A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [9]
“Steven Creed,” Steven replied, setting a squirmy Matt on his own two feet.
“How come there isn’t going to be a parade?” Matt piped up. He wheeled to look up at Steven. “You said there would be a parade. And a rodeo, too. That’s the main reason I didn’t run away from home when you told me we were moving here!”
By that time, the spectacularly sexy Ms. O’Ballivan had pushed back her chair and stood, soon rounding the desk to face the boy. There was no telling what she thought of Steven, if he’d even registered on her radar, but the lady had obviously fallen for Matt, hook, line and sinker.
“Hi,” she said, with a smile that tugged at Steven’s gut like a fishhook, even though she was looking down at the child, not at him. “My name is Melissa O’Ballivan. What’s yours?”
“Matt Creed,” the boy responded, somewhat warily because he’d been taught to be careful of strangers, and Steven felt another tug, this time at his emotions. He’d given Matt the choice, when the adoption became final, of keeping his folks’ last name—St. John—or taking on his new father’s. And it still touched him that Matt, who remembered Zack and Jillie with a clarity Steven did everything he could to maintain, had decided to go by Creed.
“Matt,” Steven managed, clearing his throat. He still had that weird feeling going on inside and he wanted to get away, so he could mull it over, come to terms, make some sort of sense of it.
Whatever “it” was.
“Let’s go take care of that parking ticket,” he prompted, after an entirely rhetorical glance at his watch, failing completely to note the time. “We’re due to sign the papers for the ranch in a few minutes.”
“You said there would be a parade,” Matt repeated, turning away from the dazzle of Melissa O’Ballivan to frown up at Steven. The kid could be bone-stubborn when he’d made up his mind about something, which meant the Creed name would suit him just fine.
The lawman, Parker, cleared his throat. Slanted a glance at Ms. O’Ballivan. “Aunt Ona already did most of the work,” he told her. “Laid the groundwork, signed off on the different floats and even arranged for all the permits. Only thing you’d have to do is oversee a couple of meetings, check stuff off on a clipboard. Make sure folks live up to their commitments.”
Melissa laid a hand on top of Matt’s head and ruffled his dark hair slightly. Her shoulders rose and fell as she drew in a big breath and sighed it out, looking cheerfully doomed. “Welcome to Stone Creek, Matt Creed,” she said. “And here’s hoping you’ll enjoy the parade.”
Mollified, Matt punched the air with one small fist and turned to Steven. “Yes!” he said, with a grin.
By then, Steven had pieced the scenario together in his mind, or part of it, at least. Ms. O’Ballivan hadn’t wanted to oversee the upcoming event, but she’d been roped in anyhow—by the sheriff, from the sound of it.
Steven allowed himself a long look at Melissa—an indulgence, considering the way she shook him up. The Realtor who’d sold him the Emerson ranch had touted both the parade and the rodeo as “longstanding community traditions,” in addition to other selling points, and Steven had made a big deal about the festivities so Matt would have something to look forward to, besides the relatively immediate dog and the eventual pony.
“Thanks,” Steven told Melissa, and the word came out sounding gruff.
She made a comical face. “Don’t mention it,” she replied, rueful.
“Maybe I could help out somehow,” Steven heard himself say, as he took Matt’s hand and started to turn away. “Not that I know much about parades.”
“Join the club,” Melissa said, with another of those lethal smiles of hers.
Steven grinned, nodded and managed to peel himself away.
He forgot all about paying the parking ticket, though, because his mind was full of Melissa O’Ballivan, and it was bound to stay that way.
All through the closing, held in a meeting room over at the Cattleman’s Bank, Matt fidgeted. Steven signed papers, handed over a cashier’s check covering the cost of the