Linda Miller - Montana Creeds - Dylan

“As hot as the noontime desert.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Rustler

“Loaded with hot lead, steamy sex and surprising plot twists.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Wanted Man

“Miller’s prose is smart, and her tough Eastwoodian cowboy cuts a sharp, unexpectedly funny figure in a classroom full of rambunctious frontier kids.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Man from Stone Creek

“[Miller] paints a brilliant portrait of the good, the bad and the ugly, the lost and the lonely, and the power of love to bring light into the darkest of souls. This is western romance at its finest.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Man from Stone Creek

“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”

—No.1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the second of three books about the rowdy McKettrick cousins, the Creeds.

Dylan Creed, seasoned hell-raiser and erstwhile rodeo cowboy, suddenly finds himself the full-time father of a two-year-old daughter. Like his brother, he’s come back to Stillwater Springs, Montana, to face down his demons, but his high school sweetheart, librarian Kristy Madison, shakes him up more than any bull he’s ever ridden in the rodeo! Will he stick around long enough to help Logan make the Creed name mean something again?

I also wanted to write today to tell you about a special group of people with whom I’ve recently become involved. It is The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), specifically their Pets for Life programme.

The Pets for Life programme is one of the best ways to help your local shelter: that is to help keep animals out of shelters in the first place. Something as basic as keeping a collar and tag on your pet all the time, so if he gets out and gets lost, he can be returned home. Being a responsible pet owner. Spaying or neutering your pet. And not giving up when things don’t go perfectly. If your dog digs in the yard, or your cat scratches the furniture, know that these are problems that can be addressed. You can find all the information about these problems—and many other common ones—at www.petsforlife.org. This campaign is focused on keeping pets and their people together for a lifetime.

As many of you know, my own household includes two dogs, two cats and four horses, so this is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I hope you’ll get involved along with me.

With love,

The Stone Creek seriesTHE MAN FROM STONE CREEK A WANTED MAN THE RUSTLER

The McKettricks seriesMcKETTRICK’S CHOICE McKETTRICK’S LUCK McKETTRICK’S PRIDE McKETTRICK’S HEART A McKETTRICK CHRISTMAS

The Mojo Sheepshanks seriesDEADLY GAMBLE DEADLY DECEPTIONS

Don’t miss all the adventures of the Montana CreedsLOGAN DYLAN TYLER

And return to Stone Creek inTHE BRIDEGROOM

Montana Creeds: Dylan

Linda Iael Miller

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Sam and Janet Smith, my dear, funny friends.

Thanks for some of the best advice

I’ve ever received:

Go to Harlequin!

Las Vegas, Nevada

HE’D KNOWN ALL DAY that something was about to go down, something life-changing and entirely new. The knowledge had prickled in his gut and shivered in the fine hairs on the nape of his neck throughout the marathon poker games played in his favorite seedy, backstreet gambling joint. He’d ignored the subtle mind-buzz as a minor distraction—it didn’t have the usual elements of actual danger. But now, with a wad of folded bills—his winnings—shoved into the shaft of his left boot, Dylan Creed knew he’d better watch it, just the same.

Down in Glitter Gulch, there were crowds of people, security goons hired by the megacasinos to make sure their walking ATMs didn’t get roughed up or rolled, or both, cops and cameras everywhere. Here, behind the Black Rose Cowboy Bar and Card Room, home of the hard-core poker players who scorned glitz, there was one failing streetlight, an overflowing Dumpster, a handful of rusty old cars and, at the periphery of his vision, a rat the size of a raccoon.

While he loved a good fight, being a Creed, born and bred, Dylan was nobody’s fool. A tire iron to the back of the head and being relieved of the day’s take—fifty-odd thousand dollars in cash—was not on his to-do list.

He walked toward his gleaming red extended-cab Ford pickup with his customary confidence, and probably looked like a hapless rube to anybody who might be lurking behind that Dumpster, or one of the other cars or just in the shadows.

Someone was definitely watching him; he could feel it now, a for-sure kind of thing—but it was more annoying than alarming. He’d learned early in his life, though, just by being Jake Creed’s middle son, that the presence of another person, or persons, charged the atmosphere with a crackle of energy.

Just in case, he reached inside his ancient denim jacket, closed his fingers loosely around the handle of the snub-nosed .45 he carried on his frequent gambling junkets. Garth Brooks might have friends in low places like the Black Rose, but he didn’t. Only sore losers, crooks and card sharps hung out in this neighborhood, and Dylan Creed fell into the latter category.

He was within six feet of the truck before he realized there was someone sitting in the passenger seat. He debated whether to draw the .45 or his cell phone in the split second it took to recognize Bonnie.

Bonnie. His two-year-old daughter stood on the seat, grinning at him through the glass.

Dylan sprinted to the driver’s side, scrambled in and lost his hat when the little girl flung herself on him, her arms tight around his neck.

With his elbow, Dylan tapped the lock-button on his armrest.

“Daddy,” Bonnie said. At least, in his mind the kid’s name was Bonnie—Sharlene, her mother, had changed it several times, according to the latest whim.

“Hey, babe,” Dylan said, loosening his grip a little because he was afraid of crushing the munchkin. “Where’s your mom?”

Bonnie drew back to look at him with enormous blue eyes, thick-lashed. Her short blond hair curled in wisps around her ears, and she was wearing beat-up bib overalls, a striped T-shirt and flip-flops for shoes.

I’m only two, her expression seemed to say. How should I know where my mom is?

Dylan turned, keeping one arm around Bonnie, and buzzed down the window. “Sharlene!” he yelled into the dark parking lot.

There was no answer, of course, and he knew by the shift in the vibes he’d been picking up since he stepped through the back door of the Rose that his onetime girlfriend had bailed. Again.

Only this time, she’d left Bonnie behind.

He wanted to swear, even pound the steering wheel once with his fist, but you didn’t do things like that with a kid around. Not if you’d grown up in an alcoholic cement mixer of a home, like he and his brothers, Logan and Tyler, had, jumping at every thump and bump. And there was more to it than that: besides the fact that he didn’t want to scare Bonnie, he felt a strange undercurrent of exhilaration.

He seldom saw his daughter, thanks to Sharlene’s gypsy ways—though she always managed to cash his child-support checks—and being separated from Bonnie, never knowing what was happening to her, ached inside him like a bruise to the soul.