Montana Creeds: Logan (15 page)

Heather turned back to the salad greens, chopping harder. “Vance says he’ll have to put his foot down about that,” she replied, in a rush of words. “Anyhow, Alec and Josh want to be like other kids. Play baseball and stuff. I mean, you’ve done a good job as a mother and everything but—”

“Heather.” It was Vance’s voice.

Briana, frozen, turned only her eyes in his direction. Nothing else would move.

“Well,” Heather burst out, “you said you were afraid to say anything about putting the boys in a real school, so I—”

Vance stood in the doorway to the living room, with
Alec and Josh squeezed in on either side of him. “Heather,” he repeated.

She broke into tears and fled to the bathroom, since there wasn’t really anyplace else to go.

“That went well,” Briana said, meeting her exhusband’s eyes at last. “And Alec and Josh are doing just fine with their schoolwork.”

“They need to be around other kids, Bree,” Vance said. “Get involved in sports. Go on field trips. Stuff like that.”

“So now you’re suddenly the caring father?”

Stop, said the good angel. Stop now. The kids are listening.

“I know your dad home-schooled you,” Vance said quietly, letting her question pass without comment, “and it worked out fine. But Alec and Josh are my kids, too, and they’re going to school this fall, like everybody else.”

Alec peered around Vance’s elbow. Josh took a step forward.

“Dad’s right, Mom,” Josh said. “We want to be regular kids.”

“Alec?” Briana asked softly.

“I wanna be on a baseball team,” Alec told her. “I wanna ride a yellow bus and eat lunch at the cafeteria.”

Briana sat down, closed her eyes.

Everything was changing, and it was happening too fast.

Way, way too fast.

B
RIANA HAD
Sunday off, and when it dawned, she stretched luxuriously in bed, thrilling to the mistaken idea that she could sleep in.

Then she remembered. Vance and Heather were moving into their rental that day, and Alec and Josh had insisted on helping. Which meant they’d be going into town to spend the day at the new place.

He’s their father, Briana reminded herself. And this is what you wanted—isn’t it?

From the kitchen, she heard cooking noises. Wanda stirred, got up and jumped heavily off the bed. Went to the door and stuck her nose against it.

With a sigh, Briana got up, pulled on her ugly yellow bathrobe with the pink chenille roses on the back, cinched the belt and came out of hiding.

Vance was fully dressed and busy making breakfast—pancakes and sausage patties, his specialty.

Heather was in the shower.

“Where are Alec and Josh?” Briana asked, as she opened the back door to let Wanda out.

“Riding their bikes up and down the driveway,” Vance answered, letting his gaze drift slowly over Briana before shaking his head and looking away. “Met your neighbor yesterday. Logan Creed.”

Briana merely nodded, made her way to the coffeepot. Even though there was nothing going on between her and Logan, she wasn’t comfortable discussing him with Vance.

“I probably didn’t make the best impression on him,” Vance said, flipping a pancake.

Briana went still, her coffee mug halfway to her mouth. “Meaning what?” she asked.

“I might have seemed a little… territorial.”

Briana waited, but Vance didn’t go on. So she prodded him. “Territorial? How so?”

“The boys talk about him a lot,” Vance said, concentrating on the pancakes. “So I just reminded him that they’re
my
boys.”

Briana couldn’t think of a response that wouldn’t start a yelling match, so she kept her mouth shut.

Vance turned, just as Heather entered the kitchen from one side of the room and Alec and Josh and Wanda came in from the other.

“We can talk about it another time,” Vance said.

Subject dropped. It was probably for the best, Briana thought.

The pancakes were good, like always, and so was the sausage. Briana wasn’t hungry, but she ate because she knew she was going to need her strength. Every new day, it seemed, brought fresh challenges, flaming hoops to jump through, higher hurdles to clear.

“Want to come into town with us and see the new place?” Heather asked Briana, when the meal was over and the clearing-up had begun.

Alec looked at Briana in happy expectancy. Josh mouthed, “Please.”

“Okay,” Briana said. Whether she liked it or not, the boys would be spending a lot of time at Vance and Heather’s, for the time being at least, and she needed to know exactly what sort of place it was.

Briana washed dishes while Heather dried. Vance, having cooked breakfast, went outside with Alec and Josh to get the van ready. The old beater always seemed to need tinkering with before it would run—that, at least, hadn’t changed.

“I’m—I’m sorry about the things I said about the boys going to regular school,” Heather ventured, as soon as they were alone. “I was out of line.”

“No harm done,” Briana said. She’d had most of the night to think about the home-versus-regular-school question, and she’d decided to give in. She’d homeschooled the boys from first grade on, because she and Vance had followed the rodeo for most of the year. Then, when they’d wound up in Stillwater Springs, she’d continued, partly because Alec and Josh were doing really well in their studies, and partly because it was a new place and she’d felt overprotective.

“It’ll give you more free time,” Heather suggested. “Come fall, anyway.”

Free time? What would she do with that?

Outside, the van’s engine roared to life.

Alec rushed in; Josh followed slowly, with Wanda.

“Can I ride with Dad and Heather?” Alec asked eagerly.

Briana felt a pang. “I guess so.”

“We could all go together,” Heather put in.

“I have some errands to do,” Briana said quickly. It wasn’t a
complete
lie; the Stillwater Springs Library
was open on Sundays during the summer, because of the influx of RVers and casino patrons. She had a stack of books to return, and wanted to check out more.

“I’ll ride with Mom,” Josh said quickly.

Thus, Briana and Josh followed Vance, Heather and Alec into town.

“You’re all right with this?” Briana asked her son, as they passed the entrance to Stillwater Springs Ranch.

When was somebody going to fix that dangling sign over the gate?

“All right with what?” Josh asked, somewhat snappishly. The night before, he’d wanted to sleep in her bed. Now, in the bright light of day, he was probably embarrassed.

“Spending the day at your dad and Heather’s new place,” she said patiently. “You don’t have to, you know.”

Josh heaved a great, shoulder-moving sigh. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he said. “And all you’re going to do is go to the library.”

“What’s wrong with going to the library? We’ve been there at least once a week ever since we moved to Stillwater Springs.”

“We didn’t move here, Mom. Dad
dumped
us here.”

“What does that have to do with the library?”

In truth, Briana’s emotional survival had had
everything
to do with the library, before
and
after Vance had done his vanishing act. Libraries were warm, spacious, bright places, full of books—and money, the one thing Briana didn’t have, wasn’t required. Josh and Alec had loved the local librarian, Kristy Madison, and sat in on story hour sometimes, even though they considered themselves too big for “that stuff.”

Was this going to change, too?

Briana’s heart sank a little.

“I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with the library,” Josh finally conceded. “Alec is going to ask if he can spend the night with Dad and Heather.”

Briana wasn’t surprised to hear that last part, but it still made her heart skitter a little. What would she do if Alec decided he’d rather live with his father and stepmother full-time?

“Mom?” Josh prompted, when she didn’t answer.

They cruised past a series of signs, strung Burma-Shave style alongside the road.

“What?” Briana asked. She’d heard Sheriff Book was planning to retire, and she wondered who would run for his office when he stepped down.

“Will you be okay?”

She looked at Josh, saw the concern in his face.

“With Dad living in Stillwater Springs and everything,” Josh clarified, studying her anxiously.

The question wasn’t whether she’d be okay or not. It was whether
Josh and Alec
would. Vance had a new wife, a job and the best of intentions, but he liked the free life too much to stay in one place for long—espe-
cially a little town like Stillwater Springs. One day, sure as sunrise and taxes, he’d kick the dust of that rural burg off his feet, jettison both Heather
and
the job, and hit the road.

Heather would be on her own, but
Briana
would be the one who had to put Alec and Josh back together.

Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Will
you be okay, Mom?” Josh persisted.

“I’ll be fine,” she managed to say.

They’d passed the road leading into the casino, and she could still see Vance’s van up ahead, belching smoke from the exhaust pipe. He
was
a good mechanic, if he’d kept that rig running all this time.

The trailer still had a For Rent sign in the overgrown front yard, and junk spilled out the front door—old toys, clothes and various kinds of garbage—as though the place had thrown up.

“Wonderful,” Briana muttered. Okay, her place wasn’t a palace. But she kept the lawn mowed and the yard cleaned.

“Needs a little work,” Vance enthused, walking toward her when she got out of the truck.

“Yuck,” Josh said.

Heather stepped from the van, after Alec had bounded down from the side door, holding a big box of supersize garbage bags in one hand and smiling happily.

“Let’s get some sprucing up done around here,” Vance said.

Josh groaned as he got out of the truck, but he didn’t change his mind about going to the library with Briana, and she knew that was significant.

“It looks pretty bad right now,” Vance told her. “But it’s okay on the inside. Come on in and have a look.”

Her boys would be spending time in this trailer, Briana reminded herself. Swallowing a sigh, she got out of the truck and followed Vance around the spill of trash, up the porch steps and through the front door.

“Shouldn’t the landlord have cleaned up a little?” she asked.

“He gave us the first month free for doing it ourselves,” Heather said, as the three of them stood in the tiny living room. There was a galley kitchen, an area just big enough for a couch and a TV, and presumably bedrooms and a bath down the hallway to the left.

The floor was so littered with beer bottles, empty cereal boxes and other evidence of wild living that Briana didn’t attempt to go any farther than just inside the door.

She glanced at her watch. “Well,” she said, with a smile, “I guess I’d better get those errands done.”

She wouldn’t be far away, she told herself.

The library was two blocks down and one block over.

One SOS call from Josh, who still had possession of the extra cell phone, and she’d be back in a trice. Mommy to the rescue.

“See you later,” Vance said.

At least he hadn’t expected her to stay and help.

That would have been over-the-top, even for Vance, but Briana felt a little guilty for not offering, just the same.

As she backed the truck out, she saw Heather present Vance, Alec and Josh with a garbage bag each, and they all began to pick up garbage.

Five minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot at the library—a small, one-story brick building dating
from the Roosevelt administration, according to the brass plaque beside the double doors. Just the sight of the place made her feel better, and she was gathering her return stack from the backseat when Sheriff Book pulled in beside her, behind the wheel of his squad car.

Briana smiled and nodded.

Sheriff Book nodded back and rolled down his window.

“I’ve got a couple of CDs here,” he told Briana. “Wife borrowed them. Wonder if you’d mind taking them inside with your stuff.”

“No problem,” Briana said, juggling half a dozen books to take the CDs. “I hear there’s going to be a special election,” she added, recalling the progression of signs along the road outside of town.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sheriff Book said. “I announced my retirement this morning, and the election committee wasted no time getting out the word. It’s enough to make a man think folks will be glad to get rid of him.”

Briana would miss the sheriff. He reminded her a little of her dad, despite the differences in their looks, and she liked his wife, Dorothy. “Any idea who your replacement will be?”

He looked surprised, and when he spoke, she found out why. “Jim Huntinghorse is the only candidate to file so far.”

Briana’s mouth dropped open. She worked with Jim five days a week, and they were friends. He hadn’t said a single word about running for the sheriff’s job. “Oh,” she said, taking a moment to recover. “I didn’t know.”

“That much,” Sheriff Book said kindly, “was obvious by the look on your face. I think Jim would do a
good job, but there are bound to be some who’ll vote against him on prejudicial grounds. Even if his is the only name on the ticket—and I doubt it will be—he’ll need a certain percentage of votes to win.”

“He’s got mine, anyway,” Briana said.

The sheriff chuckled, popped the squad car into Reverse. “Tell him that, and you’ll probably wind up managing his campaign,” he teased. “Thanks again for taking Dorothy’s CDs inside.”

Briana nodded and watched as Sheriff Book backed out of his parking space, made a wide turn and hit the main road.

More change.

She was happy for Floyd and Dorothy. Happy for Jim, too, if being sheriff was what he wanted, though she knew he’d be leaving the casino once he took office. They’d all have a new boss then, and that was always a scary prospect for people who lived from paycheck to paycheck, the way she did.

She held the stack of books and CDs a little more tightly as she headed for the library entrance.

Kristy Madison smiled at her from behind the main desk.

A lifelong resident of Stillwater Springs, Kristy wasn’t the stereotypical librarian. Tall and slender, she kept her blond hair in a perky chin-length style, and her eyes were china blue. She wore jeans, a blouse or sweater and boots to work most days, and this one was no exception.

“Hey,” she said, with a warm smile.

Briana set the books and CDs on the counter, next to the hand-lettered sign that read Returns. “Hey,
yourself,” she responded. Now that her hands were free, she shifted her bag to the other shoulder and pulled her new cell from the pocket of her jeans, switching it to Vibrate, since ringing phones were verboten in the library.

Kristy took the top book off Briana’s stack and held it up. “What did you think of this?” she asked. “I haven’t read it yet.”

“Well,” Briana said slowly, “I finished it.”

“Now there’s a ringing endorsement,” Kristy remarked, smiling. She’d invited Briana out to lunch a couple of times, but Briana had always made some excuse. Restaurant lunches weren’t in the budget, along with a lot of other things. Anyway, she liked to spend her free time with the boys.

Now, as then, she wondered if Kristy thought she didn’t want to be friends.

“Some books are better than others,” Briana conceded.

“We’re starting a once-a-month reading club,” Kristy said. “Our first meeting is Tuesday night. I was going to suggest this book, since we have several copies of it, but now I’m not so sure.”

Briana, who had been about to excuse herself and head for the new releases shelf—a person had to be quick to get the latest books—stopped. “A reading club?”