Montana Creeds: Logan. Linda Miller Lael

clean.”

      “Half drained the well getting that done,” Logan said. “About exhausted the soap supply, too.”

      Josh broke down and grinned.

      It finally occurred to Briana that Logan must have come to the cemetery to visit someone’s grave. And a pilgrimage like that, especially after a long absence, might require privacy.

      “Maybe we should go,” she said.

      But Logan shook his head. “Stay right here and carry on with your picnic,” he told her. Then, addressing Josh, he added, “Sidekick can have that sandwich if the offer’s still good, but it’s only right to warn you that he might hurl. Seems to have a delicate stomach.”

      Hurling being serious business to a ten-year-old, Josh nodded. “Dog food would be better,” he said. “We could lend you some of Wanda’s kibble if you need it.”

      Logan chuckled, looked as though he’d like to ruffle Josh’s hair, but didn’t. “Thanks,” he said. “But we made a run to town for grub earlier, and we’re all set.”

      Briana smiled, herded Wanda and the boys back toward the picnic blanket. Sidekick stayed with Logan, who went to crouch beside one of the graves.

      “Can I take Sidekick some bologna?” Alec whispered.

      “No,” Briana said, watching Logan. “Not now.”

      “It’s a private moment, doofus,” Josh told his brother.

      “Dogs don’t have private moments, stink-breath!” Alec countered.

      “Be quiet,” Briana said, wondering why her hands shook a little as she poured drinks and unwrapped sandwiches.

      LOGAN’S EYES burned as he ran the tips of his fingers over the simple lettering chiseled into his mother’s headstone. Teresa Courtland Creed. Wife and Mother.

      He’d been three years old when his mom lost her battle with breast cancer, and there’d been a gaping hole in his life ever since. His dad, Jake Creed, never a solid citizen in the first place, had gone on a ten-year bender starting the day of the funeral. His grief hadn’t kept him from marrying Dylan’s mother six months later, though. Poor, sweet Maggie had died in a car accident four days after her son’s seventh birthday. True to his pattern, Jake had married again before the year was out—this time to Angela, an idealistic young schoolteacher with no more sense than to marry a raging drunk with two wild kids. Doubtless, she’d thought all Jake needed was the love of a good woman. She’d been a fine stepmother to Logan and Dylan, and had soon given birth to Tyler.

      She’d lasted a whole five years, Angela had.

      But Jake’s carousing had just plain worn her out. One fine summer day, she’d made a batch of fried chicken, told Logan and Dylan and Tyler to be sure to do their chores and say their prayers, and left.

      Jake had turned the whole countryside upside down looking for her. Enraged, he was convinced she’d left him for another man, and he meant to drag her home by the hair if it came to that.

      Instead, Angela had had herself a first-class nervous breakdown. She’d checked into a motel on the outskirts of Missoula, swallowed a bottle of tranquilizers and died.

      Such, Logan thought, was the proud history of the Creeds.

      After that, Jake had given up on marriage. When Logan was a junior in college, the old man had gotten himself killed in a freak logging accident.

      Remembering the funeral made Logan’s stomach roll. As ludicrous as it seemed in retrospect, considering the havoc Jake’s drinking had wreaked on all their lives, the three of them had swilled whiskey, then gotten into the mother of all fistfights and ended the night in separate jail cells, guests of Sheriff Floyd Book.

      They hadn’t spoken since, though Logan kept track of his brothers, mostly via the Internet. Dylan, four-time world champion bull-rider, was apparently a professional celebrity, now that he’d hung up his rodeo gear for good. He’d even been in a couple of movies, though as far as Logan could tell, Dylan was famous for doing not much of anything in particular.

      Only in America.

      Tyler, whose event was bareback bronc busting, was still following the rodeo. He’d been involved in a few well-publicized romantic scrapes, invested his considerable winnings in real estate and signed on as a national spokesman for a designer boot company. Though he was the youngest, Tyler was also the wildest of Jake Creed’s three sons. He had issues aplenty, between the way Jake had raised them and his mother’s death.

      But his brothers’ stories were just that—their stories. Logan knew he’d have his hands full straightening out his own life, and while he regretted it, the fact was, the Creed brothers were estranged. And the estrangement might well be permanent. Given the family pride, not to mention inborn stubbornness, “Sorry” just wasn’t enough.

      Logan was about ready to leave—he had several other places to go. Briana and the kids were folding up their picnic blanket. The younger boy, Alec, approached with a slice of bologna for Sidekick.

      “You a cowboy?” the kid asked, taking notice of Logan’s worn boots while the dog feasted on lunch meat, downing rind and all.

      Logan thrust a hand through his hair. “I was, once,” he said, aware of Briana—now, where the devil had she gotten a name like that?—looking on.

      “My dad’s a cowboy,” Alec said. “We don’t see him much.”

      “I’m sorry to hear that,” Logan replied.

      “He rodeos,” Alec explained. “Mom divorced him online after he left us off in front of Wal-Mart and didn’t come back to get us.”

      Something bit into the pit of Logan’s stomach. He felt fury, certainly—what kind of man abandoned a woman and two little boys and a dog?—but a disturbing amount of relief, too. Once again, his gaze strayed to Briana, who was just opening her mouth to call Alec off. Damn, but she was delectable, all curves and bright hair and smooth, lightly freckled skin.

      “Mom takes real good care of us, though,” Alec went on, when Logan didn’t—couldn’t—speak. Old Jake hadn’t been the father of the year, either, but for all his womanizing, all his drinking, all his brawling, he’d worked steadily and hard up there in the woods, felling trees. On his worst day, he wouldn’t have left his woman or his kids to fend for themselves.

      “Bet she does,” Logan managed to respond, as Briana drew closer.

      “She’s a supervisor over at the casino,” Alex stated, speeding up his words as his mother got nearer.

      Briana arrived, placed a slender hand on Alec’s T-shirted shoulder. Both boys had dark hair and eyes, in contrast to their mother’s fair coloring. A picture of her ex-husband formed in Logan’s mind. He was probably a charmer, one of those gypsy types, with a good line and a sad story.

      “That’s enough, Alec,” Briana said calmly. She kept her eyes averted from Logan’s face, as though she’d suddenly turned shy. “We have to go home now. You have chores to do, and lessons.”

      Alec wrinkled his nose. “Mom home-schools us,” he told Logan. “We don’t even get a summer vacation.”

      Logan arched an eyebrow, perched his hands on his hips. Resisted an urge to rub his beard-stubbled chin self-consciously.

      “That,” Briana said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder gently, “is because you goof off so much, you have to put in extra time.”

      “I wish we could go to school in Stillwater Springs, like the other kids,” Alec lamented. “They get to play baseball. They ride a bus and go on field trips and everything.”

      Briana’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, and that flush rose again, along the undersides of her cheekbones. “Alec,” she said firmly, “Mr. Creed is not interested in our personal