Montana Creeds: Logan (32 page)

He closed the distance between them, picked her up by the waist and spun her around, with a shout of joy. And then he kissed her.

Really
kissed her.

She was gasping when he finally let her come up for air. “Are you—Do you—?”

“I love
you,
Briana Grant,” he said. And then he flung back his head and yelled it, because he couldn’t keep it inside.
“I love this woman!”

She beamed up at him. “Guess we won’t have to worry about breaking the news to the kids,” she said. “Or any of the neighbors, either.”

He laughed. “Guess not,” he said.

One small figure appeared in the doorway of the barn, then another.

“Are you and Logan getting
married?”
Alec asked.

“If that’s all right with you,” Logan said, praying to God it was. If the boys had objections, they’d really be getting off on the wrong foot.

“You’d be our dad?” Josh inquired cautiously.

“You’ve got a dad,” Logan replied. “I’d be your stepfather.”

Silence.

Logan waited. Briana waited.

“Yee-haw!” Alec yelled suddenly, punching the air with one fist.

“Ya-hoo!” Josh bellowed.

“They seem to approve,” Briana said dryly.

“Can we spend the night at Dad’s place?” Josh wanted to know. “Heather’s gone, so the coast is clear.”

“It’s a little soon for that,” Briana answered. “Let’s wait ‘til things settle down a bit.”

“Like
that’s
ever going to happen,” Alec remarked.

“He’s got a point,” Logan told Briana.

“Not tonight,” Briana said firmly.

The boys were only momentarily disappointed, zooming back out into the sunlight.

“Mom said ‘not tonight,’” Alec reported.

“She’s going to marry Logan!” Josh announced.

Logan slipped an arm around Briana’s waist, and they followed the kids.

Vance was standing by the corral fence, watching the horses.

After exchanging glances with Briana, Logan approached Vance while she steered the boys toward the house.

“That’s some fine horseflesh there,” Vance said, without looking at Logan.

“Thanks,” Logan answered, bracing both arms on the top fence rail. “In a day or two, I’ll have cattle, too. Not a herd, but the start of one.”

Vance nodded, his gaze still fixed on the horses. “Briana’s a good woman,” he said. “You give her any grief, and you’ll have me to deal with, cowboy.”

“I was about to tell you the same thing,” Logan said. “You planning to head out?”

“I was,” Vance answered. “But I don’t think I can leave those boys of mine. I’ve got a job and the trailer and my old van—not much, but something—so I reckon I’ll stay put.”

“That’s good,” Logan said, and he knew he’d caught Vance off guard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other man staring at him.

“Good?” Vance echoed.

“Josh and Alec are great kids,” Logan replied. “If they were mine, I wouldn’t leave them, either. No way, no how.”

“Briana told you—about Wal-Mart?”

Logan nodded. “She told me.”

“It was a damn fool thing to do, leaving them like that.”

“No argument there,” Logan said mildly. “But that’s in the past. What matters is what you do now.”

“Yeah,” Vance said, looking toward the house again. “You tell my boys I’ll be back another day, will you?”

“I’ll tell them,” Logan answered.

Vance turned and walked away, toward his van.

And Logan headed for the house, where Briana
waited, and the boys were probably playing games at the computer again.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, looking at the collection of Creed pictures, smiling every once in a while.

Once again, she’d stopped Logan in his tracks. Taken his breath away.

“You,” she said, looking up at him with a twinkle in her green eyes, “were one
seriously
cute little kid.”

“I was angelic, too,” he said, grinning.

“Don’t push it,” Briana replied wryly.

“I have something for you,” he told her. He went into the living room, interrupted an intergalactic battle long enough to pull a folder from his desk drawer, returned to the kitchen.

He set the folder on the table, in front of Briana.

She looked up at him curiously. “What—? Tell me these aren’t legal papers… .”

“Take a look,” he urged, with a grin, drawing up a second chair and sitting down. Breathing in the scent of her hair and her skin.

Slowly, Briana opened the folder. Then she gasped.

“The pictures,” she marveled, staring down at a sheet of snapshots showing Josh and Alec as toddlers, splashing in a plastic swimming pool. She turned to the next sheet, and then the next, and a tear slipped down her right cheek.

Logan didn’t wipe it away, as much as he wanted to.

“Oh, Logan,” she whispered, looking at him mistily. His wild-west Madonna. She probably had no clue how lovely she was—and that was part of her charm. “You fixed them—”

“The originals are still in pretty bad shape,” he said. “But I did what I could.”

She closed the folder, scooted off her chair and onto his lap. Wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead into his cheek. They sat like that until Alec bombed in.

“Josh!” he whooped, delighted. “Mom is sitting on Logan’s
lap!
“

“Yuckaroo!” Josh yelled from the living room.

Briana laughed, and the vibrations wreaked havoc on Logan’s senses.

“And they’re
snuggling!”
Alec reported triumphantly.

“Film at eleven,” Logan joked.

“Like I’d let you film what’s going to be happening by then,” Briana murmured, this time into his neck.

At eleven that night, as it happened, both boys had been asleep for several hours.

And the venerable walls of the master bedroom absorbed the sounds of unrestrained pleasure, the cries of a man and a woman who loved each other, and knew it.

Three days later…

F
RANKLY
, B
RIANA
was a little intimidated.

Logan’s house in Las Vegas could have housed the main concourse of a major shopping mall, with room to spare. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room overlooked the gleaming spectacle of the city by night, punctuated by the forms of colossal cacti and rock formations that could only have carried God’s byline.

The boys were at home, with Vance—Kristy had promised to look in on them and call in case of an emergency, and Josh, as always, had his cell phone.

Logan handed Briana a champagne flute bubbling with ginger ale. He’d worn a tux to their wedding, at a chapel on the Strip, and swapped it out for slacks and a sports shirt after the ceremony. Briana was still sporting the sleek emerald-green evening gown she’d chosen for the occasion, the day before, in one of the Forum shops at Caesar’s.

Briana tapped her flute against Logan’s, studying his face closely for any signs of regret. He bent his head, kissed her with light, lingering leisure.

“I’m sorry Dylan didn’t make it,” she said, once she’d caught her breath. This world—
Logan’s
world—was so different from anything she’d ever known.

Thank God they’d be going home to Stillwater Springs Ranch first thing in the morning.

Logan chuckled against her mouth. “Classic Dylan,” he murmured. “He’ll turn up when he’s damn good and ready, and so will Tyler.”

“Are we crazy?” Briana asked.

“If this is crazy,” Logan said, “bring on the straitjackets and all the rest.”

Briana giggled, tipsy from the excitement of their delightfully tacky Vegas wedding. Because they were already trying to have a baby, she preferred to skip the champagne. “I love you,” she said. “Did I mention that?”

“Once or twice,” Logan confirmed. Then he took the champagne glass out of her hand. “Did I reply that I love you, too?”

She slipped her arms around his neck, snuggled close, nodded. “It’s been at least two hours since you made love to me, Mr. Creed,” she responded.

He reached behind her, unzipped the back of the gossamer dress, pushed it downward until it pooled at her feet. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, pulled his shirt off over his head.

“Two hours?” he marveled. “Reprehensible neglect on my part.”

They’d had a penthouse suite at a glitzy downtown hotel, changed into their marital finery there. Only the process had been delayed, because Logan had remarked that a bride ought to glow at her wedding, and he’d
brought her to four screaming orgasms over the back of the couch to make sure she did.

Intending to honeymoon in the suite, they’d decided to spend the night at Logan’s house instead.
End of the old life, beginning of the new,
he’d told her.

Now, he bent his head, found her right nipple and suckled.

Briana drew in a sharp breath. No matter how many times Logan pleasured her, it was always new, always a surprise. And he invariably took her to new heights.

Idly, Logan enjoyed her breasts, one and then the other.

All of Vegas, all the world, it seemed, glittered and glowed beneath them, a colorful panorama.

And Logan knelt.

Briana whimpered, knowing what was coming. Craving it, and yet wondering if, this time, she would lose herself completely, and for good.

He drew down her lacy panties, tossed them aside.

“Logan—”

“Shh.” He parted her, flicked her lightly with his tongue, slid her lacy garter down her thigh.

She gave a guttural cry. “Can anyone—will anyone—?”

“No one can see us,” Logan said.

He’d used his mouth on her before, but this was different, more intense. Perhaps because they were married, for better or worse. She groaned and leaned back, his strong hands cupping her bare buttocks, holding her upright.

Oh, this was definitely the “better” part.

He drew on her until she writhed and twisted against
his tongue, until her knees threatened to give out. And then he brought her to a shattering climax; she flexed helplessly, her fingers buried in his thick hair as she cried out his name, over and over again, in utter, delicious abandon.

When her knees did give way, Logan eased her gently to the floor, with its sumptuous carpet. He took off his own clothes, and she felt his naked warmth against her flesh and gloried in it.

He was deep inside her in a single, breath-stopping thrust, and all the lights of the city spread out below and around them melded into one dazzling, iridescent flare of color.

The earth and the sky changed places, and in the midst of the maelstrom, a million tiny fragments came together, and Briana Creed was whole in a way she’d never been before. And even as Logan lost control, she knew he’d been transformed, as well, by the same sweet alchemy.

T
HE CATTLE BAWLED
and stirred up dust as they streamed out of the back of the livestock truck and into the newly fenced pasture. Briana watched, mounted on the pinto, while Logan rode the big gray. Alec and Josh, riding tall in the new saddles Logan had brought back from Vegas, especially for them, did a fair job of cowboying.

In the week since he and Briana had gotten back from their honeymoon, there had been no word from Dylan at all, and certainly none from Tyler.

The house was being renovated, and the boys had real beds now, set up in Dylan’s old room, but daily life
still felt like a campout. That was fine with Alec and Josh, and Logan had never been happier. Never even dreamed it was possible to feel the things Briana brought out in him, and not just when they were making love.

With her, cooking supper or folding laundry or any of a thousand other ordinary tasks seemed sacred.

Every day he thought it couldn’t possibly get better.

And every day, it did.

Vance had decided to stay on in Stillwater Springs, and the boys were cautiously pleased about that. Like all kids, they lived from moment to moment, fully engaged in the right-now.

Jim Huntinghorse and Mike Danvers were squaring off for a lively campaign, with the special election coming up in a few weeks, and Sheriff Book couldn’t wait to turn in his badge. He and the wife, he said, were signed up for one of those Alaskan cruises, two full weeks, with all the extras. As soon as the new sheriff was sworn in, the Books were out of there.

Logan smiled at the thought. He didn’t mind the dust, or the bawling, or any of it. Because the woman riding that little pinto was his.

His.

“What do you think of that, old man?” he asked Jake, under his breath. The cattle were all in the pasture now, and Briana and the boys had fallen back, turned their horses for the gate. Cimarron was already checking out the heifers.

Logan caught up with his wife and stepsons. “Something I have to do,” he told Briana, shifting in the saddle. She’d given up her job at the casino, to his great relief,
and planned on having babies for a few years, maybe taking a college course or two online when time permitted. In the meantime, she’d promised to help Jim with his campaign, though she’d already broken the news that she wouldn’t be signing on as his office manager if Jim was elected.

She nodded, leaned from her saddle to kiss his cheek. “See you at home,” she said. “I’ve got some reading to do. Kristy’s book group meets at the library tonight.”

Logan veered off toward the cemetery, found Jake’s buckshot-pocked grave and swung down out of the saddle. His face was wet; he ran one forearm across it to clear away the sweat.

“I’m going to make the Creed name mean something again, old man,” he said, crouching to pluck a few stray weeds away from the base of the headstone. “Live down everything you did, if it takes me the rest of my life.”

There was no answer, of course. Just a soft breeze, playing in his hair and cooling the back of his neck.

“I forgive you, you old son of a bitch.” Logan sniffled, wiped his face again. More than sweat, this time, but it didn’t matter. “I forgive you for everything you did, and everything you should have done and didn’t. I can’t speak for Dylan and Tyler—I don’t know how the hell I’m going to explain the way you died to Ty—but for my own sake, and for Briana’s and those two boys, I’m not going to hate you anymore. I’m not going to try to figure you out. Any kids I have, I’ll tell them the truth about you.”

He stopped, tilted his head back, studied the sprawling Montana sky, bluer than blue, wider than wide.

“And the truth is, Dad,” he went on, when he could, “in spite of all of it, I loved you. Which is not to say, if you were here right now, I wouldn’t try to knock your teeth down your throat on general principle.”

The breeze danced in the grass, and somewhere nearby, a bird sang a lonesome, poignantly beautiful song.

“There’s a new Mrs. Creed now,” Logan told Jake, after some time had passed. “And years and years from now, when they lay me to rest in this place, too, she’ll be here, in widow-black, with my ring still on her finger. And my children, men and women by then, maybe with kids of their own—they’ll have no cause to wonder if I loved them, the way Dylan and Tyler and I wondered about you.”

He stood.

“That was quite a speech,” drawled a voice behind him.

Startled, Logan whirled.

And there was Tyler. His kid brother.

He was tall now, over six feet. His hair was dark, like Logan’s own, his eyes ferociously blue—and snapping with that Creed temper.

Tyler was mad as hell, as likely to take a swing at Logan as not, from the look of him.

Logan grinned. Shoved a hand through his filthy hair.

Tyler was back.

For now, that was all that mattered.