Montana Sky (3 page)

“The ranch . . .” This was dicey territory, and Nate negotiated carefully. “It's a lot to deal with.”

“We've got good people, good stock, good land.” It wasn't hard to smile up at Nate. It never was. “Good friends.”

“You can call on me anytime, Will. Me or anyone in the county.”

“I know that.” She looked beyond him, to the paddocks, the corrals, the outbuildings, the houses, and farther, to where the land went into its long, endless roll to the bottom of the sky. “A Mercy has run this place for more than a hundred years. Raised cattle, planted grain, run horses. I know what needs to be done and how to do it. Nothing really changes.”

Everything changes, Nate thought. And the world she was speaking of was about to take a sharp turn, thanks to the hard heart of a dead man. It was better to do it now, straight off, before she climbed onto a horse or into a rig and rode off.

“We'd best get to the reading of the will,” he decided.

J
ACK MERCY
'
S OFFICE
,
ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE
main house, was big as a ballroom. The walls were paneled in yellow pine lumbered from his own land and shellacked to a rich gloss that lent a golden light to the room. Huge windows provided views of the ranch, the land and sky. Jack had been fond of saying he could see all a man needed to see from those windows, which were undraped but ornately trimmed.

On the floor were layered the rugs he'd collected. The chairs were leather, as he'd preferred, in rich shades of teal and maroon.

His trophies hung on the walls—heads of elk and bighorn sheep, of bear and buck. Crouched in one corner as though poised to charge was a massive black grizzly, fangs exposed, glassy black eyes full of rage.

Some of his favored weapons were in a locked display case. His great-grandfather's Henry rifle and Colt Peacemaker, the Browning shotgun that had brought down the bear, the Mossberg 500 he'd called his dove duster, and the .44 Magnum he'd preferred for handgun hunting.

It was a man's room, with male scents of leather and wood and a whiff of tobacco from the Cubans he liked to smoke.

The desk, which he'd had custom-made, was a lake of glossy wood, a maze of drawers all hinged with polished brass. Nate sat behind it now, fiddling with papers to give everyone present time to settle.

Tess thought he looked as out of place as a beer keg at a church social. The cowboy lawyer, she thought with a quick twist of her lips, duded up in his Sunday best. Not that he wasn't appealing in a rough, country sort of fashion. A young Jimmy Stewart, she thought, all arms and legs and quiet sexuality. But big, gangling men who wore boots with their gabardine weren't her style.

And she just wanted to get this whole damn business over with and get back to LA. She rolled her eyes toward the snarling grizzly, the shaggy head of a mountain goat, the weapons that had hunted them down. What a place, she mused. And what people.

Besides the cowboy lawyer, there was the skinny, henna-haired housekeeper, who sat in a straight-backed chair with her knobby knees tight together and modestly covered with a perfectly horrible black skirt. Then the Noble Savage, with his heartbreakingly beautiful face, his enigmatic eyes, and the faint odor of horses that clung to him.

Nervous Lily, Tess thought, continuing her survey, with her hands pressed together like vises and her head lowered, as if that would hide the bruises on her face. Lovely and fragile as a lost bird set down among vultures.

When Tess's heart began to stir, she deliberately turned her attention to Willa.

Cowgirl Mercy, she thought with a sniff. Sullen, probably stupid, and silent. At least the woman looked better in jeans and flannel than she had in that baggy dress she'd worn to the funeral. In fact, Tess decided she made quite a picture, sitting in the big leather chair, her booted foot resting on her knee, her oddly exotic face set like stone.

And since she'd yet to see a single tear squeeze its way
out of the dark eyes, Tess assumed Willa had no more love for Jack Mercy than she herself did.

Just business, she thought, tapping her fingers impatiently on the arm of her chair. Let's get down to it.

Even as she had the thought, Nate lifted his eyes, met hers. For one uncomfortable moment, she felt he knew exactly what was going through her mind. And his disapproval of her, of everything about her, was as clear as the sky spread in the window behind him.

Think what you want, she decided, and kept her eyes cool on his. Just give me the cash.

“There's a couple ways we can do this,” Nate began. “There's formal. I can read Jack's will word for word, then explain what the hell all that legal talk means. Or I can give you the meaning, the terms, the options first.” Deliberately he looked at Willa. She was the one who mattered most, to him. “Up to you.”

“Do it the easy way, Nate.”

“All right, then. Bess, he left you a thousand dollars for every year you've been at Mercy. That's thirty-four thousand.”

“Thirty-four thousand.” Bess's eyes popped wide. “Good Lord, Nate, what am I supposed to do with a fat lot of money like that?”

He smiled. “Well, you spend it, Bess. If you want to invest some, I can give you a hand with it.”

“Goodness.” Overwhelmed at the thought of it, she looked at Willa, back at her hands, and at Nate again. “Goodness.”

And Tess thought: If the housekeeper gets thirty grand, I ought to get double. She knew just what
she
'd do with a fat lot of money.

“Adam, in accordance with an agreement Jack made with your mother when they married, you're to receive a lump sum of twenty thousand, or a two percent interest in Mercy Ranch, whichever you prefer. I can tell you the percentage is worth more than the cash, but the decision remains yours.”

“It's not enough.” Willa's voice snapped out, making
Lily jump and Tess raise an eyebrow. “It's not right. Two percent? Adam's worked this ranch since he was eight years old. He's—”

“Willa.” From his position behind her chair, Adam laid a hand on her shoulder. “It's right enough.”

“The hell it is.” Fury for him, the injustice of it, had her shoving the hand away. “We've got one of the finest strings of horses in the state. That's Adam's doing. The horses should be his now—and the house where he lives. He should have been given land, and the money to work it.”

“Willa.” Patient, Adam put his hand on her again, held it there. “It's what our mother asked for. It's what he gave.”

She subsided because there were strangers' eyes watching. And because she would fix the wrongness of it. She'd have Nate draw up papers before the end of the day. “Sorry.” She laid her hands calmly on the wide arms of the chair. “Go on, Nate.”

“The ranch and its holdings,” Nate began again, “the stock, the equipment, vehicles, the timber rights . . .” He paused, and prepared himself for the unhappy job of destroying hopes. “Mercy Ranch business is to continue as usual, expenses drawn, salaries paid, profits banked or reinvested with you as operator, Will, under the executor's supervision for a period of one year.”

“Wait.” Willa held up a hand. “He wanted you to supervise the running of the ranch for a year?”

“Under certain conditions,” Nate added, and his eyes were already full of apology. “If those conditions are met for the course of a year, beginning no later than fourteen days from the reading of the will, the ranch and all its holdings will become the sole property and sole interest of the beneficiaries.”

“What conditions?” Willa demanded. “What beneficiaries? What the hell is going on, Nate?”

“He's left each one of his daughters a one-third interest in the ranch.” He watched the color drain from Willa's face and, cursing Jack Mercy, continued with the rest. “In order to inherit, the three of you must live on the ranch, leaving the property for no longer than a one-week period, for one
full year. At the end of that time, if conditions are met, each beneficiary will have a one-third interest. This interest cannot be sold or transferred to anyone other than one of the other beneficiaries for a period of ten years.”

“Hold on a minute.” Tess set her drink aside. “You're saying I've got a third interest in some cattle ranch in Nowhere, Montana, and to collect, I've got to move here? Live here? Give up a year of my life? No way in hell.” She rose, gracefully unfolding her long legs. “I don't want your ranch, kid,” she told Willa. “You're welcome to every dusty acre and cow. This'll never stick. Give me my share in cash, and I'm out of your way.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Mercy.” Nate sized her up from his seat behind the desk. Mad as a two-headed hen, he thought, and cool enough to hide it. “It will stick. His terms and wishes were very well thought out, very well presented. If you don't agree to the terms, the ranch will be donated, in its entirety, to the Nature Conservancy.”

“Donated?” Staggered, Willa pressed her fingers to her temple. There was hurt and rage and a terrible dread curling and spreading inside her gut. Somehow she had to get beyond the feelings and think.

She understood the ten-year stipulation. That was to keep the land from being tax-assessed at the market price instead of the farm rate. Jack had hated the government like poison and wouldn't have wanted to give up a penny to it. But to threaten to take it all away and give it to the type of organization he liked to call tree huggers or whale kissers didn't make sense.

“If we don't do this,” she continued, struggling for calm, “he can just give it away? Just give away what's been Mercy land for more than a century if these two don't do what it says on that paper? If I don't?”

Nate exhaled deeply, hating himself. “I'm sorry, Willa. There was no reasoning with him. This is the way he set it up. Any one of the three of you leaves, it breaks the conditions, and the ranch is forfeited. You'll each get one hundred dollars. That's it.”

“A hundred dollars?” The absurdity of it struck Tess
straight in the heart, flopped her back into her chair laughing. “That son of a bitch.”

“Shut up.” Willa's voice whipped out as she got to her feet. “Just shut the hell up. Can we fight it, Nate? Is there any point in trying to fight it?”

“You want my legal opinion, no. It'd take years and a lot of money, and odds are you'd lose.”

“I'll stay.” Lily fought to regulate her breathing. Home, safety, security. It was all here, just at her fingertips, like a shiny gift. “I'm sorry.” She got to her feet when Willa rounded on her. “It's not fair to you. It's not right. I don't know why he did this, but I'll stay. When the year's over, I'll sell you my share for whatever you say is fair and right. It's a beautiful ranch,” she added, trying to smile as Willa only continued to stare at her. “Everyone here knows it's already yours. It's only a year, after all.”

“That's very sweet,” Tess spoke up. “But I'm damned if I'm staying here for a year. I'm going back to LA in the morning.”

With her mind whirling, Willa sent her a considering look. However much she wanted both of them gone, she wanted the ranch more. Much more. “Nate, what happens if one of the three of us dies suddenly?”

“Funny.” Tess picked up her brandy again. “Is that Montana humor?”

“In the event one of the beneficiaries dies within the transitory year, the remaining beneficiaries will be granted half shares of Mercy Ranch, under the same conditions.”

“So what are you going to do, kill me in my sleep? Bury me on the prairie?” Tess flicked her fingers in dismissal. “You can't threaten me into staying here, living like this.”

Maybe not, Willa thought, but money talked to certain types of people. “I don't want you here. I don't want either one of you, but I'll do what has to be done to keep this ranch. Miss Hollywood might be interested to know just how much her dusty acres are worth, Nate.”

“At an estimate, current market value for the land and buildings alone, not including stock . . . between eighteen and twenty million.”

Brandy slopped toward the rim of the snifter as Tess's hand jerked. “Jesus Christ.”

The outburst earned Tess a hiss from Bess and a sneer from Willa. “I thought that would get through,” Willa murmured. “When's the last time you earned six million in a year . . . sis?”

“Could I have some water?” Lily managed, and drew Willa's gaze.

“Sit down before you fall down.” She gave Lily a careless nudge into a chair as she began to pace. “I'm going to want you to read the document word for word after all, Nate. I want to get this all straight in my head.” She went to a lacquered liquor cabinet and did something she'd never done when her father had been alive. She opened his whiskey and drank it.

She drank quietly, letting the slow burn move down her throat as she listened to Nate's recital. And she forced herself not to think of all the years she had struggled so hard to earn her father's love, much less his respect. His trust.

In the end, he had lumped her in with the daughters he'd never known. Because in the end, she thought, none of them had really mattered to him.

A name Nate mumbled had her ears burning. “Hold it. Hold just a damn minute. Did you say Ben McKinnon?”

Nate shifted, cleared his throat. He'd been hoping to slide that one by her, for the time being. She'd had enough shocks for one day. “Your father designated myself and Ben to supervise the running of the ranch during the probationary year.”

“That chicken hawk's going to be looking over my shoulder for a goddamn year?”

“Don't you swear in this house, Will,” Bess piped up.

“I'll swear the damn house down if I want. Why the hell did he pick McKinnon?”

“Your father considered Three Rocks second only to Mercy. He wanted someone who knows the ins and outs of the business.”