Montana Creeds: Tyler by Linda Lael Miller Page B

problem was, he couldn’t help going over the old ground, looking for clues. Analyzing. His mother’s suicide was the reason for so many things that had happened—and not happened—in his life. It drove him half-crazy sometimes, the need to know why she’d done it. Why she hadn’t been able to hold on, leave Jake, make a new start somewhere else.
    â€œYou’ll be seeing Lily, I suppose?” Cassie ventured.
    â€œWe’re having dinner tomorrow night,” Tyler answered, braced for more advice.
    Leave it alone, Cassie had told him, after the breakup that summer, when he’d wanted to go back to Lily, begher to forgive him for sleeping with Doreen, give him another chance.
    Forget the girl, Jake had counseled. She’s too good for you, anyway .
    Are you nuts? Logan had demanded, after bouncing him off the back wall of the barn a couple of times. Rolling in the hay with a waitress twice your age when Lily’s crazy about you?
    Sometimes, the voices from the past crowded in like that, made Tyler want to put his hands over his ears. Not that that would have shut them out.
    What had happened, had happened.
    What was done, was done.
    So why couldn’t he just let his poor mother rest in peace?
    Why couldn’t he forgive her for breaking down that final time?
    The realization hit him hard.
    That was why he’d come home to Stillwater Springs, left the rodeo and the big-money stunt work and photo shoots behind, sold his big, empty house in L.A. and traded his Escalade for a junker that wouldn’t even run.
    He’d come back to take on all the old ghosts, one by one or in a snarling pack, however they came at him. Win or lose, the fight was on.
    Would he still be standing when it was all over?
    There was only one way to find out.
    And he was through running away.

CHAPTER FIVE
    A FTER SERVING HER FATHER and daughter a healthy breakfast—grapefruit, whole-wheat toast and scrambled egg whites—Lily sneaked into her dad’s study to pick up the phone.
    She’d call Tyler—she’d decided that while tossing and turning the night before. Tell him she couldn’t go out to dinner with him after all. Backpedal like crazy, tell an outright lie if she had to, say anything to get out of that hastily made date.
    Except that she didn’t have his number.
    She could get it from Kristy, of course. Call her or just walk over to the library and ask. Since Tyler was Kristy’s brother-in-law now, she’d surely know how to reach him.
    Her eyes fell on her dad’s tattered address book. Hal had always disapproved of Tyler Creed, but now, after picking Ty up alongside the road the day before, it seemed the man was her dad’s new best friend. Maybe the number was right there, within easy reach.
    It would be so much easier if she didn’t have to contact Kristy, either in person or over the telephone.
    Lily had flipped to the C s—the book was jammed with tattered sticky notes, names and numbers scrawledhelter-skelter on each one, all of them stuck in at odd and dizzying angles—and was scanning for Tyler’s contact information, when Hal walked in.
    â€œNeed something?” he asked, with a slight smile.
    Lily swallowed hard. “Tyler’s number,” she said. There, it was out there. Let him make of it what he would.
    â€œDon’t have it,” Hal said, still watching her, but more closely now. “By the way, Tess and I have taken a vote. It’s unanimous. Breakfast sucked.”
    Lily closed the bulging address book, set it aside. Straightened her spine. “I suppose you would have preferred bacon and eggs?” she asked, sounding a little terse because she was embarrassed that he’d caught her going through his address book and gotten her to admit that she’d intended to call Tyler, of all people.
    â€œ Preferred is not the word,” Hal said, grinning. “More like adored . Why do you want to call