody. Quite a trick in a cabin roughly the size of one of those clown cars that spill bozos at the rodeo.

“You’re really going to build a fire on a day like this?” Davie countered.

“I asked my question first,” Dylan responded, setting the dented enamel coffeepot on the stove with a thump.

Davie scowled. With a temperament that prickly, Tyler thought with grim amusement, he should have been a Creed. “My mom’s boyfriend was in a mood,” he said, peevish even in an indefensible position. “Okay?”

Tyler felt another pang of sympathy—and an urge to find the boyfriend and see if he was inclined to take on a grown man instead of a skinny kid who’d probably never lifted anything heavier than a laptop computer.

“Okay,” Dylan answered affably. He reached right into one of Tyler’s grocery bags, pulled out a package of chocolate cookies and tossed it to Davie. Davie caught the bag and promptly tore into it.

“I ate that canned meat you had in the cupboard,” he told Tyler, spewing a few cookie crumbs in the process. “You don’t keep much food around here, do you?”

“McCullough,” Tyler said, and this time, he didn’t bother trying to hold back a grin. “I don’t think I’ve run across that name around Stillwater Springs. You new in town?”

Clearly torn between bolting for the door, which Dylan had opened to let out some of the stove heat, and staying because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, Davie hesitated, not sure how to answer, then drew back one of the four rickety chairs at the table in the center of the cabin and plunked down to scarf up cookies in earnest.

He’d obviously been hiding out at the lake for a while, if he’d run through the several dozen cans of congealed “ham” Tyler kept on hand for intermittent visits.

“My mom lived here a long time ago,” Davie said, after considerable cookie-noshing. “Before I was born.”

“Who is your mom?” Dylan asked mildly. Mr. Subtle. Like an idiot wouldn’t know he was planning to find the woman and give her some grief for letting the boyfriend pound on her kid.

“You a social worker or something?” Davie asked suspiciously.

“No,” Dylan replied, finding mugs on the shelf, peering into them and frowning at whatever was crawling around inside. “Just trying to be neighborly, that’s all. Your mom must be pretty worried, though.”

“She’s too busy schlepping drinks out at the casino to be worried,” Davie scoffed. “Roy’s been out of work for a year, so she’s been pulling double shifts, trying to save up enough to get us our own place.”

Another look passed between Dylan and Tyler. Neither of them spoke. Now that the kid had some sugar and preservatives under his belt, he’d turned talkative.

“We live out at the Shady Grove trailer park, with Roy’s grandma. It’s pretty crowded, especially when he’s on the peck.”

Jake Creed had been known to throw a punch or two, when he was guzzling down a paycheck, and both Dylan and Tyler had been in Davie’s shoes more often than either of them would admit. They’d taken refuge at Cassie’s place, sleeping on her living room floor or in the teepee out in her yard. Only Logan had been immune to Jake’s temper, maybe because he’d always been the old man’s favorite—the one who might “amount to something.”

The coffee started to perk.

Kit Carson ambled out onto the porch and lay there letting the sun bake his bones, like an old dog ought to be allowed to do.

“I’ll give you a ride back to town,” Dylan told Davie, once some time had gone by. “The new sheriff’s a friend of mine. There might be something he can do about Roy.”

Davie’s face seized with fear, quickly controlled, but not quickly enough. “Nothing short of a shotgun blast to the belly is going to fix what’s wrong with Roy Fifer,” he said. “Why can’t I just stay here? I can sleep outside, and I’ll work off the food I ate, chopping wood or something.”

Tyler knew he couldn’t keep the boy; he was a loner, for one thing. And for another, Davie was a minor child, no older than thirteen or fourteen. For good or ill, his living arrangements were up to his mother. “That wouldn’t work,” he said, with some reluctance.

What would he and Dylan have done, all those nights, if Cassie had turned them away from her door? If she hadn’t faced Jake Creed down on her front porch and told him she’d call Sheriff Book and press charges if he didn’t go away and sober up?

“I’ll work,” Davie said, and the desperation in his voice made Tyler’s gut clench. “I could take care of the dog and chop firewood and catch all the fish we could eat. I’ll stay out of your way—won’t be any trouble at all—”

“I might not be around long,” Tyler said, his voice hoarse, unable to glance in Dylan’s direction. “And you can’t stay here alone. You’re just a kid.”

Davie looked as near tears as pride would allow. “Okay,” he said, shoulders sagging a little.

Dylan pushed back his chair, stood. Sighed. He had to be remembering all the things Tyler remembered, and maybe a few more, since he’d been the middle son, not the youngest, like Tyler, or the smart one, like Logan. No, Dylan had been wild, the son who mirrored all the things Jake Creed might have been, if he hadn’t been such a waste of skin.

“I’ll have a word with Jim,” he told Tyler.

Tyler merely nodded, numb with old sorrows. Shared sorrows.

As kids, he and Dylan and Logan had fought plenty, but they’d always had each other’s backs, too. Logan, mature beyond his years, had made sure he and Dylan had lunch money, and presents at Christmas.

When had things gone so wrong between the three of them?

Not at Jake’s funeral. No, the problem went back further than that.

Passing Tyler’s chair, Dylan laid a hand on his shoulder. “You know my cell number,” he said quietly. “When your truck’s ready to be picked up, give me a call and I’ll give you a lift to town.”

L ILY AWAKENED at sunset, to the sound of familiar voices—her daughter’s and her father’s, a novel combination—chatting in the nearby kitchen. Outside somewhere, perhaps in a neighbor’s yard, a lawn sprinkler sang its summer evensong— ka-chucka-chucka-whoosh, ka-chucka-chucka-whoosh.

Sitting up on the narrow bed in what had once been her mother’s sewing room, Lily smiled, yawned, stretched. Slipped her feet into the sandals she’d kicked off before lying down. She’d intended to rest her eyes; instead, she’d zonked out completely, settling in deeper than even the most vivid dreams could reach.

For a little while, she’d been mercifully free of ordinary reality.

The guilt over Burke’s death.

The wide gulf between her and the man she had once called “Daddy.”

The gnawing loneliness.

She sat for a few moments, listening to the happy lilt in Tess’s voice as she told her grandfather all about story hour at the library. It had been too long since Lily had heard that sweet cadence—Tess was usually so solemn, a little lost soul, soldiering on.

Hal chuckled richly at one of Tess’s comments. He’d always been a good listener—until he’d simply decided to stop listening, at least to Lily. When she’d called him, after the divorce, desperate for some assurance that things would be all right again, he’d brushed her off, or so it had seemed to a heartbroken child, grieving for so many things she could barely name.

Lily stepped into the kitchen, found Tess and Hal setting the table for supper. Spaghetti casserole—the specialty, Lily recalled, of Janice Baylor, her dad’s longtime receptionist. Tess’s small face shone with the pleasure of the afternoon’s adventure at the library with Kristy.

Lily bit back a comment about the fat and cholesterol content of Janice’s casserole and smiled. “Something smells good,” she said.

“Mrs. Baylor brought us sketty for supper,” Tess said cheerfully.

Hal watched Lily, probably expecting a discourse on the wonders of tofu. “You look a little better,” he said. “Not so frazzled.”

Lily nodded. She needed a shower and more sleep—would she ever catch up?—but she needed a hot meal more, and her father and daughter’s company more still.

“How about you?” she asked Hal. “Did you rest this afternoon?”

Hal grinned. Here at home, he didn’t look so wan and gaunt as he had in the hospital. The expression of frenzied dismay in his eyes had subsided, too. He’d decided, Lily thought, to live.

“As much as I could, with half the town stopping by with food,” he answered. “The doorbell rang at least a dozen times.”

Lily was horrified. She hadn’t heard a thing. Hadn’t stirred on the hard twin bed in the sewing room. What kind of caretaker was she, anyway?

Her thoughts must have shown in her face; Hal winked and said quietly, “Sit down, Lily. You’re home now.”

You’re home now .

Kristy had said something similar, earlier that day.

It was a nice fantasy, Lily supposed, but once her father was well enough to carry on alone, she and Tess would be returning to their old lives in Chicago, to the condo, and Tess’s private school, and Lily’s job as a buyer for an online retailer of women’s clothes.

Burke’s mother, Eloise, who doted on Tess, would be lost without their weekly tea parties—just the two of them, if you didn’t count Eloise’s maid, Dolores. They used the best bone china, Eloise and Tess, and wore flowered hats and white gloves with pearl buttons. Eloise took Tess to museums, and bought her beautiful, hand-made dresses, and invited her for long weekends at the Kenyon “cottage” on Nantucket.

The place had three stories, fourteen rooms, each one graced with exquisitely shabby antique furniture. Priceless seascapes graced the walls, and even the rugs were either heirlooms or elegant finds from the finest auction houses in the world.

Tess, Eloise never hesitated to point out, was all she had left, with her husband gone and her only son killed in the prime of his life. The accusation went unspoken: if Lily had just been a little more tolerant of Burke’s “high spirits,” a little more patient—

Lily’s own mother seemed to have no time for her, or even for Tess, she was so busy gracing her powerful husband’s arm at swanky parties up and down the eastern seaboard.

Resolutely, she shook off the reverie, went to the kitchen sink and washed her hands. Then she sat down to a “sketty” supper with her family.

“I like that man with the dog,” Tess announced, midway through the meal.

Lily felt a little jolt at the mere reminder of Tyler.

“Where does he live?” Tess persisted, when neither Lily nor Hal offered a response.

Lily had no idea. Didn’t want to know. Everything would be easier if she could just pretend Tyler Creed didn’t exist, the way she had since the night he broke her heart, but that was bound to be a tall order in a town as small as Stillwater Springs.

“His family owns a ranch,” Hal explained, with a readiness that surprised Lily, given her father’s formerly low opinion of the Creeds in general and Tyler in particular. She flashed back to the friendly way he’d greeted Tyler when they found him walking along that lonely road. “It’s a big spread. Tyler’s cabin is on the lake—best fishing in the county.”

“I doubt if he’s around much,” Lily said moderately.

“He’s a busy man, all right,” Hal agreed, with quiet admiration. “He’s come a long way since he was a kid. So have Logan and Dylan. All of them went to college, with more hindrance than help from Jake, and made their mark in professional rodeo, too. Logan has a law degree, as a matter of fact.”

Lily widened her eyes at her father. “Since when are you such a fan of the Creeds?” she asked, careful to keep her tone light. Tess was so bright that she might pick up on the slightest nuance.

“Since one of them saved my life,” Hal said quietly. “And, anyway, I admire gumption. They’ve got it in spades, all three of them.”

“Is he married?” Tess asked, just a mite too cagily for Lily’s comfort. “Does he have a little girl?”

Lily nearly choked on a forkful of spaghetti casserole.

“Far as I know,” Hal said, looking at Lily instead of Tess, “he’s single. No children.”

“Do you think he’d like a little girl?” Tess persisted, with such a note of hope in her voice that Lily’s eyes filled with sudden, scalding tears. “One like me?”

“Honey—” Lily began, but words failed her.

Hal reached over to pat his granddaughter’s hand, his smile fond and full of tender understanding. “I think any man would be proud to have you for a daughter, cupcake.”

“Don’t,” Lily whispered.

And just then, the wall phone rang.

Lily rushed to answer it, partly because she needed the distraction, and partly because she didn’t want Hal rushing off to take care of somebody’s sick cow and compromising his fragile health.

“Hello?” she chimed.

“Lily? This is Tyler.”

The floor went soft beneath Lily’s feet, just the way it had when she was a teenager, and just the sound of Tyler Creed’s voice had the power to melt her knees.

“Er—hello—” Lily fumbled.

“I want to see you,” Tyler said. I want to see you. Just like that.

As if he hadn’t sold her out to sleep with a tattooed waitress. As if he hadn’t shattered her most cherished dreams, and fostered a cold distance at the center of her marriage that she and Burke had never been able to overcome.

Damn him, he had his nerve. Because he wanted to see her, he expected it to happen. It probably hadn’t even occurred to him, in his arrogance, that she might refuse.

“Lily?” he prompted, when she was silent too long.

Her face burned, her stomach did flip-flops and she turned her back on Hal and Tess, in a fruitless attempt to hide what she was feeling.

“Lily?” Tyler repeated. “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Okay,” Lily said, though she’d meant to say no instead.

When it came to Tyler Creed, she had no backbone at all.

CHAPTER THREE

I F T YLER HAD HAD to explain what made him call Lily and ask her out, he’d have been hard put to find the words. She’d been on his mind ever since they’d run into each other on the road, after his truck broke down, but there was more to it than that—a lot more.

Maybe it was being alone at the cabin, with just Kit Carson for company—although, in truth, solitude had always been one of his favorite things in life. He was a loner for sure—more so than either of his brothers, and that was saying something.

Maybe it was knowing only too well what it was like to be a kid like Davie McCullough—a player in a game of psychological dodgeball, always “it.” Never knowing which direction to jump, but always and forever ready to sidestep some missile.

And maybe it was the brief time he’d spent with Dylan that day, reminding him that having brothers could be a good thing.

For some people.

People who weren’t Creeds, that is.

In any case, he’d called Lily, without even stopping to think that she might be involved with some lucky bastard. She’d agreed to go out to dinner with him, though, and that was a start.

The question was, of what?

He was sitting on the porch step, looking at the lake, Kit Carson beside him, leaning slightly against his right shoulder as if to anchor him somehow, and sipping strong coffee when his cell phone rang.

His first thought, as he set his cup down to take the phone from his shirt pocket, was that Lily had changed her mind. Come to her senses. She was calling back to tell him she’d thought it over, and thanks, but no thanks….

But the caller, as it turned out, was Dylan.

“The kid’s situation is pretty bad,” Dylan said. Typical. He never bothered with “hello” but, then, Tyler didn’t, either, most of the time. Or Logan. When Tyler got somebody on the horn, it was because he had business with them. He didn’t shoot the breeze—a family trait, he reflected, with some amusement. “Davie’s, I mean.”

Tyler let out the sigh that had been hunkered down inside him, dark and heavy, ever since he’d found Davie McCullough cowering in his john that afternoon. “I figured that,” he said. “Did you talk to Jim?”

“I did,” Dylan answered. “Our new sheriff is up to his ass in alligators right now. He wanted to call in social services and have the boy put into a foster home. Davie said he’d run away first, and I believe him—so I talked Jim into giving it a few days.”

Tyler closed his eyes. “Where’s Davie now?”

“I took him to the casino. He’s hanging out in one of the restaurants till his mother gets off work.” Dylan paused, cleared his throat, and Tyler, who had known something bigger was coming at him since the call began, braced himself. “Ty?” Dylan went on. “The kid’s mom—well—she’s somebody you know.” He stopped again. Tyler had a flash-vision of the bomb doors swaying open in the bay of a fighter jet, of ominous cylinders dropping with slow and deadly grace. “You knew her as Doreen Baron.”

“Holy shit, ” Tyler rasped, when he’d absorbed the impact.

Talk about your emotional mushroom cloud.

Doreen had been a waitress when he knew her, back when Skivvie’s still had a lunch counter and a few tables. Fifteen years his senior, Doreen, with her network of tattoos and what-the-hell attitude, had taught him everything he needed to know about pleasing a woman—and then some.

Still scrambling for some kind of inner foothold, Tyler did some frantic counting—backward, from the age he guessed Davie to be.

“Shit,” he repeated.

Davie could be his son. And some son of a bitch was beating on him, on a regular basis, it would seem.

“You still there?” Dylan queried, somewhat cautiously, when the taut silence had finally stretched itself to the breaking point.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Tyler answered, dizzy with a combination of dread and wild hope. On the one hand, he hoped Davie was his. On the other, such a revelation might make it impossible to find any sort of common ground with Lily.

Did he even want to find common ground with Lily?

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dylan pressed quietly.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “Davie’s about the right age, I guess.” He ducked his head, pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. The dog gave a little whimper and leaned in harder. “Doreen never pretended I was the only game in town, though, and I think if Davie was mine, she’d have hit me up for money somewhere along the way.”

Dylan was silent for a long time. “Look, you’re going to need a rig. I’ve already spoken with Kristy, and she’s willing to lend you her Blazer until your truck is back on the road. We could bring it out when she gets off work at the library, if you want.”

Pride swelled up inside Tyler, fit to split his hide, but he needed transportation. The auto shop wasn’t the kind of place that offered loaners, and rental cars were out, too, unless he wanted to go all the way to Missoula for one—which he didn’t.

“Okay,” he said, finally. “Thanks.”

Dylan laughed. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

It had been plenty hard. Dylan, being a Creed himself, had to know that.

“Don’t start thinking we’re going to buddy-up or something,” Tyler warned.

Again, Dylan laughed, more of a chuckle this time, and the sound of it chafed at some raw places in Tyler. He’d sworn he wouldn’t be beholden to either of his brothers for anything, after that set-to at Skivvie’s following Jake’s funeral, and he’d lived by that vow. Now here he was, borrowing a Blazer like some loser who couldn’t even manage to come up with a set of wheels on his own.

“God forbid,” Dylan said dryly, “that we should ‘buddy-up.’”

“Whatever,” Tyler shot back, and thumbed the disconnect button.

Two hours later—hours Tyler spent alternately pacing and fiddling around with his guitar—two rigs rolled up to the cabin, Dylan driving one, Kristy at the wheel of the other.

Tyler left the doorway, laid his fancy, custom-made guitar in its case and hoped nobody would comment, but Dylan’s gaze swung right to it, as soon as he and Kristy stepped into the house.

Kristy, carrying two-year-old Bonnie on one blue-jeaned hip, went straight over to admire the instrument, giving a low whistle of exclamation.

“A Martin,” she said, with suitable reverence.

“I like a girl who knows her guitars,” Tyler said, giving his sister-in-law a peck on the cheek and then ruffling Bonnie’s blond curls. Kristy was a looker—always had been. Legs that went on forever, and an honest-to-God brain behind that angelic face. And she had a particular glow about her, indicating a very recent orgasm, of the cosmic variety.

Dylan, his eyes peaceful, his body moving as though his joints were greased, had, of course, been the lucky guy.

Tyler felt a stab of pure, undiluted envy.

Smiled to hide it, though he suspected Dylan knew exactly what he’d been thinking.

Kristy pulled the keys to her Blazer from a pocket in her perfectly fitted jeans and jangled them under Tyler’s nose. “Here you go, cowboy,” she said.

“Cowboy,” Bonnie repeated exuberantly, straining to come to him.

Tyler had a weakness for kids, and took his niece into his arms. Crouched to introduce her to Kit Carson.

The little girl giggled with delight.

Kit licked her face.

Tyler stood up again.

Kristy laid the keys on the kitchen table, her dark blue eyes alight with goodwill. “It’s nice to have you back in Stillwater Springs, Ty,” she said. “We’re headed over to Logan and Briana’s for supper. Care to join us?”

“I’m not ready for that,” Tyler said gruffly, after exchanging a glance with Dylan. He was curious about Briana and that ready-made family of Logan’s—two boys, according to Cassie—and all the work going on over at the home place, too, but Logan would be there, and that was reason enough to stay away.

Again, Dylan’s gaze shifted to the guitar. He was probably remembering the incident at Skivvie’s, after they’d laid Jake Creed in his grave, just as Tyler was.

“Bygones,” Dylan said, “ought to be bygones.”

That was easy for him to say, Tyler thought, stung anew by the old fury. He’d written a song about Jake—or the man he’d needed his father to be—and Logan had torn the guitar out of his hands and smashed it to splinters against the bar.

Tyler could still hear the dull hum of the strings.