Montana Creeds: Tyler Read Online Free PDF Page A

brother?” Dylan asked. He was downright loquacious, old Dylan.
    â€œStop calling me ‘little brother,’” Tyler told him. “I’m a head taller than you are.”
    â€œYou’ll always be the baby of the family. Deal with it.” Dylan downshifted, with a grinding of gears, and theyjostled up the lake road, toward Tyler’s cabin. “Answer my question. What are you doing here?”
    Tyler let out a long sigh. “Damned if I know,” he admitted. “I guess I’m tired of the open road. I need some time to think a few things through.”
    â€œWhat things?”
    Again, Tyler’s temper, never far beneath the surface, stirred inside him. “What the fuck do you care?” he asked.
    Kit Carson gave a fitful whimper from the backseat.
    â€œI care,” Dylan said evenly. “And so does Logan.”
    â€œBullshit,” Tyler said flatly.
    â€œWhy is that so hard for you to believe?”
    The cabin came in sight, nestled up close to the lake. It was more shack than house, his hind-tit inheritance from the old man, but Tyler loved the solitude and the way the light of the sun and moon played over that still water.
    Logan, being the eldest, had scored the main ranch house when Jake Creed got himself killed up in the woods, logging, and Dylan, coming in second, got their uncle’s old dump on the other side of the orchard. That left Tyler in third place, as always.
    Hind-tit.
    Tyler unclamped his back molars, reached back to reassure the dog with a ruffling of the ears. Ignoring Dylan’s question, he asked about Bonnie instead.
    â€œShe’s fine,” Dylan answered.
    He brought the truck to a stop in front of the log A-frame, and Tyler had the passenger-side door open before Dylan had shut off the engine. Kit Carson waited,shivering a little, with either anticipation or dread, until Tyler hoisted him down from the backseat.
    â€œThanks for the lift,” Tyler told his brother, reaching over the side of the truck bed for the kibble and the grub they’d picked up in town. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?
    Dylan got out of the truck, slammed his door.
    â€œDon’t you have things to do?” Tyler asked tersely. Kit Carson was sniffing around in the rich, high grass, making himself at home—and he was all the company Tyler wanted at the moment. Once inside, he’d prime the pump, build a fire in the antiquated wood cookstove and brew some coffee. Try to get a little perspective.
    â€œI have all kinds of ‘things to do,’” Dylan answered, his mild tone in direct conflict with his go-to-hell manner. “I’m building a house, for one thing. Logan and I are back in the cattle business. But you’re at the top of my to-do list today, little brother. Like it or lump it.”
    Tyler consulted an imaginary list, envisioning a little notebook, like the one his dad had always carried in the pocket of his work shirt, full of timber footage and married women’s phone numbers. “You’re at the top of mine, too,” he replied. “Trouble is, it’s a shit list.”
    Dylan leaned against the hood of his truck, watching as Tyler started for the cabin, lugging the kibble under one arm and juggling two grocery bags with the other. Kit Carson hurried after him, though it was most likely the dog food he was after.
    â€œTy,” Dylan said, easy-like but with that steel undercurrent that was pure Creed orneriness, born and bred, “we’re brothers, remember? We’re blood. Logan and I,we’d like to mend some fences, and I’m not talking about the barbed-wire kind.”
    â€œYou’ve obviously mistaken me for somebody who gives a rat’s ass what you and Logan would like.”
    Dylan stepped back from the truck, folded his arms. “Look,” he said, as Tyler passed him, headed for the front door of the cabin, “we were all messed up after