Montana Creeds: Logan Read Free Page B

a designer boot company. Though he was the youngest, Tyler was also the wildest of Jake Creed’s three sons. He had issues aplenty, between the way Jake had raised them and his mother’s death.
    But his brothers’ stories were just that—their stories. Logan knew he’d have his hands full straightening out his own life, and while he regretted it, the fact was, the Creed brothers were estranged. And the estrangement might well be permanent. Given the family pride, not to mention inborn stubbornness, “Sorry” just wasn’t enough.
    Logan was about ready to leave—he had several other places to go. Briana and the kids were folding up their picnic blanket. The younger boy, Alec, approached with a slice of bologna for Sidekick.
    “You a cowboy?” the kid asked, taking notice ofLogan’s worn boots while the dog feasted on lunch meat, downing rind and all.
    Logan thrust a hand through his hair. “I was, once,” he said, aware of Briana—now, where the devil had she gotten a name like that?—looking on.
    “My dad’s a cowboy,” Alec said. “We don’t see him much.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Logan replied.
    “He rodeos,” Alec explained. “Mom divorced him online after he left us off in front of Wal-Mart and didn’t come back to get us.”
    Something bit into the pit of Logan’s stomach. He felt fury, certainly—what kind of man abandoned a woman and two little boys
and
a dog?—but a disturbing amount of relief, too. Once again, his gaze strayed to Briana, who was just opening her mouth to call Alec off. Damn, but she was delectable, all curves and bright hair and smooth, lightly freckled skin.
    “Mom takes real good care of us, though,” Alec went on, when Logan didn’t—
couldn’t
—speak. Old Jake hadn’t been the father of the year, either, but for all his womanizing, all his drinking, all his brawling, he’d worked steadily and hard up there in the woods, felling trees. On his worst day, he wouldn’t have left his woman or his kids to fend for themselves.
    “Bet she does,” Logan managed to respond, as Briana drew closer.
    “She’s a supervisor over at the casino,” Alex stated, speeding up his words as his mother got nearer.
    Briana arrived, placed a slender hand on Alec’s T-shirted shoulder. Both boys had dark hair and eyes, in contrast to their mother’s fair coloring. A picture ofher ex-husband formed in Logan’s mind. He was probably a charmer, one of those gypsy types, with a good line and a sad story.
    “That’s enough, Alec,” Briana said calmly. She kept her eyes averted from Logan’s face, as though she’d suddenly turned shy. “We have to go home now. You have chores to do, and lessons.”
    Alec wrinkled his nose. “Mom home-schools us,” he told Logan. “We don’t even get a
summer vacation.”
    Logan arched an eyebrow, perched his hands on his hips. Resisted an urge to rub his beard-stubbled chin self-consciously.
    “That,” Briana said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder gently, “is because you goof off so much, you have to put in extra time.”
    “I wish we could go to school in Stillwater Springs, like the other kids,” Alec lamented.
“They
get to play
baseball.
They ride a bus and go on field trips and
everything.”
    Briana’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, and that flush rose again, along the undersides of her cheekbones. “Alec,” she said firmly, “Mr. Creed is not interested in our personal business. Let’s run along home before the mosquitoes come out, okay?”
    “Mr. Creed” was, in fact, interested, and out of all proportion to good sense, too. “Logan,” he said.
    Briana checked her watch, nodded. “Logan,” she repeated distractedly.
    “Can Josh and me call you ‘Logan,’ too?” Alec asked, his voice hopeful.
    A woman who home-schooled her children might have some pretty strict ideas about etiquette. Logandidn’t want to step on Briana’s toes, so he said, “If it’s all right with your mother.”
    “We’ll