Montana Creeds: Dylan. Linda Miller Lael

his eyes tightly against the rush of emotion he felt.

      Like most precious moments, that one was brief.

      Kristy quickly bristled in his arms, pulled back, raised her chin and sniffled. The vulnerability in her cornflower-blue eyes turned to defiance.

      “I apologize,” she said stiffly, as though he were a stranger she’d collided with in a crowded airport, not the first man who had ever made love to her. “I’ve just been under a little stress lately and—”

      Dylan drew a long breath, let it out in a sigh as he closed Kristy’s front door behind him and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Kristy,” he said. “This is me. Dylan. Something’s up with you, or you wouldn’t have practically tackled me on the threshold.”

      Kristy gave an answering sigh, and her usually straight shoulders sagged in a way that tugged at a tender place in Dylan’s heart. “Come in,” she said, with about the same level of enthusiasm she might have shown a visiting terrorist wearing a suit of dynamite.

      Dylan saw no reason to point out that he was already in—he simply followed Kristy through the house, expecting to wind up in the kitchen. When folks around the Springs had something to discuss, or just wanted to jaw awhile, they tended to congregate at the table, with the coffeepot and the refrigerator close at hand.

      He’d visited the huge Victorian once or twice, with his dad, when Jake stopped by to collect an overdue paycheck from old man Turlow. The place had seemed dark and oppressive to him then, but Kristy had brightened it up considerably, with lace curtains and lots of pale yellow walls. The floors were gleaming oak, probably sanded to bare wood and then refinished.

      That, too, would be Kristy’s doing.

      She liked a lot of light and space—used to dream of living in the Turlow house one day.

      It only went to show that some dreams came true, anyway.

      A giant folding ladder stood just inside the kitchen doorway—Kristy ducked around it, Dylan walked between its runged legs.

      “Coffee?” she asked. He saw the struggle in her face, but eventually, she couldn’t keep herself from adding, “You shouldn’t walk under ladders.”

      “That’s a stupid superstition,” Dylan countered, with a twinkle. “And, yes, please, ma’am, I would like some coffee.”

      “I wasn’t referring to the superstition,” Kristy insisted loftily, standing on her toes to fetch two mismatched mugs down from a cupboard. “Things could fall on your head, like a bucket of paint.”

      “Still waiting for the sky to come crashing down, I see.” Dylan grinned, but tension twisted inside him like a screw turned too tight. He regretted those flippant words as soon as he saw them register in Kristy’s face. Behind that flimsy facade of bravery, she was crumbling.

      Perhaps the sky was falling.

      “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong,” he persisted, “or do I have to look it up on the Internet?”

      A flush rose in her face. She poured coffee, carried the two cups to the table, and pulled back a chair with a practiced motion of one foot. “For Pete’s sake,” she said irritably, “sit down.”

      “Not until you do,” Dylan replied. “I’m a gentleman.”

      Kristy snorted at that, dropped into her chair. Added insult to injury by rolling her eyes once, for good measure.

      Dylan took the chair next to hers, idly stroked the big white cat that immediately jumped into his lap.

      “Sheriff Book was here a while ago,” Kristy said, elbow propped on the tabletop, her chin resting forlornly in her hand.

      “Go on,” Dylan said.

      Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “He thinks my father may have—may have killed someone.”

      Stunned, Dylan set down the mug he’d just picked up and stared at Kristy, waiting for the punch line. Tim Madison, a murderer? Impossible. Kristy’s dad had been a soft-spoken, kindly man, hardworking and generous with what little he had.

      Jake Creed, on the other hand, had been possessed of a legendary temper, and if Sheriff Book thought he’d offed some poor bastard, Dylan could have believed it. Although he didn’t tolerate criticism of Jake well, particularly when it came from his brothers, deep down he’d never had many illusions about the sort of man his father was.

      “That’s crazy,” he said, finally.

      Kristy sniffled again, tried a sip of her coffee, made a face and put it down again. “I know. But the county is going to dig up Sugarfoot’s grave. He tried to soften the blow, but Floyd clearly believes my father killed a man, probably by accident, and buried him with—with—”

      Dylan longed to displace the cat and pull Kristy onto his lap, to offer her what comfort he could, but he didn’t move. She’d loved Sugarfoot, that old horse of hers, with a near-sacred constancy.

      The way she hadn’t loved him.

      When he spoke at long last, the words scraped his throat like a swallow of rusty barbed wire. “Suppose they did find a body in that grave besides Sugarfoot’s? Your folks are gone, Kristy, and so is Sugarfoot. This can’t hurt any of them.”

      Stupid, stupid, Dylan thought, in the next instant, raking splayed fingers through his hair as the frustration hit him.

      The Madisons couldn’t be hurt, or the horse, either—but Kristy could.

      She’d lived in or just outside of Stillwater Springs all her life. It was her home, the only place she’d ever wanted to be, which had been a big part of the problem between the two of them back in the day. She’d been Holly Homemaker, he’d been a hell-raiser and a rodeo cowboy with a penchant for the open road.

      Welcome to Heartbreak Hotel.

      Kristy bit her lower lip, reached out and closed her paint-splotched hand over Dylan’s. Tried gamely to smile. “I know you didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said, with a gentleness that bruised him. He was used to rough-and-tumble, growing up with Jake and his brothers and then riding the professional circuit. He could be gentle, especially with Bonnie, or a lost or injured animal, but finding himself on the receiving end was different, and downright unsettling.

      Dylan cleared his throat. Gearing up to make another attempt, because he was a Creed, and therefore nothing if not persistent. Even when it meant digging himself in deeper, he had to keep shoveling.

      “Why didn’t you ever get another horse after Sugarfoot?” he heard himself ask. Damn, but he hadn’t intended to say that, either. It just rolled right off his tongue before he could rope and hogtie it.

      A faraway, wistful look deepened the bluer-than-blue of Kristy’s eyes. “It costs money to keep a horse,” she said, after a very long time. “A lot of money. Librarians don’t exactly pull down the big bucks, Dylan.”

      “You bought this house,” Dylan reasoned.

      “I received a small inheritance when my great-aunt passed away a year and a half ago,” Kristy said, in a why-m-I-telling-you-this-when-it’s-personal tone of voice. “I made the down payment on the house and moved in.”

      The cat had already gotten bored; having shed white hair all over Dylan’s T-shirt, he probably figured his work there was done. Now, he was batting a toy mouse around the kitchen floor.

      “You and your great-aunt’s cat,” Dylan mused, recalling how Kristy had always wanted a large family and lots of pets. Being an only child, she’d said, was too lonely.

      “Oh, Winston didn’t belong to Aunt Millie,” Kristy replied. “He was Freida Turlow’s, and when she moved out after I’d closed on the house, he started turning up on my doorstep at all hours of the day and night. Freida’s been annoyed with me ever since—it’s