Montana Creeds: Logan. Linda Miller Lael

saw him perform a few times, when I was about your age,” Logan answered, shifting his gaze to Alec, somehow managing to pull Josh into his orbit, too. “I wanted to be Wild Man McIntyre when I grew up. Turned out to be myself instead.”

      Briana busied herself setting the table. Logan had probably eaten off the same dishes they’d be using that night, she thought fitfully, back when he and Dylan were like regular brothers. If indeed they’d ever been regular brothers.

      “We’ve got a whole album full of pictures of him!” Alec said.

      “After supper,” Briana interjected, her smile a little tight-lipped.

      The boys missed it.

      Logan didn’t. His eyes lingered on her face, making every single cell in her body throb before going back to Alec. “I’d like that fine,” he said. “When the time is right.”

      Briana gave herself strict orders to calm down, stop being such a ninny, but herself didn’t listen. This was just supper with a neighbor, that was all, but it felt like more.

      It felt like some kind of beginning.

      Briana didn’t like beginnings, because they inevitably turned into endings. Given her druthers, she’d have spent the rest of her life somewhere in the middle, between major events. The present, for all its problems, was a terrain she knew.

      She had her boys, and a place to live, and a job that paid the bills.

      And that was enough—wasn’t it?

      The casserole went over big. Logan had two helpings, though he didn’t touch the wine. Since he’d opened the bottle at some point, Briana accepted a glass, took a couple of jittery sips and decided she’d be better off without a buzz. Even a very mild one.

      The truth was she had enough of a buzz going in her nerve endings already, without adding alcohol to the mix. Maybe Vance had been right, when he’d accused her of being sex-starved.

      She went weeks without thinking about sex.

      Now, with Logan Creed sitting at her table, looking ruggedly handsome in his cowboy dress-up clothes, something primitive was streaking through certain parts of her anatomy.

      It simply wouldn’t do.

      As soon as everybody was finished eating, Briana jumped up and started bustling around, cleaning up. Usually, she made Alec and Josh do the dishes, but tonight she needed to be busy.

      So she bounced around that kitchen like a bumblebee trapped in a sealed jelly jar. Even Wanda regarded her with curiosity.

      Logan tried to help with the dishes, but she sort of elbowed him aside. All she needed was that man standing hip-to-hip with her in front of the sink, or anywhere else. The scent of his cologne—if that was what it was—made her feel light-headed. He smelled like sun-dried sheets, fresh-cut grass and summer.

      Josh fetched the photo album from its honored place in the living room, and opened it on the freshly cleared table. “This is him,” he told Logan, tapping at a faded black-and-white image with one index finger. “This is my Grampa, Bill ‘Wild Man’ McIntyre.”

      Briana had long since come to grips with the fact that her boys would never actually know their grandfather. Just the same, her eyes were suddenly scalding, and her throat was tight.

      The angle of Logan’s head, bent over the album, touched something tender inside her. She wished he’d just get up and leave. Wished even more that he would stay.

      She was losing her mind.

      As if he’d felt her watching him, Logan lifted his eyes.

      “Mom says the clowns are the bravest men in rodeo,” Alec said, preening a little.

      “She’s right about that,” Logan said, still watching her. “They’ve saved my… life a time or two.”

      Briana tried her damnedest to look away, found she couldn’t.

      “See?” Josh chirped, delighted to be right. “I told you Logan was a cowboy!”

      Briana’s cheeks stung. Look away, she pleaded silently, because I can’t.

      As if he’d heard her, Logan averted his eyes. Fixed his attention on Alec and Josh. “I was a cowboy, once upon a time,” he told the boys quietly. “Gave it up to join the service.”

      “Were you in the war?” Alec asked, impressed again. Or still.

      “Yeah,” Logan said. His voice came out sounding hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “Didn’t care much for that.”

       Didn’t care much for that.

      The very way he’d said the words marked them as the understatement of the ages.

      “We usually take Wanda for a walk after supper,” Josh said.

      Logan was clearly grateful for the change of subject. He pushed back his chair, smiling. “Sounds like a good idea,” he replied. “Maybe Sidekick and I could tag along?”

      “What if we should stumble across a bear?” Briana asked, raising both eyebrows. She’d finished with the washing up by then, draped the dish towel over the plates and glasses and silverware stacked on the drainboard.

      Logan chuckled. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t recommend running. A bear can beat a fast horse. Climbing a tree is out, since they’re pretty handy at that, too. Guess I’d just have to grin him down, like ol’ Dan’l Boone.”

      “We’re related to Daniel Boone,” Josh said.

      “Isn’t everybody?” Logan teased.

      Josh laughed.

      Logan opened the screen door, and they all went out, Briana bringing up the rear.

      She would have sworn Logan was looking at her—well, rear—as she passed.

      Sidekick and Wanda trotted ahead, happy at the prospect of a walk, with the boys close behind them.

      “They like you,” Briana told Logan.

      “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

      She turned her head, looked up at his face. “Depends,” she said. “They miss their dad. It would be easy for them to—”

      “To what?” Logan asked quietly.

      “To like you too much,” Briana answered, embarrassed.

      “I’m harmless,” Logan said.

      “I don’t think so,” Briana replied.

      And they walked in silence for a while, watching the two boys and the two dogs cavorting up ahead.

      Although the sun would be up for at least another hour, the first stars were popping out, and the moon was clearly visible. The country air smelled of hay and grass and fertile earth.

      Or was that Logan?

      She’d barely touched her wine, but Briana Grant felt moderately drunk. “Why did you tell me to watch out for bears?” she asked. “I was almost afraid to let the boys leave the house.”

      He didn’t take her hand, but he moved closer, their knuckles touched and a hard, burning thrill ripped through Briana’s system.

      “I wasn’t trying to scare you,” Logan said. “Bears feed at the landfill, mostly, on the other side of town. But once in a while, they pay a visit to the orchard. I’d say it was because of people encroaching on their habitat, but the fact is, they’ve been raiding those pear and apple trees since the first season they bore fruit. And that was back in old Josiah Creed’s time.”

      Briana shivered, hugged herself, though the night was warm.

      “Bears are like most wild animals,” Logan went on.