Montana Creeds: Tyler. Linda Lael Miller
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raised an eyebrow at that. “People are locking their doors in Stillwater Springs these days?” she asked.
“I normally don’t,” Hal admitted. “But I’ve got you and Tess to think about now. And some things have been happening around here lately—”
He’d just made a speech, in the living room, about what a good place Stillwater Springs was to raise a child—specifically Tess. Knowing he was tired, Lily didn’t call him on the contradiction between his words and his actions.
I’ve got you and Tess to think about now.
Had he convinced himself they would be staying on in Stillwater Springs permanently, after he’d recovered enough to live on his own?
She set the handful of pills on a paper towel, and handed them to him, along with a glass of water. Watched as he forced down his medication.
“Good night, sweetheart,” he said, when he’d finished, and set his empty glass in the sink.
When was the last time he’d called her sweetheart?
The night Tyler handed her her heart in fragments, that was when. Had it really been that long?
Lily closed her eyes and waited until Hal had left the room. Until she heard his bedroom door close, just down the hall from the kitchen.
And then she cried, for little girls without fathers.
And for big ones, too.
CHAPTER FOUR
T HE FIFTEEN-YEAR GAP between their ages showed in Doreen’s haggard face in ways it hadn’t way back when. She looked thin in her casino-waitress uniform, and lines in her forehead were etched deep. She was developing jowls, and her mouth was hard, the lipstick too red and slightly off-center.
Still, her weary eyes softened a little when she recognized Tyler, standing in one of the casino’s several restaurants. Davie sat in a booth nearby, nursing a soda and pretending to read one of those glorified comic books that pass as a novel.
He doesn’t look much like me, Tyler thought, with distracted regret. But, then, he hadn’t looked much like Jake Creed, either. Secretly, he’d fantasized that his mother had been fooling around, conceived him with some lover, but he doubted his own fantasy. Poor Angie didn’t seem to have the strength to defy Jake that way. Or maybe she’d just loved her husband too much to cheat.
In the end, that love had destroyed her.
“Tyler,” Doreen said, almost breathing the name.
“Doreen,” Tyler replied, with a nod. Now that he was face-to-face with the woman who might have borne his child without bothering to let him know, all the things he’d planned to say, all the things he’d rehearsed on the way into town with Kit Carson riding shotgun, deserted him.
“I could take a break in half an hour,” she said.
Tyler merely nodded again. He’d left Kit Carson at Cassie’s to spare the dog a long wait in the Blazer, so he had time. He could cool his heels awhile.
Doreen hesitated for a few moments, looking from Tyler to Davie and back again. Then she sighed and turned to walk away, take another order for another plate of nachos, another mug of beer.
Everything about her, the way she moved, the way she spoke, said she was miserable. Hated her life, but didn’t know how to escape it.
Unlike Angela Creed. She’d found a way out, and devil take the grief she’d left behind.
Tyler approached Davie’s table.
“Mind if I join you?”
Davie didn’t look up. Just shrugged.
The cover of the graphic novel showed a woman being devoured by some hideous beast, and Davie seemed absorbed.
Tyler sat down across from Davie, signaled another waitress, ordered coffee. He liked a beer once in a while, but with Jake Creed for a father and a wild youth not that far behind him, a man tended to moderate his alcohol intake. He wondered briefly if Logan and Dylan took the same care not to overdo the booze.
“Good book?” he asked.
“What do you care?” Davie shot back.
“Do all those hooks and rings hurt?” Tyler persisted, frowning at the eyebrow piercings. The silver ring through Davie’s lower lip made him a little queasy, and after some of the bar brawls he’d been in, that was no small matter.
“Hurt when they did it,” Davie allowed, sounding defiant and, at the same time, interested. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to your mother,” Tyler said.
“About what?”
Tyler wasn’t about to bring up the paternity question—not before a word with Doreen, anyway. “Just things. Dylan tells me Sheriff Huntinghorse wanted to send you to a foster home, and you said you’d run off if he did.”
There was no humor in the smile Davie gave then, or in his eyes. “Small towns. Word really does travel like wildfire.”
“Running away would be a bad idea.”
“You don’t know my mom’s boyfriend. The sheriff said he was going to track Roy down and warn him not to hit me anymore.” Davie gave a bitter huff of a laugh. “That ought to make things real nice when Mom and I get back to the old trailer after her shift.”
Tyler’s gut churned just to think of what the boy might be facing, later that night and afterward. And he suddenly knew he couldn’t stand it, whether Davie was his or not.
“I’ve been thinking things over,” Tyler said carefully. “Maybe I could use somebody to help out around the cabin.”
Davie couldn’t hide his interest then, though he tried. He closed the book, set it down with a little thump and frowned at Tyler. “What kind of help?” he asked, almost suspiciously.
This from the kid who’d practically begged to stay.
“You said it yourself, this afternoon. Taking care of Kit Carson, cutting grass, stuff like that.”
“That place is small. Where would I sleep?”
“We’d get you a cot and a sleeping bag.”
“You don’t even have a TV.”
Tyler grinned. “You’re mighty choosy, all of a sudden, for somebody who wanted to move right in before.”
“Would you be a foster parent?” Davie asked, sounding like a lawyer now. “Maybe collect a little check from the county or the state?”
Tyler chuckled, enjoyed a sip of bad casino coffee before answering. “Hell,” he said, “no amount of money would be enough to put up with your attitude. It’s a neighborly offer, that’s all. And your mom has to approve, of course.”
From the looks of Doreen, she’d been running interference between good ole Roy, the boyfriend, and her son for too long. Letting Davie bunk in at Tyler’s for a while would probably be a relief, with all her problems.
“What changed your mind?” Davie asked grudgingly, but with a little less attitude than before. He was afraid to hope—Tyler could see that—and it galled him. Brought back way too many memories.
Life shouldn’t be the way it was for Davie, the way it was for a lot of kids.
The way it had been for him.
“I just needed some time to think, that’s all,” Tyler said. The words felt as lame coming off his tongue as they probably sounded to Davie. “Of course, you screw up and you’re out of there.”
Davie’s eyes widened. They were Doreen’s eyes, not Tyler’s own, or those of any family member he could recall, but still.
Still.