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A Creed in Stone Creek
Linda Lael Miller
When single attorney Steven Creed becomes guardian of an orphaned five-year-old boy, he trades his big-city law firm for a ranch near his McKettrick kin in the close-knit community of Stone Creek, Arizona. Taking care of little Matt and fixing up his run-down ranch house with its old barn loosens something tightly wound inside him. But when Steven takes on the pro bono defense of a local teen, he meets his match in the opposing counsel - beautiful, by-the-book county prosecutor Melissa O'Ballivan.It'll take one grieving little boy, a sweet adopted dog and a woman who never expected to win any man's heart to make this Creed in Stone Creek know he's truly found home.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the first of three books starring a new trio of Creed men—Steven and his cousins, twins Conner and Brody! These relatives of the Montana Creeds and the McKettricks were raised as brothers in the ranching community of Lonesome Bend, Colorado. Now, after years as a hotshot Denver lawyer, Steven has suddenly become the adoptive father of his best friend’s five-year-old son and wants a new lifestyle. He buys a ranch in Stone Creek, Arizona, home of some of his McKettrick kin, and sets up a law practice. When he encounters Melissa O’Ballivan, the local prosecutor and a McKettrick in-law, watch the sparks fly!
I also wanted to write today to tell you about a special group of people with whom I’ve become involved in the past couple years. It is The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), specifically their Pets for Life program.
The Pets for Life program 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—and many other common problems—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 six 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,
Praise for the novels of Linda Lael Miller
“Completely wonderful. Austin’s interactions with Paige are fun and lively and the mystery… adds quite a suspenseful punch.”
—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Austin
“Miller is the queen when it comes to creating sympathetic, endearing and lifelike characters. She paints each scene so perfectly readers hover on the edge of delicious voyeurism.”
—RT Book Reviews on McKettricks of Texas: Garrett
“A passionate love too long denied drives the action in this multifaceted, emotionally rich reunion story that overflows with breathtaking sexual chemistry.”
—Library Journal on McKettricks of Texas: Tate
“This story creates lasting memories of soul-searing redemption and the belief in goodness and hope.”
—RT Book Reviews 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
“An engrossing, contemporary western romance.”
—Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Pride (starred review)
“Linda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
Linda Lael Miller
A Creed in Stone Creek
For Sheri and Kat
You’re brave and you’re funny and I love you both.
A CREED IN STONE CREEK
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
SOME INSTINCT—or maybe just a stir of a breeze—awakened Steven Creed; he sat up in bed, took a fraction of a moment to orient himself to unfamiliar surroundings. One by one, the mental tumblers clicked into place:
Room 6. Happy Wanderer Motel and Campground. Stone Creek, Arizona.
The door stood open to the fresh high-country air, which was crisply cool on this early June night, but not cold, and the little boy—Steven’s newly adopted son—sat on the cement step outside. A bundle—probably his favorite toy, a plush skunk named Fred, rolled up in his blanket—rested beside him, and the boy’s tiny frame was rimmed in an aura of silvery-gold moonlight.
Something tightened in Steven’s throat at the poignancy of the sight.
Poor kid. It wasn’t hard to guess who he was waiting for. Matt was small, with his dad’s dark hair and his mother’s violet eyes, and he was exceptionally intelligent—maybe even gifted—but he was still only five years old.
How could he be expected to comprehend that his folks, Zack and Jillie St. John, were gone for good? That they wouldn’t be coming to pick him up, no matter how hard he hoped or how many stars he wished on, that night or any other.
Steven’s eyes burned, and he had to swallow the hard ache that rose in his throat.
Jillie had succumbed to a particularly virulent form of breast cancer a year and a half ago, and Zack had only lasted a few months before the grief dragged him under, too—however indirectly.
“Hey, Tex,” Steven said, trying to sound casual as he sat up on the thin, lumpy mattress of the foldout sofa—he’d given the bed to the child when they checked in that evening. Steven shoved a hand through his own dark blond hair. “What’s the trouble?” His voice was hoarse. “Can’t sleep?”
Matt looked back at him, shook his head instead of answering aloud.
He looked even smaller than usual, sitting there in the expanse of that wide-open doorway.
Steven rolled out of bed, shirtless and barefoot, wearing a pair of black sweatpants that had seen better days.
He crossed the scuffed linoleum floor, stepped over the threshold and sat down beside Matt on the step, interlacing his fingers, letting his elbows rest on his knees. There was enough of a chill in the air to raise goose bumps wherever his skin was bare, so he figured Matt had to be cold, too, sitting there in his cotton pajamas. With a sigh, Steven squinted to make out the winding sparkle of the nearby creek, sprinkled in starlight, edged by oak trees, with night-purple mountains for a backdrop.
Matt leaned into him a little, a gesture that further melted Steven’s already-bruised heart.
Carefully, Steven put an arm around the boy, to lend not only reassurance, but warmth, too. “Having second thoughts about turning rancher this late in your life?” he teased, thinking he couldn’t have loved Matt any more if he’d been his own child, instead of his best friend’s.
In the morning, Steven would attend the closing over at the Cattleman’s Bank, and sign the papers making him the legal owner of a fifty-acre spread with a sturdy though run-down two-story house and a good well but not much else going for it. The rickety fences had toppled over years ago, defeated by decades of heavy snow in winter and pounding rain come springtime, and the barn was unsalvageable. Yet something about the place had reached out to him and grabbed hold, just the same.
The small ranch had been a home once, and it could be one again, with a lot of elbow grease—and a serious chunk of change. Fortunately, money wasn’t a problem for Steven, which wasn’t to say there weren’t plenty of other things to chap his figurative hide.
Sometimes, he felt just as lost as Matt did.
Matt’s mouth quirked up at one side in a flimsy attempt at a smile, all the more touching because of the obvious effort involved. “I’m only five years and three months old,” he said, in belated reply to Steven’s question, in that oddly mature way of his. “It’s not late in my life, because my life just got started.” The little guy had skipped the baby-talk stage entirely; he hadn’t even tried to talk until he was past two, but he’d spoken in full sentences from then on.
“Five, huh?” Steven teased, raising one eyebrow. “If you weren’t so short, I’d say you were lying about your age. Come on, admit it—you’re really somebody’s grandfather, posing as a kid.”
The joke, a well-worn favorite, fell flat. Matt’s small shoulders moved with the force of his sigh, and he leaned a little more heavily into Steven’s side.
“Feeling lonesome?” Steven asked, after clearing his throat.
Matt nodded, looking up at Steven. His eyes were huge and luminous in the predawn darkness. “I need a dog,” the boy announced solemnly.
Steven chuckled, ruffled Matt’s hair, gleaming dark as a raven’s wing in the night. Relief swelled inside him, flailed behind his chest wall like a living thing doing its best to escape. A dog was something he could manage.
“Soon as we’re settled,” he promised, “we’ll visit the animal shelter and pick out a mutt.”
“Do they have ponies at the shelter, too?” The question cheered Steven; Matt was pushing the envelope, so to speak, and that had to be a good sign.
They’d already had the pony discussion—repeatedly.
“You know the deal, Tex,” he reminded the little boy quietly. “The fences need to be replaced before we can keep horses, and the barn, too.”
Matt sighed again, deeply. “That might take a long time,” he lamented, “since you’ll be working in town every day.”
Steven fully intended to settle down in Stone Creek, build a normal life for his young charge and for himself. And to him, normal meant showing up somewhere on weekday mornings and putting in eight hours—whether he needed the paycheck or not.
He’d had to fight just to get through high school, let alone prelaw in college, and then earn the graduate degree that had qualified him to take the bar exam—a frustrating variety of learning disorders had all but crippled him early in his life. Although they’d been corrected, thanks to several perceptive teachers, he’d had a lot of catching up to do.
Still felt as if he was scrambling, some of the time.
Steven ruffled Matt’s hair. “Yep,” he agreed. “I’ll be working.”
“What about me? Where will I be when you’re gone?”
They’d already covered that ground, numerous times, but after everything—and everybody—the little guy had lost over the past couple of years, it wasn’t surprising that he needed almost constant reassurance. “You’ll be in day camp,” Steven said. “Until you start first grade in the fall, anyhow.”
Matt’s chin jutted out a little way, the angle obstinate and so reminiscent of Zack that the backs of Steven’s eyes stung again. Zack St. John had been his best friend since middle school, a popular athlete, excellent student and all-around good guy. Losing Jillie had been a terrible blow, knocking Zack for the proverbial loop—he’d gone wild and finally died when, driving too fast down a narrow mountain road, he’d lost control somehow and laid his motorcycle down.
“Couldn’t I just go to the office with you?” the boy asked, his voice even smaller than he was. “I might not like day camp. Anyhow, it’s summer. Who goes to day camp in summer?”
Steven sighed and got to his feet. “Lots of kids do,” he said. “And you might just wind up thinking day camp is the greatest thing since 3D TV.” He extended a hand. “Come on, Tex. Let’s get you back to bed. Tomorrow might be a long day, and you’ll need your rest.”
Matt reached for the stuffed skunk, and wound up in the now-tattered blanket he always kept close at hand. Jillie had knitted that herself, especially to bring her and Zack’s infant son home from the hospital in, but the thing had been through some serious wear-and-tear since then.
Steven supposed that Matt was too old to be so attached to a baby blanket, but he didn’t have the heart to take it away.
So he watched as the little boy got to his feet, trundled back inside, took a brief detour to the bathroom and then stood in the middle of the small room, looking forlorn.
“Can I sleep with you?” he asked. “Just for tonight?”
Steven tossed back the covers on the sofa bed and stretched out, resigned to the knowledge that he probably wouldn’t close his eyes again before the morning was right on top of him. “Yeah,” he said. “Hop in.”
Matt scrambled onto the bad mattress and squirmed a little before settling down.
Steven stretched to switch off the lamp on the bedside table.
“Thanks,” Matt said, in the darkness.
“You’re welcome,” Steven replied.
