Montana Creeds: Tyler. Linda Miller Lael

taken her, Lily, on his rounds, just as he’d promised to take Tess. Then one day he’d gotten tired of having a daughter, apparently, and written her off, just like that.

      By God, he wasn’t going to do that to Tess. He wasn’t going to win the child’s love and trust and then shut her out of his life.

      “You were lonely in Chicago?” Lily asked helplessly, because she’d need some time to think before she addressed the other issue. How on earth was she going to warn Tess, a six-year-old child, not to get too attached to her own grandfather? Especially when she so obviously needed a father-figure of some sort?

      “It always seemed like Daddy should have been there,” Tess said sagely, with a little shrug. “And I could make new friends right here. Kristy said there were kids around for me to play with, and I really liked story hour, too.”

      Lily tried, but tears came to her eyes anyway, and Tess saw them.

      She sat up, threw her little arms around Lily’s neck and hugged her tightly. Another child might have clung; Tess was giving comfort, not taking it.

      Now, it was Lily who did the clinging.

      “Don’t cry, Mom,” Tess pleaded, her breath warm against Lily’s cheek. “Please don’t cry.”

      Lily sniffled bravely. “I’m sorry,” she said. “ I’m supposed to be the strong one.”

      Tess settled back on her pillows—the very pillows where Lily had dreamed so many Tyler-dreams—and regarded her mother with that singularly serious, too-adult expression that troubled Lily so much.

      “Nobody’s strong all the time, Mom,” Tess said. There she was again—the Wise Woman, posing as a child. “You can be happy if you’ll just let yourself. That’s what Grampa said, while you were taking your nap and we were getting supper ready.”

      Privately, Lily seethed. Thank you, Parent of the Year, she told her feckless father silently. “I am happy, honey. I’ve got you, after all. What more could I want?” She fussed with the covers a little, looked around at all the mementos of her childhood, thinking, to distract herself, that the room could use updating. New curtains, fresh wallpaper, a few framed watercolors instead of all those dog-eared rock-star posters from her teens…

      “You could want a husband,” Tess suggested, in answer to Lily’s question, which had been rhetorical. Not that a six-year-old—even one as precocious as Tess—could be expected to understand rhetoric. “And more kids.”

      “I have a job in Chicago, remember?” Lily pointed out. “One I happen to love. And I don’t think I want a husband, if it’s all the same to you.”

      Skepticism skewed Tess’s freckled face, wrinkling her nose and etching lines into her forehead. “You don’t love that job, Mom,” she argued. “You’re always saying you’d rather have your own company, so you could do things your way and set your own hours. And anyhow, we don’t need money, do we? Nana Kenyon says you have plenty, thanks to Daddy’s trust fund and the insurance payment.”

      Behind her motherly smile, Lily added Eloise Kenyon to the mental hit-list headed up by Hal Ryder. Why would Burke’s mother mention matters like trust funds and insurance settlements to a child, unless she’d wanted the remark to get back to Lily? Using Tess as a go-between was inexcusable, downright passive-aggressive.

      As for Burke, whatever his other failings, he had kept his will up to date. He’d looked out for his daughter and, to some extent, his wife.

      The trust fund was safely tucked away for Tess, and Lily had used the insurance money to pay off Burke’s many credit card debts and the mortgage on the condo. Her job, though it sometimes made her want to tear out her hair from sheer frustration, paid well, and she and Tess lived simply, anyway.

      Lily was nothing if not sensible.

      Except when it came to Tyler Creed, of course.

       Why had she agreed to have dinner with him, when she knew no other man on earth, not even her own father, had the power to hurt her the way Tyler could?

      Was pain getting to be a way of life with her? Had she started to like it?

      “We’re both tired,” she said at last. “Let’s talk about this another time.”

      She saw the protest brewing in Tess’s eyes. You always say that…and later never comes.

      Lily laid an index finger to her daughter’s lips, to forestall the inevitable challenge.

      “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she said. “I promise.”

      Mollified, though barely so, Tess sighed a little-girl sigh. Relaxed visibly.

      Lily kissed her again. “Want me to leave the light on for a while?” she asked. Tess had never been afraid of the dark, but the house was strange to her, after all, however much she claimed to love it, and she’d had a very big day.

      “I’m not scared, Mom,” Tess said. “I told you, this is a hugging house.”

      A hugging house.

      For a moment, Lily yearned for the innocence of youth, ached to feel the way Tess did about the old place. As a child, she had—she’d loved living there. Until her parents had torn the concept of home into two jagged pieces, each taking half and leaving her scrambling in midair.

      Lily simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying again, and stood. She switched off the bedside lamp, with its time-yellowed, frilly shade, and headed for the hallway.

      “You can leave the door open, though,” Tess volunteered gamely, from the darkness.

      Lily smiled, knowing she was visible to her daughter in the light from the hall. “Good night, pumpkin.”

      “Night,” Tess murmured, in a snuggling-in voice.

      A few moments later, Lily joined her father in the living room at the front of the house. He was seated at his ancient rolltop desk, going over what appeared to be a stack of bills.

      Lily, who had a bone to pick with him, swallowed. Was her dad all right for money? He ran a small-town veterinary practice, after all, and if she remembered correctly, collecting his fees wasn’t a high priority with him. Especially if his clients happened to be hard up.

      Times being what they were, folks were scrambling just to hold on.

      “I could help,” she heard herself say. “If you’re a little behind or something—”

      Hal smiled and again, something moved in his eyes. Something that seemed to hurt him. “I appreciate the offer,” he said, his voice sounding a little hoarse. “But I’m solvent, Lily. No need for you to fret.”

      Lily nodded, embarrassed now. Kept her face averted as she sat down in an overstuffed armchair that was probably older than she was. “Tess is talking about staying in Stillwater Springs for good,” she ventured. “Is that your doing?”

      Hal chuckled, sounding wistful. “It’s still a fine place to raise a child,” he said. “Safe to trick-or-treat at Halloween. You can say ‘Merry Christmas’ to folks without somebody getting in your face for being politically incorrect, and every Fourth of July, there’s a big picnic and fireworks in the park.”

      Lily’s face heated. “So is Chicago,” she said, unable to meet her father’s gaze, even then. “A good place to bring up a child, I mean.”

      Hal blew out a breath. “ You were happy here,” he reminded her.

      “Yes,” she retorted stiffly. “Until I suddenly became persona non grata.”

      The moment the words were out of her mouth, Lily regretted them. Truthful or not, Hal was recovering from a major heart attack. This was no time for digging up and rattling old bones.

      Hal didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, his words made Lily’s throat tighten painfully.