A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [83]
Something fluttered in Steven’s heart. It wasn’t sorrow, exactly, but it wasn’t happiness, either. If he’d had to put an adjective to the emotion, he would have said bittersweet.
“That’s you,” Matt said, stabbing an index finger into the chest of the stick man, but soon moving on to the woman. “And that’s Melissa.” He, of course, was the child, and the dog was Zeke. The horse was evidently there as a reminder.
“That’s—great,” Steven said, after a moment or two. He kept thinking he’d get used to things the boy said, but so far that hadn’t happened. A glimpse inside Matt’s mind always choked him up and, sometimes, like now, it made him afraid. He searched for the right words, a way to warn the little guy not to get his hopes up as far as Melissa was concerned without shooting down all that bright-eyed faith.
Nothing came to him.
“Next time I see Melissa, I’m going to give her this picture as a present,” Matt said, as Steven set him on his feet.
Steven’s throat ached, and he couldn’t quite look at the boy. “Matt—”
“I know, I know,” the five-year-old broke in sunnily, “you and Melissa aren’t married yet, and I shouldn’t get carried away and make all kinds of plans—”
Steven could picture himself married to Melissa—though he hadn’t really tried before now—but there was no telling what her take on the matter might be.
Sure, they’d had a great time in bed together, but he hadn’t forgotten the hurt he’d seen in Melissa’s eyes, during the interlude between bouts of lovemaking, when they’d sat at his table eating take-out meat loaf. The last guy she cared about had done a serious number on her, and she wasn’t over it.
On top of that, she had a career, a house, a life, quite independent from his own. What would someone like Melissa O’Ballivan really have to gain by tying herself down at this point?
Sex? She didn’t need marriage for that, any more than he did.
“Dad?” Matt jolted him out of the thought tangle by tugging at the fabric of his shirt.
Steven blinked, looked down at his son. “What?”
Matt was pointing in the general direction of the ranch house. “Whose truck is that?”
Seeing that old beater was like taking a punch in the gut. The black Dodge, dented and scraped and still sporting Wile E. Coyote mud flaps, even after all these years, belonged to none other than Brody Creed.
“Stay here,” Steven told Matt, putting out a hand briefly to emphasize the point before striding off toward his cousin’s truck.
The kid might as well have been born a Creed as get adopted into the family, because he never listened. Steven got all the way to Brody’s truck, which sat in the high grass with its windows rolled down, before he realized that Matt was right behind him.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay put?” Steven asked the boy.
Matt folded his arms and looked up at him, that stubborn glint in his eyes. “You might need some help,” he pointed out manfully.
Steven sighed and shoved a hand through his hair in frustration. Then he stepped up onto the running board on the driver’s side and looked in.
Brody lay across the seats, his hat over his eyes and his knees drawn up.
Steven jerked the door open, causing it to give way under Brody’s booted feet, and he scrambled upright, ready to fight, as always. He shoved the hat back, so he could see, and an instant grin spread across his face.
“Dammit, Boston,” he said, “you scared the hell out of me.”
Steven was glad to see Brody—no question about it—but there was some anger there, too. The man disappeared for years at a time, with nothing but a ratty Christmas card, always arriving in mid-January, to indicate that he was still alive.
“You look just like Uncle Conner,” Matt marveled, his piping voice a much-needed reminder that there was a child present and that meant no more swearing and no landing a fist in the middle of Brody’s face. “But you’re not, are you?”
Brody got out of the truck, resituated his hat, which, like everything else he owned, had seen better days. “Nope,” he said, putting out a hand to Matt. “I