Montana Creeds: Tyler by Linda Lael Miller Page B

go through with the whole thing, that was all.
    Hope she could pass a pleasant evening with an old friend without letting her inner hussy come to the fore and climb Tyler’s frame like a monkey scrambling up the trunk of a palm tree.
    Lily was still dealing with the Freudian aspects of that image when she saw Tyler, standing in her father’s foyer, wearing jeans and a freshly pressed white shirt, holding a black cowboy hat in one hand and looking shy.
    There was something to be said, she decided, for illicit sex.
    Something to be said for just getting it over with, out of the way, so she could think straight again. Recover her balance, get some perspective.
    After nodding to Hal and the girls, Tyler took the tiny white sweater from her hands and draped it over her shoulders. Leaned to whisper in her ear even as he reached for the doorknob with one hand.
    â€œIt’s inevitable,” he said. “What do you say we skip dinner and get right down to business?”

CHAPTER SIX
    L OGAN C REED STOOD with one booted foot braced on the lowest rail of his corral fence, arms resting across the top as he watched the latest stray—a dark-haired kid with piercings, tattoos and plenty of attitude—riding the tamest horse on the place, bareback.
    Dylan, right beside him, watched, too, while Kristy, Dylan’s bride, supervised the boy’s ride from within rein-grabbing distance. Kristy was good with horses, even gifted. After a long hiatus spent grieving for her old partner, a gelding named Sugarfoot, she was training them again.
    â€œThink the kid is Tyler’s?” Logan asked quietly. Briana, the love of his life, was in the house, whipping up supper for a crowd, while Bonnie, Dylan’s little girl, played on the kitchen floor, and his stepsons, Josh and Alec, worked on the summer lessons their mother had assigned them.
    Briana was a stickler for education, and preferred to home-school her sons, but she’d agreed to let them attend normal classes in the fall. In the meantime, she made sure they kept their math and reading skills up to snuff.
    Logan’s heart bucked like a bronc fresh from thechute, just thinking of her in the house, a ranch wife in blue jeans and a sexy cotton blouse, and the sweet secret they shared.
    In roughly eight months, there would be a new Creed on Stillwater Springs Ranch, of the small, messy, noisy variety.
    He could barely wait. Thought sometimes he’d burst if he had to keep the secret to himself much longer. But he and Briana had agreed not to spread the word until she was three months along, so he stayed mum.
    â€œAccording to Ty, Doreen denies it,” Dylan answered. A grin cocked up one corner of his mouth, and he adjusted his hat. “I’m not sure Ty’s convinced, though. It would be a good thing for him, and for Davie, too, if the kid’s one of us.”
    â€œOne of us,” Logan repeated, unable to hide the touch of sorrow that phrase made him feel. “Ty doesn’t want to be a Creed, remember? So even if the DNA’s right—”
    Dylan laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Our little brother’s back on the ranch,” he reminded Logan. “That means something. That he’s come home, that he wasted no time asking Lily out. Give him a little time to come around, Logan.”
    Logan gave a rueful chuckle, part snort. Except for marrying Briana and helping to raise Josh and Alec, he’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted the Creed family restored, and the ranch back in working order.
    He and Dylan, once on the outs, were brothers again. They were full partners in the newly formed Tri-Star Cattle Company; they’d bought the start of a herd and doubled the size of the ranch by purchasing Kristy’sfolks’ old place, but there was still a line on the official documents, awaiting Tyler’s signature.
    The outfit wouldn’t be “Tri”-anything until Ty joined