I just say that?”
“Just because you say something, Creed, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“When my stuff gets here, I’ll show you the documentation. Honorable discharge. Even a couple of medals.”
Jim gave a low whistle. “So that’s why you dropped out of the rodeo scene. You always got a lot of play on ESPN. Then, all of the sudden, you’re just not there. You got drafted?”
“I enlisted,” Logan said. “Can we not talk about Iraq right now?”
Jim frowned, obviously confused. He was a veteran himself, and in buddy world, guys swapped war stories. “Why not?”
“Because I need booze to even think about combat, let alone talk about it, and given my illustrious history, not to mention the high incidence of alcoholism in the Creed clan, I try to limit myself to the occasional beer.”
“Oh,” Jim said. “Bad, huh?”
“Bad,” Logan admitted.
“You were special forces, right?”
“Right. And this constitutes talking about Iraq. I’m stone-cold sober and I’d like to stay that way.”
“Okay,” Jim agreed hastily, putting up both hands, palms out. “Okay.”
Logan stood. “I just came by to say hello and let you know I’m back. My dog’s in the truck and I have contractors to meet with, plus I promised to stop by Cassie’s before I head for home.”
Jim grinned, rising, too. “You have a dog and a truck? You really are going redneck.”
“Nah,” Logan said, giving the waitress a wave as he turned to go. “I still have both my front teeth.”
“Not for long,” Jim quipped, “if either of your brothers gets a wild hair to come back home the way you did.”
Jim was only joking, but the words jabbed at a sore spot in Logan. It was too much to hope that Dylan’s and Tyler’s personal roads might turn and wind homeward, and the three of them could come to some kind of terms, but Logan hoped it would happen, just the same.
His friend walked him to the front doors of the casino, slot machines flashing and chinging all around them. Logan wondered how anybody could work in the place, with all the noise.
“I’m off at six,” Jim said, as they parted. “Want to play some pool, swig some beer and catch up?”
“Not tonight,” Logan answered, remembering the unexpected invitation to have supper at Briana’s. She’d clearly been pissed off when he mentioned Dylan, and then she’d turned right around and offered him a meal. There was no figuring women. “Already made plans.”
“Soon, then,” Jim said. “I promise—no combat stuff. Unless you count a detailed description of my divorce as a war story, that is.”
Logan laughed, slapped Jim on the shoulder. “Any time after tonight,” he said. “You know where I live. Stop by when you get a chance.”
Jim nodded, and then Logan headed for his truck, and Jim went back inside the casino to do whatever the general manager of a casino did.
SO, BRETT TURLOW thought, just getting into his car after a brutal all-night poker game in which he’d lost his ass, he wasn’t the only one who’d returned to the old hometown after a long absence. Difference was, he’d come back with his tail between his legs. Logan Creed looked a mite too cheerful for that to be the case with him.
Brett slid behind the wheel of the dented Corolla he’d borrowed from his sister. Watched as Creed climbed into a respectably battered pickup truck, ruffled his dog’s ears and started the engine.
Most likely, Logan meant to sell the ranch, since nobody appeared to give a good goddamn about the place, and get on with his life.
That would be a good thing, if he left.
If Creed stayed, on the other hand, it meant trouble, pure and simple.
Bleary-eyed, half-sick because he hadn’t eaten in twelve hours and he’d gambled away most of his unemployment check, Brett made a mental note to ask around a little. Find out what Creed’s intentions were.
In the meantime, he needed to crash.
BRIANA STAYED clear of the coffee shop until Logan was gone. Then she wandered nonchalantly in to say hello to Millie, the sole waitress on duty, and snag a nonfat latte to keep her going through the morning.
She’d been up late the night before, on a jangling java-high, worrying that Vance would show up on Saturday, worrying that he wouldn’t. She needed caffeine, fast. Hair of the dog that bit her, so to speak.
The boys were still at home, warned on pain of death to stay away from Cimarron and the orchard, where there might be bears.
“Did you see that guy talking to Jim?” Millie enthused, automatically starting the latte. “Mucho cute.”
Briana felt a sting of proprietary annoyance and a boost to her spirits, both at once. “The cute ones are deadly,” she said lightly.
“Yeah,” Millie answered, looking back at Briana over one shoulder while the milk foamed under the sputtery nozzle on the fancy coffee machine, “but what a way to go. I’m going to ask Jim what his name is.”
“No need,” Briana said. “It’s Logan Creed.”
Millie’s eyes widened. “As in Stillwater Springs Ranch?”
“As in,” Briana confirmed. Like her, Millie was relatively new in town. She’d heard about the Creed brothers, though; they were almost folk heroes, like certain outlaws in the old west.
Famous for raising hell, mostly, from what Briana had been told.
“So you know him, then?” Millie fished, handing over the latte.
“I live on the ranch,” Briana reminded her friend. “That makes us neighbors.” She hugged the rest of the story—that Logan was having supper with her and the boys that night—close, like some delicious adolescent secret.
Silly.
Just then, Briana’s radio, buckled to her belt, crackled to life. A disembodied voice informed her that someone had just hit a jackpot on the newest bank of slot machines—time to attend to business.
She thanked Millie for the latte and hurried off.
The jackpot was a big one, it turned out. A little blue-haired lady off the senior citizens’ bus had struck gold on the Blazing Sevens, and Briana spent the next forty-five minutes handling the paperwork.
Jim, being the manager, paid out the booty in crisp hundred-dollar bills, beaming for the camera right along with the lucky winner.
After all the hoopla died down, Briana pulled her boss aside for a word. “I need Saturday off, if that’s possible,” she said.
Jim
