Montana Sky

  “Of course I’m worried about it. All Nate says is there’s nothing new. But you still have guards on.”

  Willa blew out a breath. “I can’t take any chances.”

  “And I don’t want you to.” To soothe herself, Tess stroked Moon’s cheek. “Though I admit I’ve had a few bad moments waking up at night hearing people walking around outside. Or you pacing around in.”

  Willa kept her eyes on Moon’s smooth coat. “I have nightmares.”

  More surprised by the admission than the fact, Tess moved closer. “I’m sorry.”

  She hadn’t been able to talk about it, and wondered now if that was a mistake. So she would see. “They’ve gotten worse since going up to the cabin. Realizing that girl was killed there. No doubt of that now that they’ve matched her blood to the towels and rags I found under the sink.”

  “Why the hell didn’t the cops find them?”

  Willa shrugged her shoulders and continued to groom her horse. “It’s not the only cabin, the only shelter in the hills. They looked around, saw nothing out of place, everything as it should be. They didn’t see any point in poking into dark corners and overturning buckets, I guess. They sure as hell have gone over the place now, every inch. Hasn’t helped. Anyway, I think about that, and the time up in the hills with Adam shot, and bleeding, and not knowing.”

  She gave Moon a slap on the flank to send her into the pasture. “Just not knowing.”

  “Maybe it is over,” Tess put in. “Maybe he’s gone off. Sharks do that, you know. Cruise one area for a while, then go off to another feeding ground.”

  “I’m scared all the time.” It wasn’t hard to admit it, not when she watched Lily walk around the side of the house laughing up at Adam. Fear and love, she’d discovered, went hand in hand. “Work helps, keeps the fear in the back of the mind. Ben helps. You can’t think at all when a man’s inside you.”

  Yes, you can, Tess mused. Unless it’s the right man.

  “It’s that three o’clock in the morning thing,” Willa continued. “When there’s nobody there, and nothing to hold it off. That’s when the fear creeps up and snaps at my throat. That’s when I start wondering if I’m doing the right thing.”

  “About?”

  “The ranch.” It spread out around her, her life. “Having you and Lily stay on when we can’t be sure if it’s safe.”

  “You don’t have any choice.” Tess hooked a boot in the fence, leaned back into it. She couldn’t see the land through Willa’s eyes, doubted she ever would. But she’d come to admire the pull of it, and the power. “We have minds of our own. Agendas of our own.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll tell you what mine is. When my time’s up here, I’m going back to LA. I’m going shopping on Rodeo Drive and I’m having lunch at whatever the current hot spot is.” Which, she knew, would certainly not be the hot spot she’d lunched in that past autumn. “And I’m taking my share of the profits from Mercy and putting it toward a place in Malibu. Near the ocean so I can hear the waves day and night.”

  “Never seen the ocean,” Willa murmured.

  “No?” It was hard to imagine. “Well, maybe you’ll come visit sometime. I’ll show you what civilized people do with their days. Might just add a chapter to my book. Willa in Hollywood.”

  Grinning, Willa rubbed her chin. “What book? I thought you were writing another movie.”

  “I am.” Flustered, Tess dipped her hands in her pockets. “I’m just playing with a book. Just for fun.”

  “And I’m in it?”

  “Pieces of you.”

  “It’s set here, in Montana? On Mercy?”

  “Where else am I going to set it?” Tess muttered. “I’m stuck here for a year. It’s nothing.” Her fingers began to drum against the rail. “I haven’t even told Ira. It’s just something I’m fooling around with when I’m bored.”

  If that was true, Willa thought, she wouldn’t be so embarrassed. “Can I read it?”

  “No. I’m going to go tell Lily you’re dodging the shopping trip tomorrow. And don’t complain if you have to wear organdy.”

  “The hell I will.” Willa turned around and studied the mountains again. Her mood had lifted considerably, but as she watched more clouds roll in, gather, and cling, she knew it wasn’t over. Not winter, not anything.

  T HE DINNER PARTY WAS LILY’S IDEA. JUST A SMALL. Intimate, casual dinner, she’d promised. Just the three sisters, and Adam, Ben, and Nate. Her family, as she thought of them now.

  Small, intimate, and casual perhaps, but exciting for her. She would be hostess, a position she’d never held in her life, at a party in her own home.

  Her mother had always planned and managed social events when Lily was growing up. And so efficiently, so cleverly that Lily’s input or assistance simply hadn’t been necessary. During the brief time she’d lived on her own, she hadn’t had the funds or the means to host dinners. And her marriage certainly hadn’t been conducive to social occasions.

  But now things had changed. She had changed.

  She spent all day preparing for it. Cleaning the house was hardly a chore. She loved every inch of it, and Adam wasn’t a man to toss clothes everywhere or leave beer bottles cluttering the tables. He didn’t mind the touches she’d added—the little brass frog she’d ordered from a catalogue, the pretty glass ball of melting blues she’d fallen in love with at first sight in a shop in Billings. In fact, he seemed to appreciate them. He often said the house had been too simple, too empty, before she’d come to him.

  She’d pored over recipes with Bess and settled on a rib roast, which she was just sliding into the oven when Bess poked her head in the kitchen doorway.

  “Everything under control in here?”

  “Absolutely. I prepared it just as you told me. And look.” Proud as a mother with twins, Lily opened the refrigerator to show off her pies. “Didn’t the meringue turn out nice? All those pretty sugar beads.”

  “Most men got a fondness for lemon meringue.” Bess approved them with a nod. “You did just fine there.”

  “Oh, I wish you’d change your mind and come.”

  Bess waved a hand. “You’re a sweet girl, Lily, but when I got a choice between putting my feet up and watching my movies and sitting around with a roomful of young people, I’m putting my feet up. Now, you want a hand, I’ll give you one.”

  “No. I want to do it myself. I know that sounds silly, but—”

  “Doesn’t.” Bess wandered over to the window where Lily had herb pots started from seed. Coming along well, she thought, just like Lily. “A woman’s got a right to lord it over her own kitchen. But you call me if you run into any problem.” She winked. “Nobody has to know you had a little help.”

  Bess turned as the back door opened again. “Wipe your feet,” she ordered Willa. “Don’t you be tracking mud in here on this clean floor.”

  “I’m wiping them.” But under those eagle eyes, Willa gave them a few extra swipes on the mat.

  “Oh, aren’t those lovely!” Lily pounced on the wildflowers Willa was clutching. “That was so sweet of you to think of it, to pick them for me.”

  “Adam did.” Willa passed them over and considered her mission complete. “One of the horses pulled up with a strain, so he’s busy treating it. He didn’t want them to wilt.”

  “Oh, Adam did.” Lily sighed, and her heart melted as she buried her nose in the tiny blooms. “Is the horse all right? Does he need help?”

  “He can handle it. I’ve got to get back.”

  “Couldn’t you come in for a minute, have coffee? There’s fresh.”

  Before Willa could refuse, Bess jabbed an elbow in her ribs. “Sit down and have coffee with your sister. And take off your hat in the house. I’ve got laundry to do.”

  “Bossy old thing,” Willa complained when Bess shut the door behind her. But she already had her hat off. “I guess I’ve got time for a cup, if it’s already hot.”

  “It is. Please, sit down. I just w
ant to put these in water.”

  Willa sat at the round maple table, drummed her fingers on the wood. The dozens of chores still on her list raced through her head. “Smells good in here.”

  “It’s the herbs, and this potpourri I made.”

  “Made it?” Willa drummed a little faster. “You’re a regular little homemaker, aren’t you?”

  Lily kept her eyes on the stems she carefully slid into an old glass bottle. “It’s all I’m good at.”

  “No, it’s not. And I didn’t mean it to sound that way.” Annoyed with herself, Willa squirmed in her chair. “You’ve made Adam so happy he looks like he could float. And it’s so neat and pretty in here.” She scratched the back of her neck and felt like an awkward rube. “I mean, like that big white bowl there with the shiny red and green apples. I’d never think of something like that. Or putting stuff in those bottles you’ve got on the counter. What is that stuff?”

  “Flavored vinegars.” Lily glanced toward the long-necked bottles where sprigs of basil and rosemary and marjoram floated. “You use them for cooking, for salad. I like the way they look.”

  “Shelly does stuff like that too. I could never figure it.”

  “That’s because you have to look at the big picture, the foundation and not the fancywork. I admire you so much.”

  Willa stopped frowning at the bottles and gaped. “Huh?”

  “You’re so smart and strong and capable.” Lily set a pretty blue cup and saucer on the table. “You scared me to death when I first came here.”

  “I did?”

  “Well, everything did. But especially you.” Lily took her own cup, added a hefty measure of cream to make it palatable to her taste. Then she sat, deciding it was time to confess all. “I watched you the day of the funeral. You’d lost your father, and you were hurting, but you were also coping. And later, when Nate read the will, and everything that was yours, that should have been yours, was taken out of your control, you dealt with it.”

  Willa remembered, too. Remembered she hadn’t been kind. “I didn’t have much choice.”

  “There’s always a choice,” Lily said quietly. “Mine was usually running away. I’d have run that day if there’d been any place left to go. And I don’t think I would have had the courage to stay when the horrible things started to happen if not for you.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it. You stayed for Adam.”

  “Adam.” Everything about Lily softened—voice, eyes, mouth. “Yes. But I wouldn’t have had the courage to go to him, to let myself feel for him. I looked at you, at everything you were doing, had done, and thought, She’s my sister and she’s never run from anything. There must be something inside me that matches what’s in her. So I dug for it. It’s the first time in my life I’ve stuck when things got rough.”

  Willa pushed her coffee aside and leaned forward. “Look, I grew up the way I wanted to, did what I wanted to. I never found myself trapped in a relationship where someone used me for a punching bag.”

  “Didn’t you?” Lily gathered her courage again when Willa said nothing. “Bess told me how hard our father was on you.”

  Bess talked too damn much, was all Willa could think.

  “An occasional backhand from a parent isn’t the same as a fist in the face from a husband. Running from that wasn’t cowardly, Lily. It was right and it was smart.”

  “Yes. But I never fought back. Not once.”

  “Neither did I,” Willa murmured. “I may not have run from my father, but I never fought back either.”

  “You fought back every time you got on a horse, pulled a calf, rode a fence.” Lily kept her eyes steady when Willa’s flicked over her face. “You made Mercy yours. That’s how you fought back. You dug your roots. I didn’t know him, and he never chose to know me. But, Willa, I don’t think he knew you either.”

  “No.” Her voice was soft and slow with the realization. “I don’t suppose he did.”

  Lily drew a deep breath. “I’d fight back now, and that’s in very large part because of you, because of Tess, because of the chance I’ve had here. Jack Mercy didn’t give me that chance, Will. You did. You should have hated us. You had every right to hate us. But you don’t.”

  She’d wanted to, Willa remembered. It just hadn’t been possible. “Maybe hate just takes too much energy.”

  “It does, but not everyone understands that.” Lily paused, toyed with her cup. “When Tess and I were shopping the other day, I thought—for a minute I thought I saw Jesse. Just a flash, just a glimpse.”

  “You saw him in Ennis?” Willa bolted straight up in her chair, fists curled.

  “No.” Dazzled by her, Lily smiled a little. “See, that’s your first reaction, fight back. Mine was to run. I used to think I saw him everywhere, I could imagine him everywhere. It hasn’t happened in a while. But the other day, some face in the crowd, the tilt of a head . . . But I didn’t run. I didn’t panic. And I think if I ever had to, really had to, I’d fight back. I owe that to you.”

  “I don’t know, Lily. Sometimes running’s a fine choice.”

  I T WENT SO WELL LILY COULD HARDLY BELIEVE IT WAS HER life. Her new life. People she had grown to love were sitting in the cozy dining room, taking second helpings of food she’d prepared, laughing with each other like friends. Arguing with each other like family.

  It was Tess who had started that, quite deliberately, Lily realized, by telling Willa the dress they’d picked out for her was a fuchsia organdy with a six-flounce skirt and puffed sleeves. With a bustle.

  “You’re out of your mind if you think you’ll get me into something like that. What the hell is fuchsia anyway? Isn’t that pink? No way I’m wearing pink flounces.”

  “You’ll look so sweet in it,” Tess purred. “Especially with the hat.”

  “What hat?”

  “Oh, it’s adorable, matching color, enormous floppy brim decked in a garden of spring flowers. English primroses. And the crown’s cut out so we can dress your hair up high. Then there’s the gloves. Elbow length, very chic.”

  Because Willa had gone dead pale, Lily took pity on her. “She’s just teasing you. The dress is lovely. Pale blue silk with pearl buttons at the back and just a touch of lace on the bodice. It’s very simple, very classic. And there’s no hat or gloves.”

  “Spoilsport,” Tess muttered, then grinned at Willa. “Gotcha.”

  “At this rate, Will’s going to have a dress on more times this year than I’ve seen in her whole life.” Ben toasted her. “I used to figure she slept in Levi’s.”

  “Like to see you drive cattle in a dress,” Willa tossed back.

  “So would I.” With a chuckle, Nate nudged his plate aside. “Lily, that was a fine meal. Adam’s going to have to start buying bigger belts with you cooking for him.”

  “You have to have room for pie.” Beaming with pleasure, Lily rose. “Why don’t we have it in the living room?”

  “That girl can cook,” Ben commented as he settled into a wing chair in the living room. “Adam’s a lucky son of a bitch.”

  “Is that how you gauge a man’s fortune in a wife, McKinnon?” Willa chose the floor in front of the fire and folded her legs. “By how she cooks?”

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  “A clever woman hires a cook.” Tess groaned a little as she sat with Nate on the sofa. “And only eats this way once a year. I’m going to have to do fifty extra laps in the pool tomorrow.”

  Willa thought of several snide comments, but let them pass. She shot a quick look toward the kitchen, where Adam and Lily were busy readying dessert. “Before they come in, did Lily say anything to you about seeing her ex while you were shopping the other day?”

  “No.” Tess sat up quickly. “Not a word.”

  “In Ennis?” Nate’s eyes narrowed, and he stopped playing with Tess’s fingers.

  “She said she was mistaken. Said it was an old habit to imagine him wherever she went, but it worried me.”

  “She got
quiet for a while.” Pursing her lips, Tess thought back. “We were window-shopping at a lingerie store, and I thought she was dreaming of her wedding night. She seemed nervous for a couple minutes, but she never said a thing.”

  “You ever get that picture of him?” Ben asked Nate.

  “Just a couple of days ago. There was some sort of holdup back East.” He, too, sent a cautious look toward the kitchen. “Looks like a frigging altar boy. Pretty face and a jarhead haircut. I haven’t seen him around. I should have brought it over with me, got it to Adam.”

  “I want to see it,” Willa said. “We’ll talk about it later,” she added, when she heard Adam’s voice. “I don’t want to spoil this for her.”

  To cover the gap, Ben rose and strolled over as Lily carried in a tray. “Now, that’s pie.” He leaned over, sniffed, like a man who had nothing more on his mind than his next bite. “So what have you got for everybody else?”