Montana Creeds: Tyler by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online

and that was a start.
    The question was, of what?
    He was sitting on the porch step, looking at the lake, Kit Carson beside him, leaning slightly against his right shoulder as if to anchor him somehow, and sipping strong coffee when his cell phone rang.
    His first thought, as he set his cup down to take the phone from his shirt pocket, was that Lily had changed her mind. Come to her senses. She was calling back to tell him she’d thought it over, and thanks, but no thanks….
    But the caller, as it turned out, was Dylan.
    â€œThe kid’s situation is pretty bad,” Dylan said. Typical. He never bothered with “hello” but, then, Tyler didn’t, either, most of the time. Or Logan. When Tyler got somebody on the horn, it was because he had business with them. He didn’t shoot the breeze—a family trait, he reflected, with some amusement. “Davie’s, I mean.”
    Tyler let out the sigh that had been hunkered down inside him, dark and heavy, ever since he’d found Davie McCullough cowering in his john that afternoon. “I figured that,” he said. “Did you talk to Jim?”
    â€œI did,” Dylan answered. “Our new sheriff is up to his ass in alligators right now. He wanted to call in social services and have the boy put into a foster home. Davie said he’d run away first, and I believe him—so I talked Jim into giving it a few days.”
    Tyler closed his eyes. “Where’s Davie now?”
    â€œI took him to the casino. He’s hanging out in one ofthe restaurants till his mother gets off work.” Dylan paused, cleared his throat, and Tyler, who had known something bigger was coming at him since the call began, braced himself. “Ty?” Dylan went on. “The kid’s mom—well—she’s somebody you know.” He stopped again. Tyler had a flash-vision of the bomb doors swaying open in the bay of a fighter jet, of ominous cylinders dropping with slow and deadly grace. “You knew her as Doreen Baron.”
    â€œHoly shit, ” Tyler rasped, when he’d absorbed the impact.
    Talk about your emotional mushroom cloud.
    Doreen had been a waitress when he knew her, back when Skivvie’s still had a lunch counter and a few tables. Fifteen years his senior, Doreen, with her network of tattoos and what-the-hell attitude, had taught him everything he needed to know about pleasing a woman—and then some.
    Still scrambling for some kind of inner foothold, Tyler did some frantic counting—backward, from the age he guessed Davie to be.
    â€œShit,” he repeated.
    Davie could be his son. And some son of a bitch was beating on him, on a regular basis, it would seem.
    â€œYou still there?” Dylan queried, somewhat cautiously, when the taut silence had finally stretched itself to the breaking point.
    â€œYeah, I’m here,” Tyler answered, dizzy with a combination of dread and wild hope. On the one hand, he hoped Davie was his. On the other, such a revelation might make it impossible to find any sort of common ground with Lily.
    Did he even want to find common ground with Lily?
    â€œYou thinking what I’m thinking?” Dylan pressed quietly.
    â€œYes,” Tyler said. “Davie’s about the right age, I guess.” He ducked his head, pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger. The dog gave a little whimper and leaned in harder. “Doreen never pretended I was the only game in town, though, and I think if Davie was mine, she’d have hit me up for money somewhere along the way.”
    Dylan was silent for a long time. “Look, you’re going to need a rig. I’ve already spoken with Kristy, and she’s willing to lend you her Blazer until your truck is back on the road. We could bring it out when she gets off work at the library, if you want.”
    Pride swelled up inside Tyler, fit to split his hide, but he needed transportation. The auto