Montana Creeds: Logan (23 page)

She moved to hang up the phone, keeping her back to Logan.

“Can we act like this morning didn’t happen?” she asked.

“No,” he answered, without hesitation.

She turned, her eyes wide and troubled. “It was wrong,” she said. “You’ve already had to lie once because of it—”

He crossed to her, took her shoulders in a gentle grip. “It
wasn’t
wrong, Briana,” he said.

“Not for you, maybe,” she retorted miserably. “You’re a man. It’s another notch in your bedpost. A score. For me—”

“What was it for you?” he demanded, loosening his hold on her shoulders but not willing, or able, to let her go. “And don’t tell me it was ‘just sex,’ Briana, because I was
there.”

Color suffused her face. “Okay, so I enjoyed it,” she said. “So did you.”

For a long moment, they simply stared at each other, neither one knowing what else to say. Then they broke apart.

Briana started to clear the table.

Logan stopped her.

She found her purse and called her dog, he got his keys, and, by tacit agreement, he took her and Wanda home.

T
HE DOOR WAS
open again.

Briana stared. She’d closed it when she went looking for Wanda the day before—she remembered that clearly.

Logan swore under his breath, shut off the truck and got out before she’d unbuckled her seat belt. After lifting Wanda off the backseat, he strode toward the back porch.

A shiver went down Briana’s spine. Maybe, she thought, Vance and Heather had stopped by last night, so the boys could get their pajamas or something. In the rush, they’d forgotten to shut the door.…

Only Josh wouldn’t have done that. He was too security conscious. And Vance and Heather, while not exactly paragons of responsibility, would surely have noticed.

Wanda curled back her lips and growled, crouching a little in the grass.

“Stay here,” Logan told Briana, as she got out of the truck.

He disappeared inside.

Briana fumbled for her new cell phone, remembered it needed charging. Tossed it back into her purse and inched toward the door, expecting shouts to erupt at any moment, or sounds of a scuffle—maybe even a gunshot.

“Logan?” she called uncertainly.

Wanda was still growling, still crouched, but apparently not inclined to spring at whomever, or whatever, was inside the house.

Briana was about to wade in, unable to bear the suspense any longer, when Logan reappeared on the porch, shoved a hand through his hair.

“Somebody was here,” he said grimly. “But they’re gone now.”

Briana made her way up the steps, Wanda reluctantly following, almost at a crawl.

Nothing different in the kitchen, the living room, the boys’ room, the bath.

But her bedroom.

Standing in the doorway, Briana gasped. And not because Logan, just behind her, laid a hand on her shoulder.

Her flimsiest nightgown—a little pink number Vance had given her one Valentine’s Day—was the only thing out of place. It lay neatly in the
middle of the bed, almost as if she were inside it.

She put a hand to her mouth.

“Vance?” Logan asked.

Briana shook her head. Vance wasn’t capable of this kind of subtlety. No, someone else had rummaged through her bureau drawers, come across that longforgotten nightgown, then arranged it with creepy, almost reverent care.

Someone who wanted to scare her.

But who—and why?

She flashed on Brett Turlow—she’d been pretty blunt with him, the day before—but it didn’t feel right.

One of the men working on the pasture fence? A random passerby?

Briana turned, rested her forehead against Logan’s chest, struggling to catch her breath.

He stroked her back with circular motions of one hand, opened his cell phone with the other.

“This is Logan Creed,” he said. “I need to talk to Sheriff Book. Now.”

“H
ELL OF A WAY
for us to finally get to sit down and talk,” Floyd Book told Logan, an hour later, at Briana’s kitchen table. She’d talked to Jim on the telephone for a few minutes, then gone to town to get the boys, face still flaming with embarrassment over the nightgown incident as she got into Dylan’s truck.

“Hell of a way,” Logan agreed, distracted. It gave him the creeps, the way it did Briana, to think of somebody sneaking around in this house, handling her things. Setting up an intimate little tableau for her to find when she came home.

“You still suspect the ex-husband,” the sheriff said. He consulted his notes. “Vance Grant.”

“Briana ruled him out right away,” Logan reminded the other man.

“I didn’t ask who
she
suspects.”

“The truth is, I don’t have any idea.”

“Wasn’t Brett Turlow,” Book said. “I took him home from Skivvie’s Tavern myself, and that old Corolla he drives was still in the lot next to the bar every time I checked.”

Briana had told both the sheriff and Logan how Turlow had asked her out the day before and she’d turned him down, politely at first, though when he’d made some remark about Jim, she’d cut him off at the knees.

And the sheriff had already recounted giving Turlow a ride from Skivvie’s, and cruising past to make sure the Corolla hadn’t gone anywhere.

They were running in circles.

“Chances are,” Book said, “it was kids. Briana is a fine-looking woman, and she’d sure fuel a teenager’s fantasies. Probably, some goof-off dared another one, and things just got out of hand.”

“That’s a nice theory, Sheriff,” Logan said. “But suppose it’s more serious than that?”

Book let out a long sigh. “You mean like a stalker? You’ve been living in the big city too long, Logan. This is Stillwater Springs, not Vegas.”

“How did you know I was in Vegas?”

“Pull in your horns, boy.
Everybody
knows you got hooked on the bright lights in your rodeo days, and went back there after you got out of the service.”

Book grinned at the look of surprise on Logan’s face. “My question is, how come you’re driving that old truck out there, living and dressing like a ranch hand,
when you founded a company that just sold for close to twenty million dollars?”

Logan didn’t answer.

“Thought I didn’t know that part?” Book asked. “I’ve been in law enforcement for a long time.”

“What are you getting at, Floyd?”

“I’m just wondering,” the older man said slowly, his eyes keen, “if maybe you came back here because you still think Brett Turlow dropped all those logs on your daddy on purpose. Man might keep a low financial profile, so as not to draw attention to himself, if he was looking to right an old wrong. The trouble with that idea is, soon as you crossed the county line, everybody knew.”

“You think I came back to Stillwater Springs to get back at Turlow?”

“Did you?”

“Hell, no.”

“Then why, Logan? Do you see Dylan hanging around? Tyler? No. Because they’ve got better things to do, in better places. And so do you.” He paused. “Unless—”

“Unless what?”

“You were just passing through, and Briana Grant happened to catch your eye.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “Are you working your way around to accusing
me
of prowling around in this house, fingering Briana’s lingerie?”

“If you’re fingering her lingerie,” the sheriff said, “it’s your own business. And unless you’ve lost that famous Creed touch, you don’t have to ‘prowl around’ to do it.” Floyd took a noisy sip of his coffee. “I will be leaving office soon,” he went on, when he
was damned good and ready, “and I’ve got a perfect record, at least on paper. You know as well as I do that I always thought Brett Turlow cut that logging chain deliberately, but I could never prove it. I hate to let that go, but I can do it. Take my pension check, turn in my badge and call it good. What I cannot—and
will not
—ignore, is you taking the law into your own hands.”

“Here’s what
I
think, Sheriff,” Logan said. “Brett Turlow didn’t have the guts to cut that chain, even after he found out his girlfriend had been getting it on with Jake. He might have wanted to dance on the old man’s grave after the fact, but to actually kill somebody? No way.”

“Maybe it
was
an accident,” the sheriff mused. “It would be a relief to know that.”

Logan relented a little; he knew it was the sheriff’s job to question his reasons for coming back to Stillwater Springs. And while he probably wouldn’t have spit on Brett Turlow if he was on fire—well, maybe then—he had no intention of “taking the law into his own hands,” as Floyd had put it. Even though he didn’t practice, he was still a member of the bar, sworn to uphold the law, not break it.

“You ever consider running for my job?” Book asked cagily, a few moments later.

“I don’t need a job, remember?” Logan replied. “And even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t want yours.”

Floyd laughed. “And you’re Jim Huntinghorse’s best friend, at that. It would be awkward, running against him.”

Logan thought fleetingly of Cassie’s warning, that he was in danger and, through him, Briana and the boys
might be, too. She’d asked him specifically not to get involved in the election, one way or the other.

“Jim’s a good man.”

“He is,” Floyd agreed. “Always liked him. But there’s already talk about how he’d look after the tribe first and the white folks in this county second, if not third.”

“That’s bullshit,” Logan said.

“The bigots, like the poor, are always with us,” Floyd reminded him. “And bigots vote—more often than other folks, probably.” With that, Floyd picked up his hat, rose wearily out of his chair. Bent to pat Wanda on the head before going to the door. “If you say you didn’t come back here to even the score with Brett Turlow,” he said in parting, “then I believe you. Just don’t prove me wrong, Logan. That’s all I’m saying.”

Logan nodded, not in agreement but to show he’d gotten the message. He
hadn’t
come back to Stillwater Springs to avenge Jake’s death—had he?

He rose, followed the sheriff outside, watched as his old friend and the nemesis of his younger years got into the squad car, ground the ignition and drove off.

It seemed strange, being at Briana’s without her or the boys there, but he wasn’t inclined to leave, either. He wished whoever had been creeping around the house later would come back so he could confront them, but since his truck was parked outside, in plain sight, he didn’t think it was very likely.

“Just you and me,” he said to the dog.

The wall phone rang, and he answered it automatically. “Logan Creed,” he said.

No answer, except for some raspy breathing and then a quick hang-up.

Frowning, Logan punched star-sixty-nine, then realized it wouldn’t work. Briana’s phone system was as antiquated as the one at his place.

“Hello?” he barked, even though he knew there wouldn’t be a response, beyond the frustrating dial tone droning in his ear. As the caller had, he hung up hard.

Wanda gave a concerned little whimper, head upturned, searching his face with those luminous brown eyes of hers. There was a problem, that much was obvious, and she needed reassurance.

“I know, girl,” he told her. “I know.”

The dog lumbered over to her bed and dropped onto it with a sigh.

“We need a plan.”

Wanda sighed again.

Logan turned one of the kitchen chairs around backward, and sat astraddle of it. Rested his chin on his folded arms and narrowed his eyes.

Yep, they needed a plan.

And one was already taking shape in his head.

“T
HAT’S CRAZY!”
Briana said, after she’d herded Alec and Josh into the kitchen and Logan had explained what he wanted to do. “Switch houses?”

She saw a muscle bunch in Logan’s jaw. He needed a shave, but the effect was sexy as hell, and visceral recollections of their lovemaking rocketed unchecked through her entire body.

“Think about it,” he said, keeping his voice low even though the boys were already in the living room, tumbling around with an elated Wanda. Alec’s cast didn’t seem to slow him down much, and all the excitement over the bear had pitched his energy into the frenetic zone. “You and the boys go stay at my place. We trade cars. Whoever laid your… lingerie… out on the bed sneaks in, and comes face-to-face with me instead of you.” He threw up both hands. “Surprise!”

Briana started, reminded of the bear in the orchard, set her purse down on the counter with a distracted swing of one arm. “That’s all fine—in theory,” she replied, though the idea tingled along her spinal column. “Except that this…
person,
whoever they are, obviously chose a time when I wasn’t around to come in here. What makes you think they’d try it again with my car parked outside?”

Logan laid his hands on her shoulders, and she loved the weight and strength of them. Tried hard not to think the ways he’d used those hands to drive her crazy on his couch. “Things like this tend to escalate,” he said. “This is a campaign, and it was only the opening shot.”

Briana let out a long sigh, pushed her bangs back from her forehead, stepped away from Logan in the vain hope that the charge would stop arching back and forth between them like St. Elmo’s fire. “You’re probably right,” she admitted. “But shouldn’t we let Sheriff Book handle it?”

Logan’s mouth contorted into a brief semblance of a grin, entirely void of amusement. “Sheriff Book thinks we’re dealing with kids—that it was a one-time prank. And he’s just marking time until his retirement, anyway.”

“I can picture teenage boys doing something like this,” Briana mused, but she wasn’t convinced, and she knew Logan wasn’t, either.

“So can I,” Logan agreed. “And I wish my gut agreed with that scenario, but it doesn’t. This is no prank, Briana. This is someone with an agenda. We have to do something besides wait for the next incident.”

Briana dragged back a chair at the table, sank into it, suddenly weary.

“Has anything like this ever happened before?” Logan asked, turning another chair backward and sitting astride it. Was he
deliberately
pushing her buttons? If her sons hadn’t been in the next room, Briana would have jumped his bones, right there in the kitchen. “Here in Stillwater Springs or elsewhere?”

Briana shook her head, trying to clear it.
Has
anything like this ever happened before?
He meant had anyone ever come into her house and gone through her most private belongings before, she knew that, but a big part of her wanted to answer,
“No. I’ve never wanted a man the way I want you.”

“Briana?” Logan prompted, his voice a low and inherently masculine rumble. If he touched her in any way, even to take her hand, she was done for, destined to melt into a quivering puddle of protoplasmic femininity.

He took her hand.

Briana drew in a sharp breath. “No,” she managed to respond, feeling slow color climb her face.

Logan noticed, of course, and the slightest smile tilted a corner of his mouth. “And you’re convinced it wasn’t Vance?” He drawled the words, leaned in a little, as if he might nibble at her earlobe or trace the length of her neck with the lightest pass of his lips.

Briana gulped, fluttered one hand in front of her face. “Do you think it’s warm in here?” she fretted.

Logan’s grin flickered again. “Hotter than a two-bit pistol, as my dad used to say,” he replied. “Stick with the subject at hand, will you? Who might want to rattle your cage a little, besides Brett Turlow or Vance? Some guy who hit on you at the casino, maybe?”

“Stop touching me,” Briana said. “I can’t concentrate.”

He withdrew his hand from hers, but not before running the tips of his fingers along the underside of her wrist.

Another tremor snaked its way through her.

“Lots of guys hit on me at the casino,” she said. “But so far, they’ve all taken no for an answer.”

“Until Brett Turlow?”

“He seemed upset when I turned him down,” she answered slowly, “but there’s no reason to think he did anything about it. Especially since Sheriff Book gave him an alibi.”

“Okay.” Logan sighed the word. “As soon as it’s dark, we switch houses and rigs and hope this yahoo makes a move.”

Briana didn’t think the idea would work, for a variety of reasons, but she
was
nervous about staying alone in that house, with the boys. Suppose the stalker, or whatever, did come back, and Alec and Josh were frightened out of their wits or even hurt? And, anyway, she didn’t have a better plan to offer.

“I don’t like it,” she said, just the same.

Logan raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like it, either,” he replied, with exaggerated patience. “I’d much rather share your bed—or mine—but that isn’t going to happen with the kids around.”

“No,” Briana said. It was amazing. She’d gotten along without sex all this time—hadn’t really even had an opportunity to miss it—but now that she and Logan had done the deed, she was jonesing for more. Physically, she’d gone from a standstill to warp speed, and it was scary.

Logan stood, somewhat reluctantly, Briana thought. Shoved a hand through his hair. “I’d better go now,” he said. “I’ll be back after dark.”

Briana merely nodded.

Logan bent, kissed the top of her head, patted her shoulder. She felt hesitation in that hand, knew he wanted to cup her breast but wouldn’t. “There’s one
more thing,” he added, in a whisper. “After you and the boys leave for my place, I’m going to hang that nightgown on your clothesline.”

Briana twisted in her chair, looked up at him in consternation. “What?
Why?”

“Trust me,” Logan said. “I want to get this guy’s attention. Make him think
you
want to get to know him better.”

A violent shudder, revulsion mixed with fear, shook Briana to the core. “But I
don’t—
“

“It might smoke him out.” He sounded rueful, but determined.

Briana swallowed again, nodded again.

“Lock up behind me.”

And, having given that order, Logan left.

Briana went and turned the dead bolt, then dropped back into her chair, her knees twitchy and weak.

Two seconds later, Alec appeared in the living room doorway. “Logan’s gone?” he asked, his freckled face projecting his disappointment. “He didn’t even say goodbye.”

“He’ll be back,” Briana said.

Alec punched the air with his good arm and cheered. “Excellent!”

“You like Logan?” she asked cautiously. She hadn’t told the boys about the nightgown incident and didn’t intend to, nor had she mentioned it to Heather when she picked her sons up at the trailer. Some kind of explanation would be required when they traded spaces with Logan that night, but she was darned if she knew what it would be.

“He’s great,” Alec decreed. “Dad says he’s on the prowl, though. What does that mean?”

Good old Vance. Always ready to confuse an issue. “It’s just a figure of speech,” Briana said, in what she hoped was a light tone. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Logan said we could name all his horses,” Josh put in, pushing his way past Alec and making a beeline for the refrigerator. “What’s for supper?”

“Leftovers,” Briana answered. Was it suppertime already? She’d lived a lifetime since morning.

“You get to name two, and I get to name two,” Alec reminded his brother archly. “I’m calling the buckskin Trigger and the gray Traveler.”

“That’s dumb,” Josh argued. “Both those names start with a
T.
“

“So what?” Alec shot back. Most kids wouldn’t have associated Trigger with Roy Rogers, or a gray with Robert E. Lee’s horse. Both people and horses had been well before their time, but hers were home-schooled, and the curriculum had been eclectic, to say the least.

“Stop bickering,” Briana said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“The guilt ploy,” Josh said triumphantly. “Dirty pool, Mom.”

In spite of the headache, her jangling nerves and an almost overwhelming need to go to bed with Logan Creed again, and the sooner the better, Briana chuckled. Public school might turn out to be a good idea after all, she reflected. Keep the boys focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, and cool it with the pop psychology.

The guilt ploy?
It was like living with two miniature Dr. Phils.

L
OGAN TOOK CARE
not to arrive at Briana’s until well after the sun went down. He parked the Dodge behind the house and quietly unloaded Snooks and Sidekick, along with his shaving gear and a change of clothes stuffed into a grocery bag. He wondered if the freak was hiding in the trees, watching him, but his insides said no.

And he’d learned, in Iraq if not before, to trust his elemental instincts.

He rapped lightly at Briana’s back door, wishing the whole scenario were different—that they would have supper together, maybe share a bottle of wine, then make love again, this time in a real bed. The boys were conveniently absent from the fantasy.

She opened the door to him, looking worried and a little pale. “I told Alec and Josh that a plumber was coming to fix something in the bathroom tomorrow,” she whispered, like a spy imparting critical information to a colleague in the middle of some spooky bridge. “And that you’re going to keep an eye on things. Did I mention that I
hate
lying to my children?”

“No,” Logan replied, easing past her into the kitchen. “But I could have guessed it.”

Wanda greeted Sidekick and Snooks with a few friendly sniffs.

Hearing Logan’s voice, Alec and Josh immediately zoomed in from the living room, each lugging a backpack.

“This is cool,” Josh said.

“Can we feed the horses?” Alec asked.

“Already fed them,” Logan said.

Alec looked crestfallen. “oh.”

“But you can help me out as often as your mom allows,” Logan was quick to add.

“Good save,” Briana murmured.

“It’s what I do best,” Logan told her. “Or one of the things I do best, anyway.”

She blushed. He’d couched a message in those words, and he saw that she’d gotten it.

“Here,” she said, shoving a crumpled paper bag at him. He looked, saw the skimpy nightgown inside. The thing would cover about the same amount of territory as four squares of toilet paper, strategically aligned.

The leaving process was a jumble of confusion, which was probably for the best. Logan helped Wanda into his truck, and Briana gave Alec a boost, though he didn’t appear to need one.

Logan stood on the running board, after Briana was behind the wheel, and leaned through the open window to plant a light kiss on her mouth.

Alec and Josh, having witnessed the exchange from the backseat, groaned in loud, prepubescent disgust, then made smooching sounds.

Briana ignored them, her eyes wide and serious and green as a tree-shaded pond as she looked into Logan’s face. “Be careful,” she said.

“Always,” he said. He wanted to kiss her again, and mean business this time, but he didn’t intend to set the kids off on another round of groaning and smacking.

She nodded, swallowed visibly.

He stepped down and back, watched as she ground the truck into gear and nearly wiped out one of the clothesline poles turning the rig around.

When she rounded the first bend, and the taillights
winked out of sight, Logan pulled the nightgown out of the paper bag and held it up between two fingers.

Briana must have worn it for Vance—or for some guy in between then and now. He was careful not to let
that
train of thought pull out of the station.

He draped the garment over the clothesline and secured it with a wooden pin. Then he turned, Snooks and Sidekick watching him from the back porch, and surveyed the surrounding trees.

Okay, punk, he thought. Bring it on.

L
OGAN HAD LEFT
sleeping bags out for the boys, on a wide air mattress in front of the living room fireplace, and the bed where he’d taken Briana after her meltdown over the bear sported crisp white sheets. Logan had turned the covers back enticingly, and there were flowers in a Mason jar on the nightstand.

All the comforts of home, Briana thought.

Except that Logan was missing, it looked perfect, in a homey, ranch-house sort of way.

She turned from the scene and almost stumbled over Wanda, who had padded up behind her without making a sound.

In the living room, the boys were arguing over what to name Logan’s horses.

Briana wandered in that direction, nervous and at loose ends. Sleeping in Logan’s bed was over-
the-top, but the only alternative seemed to be the couch, and she wasn’t going there.

“Quiet,” she told her sons, more out of habit than any hope that they’d actually stop bickering for a few minutes.

Josh had gravitated to Logan’s computer, fascinated
by its multiple monitors, three printers and various electronic gizmos.

“It’s on,” he said, wriggling the wireless mouse a little. “Booted up and everything.”

Briana knew where this was going, and put on the brakes immediately. “No,” she said. “You may not use Logan’s computer. It’s private—and it’s expensive.”

“I don’t think he’d mind,” Josh persisted.

“And I don’t think I was born yesterday,” Briana countered. “Hands off, Josh. I mean it.”

The boy’s shoulders sagged a little. “Do you think we’ll ever have a computer like this one?”

His tone was so forlorn that Briana went to him, laid a hand on top of his head. “I think you’ll have all the things you really want,” she said gently. “You don’t have to be poor just because I am. You can go to college, get a great job—”

Josh’s eyes were sad as he looked up at her. “I’ll take care of you, Mom,” he said, so earnestly that Briana’s heart cracked and split right down the middle. “When I’m big, and I’ve been to college, I’ll take care of you.”