Montana Creeds: Dylan. Linda Miller Lael
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still sleeping the sleep of the just. “Yours?” she whispered.
“Mine,” he confirmed and, once again, he felt that same swell of pride.
“Where is her mother?”
“God knows.” Dylan got Bonnie out of the car seat, her head bobbing against his shoulder. “I’m going to petition for full custody, but I need Logan’s help to do that.”
“There are a lot of lawyers in this world,” Cassie pointed out quietly. “Why Logan?”
“Because this could be—well—tricky.”
“Dylan Creed, did you steal that child from her mother?” They’d reached the gate by then, and Cassie led the way up the walk, onto the porch. Jiggled the knob on the door.
Evidently, she couldn’t see through him. Not always, anyway.
“No,” Dylan said. It was late—or early—and he was too wrung out from the long drive and the stress of looking after a two-year-old to go into the story. “Give me a little credit, will you? I’m not a criminal.”
“But you’re looking over your shoulder for some reason,” Cassie whispered, switching on a lamp in the familiar living room of her small, shabby house. She took Bonnie from him, murmured soothingly when the little girl fussed in her sleep.
“I don’t have legal custody,” Dylan answered. “Until I do, I’m keeping a low profile, in case Sharlene changes her mind. I’ll tell you the rest in the morning.”
Cassie stared into his eyes for a long moment, then nodded again. “All right,” she said, making for the spare bedroom. “I’m putting this child to bed. There’s cold chicken in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”
Grateful, Dylan let himself drop onto the couch, and before he knew it, the sun was up and Bonnie was standing beside him, tugging playfully at his hair.
He grinned, glad to see her. She was wearing one of Cassie’s massive T-shirts, tucked up here and there with safety pins, to make it fit, and she was clean.
God bless Cassie. Despite her obvious misgivings, she’d given Bonnie a much-needed bath, and probably fed her, too.
“Daddy,” Bonnie said angelically, stroking his beard-stubbled cheek with one very small hand.
And if Dylan hadn’t known before that he’d do anything to keep and raise this child—his child—he knew it then.
“DDYLAN’S OUT AT CASSIE’S place,” Kristy’s hairdresser, Mavis Bradley, told her, when she came in for a lunch-hour trim. “I saw his truck parked in her driveway when I came in to work.”
A thrill went through Kristy, part dread, part anticipation. She waited it out. If Dylan was in town, he’d soon be gone. That was his pattern. Come in, stomp somebody’s heart to bits under his boot heel and leave again.
“And Cassie was at the store, not an hour later, buying training diapers and toddler’s food in those plastic cartons that cost the earth,” Mavis rattled on, before Kristy could come up with a response. “That’s what Julie Danvers told me, when she came in to have her nails done.”
Kristy took a moment to be glad she’d missed Julie. There was some bad blood between them, at least on Julie’s side, because Kristy had been briefly engaged to her husband, Mike, and he hadn’t taken the breakup well. Now they had two children, a big house and a thriving business, and Mike was a candidate for sheriff. It was a mystery to Kristy why that particular water hadn’t gone under the proverbial bridge.
“Interesting,” Kristy said, because she’d known Mavis since first grade, and she’d just keep prattling on until she got some kind of reaction. Everybody for miles around knew Kristy and Dylan had been passionately in love, once upon a time, and Mavis certainly wouldn’t be the last person eager to tell her Dylan was back.
“Now what would Cassie need with stuff for a little kid unless—”
“Mavis,” Kristy broke in. “I have no idea.”
“Think you’ll see him?”
Kristy actually shrugged. No use pretending she didn’t know who Mavis was asking about. “Maybe around town,” she said, with a nonchalance she certainly didn’t feel. “We’re old news, Dylan and I.”
“So are you and Mike Danvers,” Mavis parried coyly, “but Julie gets her panties in a wad every time he mentions your name. Which, apparently, is quite often.”
Kristy had to be careful how she answered that one. Everything she said would go out over Mavis’s extensive network within five minutes after she’d paid for the haircut and left. “That’s silly. Mike and Julie have been married for a long time. They have two beautiful children and a great life. So Mike mentions my name once in a while? Stillwater Springs is a small town. He probably mentions a lot of people’s names.”
“Well,” Mavis said doggedly, “I’d think you’d at least wonder about why Cassie might buy diapers, and there’s Dylan Creed’s truck parked in front of her house so early in the day that he must have rolled in during the night—”
“I don’t wonder,” Kristy lied, and very pointedly. If Dylan had a child, it would be the height of unfairness on the part of the universe. She was the one who longed for a houseful of kids. Dylan had never wanted to settle down—he’d just pretended he did, for obvious reasons. “What Dylan Creed does—or doesn’t do—is simply none of my concern.”
“Hogwash,” Mavis said. “Your ears are red around the edges.”
“That’s because you’ve been poking me with the scissors at regular intervals. Are we nearly done here? I need to get back to the library.”
Mavis blew out a breath. “The library,” she scoffed. “You were a cheerleader in high school. You were a prom queen. And Miss Rodeo Montana, first runner-up for Miss Rodeo America. Who’d have thought Kristy Madison, of all people, would end up with a spinster-job? It reminds me of that scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, when Donna Reed is this miserable old biddy because George Bailey was never born—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mavis!” Kristy was ready to leap out of the chair by that point. Tear off the plastic cape and march right out into the street with her hair sectioned off in those stupid little metal clips. “Some of us have moved beyond high school, you know. And what’s so terrible about being a librarian?”
Mavis softened. In the mirror facing the chair, her pointy little face looked sad. “Nothing,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Kristy said, immediately regretting her outburst. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that,” Mavis continued kindly, “when anybody mentions Dylan Creed, you get peevish.”
“Then why mention him?” Kristy asked wearily.
Mavis squeezed her shoulder with one manicured hand. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was just thinking you might be glad Dylan was back. I know you’ve had a hard time, Kristy—losing your folks the way you did, and the ranch and Sugarfoot, practically all at once. I’d like to see you happy again—and you were happy with Dylan, until that blowup the day of his dad’s funeral. So would everybody else in Stillwater Springs—like to see you happy, I mean.”
Kristy fought back tears, not because of the sad memories, but because she was touched. Mavis, in her own clumsy way, did care about her, and so did a lot of other people. “I am happy, Mavis,” she said. “I have my job, my house, my cat—”
“Well, I’ve got a job and a house and four cats,” Mavis argued cheerfully, “but it’s my Bill that makes my heart go pitter-pat.”
“You’re lucky,” Kristy said. And she meant it. Mavis had been married to the same man since the