Montana Creeds: Logan (16 page)

“For adults,” Kristy replied, with a nod. In high school, according to Dorothy Book, who played penny slot machines at the casino on a fairly regular basis, Kristy had been a cheerleader,
queen of the winter carnival and the drama group’s favorite leading lady.

Briana didn’t hold any of that against her.

“Really?”

Kristy nodded again. “Would you be interested?”

Briana was so used to turning down things like that that she almost said no. But Heather was right—she was going to have more free time. “I’d like that a lot,” she said.

“Tuesday at seven,” Kristy reiterated. “We’ll meet in the community room in back, after the library closes. I guess we can all decide that night what we want to read first.”

“Sounds good,” Briana said, feeling reckless. Reading was nothing new—she’d been doing that voraciously since she was five years old, thanks largely to her dad—but doing something just because she wanted to was.

An older woman approached the desk to ask Kristy where to find a certain reference book, and Kristy zipped off to help her.

Briana zeroed in on the new releases. There was a one-book limit, and the return time was shorter, but she snatched up the latest Nora Roberts novel and felt rich.

She checked out several other books—a western, a thriller and a memoir—and left the library, resisting the temptation to drive by Vance and Heather’s trailer to make sure the boys were okay.

Wanda was home alone.

She’d head for the ranch, let the dog out, make herself a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and
read
until Vance either brought the boys
home or called and asked her to come and get them.

She was getting the hang of this not-being-amother-hen thing.

Sort of.

L
OGAN SAW
the dust roiling up from behind the truck and horse trailer when they were still a mile away, and he and Sidekick were waiting by the corral gate when it arrived.

When Briana pulled in right behind though, in the old pickup Dylan used to drive, he was a little surprised.

The truck driver climbed out of his rig, tugged at the brim of his billed cap to greet Briana and went around to the back of the trailer to open it up.

“You’ve got horses?” Briana asked, shading her eyes from the sun. Her tone was breathless, almost reverent.

“Do now,” Logan said. “Excuse me for a second. I’ve gotta help unload.”

Briana stayed on his heels. “I was just passing by, on my way home, and I saw the trailer—”

Logan grinned, glad she was there. She stayed close while he and the driver—Bob, according to the name stitched on his shirt—put halters on the new horses and brought them down the ramp, one by one. Sidekick kept a wise distance, retreating to the porch to watch the proceedings.

The big, heavy-shouldered buckskin gelding came first, and Briana was right there to greet him. She was comfortable around horses, Logan thought, impressed. But then she was Wild Man McIntyre’s daughter. Of
course
she knew horses.

He felt a wrench just looking at her, standing there in all that road dust, her attention completely focused on the buckskin, tendrils of her strawberry-blond hair escaping the braid to glitter in the sunlight.

His first wife had been terrified of horses.

His second was allergic.

But here was Briana, nose-to-nose with one, and obviously communicating. Maybe even bonding.

Logan shook off the vision, turned back to the task at hand. Bob brought the brown-and-white pinto mare out next, then the gray gelding, and by the time Logan had unloaded the fourth animal, a black filly still too young to ride, Briana had already led the buckskin into the corral.

She greeted each horse as they were turned loose, carrying on some kind of silent conversation, and Logan wanted in the worst way to know what she’d said to them.

He paid Bob for the delivery and waited until the truck and trailer were headed back down the driveway before approaching the corral. By then, Briana was outside the fence, perched on the lowest rail, admiring the new arrivals.

“They’re
beautiful,”
she whispered.

They were good-looking horses, sturdy and, as far as Logan could tell, even-tempered… but beautiful? He didn’t see it.

Maybe he was too stuck on the realization that
Briana
was beautiful. He’d thought she was attractive before, but seeing her with the horses—well, there had been something mystical about that. Something that touched him, way deep, and left an imprint.

“Do you ride?” he asked, climbing up beside her, standing close enough that their upper arms touched. He knew the answer—he’d only asked the question to get the conversation rolling.

She nodded, swiped a coppery-blond tendril of hair
back from her forehead and never took her eyes off the horses. They were running around the corral, kicking up dust and generally celebrating being out of the trailer. Later, they’d establish a pecking order, which would involve some squealing and nipping, but the pinto mare would win out.

The oldest mare always called the shots.

“About the only thing I miss about the rodeo, besides my dad,” Briana said, without looking at him, “is the horses.”

“I’ve got to take the rough edges off them first,” Logan said, “but if they’re gentle enough, you can ride anytime you want.”

She turned her head, and he saw a variety of emotions, none of which he could readily identify, flicker in her spring-green eyes. “Oh, these horses are gentle,” she told him confidently. “They’re just excited, that’s all.”

Logan felt like a fool, though he wasn’t sure why. On top of that, he wanted to kiss Briana Grant, right then and there.

He didn’t, because even though there was nobody else around, the barn crew having refused to work on Sunday, time and a half or not, he wanted privacy when he kissed Briana.

She looked toward the house, then met his gaze again.

All he’d have to do was lean in, just a little—

He realized he was staring at her mouth.

Not good.

He stepped down off the fence rail. He’d already filled the water trough, and put some hay in the rusty
feeder. Now, there was nothing to do but wait for the horses to settle down.

“Where are the boys?” he asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He’d sound like an ass if he invited her inside for a cold drink, wouldn’t he? Might as well suggest that they skip the preliminaries and head straight for his bed.

Nix on
that
thought.

It was only too easy to imagine stripping off their dusty clothes, making love with the windows open to a summer afternoon’s breeze. Skin slapping skin.

“They’re with their dad,” Briana said. “And their stepmother.”

“Heather,” Logan said, hoping she couldn’t tell by the sound of his voice how relieved he was.

Briana raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Alec mentioned her yesterday,” he explained. Hot damn. There was no reconciliation in the offing. Vance Grant had a wife.

“I’d better go,” Briana said. “Wanda’s home alone.”

Logan found himself hurrying to catch up with her as she zoomed toward Dylan’s truck. “Briana—”

She stopped, the truck door open, and looked up at him. She was coated with dust, like he was, and he wished he could lick her clean.

“You and Vance—”

“Over,” she said. “He’s married, remember?”

Did he remember? He felt like hiring a sky-writer to let the whole county know. “I was thinking of firing up the barbecue tonight,” he said. Barbecue? Was there a grill anywhere on the place? “It would be great if you and the boys could come to supper.”

She took so long to respond that Logan started to wonder if he’d said the words out loud or only thought them.

“Okay,” she said. “What time?”

He had to hit town, get a barbecue grill and something to put on it. That would take an hour, tops.

“Six o’clock?” he asked, picking a time out of the air.

“I’ll be here,” she said. “Shall I bring anything? I make a mean potato salad.”

“Potato salad,” Logan agreed, almost tripping over his tongue.

“See you later,” Briana answered. Then, after closing the door, she started up the old truck and drove away.

Logan waited until she was out of sight before jumping up and punching the air with one fist.

“THE PLACE IS pretty clean,” Josh said, whispering into his cell phone. “We picked up all the stuff and hauled it to the dump in Dad’s van, and Heather is making spaghetti and meatballs for supper and—”

Listening to all this while she mixed up the mustard sauce for potato salad, Briana knew what was coming.

“And they want to know if Alec and me can spend the night.”

“Alec and I,” Briana corrected automatically.

“Can we?”

“May we?”

Josh huffed out a sigh.
“May
Alec and
I
spend the night?”

Briana frowned, recalling Josh’s earlier misgivings. “You’re sure you’d be okay with that?”

“We’ve got cell phones now, Mom,” Josh said. “If it gets weird, I can call you.”

She smiled, albeit a little sadly. “What’s your definition of
weird?”

Josh lowered his voice another notch. “Well, if Dad packed everything in the van and said we were going for a ride, or something.”

“You can spend the night,” Briana said. Her eyes burned with tears and her throat was thick, but she was smiling.

“She said yes,” Josh told his brother.

Alec let out one of his famous whoops.

“What about toothbrushes and pajamas and stuff?” Briana asked, suddenly practical again.

“Dad said we could each use one of his T-shirts, and Heather got extra toothbrushes when we went to the grocery store.”

“Okay,” Briana said, feeling suddenly superfluous.

“Bye, Mom,” Josh said.

“Wait,” Briana interjected. “What time should I pick you guys up tomorrow?”

Josh relayed the question, and then Vance came on the line.

“You have to work tomorrow, right?” he asked.

Briana nodded, then remembered that Vance couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she answered. “But you and Heather do, too, don’t you?”

“I have to be at the shop by eight,” he replied. “Heather doesn’t start her shift until around two in the afternoon. What if she brought the boys by the casino before she goes to work?”

Briana closed her eyes. This was how things were
going to be for a while and she’d better accept it. Still, Heather was a stranger to her, and to the boys. What if she had a dark side, or slept until noon, letting Alec and Josh run wild? What if she drank, or took drugs?

What if she was simply a bad driver?

“I don’t know,” Briana said uncertainly.

“You don’t trust Heather?” Vance asked. He’d whispered the words, but everyone in the trailer had probably heard them. After all, it wasn’t a big place.

“I didn’t say that, Vance,” Briana responded. “I don’t
know
Heather, that’s all.”

“Well, I do, and if I trust her with my kids—”

Like he’d been a devoted father, showing concern for Alec and Josh’s well-being. Like he hadn’t—

Vance sighed. “If the kids are uncomfortable for any reason, Briana,” he said carefully, “they can call you and you can come and get them.”

Briana blinked, ran a forearm across her eyes. “I guess that’s fair,” she said.

Vance was still angry, she could tell. But he kept his temper, and that alone showed progress.

Maybe he really
had
changed.

And maybe if she put on ruby-red slippers and tapped the heels together, she’d wind up in Kansas.

“Goodbye, Briana,” Vance said, and then he hung up with a clunk that made the inside of her eardrum vibrate.

She replaced the receiver and looked down at Wanda, who was standing close and wagging her tail tentatively.

“I guess it’s you and me tonight, girl,” she said.

Then she went back to work on the potato salad.

It wouldn’t be just her and Wanda that night, she recalled, with mingled excitement and dread.

She’d accepted an invitation to a barbecue at Logan’s.

Of course, at the time, she’d thought Alec and Josh would be going with her, as well as Wanda.

Would she even know what to say to Logan, when it was just the two of them? What should she wear?

She looked good in her blue polka-dot sundress, but she didn’t want her clothes to say
come hither.

Did she?

What if he kissed her?

What if it led to sex?

She was
definitely
not wearing the sundress.

Jeans, that was it. Hadn’t he promised her a horseback ride? Surely the buckskin and the others had mellowed out by now, gotten used to the new place.

Jeans would say good sport, not hubba-hubba.

Did
anybody
even say hubba-hubba anymore?

She took a shower at five-thirty, keeping the cell phone nearby, on the back of the toilet, in case things
got weird
at the trailer in town. She put on black jeans and a blue pullover shirt, as planned, then wavered and changed into the sundress after all. Even slipped her feet into a pair of high-heeled sandals.

At six-fifteen, she and Wanda and the potato salad got in the truck and headed next door.

It was too soon for sex, she told herself, sundress or no sundress. She hadn’t known
Logan long enough to go to bed with him. This was just a friendly barbecue.

No, sir, they were
not
going to have sex tonight.

Probably not, anyway.

O
KAY, LOGAN TOLD
himself, as he marinated steaks for the barbecue in his unrenovated kitchen, it was too soon for a seduction, anyway. He’d only known Briana Grant for a few days, though it felt like much longer—a sort of cosmic, multiple-lifetimes thing—and he fully expected her to bring the kids along to supper.

If that hadn’t been enough to dampen the action, Jim Huntinghorse would be. He’d called half an hour before to say he wanted to take Logan up on his offer to drop in at any time.

“Any time” turned out to be tonight.

On top of that, the folks at the airport in Missoula had contacted him, as well. Laurie’s dog had arrived—Laurie-like, she’d forgotten the promised heads-up on the airline, flight number and ETA—and he’d arranged, at considerable cost, for the mutt to be delivered to the ranch by private courier.

“The best laid plans,” he told Sidekick, who was keeping a close eye on the steaks as Logan slopped them from one bowl of previously bottled goop to another. Good thing he’d snagged a few extra T-bones at the supermarket—the way things were going, he wouldn’t be surprised if half of his high school class showed up, too, for an impromptu reunion.

While the steaks were soaking up sauce, Logan went out to feed his horses. It felt good to have that to do—all the other work on the ranch was, for the moment, being handled by contractors.

That, of course, would change when the cattle arrived.

He’d found his dad’s old saddle under a pile of junk in the barn earlier in the day, along with some other tack, and brought it inside, meaning to clean it up a little. In the morning, he intended to ride. Get a
real
look at the state of Stillwater Springs Ranch in the time-honored way—from the back of a horse.

He was tossing hay over the corral fence when Briana drove in, alone except for Wanda riding shotgun in the passenger seat.

No kids, Logan thought, both intrigued and disappointed.

Briana about stopped his heart when she got out of Dylan’s ancient truck, wearing a sundress that left her shoulders bare and showed a lot of leg. She even had on high-heeled sandals, and she looked embarrassed as she tottered toward him. She was a boots-and-jeans kind of girl, uncomfortable in big-city shoes, he thought, and the realization jarred something deep inside him.

He wished he could call Jim, ask him to come another time, but it wouldn’t be right to put him off. Huntinghorse had been his best buddy ever since kindergarten, after all, though they’d been out of touch for a long while. He’d made a lot of other friends, rodeoing and building his company, but he’d never made a better one than Jim.

Logan met Briana in the middle of the yard, inclined his head toward Wanda, forgotten in the old beater,
pawing at the side window and barking eagerly. “I’ll get her,” he said.

Briana blushed—even her shoulders glowed a fetching shade of pink. It would have been too obvious to check if her legs were affected, too, but he surely wanted to.

“Thanks,” she replied, watching him as he went to the truck, opened the door and hoisted Wanda down to the ground.

“You need to cut back on the chow,” he told the dog. He was painfully aware, the whole time, of his own work clothes, covered with hay dust, in contrast to Briana’s fragrant skin and hair.

There was some guilt, too—always some guilt. Inadvertently, he’d put her on the spot. Jim, after all, was Briana’s boss, and she didn’t know he’d be joining them.

“Thought you’d bring Alec and Josh,” he said, approaching her. He offered his arm because those heels of hers had sunk into the dirt and she looked stuck.

“They’re with their dad,” she replied. Then, with a wince, leaning against him a little, so wildfire raced through every part of him, she added, “Damn these stupid shoes.”

“You could take them off,” Logan said. Oddly, the moment felt as intimate as if he’d asked her to strip to the skin, not just kick away her shoes. They
were
pretty silly, but sexy as hell. There was another side to Briana Grant, and he was ready to explore it.

She looked at the rough ground, still littered with broken glass here and there, despite the admittedly half-
assed clean-up effort he’d been making since he arrived. Shook her head. “I shouldn’t have worn them,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You look really…
really
nice,” Logan told her.

“Maybe I should go home and change,” she fretted, biting at her lower lip in a way that made it swell slightly and look highly kissable. And in need of serious nibbling by him.

Logan wanted to shoot down the leaving idea, and pronto. If Briana went home, she might not come back, especially if he told her that Jim was probably on his way to the ranch at that moment. “Stay,” he said, and his voice came out sounding hoarse, not at all like his usual Montana-boy drawl.

She looked up at him, and he wondered what was going on behind those spring-green eyes. Was she wishing she hadn’t come?

Just then, before he could warn her, Jim’s sleek black Porsche came over the rise.

“You’ve got to fix that sign,” Huntinghorse said as he got out of the car, carrying a six-pack of beer in one hand. “It almost scratched the roof of my ride.”

Briana didn’t actually stiffen—odds were, she liked Jim, since most people did—but Logan felt her reaction to his arrival, just the same. A sort of tightening up, so subtle that if he’d been standing even an inch farther away, he wouldn’t have caught it.

“I didn’t get a chance to explain,” Logan said quietly, close to her ear. That wasn’t the whole truth, of course—he hadn’t
taken
the chance to explain. He’d been too busy gaping at her, and wondering if the f-me shoes were meant to convey the message they did.

Jim’s smoky, savage gaze took in Briana’s sundress, and probably the shoulders and legs, too.

Logan felt an elemental stab of purely territorial irritation, the emotional equivalent of pissing a circle around Briana Grant to warn off any male who might catch her scent on the breeze.

“Jim,” Briana said, with friendly surprise.

Jim’s eyes shifted to Logan’s face. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said, putting a point on the words.

“It’s just a neighborly barbecue,” Briana said brightly, still standing there looking delicious, with her shoes sunk deep into the Montana dirt. With the next rain, it would turn to the gluey mud natives called gumbo. She turned her head, looked up into Logan’s face; he saw confusion in hers. “Isn’t that right, Logan?”

“It’s right,” Logan said, taking care not to sigh the words. Then, on a reckless impulse, he scooped Briana up into his arms and carried her toward the house, leaving Jim to follow. If he’d been asked, he’d have said it was because she could break an ankle hiking across a barnyard in those lame shoes, but that wasn’t the whole reason, and he knew it.

Jim followed, probably amused, as did Wanda and Sidekick.

Logan set Briana back on her feet when they reached the front porch.

She looked ruffled and pink all over, and immediately tugged at the sides of her dress, as if afraid it had ridden up. But she hadn’t protested, Logan noted, and that felt better than winning the lottery.

After he’d led Jim and Briana through the house to the kitchen, he dodged into the main bathroom for a
quick shower and a change of clothes. When he came out again, both his guests were seated at the picnic table out on the adjoining patio, sipping beer. The dogs lay companionably at their feet, and the whole picture was just a little too cozy for Logan’s liking.

He put down the surge of jealousy he felt, knowing it was stupid. Jim was his closest friend and, besides, he had no claim on Briana Grant.

The smile she turned on Logan as he stepped out the side door soothed him in a way that troubled him even more than the rush of possessiveness had.

“It’s official,” she said. “Jim’s going to run for sheriff.”

She’d taken off her shoes. They lay at a helter-skelter angle under the table.

Heat surged through Logan again. Again, he waited it out.

“That’s… good,” he said, after a protracted silence, during which Jim raised one eyebrow and crooked up a corner of his mouth in a too-knowing grin.

“It’ll be a tough race,” Jim said. “Want a beer?”

Logan shook his head. “Maybe later.” He approached the grill he’d bought that day at the hardware store, lifted the shiny new lid and was assaulted by roiling smoke.

“Guess the fire’s ready,” Jim observed dryly. Then he winked at Briana. “I know these things. It’s the Indian blood.”

Briana laughed.

Logan was not amused, but he grinned at his friend. “I’ll get the steaks,” he said.
You’re a conversational genius, Creed,
he told himself.

Jim got up and followed him into the kitchen.

“Want me to get out of here?” he asked, as Logan took the marinating steaks out of the fridge. By then, he figured they’d soaked up enough goop.

“No,” Logan replied, but the word came out sounding peevish. He hadn’t intended that, and sighed, setting the baking dish with the steaks in it on the counter with a thump. Shoved a hand through his shower-dampened hair.

Jim chuckled, then let out a low whistle. “Lighten up, man,” he said. “Your primitive masculine instincts are showing.”

“Shit,” Logan said.

Jim laughed, shook his head. “Why didn’t you just tell me not to come, Logan? I would have understood.”

Logan thrust out another sigh. He’d been doing a lot of sighing, since he got back to Stillwater Springs. More accurately, since he’d met Briana Grant, picnicking with her kids and her dog in a graveyard, of all places. “Maybe, on some level,” he admitted, “I didn’t trust myself to be alone with her.”

“She scares you?” Jim asked, grinning, his expressive dark eyes glinting with amusement. “Oh, brother, you
are so
gone on this woman.”

“I just met her.”

Jim folded his brawny arms. He was wearing, Logan finally noticed, a short-sleeved white polo shirt, neatly pressed black slacks and polished loafers. He looked like… a politician.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know that look when I see it. Reminds me of a bull stuck to the cow-catcher on the front of a speeding locomotive.”

“You’re really going to run for sheriff,” Logan said,
but he smiled at the image Jim had raised in his mind’s eye. He
felt
like that imaginary bull, off his feet, whizzing along an unknown track toward God knew what end.

“Think I can win?” Jim asked, and he sounded serious now. Set his hands on his hips, elbows jutting out.

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m a redskin.”

“Very un-PC,” Logan told him, picking up the dish full of steaks. “You’re supposed to say ‘Native American.’”

“Thanks, white eyes,” Jim retorted, grinning. “I’ll remember that.”

Logan started for the back door. Briana was out there, looking all soft and fluffy and good, pulling at him like a magnet, all the more powerful because she didn’t seem to have a clue she was having that effect on him.

He felt another catch, this time in the middle of his chest, when he saw her bending to stroke Sidekick’s ear, the one with a chunk missing. He must have stopped, too, because Jim slammed into him from behind.

Practically sent him sprawling down the steps.

Picturing himself landing face-first in the dish of raw steak and goop, he jarred loose of the stupor he was in, as best he could.

“You’d better let Big Chief cook the meat, paleface,” Jim said under his breath, easing past Logan and then taking the dish out of his hands. “You seem to be a little off your game tonight.”

He
was
distracted—he’d probably burn dinner. He took one of the beers Jim had brought and sat down next to Briana at the picnic table, though not too close.

They ate salad, the three of them, and talked about ordinary things, and the steaks turned out okay.

Jim took his time leaving, though. Even when the meal was long over, and the mosquitoes were out, and the dogs had gnawed the steak bones down to nothing, he hung around.

Only when they went inside, to get away from the bugs, did “Big Chief” bid them adieu, head for his Porsche and drive away.

But he’d no more than pulled out when the courier arrived from the airport, bringing Snookums.

The crate looked small, Logan thought, as he went out to meet the guy and accept the delivery. He was conscious of Briana, standing on the porch watching, the whole time.

He sighed, took the crate by the handle and looked inside.

Snookums, it turned out, was one of those prissy little dust-mop terriers with hair that scraped the ground and a blue ribbon tied into his topknot. The kind of dog that yaps at every sound.

“Great,” he muttered.

“What a cutie,” Briana said, when he reached the porch.

For one moment of unadulterated stupidity, Logan thought she was talking about
him.
He’d been called a lot of things in his life, but a cutie
wasn’t one of them.
She means the dog, dick-brain,
he told himself.

“Meet Snookums,” he said.

She giggled. Looked up at him. “’Snookums’?”

“Hereafter,” Logan decided aloud, “Snooks. He’ll get laughed out of Montana otherwise.”

He set the crate down on the porch, and Sidekick and Wanda sniffed curiously, causing Snooks to retreat to the back of the plastic box.

“Oh, he’s scared,” Briana said, gently shooing Sidekick and Wanda back and plunking herself on the top step to open the door on the crate and reach inside.

The little dog quivered, licked her face anxiously.

Logan wished he could do that. Lick, not quiver.

Briana laughed softly. “It’s all right,” she told Snooks. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Sidekick and Wanda eased forward to sniff some more, then lost interest and went to chase bugs in the yard.

Belatedly, Logan sat down opposite Briana, on the top step, and interlaced his fingers, letting his hands dangle between his knees. Briana seemed oblivious to the mosquitoes now—all her attention was focused on that hairball of a dog.