LILY HAD BEEN HOME barely five minutes when Tess padded into the kitchen, looking rumpled and sleep-flushed in her pajamas.
“You’re still wearing your red dress?” Tess immediately inquired. “Did you sleep in it?”
Lily, busy setting up a pot of coffee, took a moment to come up with a logical explanation. She hated lying to Tess, or anyone else for that matter, but in this instance, of course, there was no other choice. “I just like it, that’s all,” she said. “The way you like your pink shirt with the sparkly butterflies on it.”
“Oh,” Tess said, but she looked puzzled just the same.
Before Lily had to carry the conversation any further, her father appeared from the direction of his study, looking spiffy. Clearly, he’d been up for a while.
“My doctor e-mailed me back,” he said. “I’m good to go for the Chicago junket.”
Mercifully, Tess was distracted. “Road trip!” she chimed.
“Road trip!” Hal confirmed, jutting up a thumb.
“One way,” Lily reminded them both, and then laughed at the expressions on their faces.
“Nice dress,” Hal said.
Full-circle, hello, square one.
“I’d like to call as little attention to that as possible,” she said brightly, almost singing the words. “Thanks for nothing, Daddy-o.”
Hal arched an eyebrow, grinning.
“You called him Daddy-o!” Tess crowed, triumphant. “Instead of ‘Hal’!”
“Will wonders never cease,” Lily said. “Are you both packed for the trip?” They were taking an evening flight out of Missoula; with luck, she’d be able to grab a few hours of sleep in the meantime.
“Ready to roll,” her dad said, indicating his best casual outfit. He was obviously looking forward—way forward—to a little break in his routine.
Tess beamed. “Are you going to wear that dress?” she asked Lily innocently.
Hal laughed, and Lily blushed a little.
“I think I’ll branch out and put on something else,” Lily answered. “And it will be hours before we leave for the airport, everybody.”
“I’ll make breakfast,” Hal offered, letting the reminder pass and watching his daughter with such fondness in his face that she almost hated herself for calling him by his first name ever since she’d arrived—and before that, too, when she’d addressed him at all. “You get some rest.”
“But it’s morning!” Tess protested.
“Get dressed, young lady,” Hal told his granddaughter mildly. “You and I will walk down to the Birdhouse Café and order the special.”
“No specials,” Lily said darkly, thinking bacon and eggs, or corned-beef hash, two of the nutritional disasters her father liked best. Then, to soften the order, she added, “I mean it, Dad.”
He crossed to her and kissed her forehead while Tess scampered off to switch out her pajamas for an outfit more suited to a big occasion like breakfast at the Birdhouse Café.
“No specials,” Hal promised. “And it’s good to see you looking so happy.”
Lily peeked around her father’s shoulder to make sure Tess was safely out of earshot. “Tyler asked me to marry him, Dad,” she said, braced for an immediate objection, even though she knew Hal had changed his opinion of Jake Creed’s boys, Tyler included.
“Did you say yes?” Hal asked quietly, his eyes shining.
She nodded, biting her lower lip. Then, unable to hold in her joy, she did a little victory dance around the kitchen.
Hal laughed with delight.
Tess, a lightning-quick dresser, reappeared in jean shorts and a red T-shirt, just in time to see Lily’s last whirl.
“How come everybody’s so happy?” she demanded.
Hal gave Lily a verbal nudge. “Maybe you ought to go ahead and answer that question.”
Lily looked at him, looked at her daughter—the little girl who was in danger of growing up too fast. She crossed the room, crouched to look up into Tess’s face and took both the child’s hands in hers.
“I hope you’re not about to say we’re going to stay in Chicago,” Tess said, “because I don’t want to.”
Lily laughed, though her eyes burned with sudden tears. “Tyler Creed—you remember, the man with the dog? The one we picked up alongside the highway when his car broke down?”
Hal cleared his throat expressively.
“Okay,” Lily admitted, glancing back briefly over one shoulder to acknowledge his point. “Not the best choice of words.”
“Of course I remember,” Tess said. “Geez, it was only a couple of days ago.”
“I’ve known Tyler for a long time,” Lily said softly. “We were—friends, even before I met your dad. And he and I—Well—”
Tess’s face lit up as the possibilities registered. With uncanny perception, even for a child-genius, she blurted, “You’re going to get married? You and Tyler Creed?”
Lily swallowed hard, nodded.
And Tess flung herself into her mother’s arms with a whoop of delight and such force that they both toppled over onto the kitchen floor, in a giggling, teary heap of celebration.
“I’d say she’s okay with the idea,” Hal commented, his own eyes glistening a little. “Let’s go, Tess. If there’s a run on oatmeal down at the Birdhouse, we’ll be out of luck.”
Tess got back on her feet, solemnly helped Lily up, too.
“Is there going to be a baby?” the little girl asked, evidently not ready to move on to the prospect of oatmeal.
Lily laid a hand on her daughter’s hair. “Maybe sometime,” she said, thick-throated. Not wanting to get Tess’s hopes up any more than she already had. What if something went wrong? Should she have waited until they got back from Chicago to tell Tess about the wedding?
Her dad must have seen the doubts in her face, because he responded to them as surely as if she’d voiced them aloud. “Life is uncertain, Lily. Young or old, we have to learn to take it as it comes.”
Lily nodded.
Watched with her heart in her throat as Hal took Tess’s hand and the two of them set out for the Birdhouse Café.
Lily stood rooted to the floor of that sunny kitchen for a long time, wanting guarantees from God—and knowing she wasn’t going to get any such thing.
Finally, exhausted, she went into the spare room, took off the red dress, pulled on her old standby, the T-shirt, and toppled into bed.
She was asleep within moments.
* * *
TYLER SET the forlorn little packet of letters, with their faded pink ribbon, in the middle of his table.
Now that he was home, much to Kit Carson’s delight, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to read them after all.
Maybe Logan had been right, stopping after the first paragraph or two. Maybe it was better to just leave things alone—especially his mother’s private dreams, reflected in the words of her unknown lover, for a better life than she’d had with Jake Creed.
God knew, that wouldn’t have taken much.
A part of Tyler wanted to prove to the whole world that she hadn’t committed suicide, that Jake had killed her, in a fit of jealous revenge. But why rake all that up? Why not let the dust settle, once and for all?
The last thing Logan and Dylan needed now, with all their efforts at starting over—the last thing he needed—was a scandal.
Tyler shoved a hand through his hair.
At the moment, he was too tired to make a decision, one way or the other.
He’d made love to Lily all night.
He’d experienced his first—and, he hoped, his last—haunting, and he and Logan had made a beginning at reconciling their many differences.
Enough high drama, already.
He needed sleep.
So he went upstairs, stripped off his clothes and fell face-first onto the bed.
He woke, several hours later, to the sound of voices downstairs, on the main floor of the cabin.
One by one, he registered them in his sleep-fogged brain.
Dylan.
Logan.
Davie.
Tyler hoisted himself up onto one elbow, grumbling to himself.
What was this? A family reunion?
A smile crept onto his mouth and stuck.
Maybe that was exactly what it was.
“It’s about time you rolled out of the sack,” Dylan told him a few minutes later, when he’d pulled on yesterday’s jeans, a T-shirt, socks and boots, and made his way down the stairs, finger-combing his hair as he went. “Damn, brother, it’s the middle of the afternoon.”
Tyler grinned. Looked from Dylan to Logan to Davie. Leaned down to scratch Kit Carson’s scruff when the dog leaned into his right leg. “Is this a party?” he asked.
“We’re going fishing,” Davie announced. The holes in his face, where the hardware had been, were already starting to heal over, and the wash-off spider tattoo on his neck was a ghost of its former self. “Briana said she’d cook up whatever we caught for supper.”
Logan’s gaze, he noticed, had dropped to the thin stack of letters on the table and gotten stuck there. With some effort, he met Tyler’s eyes.
Tyler addressed himself to Davie. “Suppose all we catch,” he joked, “is an old tire or part of a dead tree? What do you suppose Briana will serve for supper then?”
Davie laughed, and there was relief in the sound, because he’d expected Tyler to refuse to go fishing with his brothers, the way he’d refused the first trail ride. “She could probably make those things taste good, too,” he said.
“Why don’t you go on out to the truck and fetch those new fishing poles we just bought in town?” Dylan asked, resting a hand on Davie’s shoulder.
Davie nodded, skillfully dismissed and none the wiser for it, and hurried out, Kit Carson following close behind him.
That left the three of them, brothers who hadn’t talked to each other all that much, at least in a friendly way, for a very long time.
“Logan told me about the letters,” Dylan said quietly, watching Tyler. “And about the other thing, too.”
Tyler nodded, rubbed his chin. His beard was coming in; he needed a shave. But since he didn’t have to worry about giving Lily whisker burn in some delicate places, the razor could wait.
“What do you want to do, Ty?” Logan asked, after clearing his throat.
“For right now?” Tyler answered. “Go fishing with my brothers and the kid who might be mine.”
“What about the letters?” Dylan pressed, though, like Logan, he looked a little confused. Like as not, they’d both expected him to run them off with a shotgun or something.
“I think they belong at the bottom of the lake,” Tyler said. “And while we’re at it, let’s toss the hatchet in, too. Next best thing to burying it.”
Relief moved in Logan’s face, and in Dylan’s, too.
“Brothers again?” Dylan asked.
“Brothers again,” Tyler agreed huskily. “Until one of you screws up and pisses me off, anyway.”
Logan and Dylan exchanged glances.
“I think we ought to throw him in the lake,” Logan said. “Like we used to do.”
Dylan nodded. “For old times’ sake,” he agreed.
And they both came at him then.
The struggle went all the way to the end of the dock, with Davie and Kit Carson right on the fringe of it.
Between the three of them, Davie laughing, and the dog barking, excited by the scuffle, they raised one hell of a din.
And it ended with a splash, though Tyler wasn’t the only one who ended up in the lake. Dylan and Logan went right in with him—he made sure of that.
When Logan surfaced, he shook his wet hair out of his face and laughed in a way that brought back a lot of Jake-free memories. Times up at the swimming hole, and right there in that lake, the three of them together, having fun.
“Little brother’s tougher than he used to be,” Logan told Dylan.
Dylan spat out a mouthful of lake water. “Yeah,” he agreed.
Right then, Davie jumped in, too, with a whoop, clothes and all.
Kit Carson hesitated on the end of the dock, haunches bunched for the leap.
“Come on, boy,” Tyler told him. “You might as well be as wet as the rest of us.”
The dog took the plunge, paddled around in happy circles and swam ashore to haul himself up the bank and sit, panting and dripping, in the grass.
“Guess we’d better catch some fish,” Logan said presently, hoisting himself up onto the dock with both arms. “Think Briana would know the difference if we went back to town and bought a mess of trout?”
“The plastic packaging might be a tip-off,” Dylan said.
Tyler got out of the water, and so did Davie and Dylan.
After that, they each took a pole, baited the hooks with worms Davie had dug while they were waiting for Tyler to wake up, and they fished, content in their wet clothes, nobody saying much.
Slowly, the warm Montana sun dried their jeans and their shirts, and the trout were biting, too.
When they’d all caught their limit, it was nearly sunset.
“You should have brought Alec and Josh along,” Tyler told Logan.
“Next time,” Logan said. “They spent the day in town with their dad.”
“Next time,” Tyler agreed, watching as Davie gathered up their fishing poles.
“You’ll join the rest of us for supper?” Logan asked. He knew—he had to—that the home place gave Tyler the heebie-jeebies. He’d never set foot in it, never intended to, since the morning of Jake’s funeral.
He’d felt something else besides grief that day, he realized now.
Relief.
“I’ll be along,” Tyler promised, after swallowing. “I’ve got something I need to do first.”
Logan nodded, though he wouldn’t have needed to, because Tyler saw the understanding in his eyes and in his bearing.
Davie hurried inside the cabin to stash the poles.
Dylan and Logan left, taking the fish with them.
“We’re going, too, right?” Davie asked anxiously, when Tyler stepped into the kitchen. “To the main house, I mean?”
The kid must have thought he was going to change his mind.
“We’re going, too,” Tyler confirmed. “Change your clothes first.”
Davie nodded, watched as Tyler picked up the bundle of letters he’d left lying on the table. Weighed them thoughtfully in his hand, tightened his fingers around them for a moment.
“Are you going to change, too?” Davie wanted to know. “You’re looking pretty scruffy yourself.”
“In a few minutes,” Tyler said, very quietly, amused.
Then, taking the letters with him, he went back outside, walked to the end of the dock, hesitated for a moment and then tossed the packet into the lake. Watched as the ribbon came loose and they sank slowly beneath the surface, a few at a time.
He’d never know what had been in those letters now, but that was okay.
He didn’t need to know.
Twenty minutes later, after Tyler had grabbed a quick shower and put on clean clothes, he and Davie and Kit Carson pulled in at the main ranch house.
Everybody was crowded into the kitchen—kids, wives, dogs—and the smell of frying fish filled the air.
Tyler hesitated on the threshold, waiting for the old urge to bolt and run to hit him, and was a little surprised when it didn’t.
Briana and Kristy watched him with smiles on their faces and tears shining in their eyes.
Women. The way they were looking at him, you’d have thought he’d been away at war or something.
Then again, he guessed he had, though most of the battles had been fought inside his own mind and heart, not on some pile of sand on the other side of the world.
Dylan and Logan, both seated at the table and still in their sun-dried clothes, looked solemn, because both of them knew what was going through his mind. They were giving him space to deal with whatever private devils might be lying in wait for him in that old house, and he appreciated that.
Finally, he stepped inside, unclogging the doorway, and Davie and Kit Carson immediately pushed past him, tired of waiting.
The place was the same, and yet different, Tyler reflected, looking around.
Dylan used one foot to slide a chair back at the table.
Waited.
Tyler crossed the room, sat down between his brothers.
Logan grinned, looked up at the ceiling, back down again. “Damn,” he drawled. “Here we are, the three of us, and the roof didn’t even fall in.”
“Go figure,” Dylan said, and then he laughed, and the laughter swept through the room, from one grown-up to another, dispelling the last of the tension.
Making everything okay.
It was okay to be together.
It was okay to be home.
The women served up supper, and everybody ate their fill, and then the kids and the dogs migrated to the living room to watch TV, and Briana and Kristy went out for a short horseback ride, leaving the men to clean up.
Fair was fair—the wives had done the cooking.
The only thing that gathering lacked, as far as Tyler was concerned, was Lily and her little girl and her dad. If they’d been there, it would have been perfect.
Tyler glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above the sink, just like it always had. Was Lily on that plane to Chicago?
Already there, maybe, and asking herself what she’d been thinking, agreeing to marry a Creed and live in a double-wide trailer?
Dylan snapped him with a dish towel, like in the old days, and grinned. “Thinking about Lily?” he asked.
“Hell yes, I was thinking about Lily,” Tyler answered.
Logan, up to his elbows in suds at the sink because the new dishwasher hadn’t been installed yet, chuckled. “What exactly were you two doing in the cemetery at that hour of the morning, anyway?” he asked, knowing damn well what they’d been doing.
“If that was any of your business,” Tyler said, jerking the dish towel out of Dylan’s hands and retaliating with a pretty good snap of his own, “I’d tell you.”
Logan laughed.
So did Dylan.
And, in his own good time, Tyler did, too.
* * *
LILY DROPPED OFF HER DAD and Tess and their suitcases at the airport, returned the rental car and rode back on the shuttle. She hadn’t wanted to come back to Montana, even after she got the call about Hal’s heart attack. Now, she didn’t want to leave.
Not even for two weeks.
After all, a lot could go wrong in two weeks.
Tyler could change his mind. Decide he missed the rodeo, or the movies, or doing print ads for magazines.
He could hook up with a waitress.
“Lily,” Hal said, as she worried her way through the security line. “Why the long face?”
She summoned up a smile, grateful that Tess was apparently too busy absorbing the preflight gauntlet to notice her mother’s wistful mood. “Just thinking about things I need to do when we get there,” she said.
The list was dauntingly long.
And it would be after midnight, Chicago time, when they landed at O’Hare.
Eloise, alerted to their arrival by telephone a few hours before, had insisted on sending a car and driver to meet them. She’d wanted Tess delivered to her house, right away, but reluctantly agreed to wait when Lily insisted that she could see her granddaughter in the morning.
Eloise.
Lily wasn’t looking forward to that encounter. She’d have to break the news that she and Tess were moving to Stillwater Springs permanently, and she knew her mother-in-law wouldn’t take it well.
“Like what?” Hal asked, as the line inched forward.
Lily glanced down at Tess, who was chatting with another little girl.
“Like telling Eloise we won’t be living in Chicago anymore,” Lily whispered.
“She’ll adjust,” Hal said.
“You don’t know Eloise,” Lily replied.
They got through the checkpoint—Tess, an obvious threat to national security, if there ever was one, was wanded, much to her delight—and made their way to the appropriate gate.
Lily considered calling Tyler on her cell phone, just to hear his voice, and decided it would be way codependent. They’d only been apart for a few hours, after all.
Tess and Hal checked out the gift shop.
When it was finally time to board the plane, Lily was relieved. The sooner she got to Chicago, the sooner she’d be back.
Back with Tyler.
“Do I get to have my own room in the trailer house?” Tess asked loudly, as soon as they were settled in their seats.
The flight attendant, checking for renegades who had yet to buckle their seat belts, arched one eyebrow.
Burke had flown for this airline. Lily wondered uncharitably if the woman smirking in the aisle had been one of his many conquests.
Which only went to prove she hadn’t had nearly enough sleep.
“Sure,” she said cheerfully, looking at the flight attendant as she replied, not at Tess. “We might even put in a lawn, so the chickens can peck for worms, and get Grandma a new set of teeth for Christmas.”
Hal, taking the whole thing in from the window seat, chuckled.
Tess tugged at Lily’s sleeve, brow furrowed in confusion. “Nana has teeth,” she said. “And we never call her ‘Grandma.’ She’d have a cow!”
The flight attendant had moved on.
Lily smiled and ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Darned if you aren’t right on all counts,” she said.
Tess rolled her eyes. “You’re silly, Mom.” She paused, brightened. “I like it when you’re silly. You’re too serious, most of the time.”
“Amen,” Hal said.
“Well,” Lily said, “from now on, I’ll try to be silly more often.”
She settled back, closed her eyes.
Tess held her hand during takeoff, though whether she needed reassurance herself or was offering it to Lily, there was no knowing.
The moment they came out of the boarding area in Chicago nearly four hours later, however, Lily knew being silly, as much as it pleased her dad and Tess, wasn’t going to be an option.
Eloise, looking stately and patrician and well-put-together, late as it was, was waiting beside the driver when Lily, Tess and Hal appeared.
So much for waiting until tomorrow to see Tess, Lily thought.
Tess, for her part, was tired from the flight, and inclined to be cranky. Seeing Eloise, she refused to go to her grandmother and huddled close to Hal, clinging to his pant leg.
“I’m not staying in Chicago,” she said sturdily, though nobody had asked. “I’m going back to Montana, and marrying Tyler Creed and we’re going to live with him in a trailer.”
Eloise went pale, even put a hand to her heart.
“She’s very tired,” Lily said, though she could see her words didn’t reassure Eloise.
“Who,” Eloise demanded, “is Tyler Creed?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Lily said, not knowing whether to be grateful or annoyed when her father went off with Eloise’s driver to collect the bags, taking Tess along with him.
“I want to know now,” Eloise said.
“Well, Eloise,” Lily responded quietly, “I don’t want to tell you now.”
“I knew this would happen!”
“Tomorrow,” Lily reiterated wearily.
To her amazement, Eloise subsided. The bags were all present and accounted for, and while the driver went to fetch the car from a nearby parking garage, taking the luggage with him, Hal and Lily and Eloise and Tess all stood waiting on the curb, none of them making eye contact or speaking.
Lily suspected Hal had counseled Tess to be quiet about Tyler and their planned return to Montana, while they were off at the baggage carousel. She’d ask him later, at the condo, after Eloise and the driver were gone and Tess was tucked up in her own bed.
The ride to Lily’s condo, with its partial view of the lake, seemed endless.
Eloise remained in the car, stiff-backed, while the driver took the bags out of the back and Lily, Hal and Tess piled onto the sidewalk.
“I’ll be coming by first thing in the morning,” Eloise said tightly. “And I expect an explanation.”
“Not too early, Eloise,” Lily said, firmly though not unkindly. She knew how much Tess meant to Eloise, especially now that Burke was gone, and she felt a lot of sympathy for the woman. “We’ve all had a long day—including you.”
Eloise didn’t answer. She was too busy seething.
Lily rummaged through her handbag for her key, and she and Hal and Tess said hello to the doorman, Salvatore—aka Sal—as they entered the building. Eloise’s driver left the bags with Sal and made a hasty exit.
Inside the familiar elevator, Lily tilted her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and ordered “Nobody say anything.”
The condo felt strange when Lily stepped over the threshold, flipped on the lights. There was dust on every surface, and she nearly tripped over the pile of mail just inside the door.
Hal went to the windows, opened the drapes and took in the semiview, while Tess plunked herself down on the sofa, folded her arms and stuck out her lower lip, obstinacy personified.
“Nana,” she said, “is in a snit.”
“So is somebody else I know,” Lily commented. “Go to bed, Tess.”
“We’ve been gone a long time,” Tess said, though she did get off the couch and meander toward her room. “What if there are cooties in the sheets?”
“There are no cooties,” Lily said, exhausted.
“There could be.”
“Good night, Tess.”
“Let me know when you’re jammied up, kiddo,” Hal told Tess, “and I’ll come and tuck you in.”
Jammied up. It was a phrase Lily remembered from her own childhood, when she’d hated to go to bed, so even putting on her pajamas seemed like a trial. Hal had jollied her into “jammying up,” just as he had Tess.
“Thanks,” she said, when Tess finally went into her room.
Sal’s arrival with the bags coincided exactly with the eloquent slam of Tess’s door.
Hal handled the tip while Lily, sighing, went to have a little chat with her daughter.
Tess was sitting on the side of her bed, stony faced, arms folded.
“What’s gotten into you?” Lily asked, with as much patience as she could muster.
“She’ll make us stay here,” Tess fretted. “Nana, I mean. We’ll never get to go back to Montana and marry Tyler.”
Hiding a smile, Lily sat down beside Tess and slipped an arm around her stiff little shoulders. “We’re going back, Tess,” she said.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
Tess relaxed a little, let Lily hold her close against her side, something she allowed less and less often, the older she got. “Do I have to go to Nantucket with Nana?”
“Probably,” Lily said. “But only for a few days.”
Tess made a face.
“You love Nantucket,” Lily reminded her gently. “And you love your grandmother. Be nice to her, sweetie—she adores you, you know that.”
Tess gave a tremulous little sigh that bruised Lily’s heart. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be nice to Nana.”
“Thank you,” Lily said. “I appreciate that.” She stood up, crossed to Tess’s bureau and pulled out a favorite pair of pajamas and brought them to Tess. “Better jammy up,” she added, bending to kiss the top of her daughter’s head, “so Grampa can tuck you in.”
Tess took the pajamas, examined them with forensic care.
“No cooties,” she said, sounding almost disappointed.