Linda Miller - Montana Creeds - Tyler

Behind her motherly smile, Lily added Eloise Kenyon to the mental hit-list headed up by Hal Ryder. Why would Burke’s mother mention matters like trust funds and insurance settlements to a child, unless she’d wanted the remark to get back to Lily? Using Tess as a go-between was inexcusable, downright passive-aggressive.

As for Burke, whatever his other failings, he had kept his will up to date. He’d looked out for his daughter and, to some extent, his wife.

The trust fund was safely tucked away for Tess, and Lily had used the insurance money to pay off Burke’s many credit card debts and the mortgage on the condo. Her job, though it sometimes made her want to tear out her hair from sheer frustration, paid well, and she and Tess lived simply, anyway.

Lily was nothing if not sensible.

Except when it came to Tyler Creed, of course.

Why had she agreed to have dinner with him, when she knew no other man on earth, not even her own father, had the power to hurt her the way Tyler could?

Was pain getting to be a way of life with her? Had she started to like it?

“We’re both tired,” she said at last. “Let’s talk about this another time.”

She saw the protest brewing in Tess’s eyes. You always say that…and later never comes.

Lily laid an index finger to her daughter’s lips, to forestall the inevitable challenge.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” she said. “I promise.”

Mollified, though barely so, Tess sighed a little-girl sigh. Relaxed visibly.

Lily kissed her again. “Want me to leave the light on for a while?” she asked. Tess had never been afraid of the dark, but the house was strange to her, after all, however much she claimed to love it, and she’d had a very big day.

“I’m not scared, Mom,” Tess said. “I told you, this is a hugging house.”

A hugging house.

For a moment, Lily yearned for the innocence of youth, ached to feel the way Tess did about the old place. As a child, she had—she’d loved living there. Until her parents had torn the concept of home into two jagged pieces, each taking half and leaving her scrambling in midair.

Lily simply nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying again, and stood. She switched off the bedside lamp, with its time-yellowed, frilly shade, and headed for the hallway.

“You can leave the door open, though,” Tess volunteered gamely, from the darkness.

Lily smiled, knowing she was visible to her daughter in the light from the hall. “Good night, pumpkin.”

“Night,” Tess murmured, in a snuggling-in voice.

A few moments later, Lily joined her father in the living room at the front of the house. He was seated at his ancient rolltop desk, going over what appeared to be a stack of bills.

Lily, who had a bone to pick with him, swallowed. Was her dad all right for money? He ran a small-town veterinary practice, after all, and if she remembered correctly, collecting his fees wasn’t a high priority with him. Especially if his clients happened to be hard up.

Times being what they were, folks were scrambling just to hold on.

“I could help,” she heard herself say. “If you’re a little behind or something—”

Hal smiled and again, something moved in his eyes. Something that seemed to hurt him. “I appreciate the offer,” he said, his voice sounding a little hoarse. “But I’m solvent, Lily. No need for you to fret.”

Lily nodded, embarrassed now. Kept her face averted as she sat down in an overstuffed armchair that was probably older than she was. “Tess is talking about staying in Stillwater Springs for good,” she ventured. “Is that your doing?”

Hal chuckled, sounding wistful. “It’s still a fine place to raise a child,” he said. “Safe to trick-or-treat at Halloween. You can say ‘Merry Christmas’ to folks without somebody getting in your face for being politically incorrect, and every Fourth of July, there’s a big picnic and fireworks in the park.”

Lily’s face heated. “So is Chicago,” she said, unable to meet her father’s gaze, even then. “A good place to bring up a child, I mean.”

Hal blew out a breath. “ You were happy here,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” she retorted stiffly. “Until I suddenly became persona non grata.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Lily regretted them. Truthful or not, Hal was recovering from a major heart attack. This was no time for digging up and rattling old bones.

Hal didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, his words made Lily’s throat tighten painfully. “You were never a ‘persona non grata,’ Lily,” he insisted, his tone ragged and weary. “Your mother and I loved you very much. We just didn’t love each other anymore, and you took a lot of the fallout. For that, I am truly sorry.”

She wanted to ask him right then why he’d shut her out all of a sudden, soon after her breakup with Tyler, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to hear the answer.

“I guess divorce is never easy on anybody,” she said, conceding the obvious. “Adults or children.”

With a sigh that snagged at Lily’s heart, her father hoisted himself up from the desk chair, crossed the room and sat down in the second armchair, facing her. “Tell me about your divorce, Lily,” he said. “How long were you unhappy with Burke before you finally decided to cut your losses and run?”

Lily lowered her head. “Too long,” she whispered.

“He cheated, didn’t he? Ran around with other women?”

She swallowed hard, nodded. Looked her father straight in the eye. “Mom claims you were ‘running around with other women’ when she left you. Is that true, Da—Hal?”

Hal’s smile was rueful. “It wouldn’t throw the earth off its axis, Lily,” he said gently, “if you called me ‘Dad’ again.” He shifted in his chair, took a pipe from the holder on the table beside him, and at Lily’s fierce expression, put it back. “To answer your question, I was faithful to your mother, at least in the literal sense of the word.”

“What does that mean?”

“That we were too different from each other, Lucy and me,” Hal said slowly. “She liked bright lights and big cities, and I liked being a country veterinarian. She wanted to drive a fancy car, and I refused, even though we could have afforded one, because I didn’t like the statement it would have made among people who struggle just to keep food on the table. When it got down to the brass tacks, Lily, the only thing your mother and I had in common was you.”

Oh, right, Lily wanted to say, but she bit the words back.

Hal chuckled, but he sounded so tired. It was time he took his medicine and went to bed. Lily started to get up, fetch the bag full of pill bottles the doctor had sent home with them.

“Sit down, Lily,” her dad said firmly.

Lily dropped back into her chair.

“I still want to know about Burke. Not the public version. Scion of a great New England family, and all that tripe. What was he really like?”

“Shallow,” Lily said, after some thought. “Funny. Smart. Self-assured.”

“And very popular with other women?” Hal put the question gently, but at the same time there was no doubt that he expected an answer and wouldn’t let her off the hook until she replied honestly. Clearly, he wasn’t going to be thrown off the trail.

“Very,” Lily agreed. “There were a lot of little signs, looking back on it—the usual hang-ups on the phone, odd charges on his credit card statements, condoms in his suitcase when we never used them, things like that. I pretended not to notice—I guess I couldn’t face the truth about us. But it was almost as though Burke wanted me to know he was running around. I’d call his room when he was out of town on a flight, and a woman would answer. He’d say the whole crew was in his room, that they were celebrating somebody’s birthday, or anniversary, or retirement….” She stopped, blushed, shook her head at her own naiveté. “Until he crashed his plane, I thought he was trying to maneuver me into making the first move, so he wouldn’t have to be the first Kenyon in history to file for divorce. But when I finally did see a lawyer, he—”