A Creed in Stone Creek Read Online Free Page A

ever affected him in just this way. Was it the amazing body, the face, the crazy mane of thick brown hair, falling past her shoulders in spiral curls, the jarringly blue eyes that seemed to see past all his defenses?
    Who knew? He glanced down at the nameplate on her desk.
    Melissa O’Ballivan. Prosecutor.
    Uh-oh, he thought. Been there, done that.
    After what Cindy Ryan had done to him, he’d sworn off dating other lawyers—especially DAs and their assistants.
    “Sorry,” Steven said, finally finding his voice and dredging up the patented, lopsided grin that had been serving Creed men well for generations. “We stopped by to pay a parking ticket, and Matt here got away from me.”
    It was only then that he noticed the uniformed lawman standing just inside the small room, arms folded, assessing him with a certain noncommittal detachment, as if he might be running through a mental database of wanted criminals, in case he could match up Steven’s face to one of them. Here was a man who took his job seriously.
    Maybe he’d been the one to write that ticket and place it neatly under the windshield wiper of Steven’s old truck.
    Either way, Steven liked him right off, and figured that liking would stick. His first impressions of people were usually, though not always, accurate ones.
    “County Clerk’s office is just down the hall,” the cop said, relaxing visibly. “You can settle up on the ticket there.” That said, he put out his hand in that quintessentially small-town way Steven knew so well. “Tom Parker,” he said.
    “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 shethought 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, signedoff 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