Montana Sky (10 page)

“I can see that. Deal with the calf.” She straightened, but Nate was already lifting Tess into his arms. “Looks like a handful.”

“She's not a featherweight.” He grinned. “Your sister's built just fine, Will.”

“You can enjoy that little benefit while you haul her into the house. Damn it.” She scooped up the bucket. “She busted damn near every egg. Bess'll have a fit.” Disgusted, she looked back at Jim and Pickles. “You two keep at it. I'm going to have to see to her first. As if I've got nothing better to do than find smelling salts for some brainless city girl.”

“You shouldn't be so hard on her, Will,” Nate began as he carried Tess across the road toward the ranch house. His lips twitched. “She's out of her milieu.”

“I wish to hell she'd get back in it and out of mine. I've got this one fainting on me, and the other one tiptoeing around as if I'd shoot her between the eyes if she looked at me.”

“You're a scary woman, Will.” He glanced down as Tess stirred in his arms. “I think she's coming around.”

“Dump her somewhere,” Willa suggested, pulling open the door of the house. “I'll get some water.”

He had to admit Tess was an interesting armful. Not one of the bony, pencil-thin California types but a soft, round woman who had her weight distributed just where it belonged. She groaned, and her lashes fluttered as he carried her toward a sofa. Her eyes, blue as cornflowers, stared blankly into his.

“What?” was the best she could manage.

“Take it easy, honey. You just had yourself a swoon, that's all.”

“A swoon?” It took a moment for her brain to get around to the word and its meaning. “I fainted? That's ridiculous!”

“Went down real graceful too.” She'd toppled like a tree, he remembered, but didn't think she'd appreciate the analogy. “Didn't hurt your head, did you?”

“My head?” Still dazed, she lifted a hand to it. “I don't think so. I . . .” And then she remembered. “Oh, God, that cow. What they were doing to that cow. What are you grinning at?”

“I'm imagining what it was like for you to see a bull turned into a steer for the first time. Guess you don't see much of that in Beverly Hills.”

“We keep all our cattle in the guest house.”

He nodded appreciatively. “There now, you're coming around.”

She was, indeed. Enough to realize she was being cradled against his chest like a baby. “Why are you carrying me?”

“Well, it didn't seem neighborly to drag you by the hair. Your color's coming back.”

“Haven't you put her down yet?” Willa demanded as she strode back into the room holding a glass of water.

“I like it this way. She smells pretty.”

The exaggerated drawl made Willa chuckle and shake her head. “Stop playing with her, Nate, and dump her. I've got work to do.”

“Can't I keep her, Will? I don't have me a female out on the ranch. Gets lonely.”

“You two are a riot.” Striving to restore some dignity, Tess swiped the hair out of her eyes. “Put me down, you idiot beanpole.”

“Yes'm.” From a considerable height, he dropped her onto the leather couch. She bounced once, scowled, and pushed herself up.

“Drink this.” With little sympathy, Willa thrust the glass of water into Tess's hand. “And stay away from the corrals.”

“You can be sure I will.” Furious with herself, and the fact that she was still shaky, Tess drank. “What you were doing out there was revolting, barbaric, and cruel. If mutilating a helpless animal isn't illegal, it should be.” She set her teeth when Nate beamed at her. “And stop grinning at me, you fool. I don't imagine you'd appreciate having your balls snipped off with pruning shears.”

He felt them draw up, cleared his throat. “No, ma'am, I can't say I would.”

“We don't castrate the men around here till we're through with them,” Willa said dryly. “Look, Hollywood, weaning and castration are part of ranch life. Just what do you think would happen if we left every cow with his works? We'd have bulls humping everything.”

“Cattle orgies every night,” Nate put in, then backed off at the searing looks delivered by both women.

“I don't have time to explain the facts of life to you,” Willa continued. “Just get over it and stay away from the corral for the next couple of days. Bess'll find work for you inside the house.”

“Oh, joy.”

“I don't see what else you're good for. You can't even gather eggs without breaking the lot of them.” When Tess hissed at her, she turned to Nate. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah, I did.” He hadn't expected quite so much entertainment. “First, I wanted to see if you were all right. I heard about the trouble you've been having.”

“I'm all right enough.” Willa took the glass of water out of Tess's hand and drank the rest of it down herself. “There doesn't seem to be a lot I can do about it. The men are a little spooked, and they're keeping their eyes out.” She set the empty glass down, pushed her hat back. “You haven't heard about this sort of thing happening to anyone else?”

“No.” And it worried him. “I don't know what I can do to help, but if there is anything, just ask.”

“I appreciate it.” Willa took his hand and squeezed it, a gesture that caused Tess to purse her lips thoughtfully. “Were you able to deal with that other business we talked about?”

Her will, he thought, naming Adam as beneficiary. And the papers transferring his house, the horses, and half of her interest in Mercy to him at the end of the year. “Yeah, I'll have a draft to you on all of it by the end of the week.”

“Thanks.” She released his hand, adjusted her hat. “You can talk to her if you've got time to waste on it.” She sent
Tess a wicked smile. “I've got cows to castrate.”

As Willa strode out, Tess folded her arms and tried to settle her temper. “I could learn to hate her. It wouldn't take any effort at all.”

“You just don't know her.”

“I know she's cold, rude, unfriendly, and riding on a power trip. That's more than enough for me.” No, she realized as she got to her feet, the temper wasn't going to settle. “I haven't done a damn thing to deserve that attitude from her. I didn't ask to be stuck out here, and I sure as hell didn't ask to be related to that gnat-assed witch.”

“She didn't ask for it either.” Nate sat on the arm of a chair, methodically rolled a cigarette. He had a little time and thought there were things that needed to be said. “Let me ask you something. How would you feel if you suddenly found out your home could be taken away? Your home, your life, everything you've ever loved?”

His eyes were mild as he struck a match, held it to the tip of the cigarette. “To keep it, you have to rely on strangers, and even if you manage to hold on, you won't keep it all. Good chunks of it are going to belong to those strangers. People you don't know, never had the opportunity to know, are living in your house with as much legal right as you. There's nothing you can do about it. Added to that, you've got all the responsibility, because these strangers don't know squat about ranching. It's up to you to hold it together. All they have to do is wait, and if they wait, they'll get as much as you, even though you were the one to work, to sweat, to worry.”

Tess opened her mouth, closed it again. Put that simply, it changed the hue. “I'm not to blame for it,” she said quietly.

“No, you're not. But neither is she.” He turned his head, studied the portrait of Jack Mercy above the fireplace. “And you didn't have to live with him.”

“What was he—” She broke off, cursed herself. She didn't want to ask. Didn't want to know.

“What was he like?” Nate blew out smoke. “I'll tell you. He was hard, cold, selfish. He knew how to run a ranch,
better than anyone I know. But he didn't know how to raise a child.” Remembering that, thinking of that, fired him up. Now his voice was clipped. “He never gave her an ounce of affection or, as far as I know, one single word of praise, no matter how she worked her skin off for him. She was never good enough, or fast enough, or smart enough to suit him.”

Guilt wasn't going to work, Tess told herself. He wasn't going to make her feel guilt or sympathy. “She could have left.”

“Yeah, she could have left. But she loved this place. And she loved him. You don't have to grieve for your father, Tess. You lost him years ago. But Willa's grieving. It doesn't matter that he didn't deserve it. He didn't want her any more than he wanted you, or Lily, but she wasn't lucky enough to have a mother.”

All right, guilt was going to work. A little. “I'm sorry about that. But it doesn't have anything to do with me.”

He took a slow drag on his cigarette, then crushed it out carefully as he rose. “It has everything to do with you.” He studied her, and his eyes were suddenly cool and detached and uncomfortably lawyerlike. “If you don't understand that, you've got too much of Jack Mercy in you. I'll be going.” He touched the brim of his hat in farewell and walked out.

For a long time, Tess stood where she was, staring up at the portrait of the man who'd been her father.

 

M
ILES AWAY ON THREE ROCKS LAND
,
JESSE COOKE
whistled between his teeth as he changed the points and plugs in an old Ford pickup. He was feeling fine, pumped up from the conversation over breakfast about the animal mutilations at Mercy. What was more rewarding, what was so damn perfect, was that Lily had come across that headless cat.

He only wished he could have seen it.

But Legs Monroe had it straight from Wood Book over at Mercy that the little city woman with the black eye had screamed her head off.

Oh, that was sweet.

Jesse whistled a country tune as his clever fingers made adjustments. He'd always hated country music, the whiny women sobbing over their men, dickless men moaning over their women. But he was adjusting. Every damn one of his bunkhouse mates was a fan, and it was all anyone listened to. He could handle it. In fact, he was beginning to think Montana was the place for him.

It was a land for real men, he'd decided. Men who knew how to handle themselves and keep their women in line. After he'd taught Lily a proper lesson, they'd settle down here. She was going to be rich.

The thought of that had him chuckling and tapping his foot to his own tune. Imagine dumb-ass Lily inheriting a third of one of the top ranches in the state. Worth a fucking fortune, too. All it was going to take was a year.

Jesse pulled his head out from under the hood and looked around. The mountains, the land, the sky—they were all hard. Hard and strong, like him. So this was his place, and Lily was going to learn that her place was with him. Divorce didn't mean shit in Jesse Cooke's book. The woman belonged to him, and if he had to use his fists to remind her of that from time to time, well, that was his right.

All he had to do was be patient. That was the hard part, he admitted, wiping a greasy hand over his cheek. If she found out he was close, she'd run. He couldn't afford to let her run until the year was up.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to keep his eye on her, no, indeedy. He was going to keep watch over his useless stick of a wife.

It was easy enough to make friends with a couple of the asshole hands over at Mercy. Drink a few beers, play some cards, and pump them for information. He could wander over to the neighboring ranch at will, as long as he didn't let Lily see him.

And the day Jesse Cooke, ex-Marine, let a woman outwit him was the day they'd eat cherry Popsicles in hell.

Ducking under the hood again, he got back to work. And reviewed his plans for his next visit to Mercy.

S
ARAH MCKINNON FLIPPED FLAPJACKS ON THE GRIDDLE
and enjoyed the fact that her older son was sitting at her kitchen table drinking her coffee. More often than not these days, he brewed his own in his quarters over the garage.

She missed him.

Fact was, she missed having both of her boys underfoot, squabbling and picking on each other. God knew there'd been times she'd thought they would set her crazy, that she would never have a moment's peace again.

Now that they were grown and she had that peace, she found herself yearning for the noise, the work, the tempers.

She'd wanted more children. With all her heart she'd wanted a little girl to fuss over in her houseful of men. But she and Stu had never had any luck making a third baby. She'd comforted herself that they'd made two healthy, beautiful boys, and that was that.

Now she had a daughter-in-law she loved, and a granddaughter to dote on. She would have more grandchildren, too. If she could ever push Ben toward the right woman.

The boy was damn particular, she mused, slanting a look
toward him as he frowned over the morning paper. He wasn't still single at thirty for lack of opportunity. Lord knew there'd been women in and out of his life—and his bed too, but she didn't care to dwell on that.

But he'd never stumbled over a woman, and Sarah supposed it was just as well. You had to stumble before you could fall, and falling in love was a serious business. When a man chose carefully, he usually chose well.

But, damn it, she wanted those grandchildren.

With a plate heaped with flapjacks in her hand, she paused a moment by the kitchen window. Dawn had broken through the eastern sky, and she watched it bloom, going rosy with light and low-lying clouds.

In the bunkhouse the men would be up and at their own breakfast. Within moments, she would hear her husband's feet hit the floor above her head. She'd always risen before him, hoarding these first cozy moments to herself in the core of the house. Then he would come down, all fresh-shaven and smelling of soap, his hair damp. He'd give her a big morning kiss, pat her bottom, and slurp up that first cup of coffee as if his life depended on it.

She loved him for his predictability.

And she loved the land for its lack of it.

She loved her son, this man who had somehow come from her, for his combination of both.

As she set the plate on the table, she ran her hand over the thick mop of Ben's hair. Remembered, with odd and sudden clarity, his first paid-for haircut, at the age of seven.

How proud he'd been. And how foolishly she'd wept at those gilded curls hitting the barbershop floor.

“What's on your mind, fella?”

“Hmm?” He set the paper aside. Reading at the table was allowed, until the food was on it. “Nothing much, beautiful. What's on yours?”

She sat, cradled her coffee cup. “I know you, Benjamin McKinnon. The gears are turning in there.”

“Ranch business mostly.” To buy time, he started on his breakfast. The flapjacks were so light they should have been floating an inch off his plate, and the bacon was crisp
enough to crack. “Nobody cooks like my ma,” he said, and grinned at her.

“Nobody eats like my Ben.” She settled back and waited.

He said nothing for a while, enjoying the food, the smells, the light glowing through the window as morning spread. Enjoying her. She was as dependable as the sunrise, he thought. Sarah McKinnon, with her pretty green eyes and her shiny strawberry blond hair. She had the milky-white Irish complexion that defied the sun. There were lines on it, he mused, but they were so soft, so natural, you didn't even see them. Instead you saw that smile, warm and confident.

She was a slip of a woman, slim in her jeans and plaid shirt. But he knew the strength in her. Not just the physical, though she had lifted him off his feet with her hand on his rump many a time, could ride tirelessly on horse or tractor through the bitter cold or the merciless heat, and could heft a fifty-pound bag of feed on her shoulder like a woman lifting a cooing baby.

But what was inside, where it counted most, was iron. She never faltered. In all his life, he'd never seen her turn her back on a challenge, or a friend.

If he couldn't find a woman as strong, as kind, as generous, he'd live his life a bachelor.

The idea of that would have rocked Sarah's heart.

“I've been thinking about Willa Mercy.”

Sarah's brows lifted, perked by a kernel of hope. “Oh? Have you?”

“Not that way, Ma.” Though he had. He very much had. “She's in a bad spot.”

The dancing light in her eyes faded. “I'm sorry for that. She's a good girl, doesn't deserve this heartache. I've been thinking of riding over, paying a call. But I know how busy she is just now.” Sarah's lips curved. “And I'm dying of curiosity about the others. I didn't get much time to look them over at the funeral.”

“I think Will would appreciate a visit.” Biding his time, he forked up more flapjacks. “We've got things under control around here. I think I could spare a little extra time over at Mercy. Not that Will would like it, but having an extra
man around there, now and again, might smooth things out some.”

“If you wouldn't poke at her so much, you'd get along better.”

“Maybe.” He lifted a shoulder. “The fact is, I don't know how much of the managing she did before the old man died. You have to figure she can handle it, but with Mercy dead, they're a man short. I haven't heard anything about her hiring another hand.”

“There was some speculation she'd hire someone out of the university as foreman.” That was how gossip ran from ranch to ranch—speculations over the phone wires. “A nice young man with experience in animal husbandry. Not that Ham doesn't know his business, but he's getting on in years.”

“She won't do it. She's got too much to prove, and too much fondness for Ham. I can give her a hand,” he continued. “Not that she thinks much of my college degree. I thought I'd ride over later this morning, feel her out.”

“I think that's very kind of you, Ben.”

“I'm not doing it to be kind.” He grinned over the rim of his cup, and it was the same wicked devil of a grin he'd had since childhood. “It'll give me the chance to poke at her again.”

She chuckled and rose to fetch the coffeepot. She'd heard her husband's feet hit the floor. “Well, that'll help keep her mind off her troubles.”

 

S
HE COULD HAVE USED A DISTRACTION
.
WOOD
'
S BOYS HAD
snuck into the bull pasture to play matador with their mother's red Christmas apron. They'd escaped with their lives, and only one sprained ankle between them. She'd rescued them herself, hauling a dazed and clammy-faced Pete over the fence and leaving an angry, fire-eyed bull behind.

The ensuing lecture she'd delivered to two hanging heads had given her no pleasure—nor had the bone-shaking fear that the incident had shot through her. She ended up playing accessory after the fact by taking the red apron and agreeing to launder it herself before Nell could notice it was missing.

This earned her undying and desperate admiration from the culprits. And, Willa hoped, instilled enough fear in them to keep them from shouting “
Toro
” at a snorting black Angus bull again anytime in the near future.

One of the tractors had thrown a rod, and she'd had to ship Billy off to town for parts. Elk had broken through a portion of the northwest fence again, and now there were cattle to round up.

Bess was down with a cold, Tess had broken most of the eggs for the third time this week, and Lily the mouse was in temporary charge of the kitchen.

To top it all off, her men were bickering.

“A man plays poker and has a run of luck, I say he sticks around to give the rest of the table a chance to even the score.” Pickles adjusted the annoyed calf's horns in the squeeze shoot and popped them off to the tune of Tammy Wynette backed up by insulted moos.

“You can't afford to lose,” Jim shot back, “you don't play.”

“A man's got a right to get back his own.”

“And a man's got a right to turn in when he wants. Ain't that right, Will?”

She medicated the cow, plunging the needle in swiftly and efficiently. It was cooler today, autumn coming in strong. But the jacket she'd started out with was now slung over a rail as she sweated through her shirt. “I'm not getting in the middle of your petty feuds.”

Pickles's frown carved vertical lines between his brows and set his moustache quivering. “Between Jim and that cardsharp over to Three Rocks, they took me for two hundred.”

“J C's not a cardsharp.” More to spite Pickles than anything else, Jim flew to his new friend's defense. “He just played better than you. You couldn't bluff a blind man on a galloping horse. And you're just pissed off because he fixed Ham's rig and had it purring like a kitten.”

Because it was true, down to the ground, Pickles's chin jutted like a lance. “I don't need some a-hole from over to Three Rocks coming 'round and fixing our rigs and taking
my money at cards. I'da fixed the rig when I had the chance.”

“You've been saying that for a week.”

“I'da got to it.” Grinding his teeth, Pickles got to his feet. “I don't need somebody coming around taking over. I don't need somebody changing the way things are. I've been working this ranch for eighteen years come next May. I don't need no Johnny-come-lately a-holes telling me what's what.”

“Who're you calling an a-hole?” Eyes hot, Jim sprang to his feet, pushed his face into Pickles's. “You want to take me on, old man? Come ahead.”

“That's enough.” Even as fists raised, white-knuckled, Willa stepped between them. “I said enough.” Using both hands she shoved the men apart. One sweeping glance dared either one to take a punch. “As far as I can see, there are two assholes right here who don't have the sense to keep their minds on their work when they're hip-deep in it.”

“I can do my work.” Pickles's jaw clenched as he glared down at her. “I don't need him, or you, to tell me what has to be done.”

“That's fine, then. And I don't need you to start a pissing contest when we're hip-deep in balls and horns. You go cool off. And when you've cooled off, you ride out and check on the fence crew.”

“Ham doesn't need anybody checking on him, and I've got work right here.”

Willa stepped closer, bumped her temper against his. “I said go cool off. Then get your butt in your rig and check fences. You do it, and do it now, or you pack up your gear and pick up your last paycheck.”

His color rose high, as much in anger as at the humiliation of being ordered around by a woman half his age. “You think you can fire me?”

“I know I can, and so do you.” She jerked her head toward the gate. “Now get moving. You're in my way here.”

They stared at each other for ten humming seconds. Then he stepped aside, spat on the ground, and stalked toward the
gate. Beside Willa, Jim blew out a breath between his teeth.

“You don't want to lose him, Will. He's ornery, Christ knows, but he's a hell of a cowboy.”

“He's not going anywhere.” If she had been alone, she could have pressed a hand against her jittery stomach. Instead, she crouched and prepared the next hypo. “Once he clears the mad out, he'll be all right. He didn't mean to swipe at you, Jim. He likes you as well as he likes anybody.”

Grinning now, Jim hauled a cow toward the squeeze shoot. “That ain't saying much.”

“I guess not.” She smiled herself. “Prickly old bastard. How much you win off him last night?”

“About seventy. Got my eye on some pretty snakeskin boots.”

“You're such a dude, Brewster.”

“I like to look sharp for the ladies.” He winked at her and the routine fell back into place. “Maybe you'll come dancing with me sometime, Will.”

It was an old joke, and cleared more tension. Willa Mercy didn't dance. “And maybe you'll lose the seventy back to him tonight.” She wiped sweat off her forehead and kept her voice causal. “This guy from Three Rocks?”

“J C. He's okay.”

“Did he have any news from over there?”

“Not much.” As Jim worked he recalled that J C had been more interested in the workings of Mercy. “He said how John Conner's girl broke things off, and John got himself shit-faced drunk and passed out in the toilet.”

It was easier now, and again routine. Old gossip, familiar names. “Sissy breaks up with Conner every other week, and he always gets shit-faced.”

“Just so you know things are as usual.”

They grinned at each other, two people hunkered down in blood and manure with the cool breeze blowing the stink everywhere. “Twenty says he'll buy her a bauble and she'll take him back by Monday.”