Read Montana Creeds: Logan for Free Online Page B

father.
    Tears scalded the backs of her eyes, and she touched the pendant she always wore—she’d made it herself, scanning an old photo of her dad, resizing it, setting it in resin. He’d been a rambler, too, Bill McIntyre had, a well-known rodeo clown following the circuit during the season, parking his camper in his sister’s backyard in Boise when there were no rodeos to perform in. The difference was, he’d taken Briana on the road with him, after her mother died. She’d been Alec’s age then.
    Her aunt Barbara had objected, of course, to all the travel and Briana doing her schoolwork by correspondence instead of attending a real school. A young girl needed friends, Barbara had argued. Needed dance lessons and Sunday school and security.
    Every time they’d returned to Boise, Briana’s bossy but beloved aunt had hustled her off to the school for tests; every time, Briana had proved to be far above her grade level. In fact, she’d completed high school by the time she was fifteen. Bill had immediately signed her up for college-level courses, and she’d aced those, too, with his help.
    She treasured the recollection of the two of them sitting at the little fold-down table in the camper, lamplight casting a golden benediction from over their heads, bent over one textbook or another.
    Now, with her son standing hopefully before her, she missed her dad more poignantly than ever. Sure, he’d dragged her all over the United States in that old camper, but he’d been rock-solid, too. There for her, no matter what.
    Her greatest regret, where her children were concerned, was that she hadn’t given them the kind of father Bill had been to her. Instead, she’d been swept away by Vance’s good looks, charm and easy drawl.
    “Are you going to call Dad?” Alec asked, his voice small.
    Briana smiled. “Yes,” she said. “But only to ask how long he’ll be staying.”
    Alec looked desperately relieved. His gaze slipped to the pendant, on its simple leather cord, and the image of Bill “Wild Man” McIntyre, clad in full clown regalia. “You miss Grampa, huh?”
    “Lots,” Briana admitted. Her dad had retired from rodeo soon after she married Vance, giving up his beloved camper for a modest house a few blocks fromBarbara and her family, saying he was all set to fish every day and wait for his grandchildren to come along.
    A month later, he’d passed away very suddenly, after a particularly nasty case of the flu had turned to pneumonia.
    The irony of that still bothered Briana. Her dad had been gored by bulls and trampled by broncs in his long career as a rodeo clown, and in the end, he’d died of an ailment a simple injection might have prevented.
    Alec leaned in, planted a kiss on Briana’s cheek. “’Night, Mom,” he said. “And thanks.”
    Briana waited until Alec and Josh had both settled in for the night, keeping herself busy by puttering around the kitchen, washing up dishes she’d left in the sink that morning, making up a grocery list, checking and rechecking her work schedule for the coming week. Finally, sweaty-palmed, she took the phone receiver off the hook on the wall and called Vance.
    “That number,” an automated operator responded, after three rings, “is no longer in service.”
    Of course it wasn’t, Briana thought, hanging up with a slight bang, feeling both relieved and annoyed. Vance would have had to buy more minutes to keep that particular line of communication open; instead, he’d simply gottenanother phone, in another convenience store, with a new number he hadn’t troubled himself to share with her.
    She rarely had anything to say to Vance, but suppose one of the boys were sick or hurt? How would she reach him?
    Resigned, Briana sighed and checked the clock on the stove. Too early to turn in, especially with all thatcaffeine coursing through her system, and she didn’t feel like watching television or cruising the Internet.
    Wandering into the living room, she peered