Montana Sky (47 page)

It was Mercy's turn to host. Willa had listened to Ben's request that they move the competition to Three Rocks that year, to Nate's advice that they cancel it altogether. She'd considered, then ignored.

She was Mercy, and Mercy continued.

So people crowded corral fences, cheering on their picks. Cowboys brushed off their butts as they were tossed out of the saddle, into the air, and onto the ground. In a near pasture, the barrel-racing competition entered its second phase. Near the pole barn, hooves thundered and ropes flew through the air.

A bandstand was set up, draped with bunting of red, white, and blue. Music was interrupted periodically as names and places were announced. Gallons of potato salad, truckloads of fried chicken, and barrels of beer and iced tea were consumed.

Hearts were broken, along with a few bones.

“I see we're up against each other in the target shooting,” Ben commented, slipping an arm around Willa's waist.

“Prepare to lose.”

“Side bet?”

She angled her head. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well.” He tucked his tongue in his cheek, leaned down close so their hats bumped, and whispered something that made her eyes round.

“You're making that up,” she decided. “No one could live through that.”

“Not chicken, are you?”

She straightened her hat. “You want to risk it, McKinnon,
I'll take you on. You're in this round of bronc busting, aren't you?”

“I'm on my way over.”

“I'll go with you.” She smiled sweetly. “I've got twenty on Jim.”

“You bet against me?” He wobbled between insult and shock. “Hell, Willa.”

“I've been watching Jim practice. Ham's been coaching him.” She sauntered away. No point in telling him she'd bet fifty on Ben McKinnon. It would just go to his head.

“Hey, Will.” A little blood drying on his chin, his arm around a blonde in girdled-on jeans, Billy beamed at her. “Jim's in the chute.”

“That's what I'm here for.” She propped a boot on the rail beside his. “How'd you do?”

“Aw, shit.” He rolled a sore shoulder.

“That good, huh?” With a laugh she squeezed over to make room for Ben. “Well, you're young yet, kid. You'll still be breaking bronc when geezers like McKinnon here are riding their rocking chairs. You get Ham to work with you.”

She looked up, saw her foreman was standing on the outside wall of the chute, snapping last-minute instructions to Jim.

“I was thinking maybe you could. You ride better'n anybody on Mercy except for Adam. And he won't bust broncs.”

“Adam's got a different way of taming them. We'll see,” she added, then let out a whoop as the chute opened and horse and rider shot out. “Ride that devil, Jim!”

He careened by in a cloud of dust, one hand thrown high.

When the eight-second bell clanged, he jumped clear, rolled, then gained his feet to the wild cheers of the onlookers.

“Not bad,” Ben said. “I'm coming up.” With manhood and pride at stake, he cupped his hands under Willa's elbows, lifted her up, and kissed her. “For luck,” he said, then swaggered off.

“Think he'll take our Jim, Will?” Billy wanted to know.

She thought Ben McKinnon could take damn near anything. “He'll have to ride like a hellhound.”

Though the blonde shifted under his arm in a bid for attention, Billy tugged Willa's sleeve. “You're up against him in the target shooting, aren't you?”

“That's right.”

“You'll take him, Will. We all put money on you. All the boys.”

“Well, I wouldn't want you to lose it.” She watched Ben climb over the chute. He tipped his hat to her, a cocky move that made her grin back at him.

When his horse leaped out of the door, her heart did a foolish little roll in her chest. He looked . . . magnificent, she decided. Riding straight on that furious horse, one hand grabbing for the sky, the other locked to the saddle. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, the dead-focused concentration in them.

They look like that when he's inside me, she realized, and her heart did another roll, quicker. She didn't even hear the bell clang, but watched him jump down, the horse still kicking furiously. He stayed on his feet, boots planted. And though the crowd cheered, he looked straight at her. And winked.

“Cocky bastard,” she muttered. And I'm hip-deep in love with him.

“Why do they do that?” Tess asked from behind her.

“For the hell of it.” Grateful for the excuse to think of something else, Willa turned. Tess had turned herself out for the day. Tight jeans, fancy boots, a bright blue shirt with silver trim that matched the band on her snowy-white hat. “Well, ain't you a picture. Hey, Nate. Ready for the race?”

“It's a tight field this year, but I'm hopeful.”

“Nate's helping out with the pie-eating contest.” Tess chuckled and tucked an arm through his. “We were hunting up Lily. She wanted to watch, since she helped make the pies.”

“I saw her . . .” Willa narrowed her eyes and searched the crowds. “I think she and Adam were helping out with
the kids' games. Egg toss, maybe, or the three-legged races.”

“We'll find her. Want to tag along?”

“No, thanks.” Willa shrugged off Tess's invitation. “I may catch up later. I need a beer.”

“You're worried about her,” Nate murmured as they zigzagged through the crowd.

“I can't help it. You didn't see her the day she came back from the cemetery. She wouldn't talk about it. Usually I can goad her into talking about anything, but not this.”

“It's been over two months since Jesse Cooke was murdered. That's something to hang on to.”

“I'm trying.” Tess shook herself. There was music, people, laughter. “It's a hell of a party. You do throw amazing parties out here.”

“We can start throwing our own anytime you say.”

“Nate, we've been there. I'm going back to LA in October. There's Lily.” Desperate for the distraction, Tess waved wildly. “I swear, she glows all the time now. Pregnancy certainly agrees with her.”

Nate thought it might agree with Tess as well. That was something else they could start—once he'd finished pecking away at this stubborn idea of leaving.

 

T
HE FIRST FIREWORKS EXPLODED AT TWENTY MINUTES PAST
dusk. Color leaped over the sky, shadowed the stars, then bled down like tears. Willa let herself be cuddled back against Ben to watch the show.

“I think your daddy likes sending those bombs off more than the kids like to watch.”

“He and Ham argue over the presentation and order every blessed year.” Ben grinned as a gold starburst bloomed overhead with a crackling boom. “Then they cackle like hens, taking turns lighting fuses. Never would let Zack or me have a hand in it.”

“It's not your time,” she murmured. That, too, would come. That, too, was continuity. “It was a good day.”

“Yeah.” He covered her hands with his. “Real good.”

“Not miffed 'cause I beat you shooting?”

It still stung, a little, but he shrugged his shoulders. The two of them had whittled away the rest of the competitors until they'd gone head to head in the final round. Then head to head in two tie-breaking rounds. And there she'd squeaked past him.

“By a lousy half an inch, tops.”

“Doesn't matter by how much.” She looked over, up at him, and grinned. “Matters who won. You're a good shot.” She wiggled her brows. “I'm better.”

“Today you were better. Anyway, I cost you twenty when I beat out Jim. Serves you right.”

Laughing, she turned in his arms. “I made back the fifty I put on you.” When his brow lowered, she laughed again. “Do I look like a fool?”

“No.” He tipped her face up. “You look like a smart woman who knows how to hedge her bets.”

“Speaking of bets.” Despite the crowd that gasped and cheered at every burst of light, she wrapped herself around him, pressed her mouth warm and firm to his. “Let's go inside and see if we live till morning.”

“You going to let me stay till morning?”

“Why not? It's a holiday.”

 

L
ATER
,
WHEN THE FIREWORKS WERE DONE
,
THE CROWDS
gone, and the night quiet, they turned to each other again. Her dreams hadn't been full of blood and death and fear this time. Finding him there, warm, solid, ready to hold her, she knew there'd be no shaking dreams that night.

 

S
OMEONE ELSE DREAMED OF A REDHEADED WHORE AND
shivered, thrilled with the memory. It had been so easy, so smooth, and every detail played back so clearly.

He'd watched her come back to consciousness, the glassy eyes, the muffled whimper. He'd driven her far from Bozeman, into the sheltering dark of trees.

Not on Mercy land. Not this time, and never again. He was done with punishing Mercy. But he couldn't be done with killing.

He'd tied her hands behind her back, and he'd gagged
her. He wouldn't have minded hearing her scream, but he didn't want her to be able to use her teeth on him. He'd cut her clothes away but had been careful, very careful, not to cut her flesh.

He was very, very good with a knife.

While she'd slept, he had taken his money back, and the rest of hers, which had been pathetically little. He'd bided his time, toying with her little pistol, her tube of red lipstick.

Now that she was awake, now that her eyes were wide and she was struggling in the dirt, making noises like a trapped animal, he took the tube back out of her cheap purse.

“A whore should be painted up proper,” he told her, and aroused himself by stroking the lipstick over her nipples until they were bright, blood red. “I like that. Yes, indeed.” Since her cheeks were pale, he colored them as well, in round circles like a doll's happy blush.

“Were you going to shoot me with this toy of yours, sweetheart?” He pointed the pistol playfully at her heart and watched her eyes roll white. “Guess a woman in your line a work's gotta protect herself in more ways than one. Told you I'd wear a rubber.”

He set the pistol aside, then tore open the foil package. “Love to have you suck me off again, Suzy Q. I do believe that was the finest blow job I ever paid for. But you might bite this time.” He pinched her red nipples painfully. “We can't have that, can we?”

He was already hard, throbbing hard, but made himself slide the condom on slowly. “I'm going to fuck you now. You can't rape a whore, but since I ain't going to pay for it, I guess technically we could call it that. So we'll say I'm going to rape you now.” He levered himself over her, smiling as she tried to draw her legs up to protect herself. “Now, honey, don't be shy. You're going to like it.”

In two rough jerks, he pulled her legs straight, spread them, locked them. “You're damn well going to like it. And you're going to tell me how much you love it. You can't say much with that rag stuffed in your whore-sucking mouth, but you're going to moan and groan for me. I want
you to groan now. Like you can't wait for it. Now.”

When she didn't respond, he released one of her legs and slapped her. Not hard, he thought, just enough to let her know who was boss. “Now,” he repeated.

She managed a sob, and he settled for it. “You make noise for me, plenty of noise. I like plenty of noise with my sex.”

He rammed himself into her. She was dry as dust and as unwelcoming as a tomb, but he pumped furiously, working up a sheen of sweat that gleamed on his back under the scatter of stars. Her eyes rolled in pain and fear, the way a horse's did when you dug in spurs and drew blood.

When he was finished, he rolled off her, panting. “That was good. That was good. Yeah, I'm going to do that again in just a minute or two.”

She was curled into a ball and, weeping, tried to crawl. Lazily, he picked up the gun, fired a shot at the sky. It stopped her cold. “You just rest there, Suzy Q. I'm going to see if I can work up the gumption for another round.”

He sodomized her this time, but it wasn't as good. It took him too long to get hard, and the orgasm was small and unsatisfying. “Guess that's it for me.” He gave her a friendly slap on the rump. “And for you.”

He thought it was a shame he couldn't keep her a couple days like he had little Traci with an
I.
But that kind of game was too risky now.

And there would always be another whore.

He opened his pack, and there it was, waiting. Lovingly he slipped the knife from its oiled-leather sheath, admired the way the starlight caught the metal and glimmered.

“My daddy gave me this. Only thing he ever gave me. Pretty, ain't it?” After shoving her onto her back, he held it in front of her face so that she could see it. He wanted her to see it.

And smiling, he straddled her.

And smiling, he went to work on her.

Now there was a trophy of red hair in his box of secrets. He doubted anyone would find her where he'd left her. Or if they did, if they would be able to identify what was left
of her once the predators had done with what he'd left behind for them.

He didn't need the fear and the fame any longer. It was enough that he knew.

S
UMMERS IN MONTANA WERE SHORT AND FIERCE
.
AND
August could be cruel. Sun baked the dirt and dried the trees to kindling and made men pray for rain.

A match flicked the wrong way or a well-aimed bolt of lightning would turn pasture into fire, crops into tears.

Willa sweated through her shirt as she surveyed a field of barley. “Hottest summer I remember.”

Wood merely grunted. He spent most of his time scowling at the sky or worrying over his grain. His boys should have been there worrying with him, but he'd gotten tired of their spatting and sent them off to bother their mother.

“Irrigation's helping some.” He spat, as if that drop of moisture would make a difference. Mercy was both joy and worry to him, and had been for too many years to count. “Water table's dead low. Couple more weeks of this, we'll be in trouble.”

“Don't sugarcoat it for me,” she said wearily, and remounted. “We'll get through it.”

He grunted again, shook his head at her as she rode off.

The ground bounced heat back at her relentlessly. The
cattle she passed stood slack-legged, with barely enough energy to swish tails. Not even the stingiest breeze stirred the grass.

She saw a rig well out along a fence line, and the two men unrolling wire. Changing directions, she galloped out.

“Ham, Billy.” She dismounted, walked over to the two-gallon jug in the bed of the rig, and poured herself a cup of icy water.

“Ham says this ain't hot, Will.” Sweating cheerfully, Billy strung wire. “He says he recollects when it was so hot it fried eggs still in their shells.”

She smiled at that. “I expect he does. You get as old as Ham here, you've seen everything twice.” She took off her hat, wiped an arm over her brow. She didn't like Ham's color. The red flush that stained his face looked hot enough to explode. But she knew to tread carefully.

Pouring two cups, she walked over, held them out. “Hot work. Take a break.”

“Be done soon,” Ham said, but his breath was puffing.

“You got to keep the fluid in. You told me that often enough that I have to take it as truth.” She all but shoved the cup into his hand. “You boys take your salt tablets?”

“Sure we did.” Billy gulped the water down, his Adam's apple bobbing.

“Ham, I'm going to finish here with Billy. You take Moon back for me.”

“What the hell for?” His eyes were running from squinting into the sun. Under his soaked shirt, his heart pounded like a hammer on an anvil. But he finished any job he started. “I said we're about done here.”

“That's fine, then. I need you to take Moon back and get me those stock reports. I'm falling behind, and I want to catch up on them tonight.”

“You know where the damn reports are.”

“And I need them.” Casually, she took her gloves out of her saddlebags. “And see if you can sweet-talk Bess into making some peach ice cream. She'll do it for you, and I've got a yen for some.”

He wasn't a fool, knew just what she was doing. “I'm stringing wire here, girl.”

“No.” She hefted the roll as Billy watched, wide-eyed and fascinated. “I'm stringing wire here. You're going to take Moon back in, get those stock reports in my office, and see about peach ice cream.”

He tossed his cup on the ground, planted his feet. “The hell with that. Take her back yourself.”

She set the roll down. “I run Mercy, Ham, and I'm telling you what I want you to do. You got a problem with that, we'll take it up later. But now, you ride back and do what I'm telling you.”

His face was redder now, making her pulse skittish, but she kept her eyes cool and level with his. After ten humming seconds, with the heat crippling both of them, he turned stiffly away and mounted.

“You think I can't do the job this half-assed boy can do, then you get my paycheck ready.” He kicked the horse, sent Moon into a surprised rear, then galloped off.

“Jeez” was all Billy could think of.

“Damn it, I should have handled that better.” She rubbed her hands over her face.

“He'll be all right, Will. He doesn't mean it. Ham'd never leave you or Mercy.”

“That's not what I'm worried about.” She blew out a breath. “Let's get this damn wire strung.”

 

S
HE WAITED UNTIL NIGHTFALL
.
CANCELED A DATE WITH
Ben, and sat out on the front porch. She heard the thunder, watched lightning flash, but the sky was too clear for rain.

Despite the heat she had no taste for the ice cream Bess had churned. Even when Tess came out with a bowl heaped full of it, Willa shook her head.

“You've been sulking since you came in today.” Tess leaned against the porch rail and tried to imagine cool ocean breezes. “Want to talk about it?”

“No. It's a personal problem.”

“They're the most interesting.” Philosophically, Tess spooned up some ice cream and sampled it. “Ben?”

“No.” Willa gave an irritated shrug. “Why is it people think every personal thought in my head revolves around Ben McKinnon?”

“Because women usually do their best sulking over a man. You didn't have a fight with him?”

“I'm always fighting with him.”

“I mean a real fight.”

“No.”

“Then why did you cancel your date?”

“Jesus Christ, can't I choose to stay home on my own porch one night without answering a bunch of questions?”

“Guess not.” Tess dug out another spoonful. “This is great stuff.” Licked the spoon clean. “Come on, try it.”

“If it'll get you off my back.” With little grace, Willa grabbed the bowl and scooped some up. It was sheer heaven. “Bess makes the best peach ice cream in the civilized world.”

“I tend to agree with you. Want to eat ice cream, get drunk, and take a swim? Sounds like a great way to cool off.”

Willa's eyes slitted with suspicion. “Why are you so friendly?”

“You look really bummed. I guess I'm feeling sorry for you.”

It should have annoyed her. Instead it touched her. “I had words with Ham today. He was out stringing wire and I got spooked. He looked so old all of a sudden, and it was so blasted hot. I thought he'd have a stroke or something. A heart attack. I made him come back in, and that slapped his pride flat. I just can't lose anybody else,” she said quietly. “Not right now. Not yet.”

“His pride will bounce back. Maybe you dented it a little, but he's too devoted to you to stay mad for long.”

“I'm counting on it.” Soothed, she handed the bowl back to Tess. “Maybe I'll come in shortly and take that swim.”

“All right.” Tess opened the screen, shot back a grin. “But I'm not wearing a suit.”

Chuckling, Willa eased back in the rocker, let it creak. Thunder rumbled, a little closer now. And she heard the
crunch of boots on stone. She sat up, one hand going under the chair where her rifle rested. She brought it back up, laid it in her lap when Ham stepped into the light.

“Evening,” she said.

“Evening. You got my check?”

Stubborn old goat, she thought, and gestured to the chair beside her. “Would you sit down a minute?”

“I got packing to do.”

“Please.”

Bandy legs stiff as a week-old wishbone, he climbed the steps, lowered himself into the next rocker. “You took me down in front of that boy today.”

“I'm sorry.” She folded her hands in her lap, stared down at him. It was the sound of his voice, raw with hurt and wounded pride, that scraped at her. “I tried to make it simple.”

“Make what simple? You think I need some girl I used to paddle coming out and telling me I'm too old to do my job?”

“I never said—”

“Hell you didn't. Plain as day to me.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” She kicked at the porch rail out of sheer frustration. “Why do you have to be so hardheaded?”

“Me? Never in my life did I see a more rock-headed female than the one I'm sitting beside right now. You think you know it all, girl? You think you got all the answers? That every blessed thing you do is right?”

“No!” She exploded with it, leaped up. “No, I don't. I don't know half the time if it's right, but I have to do it anyway. And I did what I had to do today, and it
was
right. Goddamn you, Ham, you were going to have heatstroke in another ten minutes, and then where the hell would I be? How the hell could I run this place without you?”

“You're already doing just that. You took me off the job today.”

“I took you off the fences. I don't want you riding fence in this heat. I'm telling you I'm not having it.”

“You're not having it.” He rose too, went nose to nose
with her. “Who the hell do you think you are, telling me you're not having it? I've been riding fence in every kind of weather since before you were born. And you nor nobody's telling me I can't do it until I say I'm done.”

“I'm telling you.”

“Then cut me my last check.”

“Fine.” She swung to the door, pushed by temper. Her hand fisted on the edge, then whipped it back in a slam that shook the wood under her feet. “I was scared! Why can't I be allowed to be scared?”

“What in hell are you scared of?”

“Losing you, you mule-headed son of a bitch. You were all red-faced and sweaty and your breath was puffing like a bad engine. I couldn't stand it. I just couldn't. And if you'd just gone in like I asked you, it would've been fine.”

“It was hot,” he said, but his voice was weak now, and a little ashamed.

“I know it was hot. Goddamn it, Ham, that's the point. Why'd you make me push you that way? I didn't want to embarrass you in front of Billy. I just wanted you to get out of the sun. I know who my father was,” she said furiously, and made his head come up, his eyes meet hers again. “And I haven't buried him yet. Not the one who really counted when I needed him to count. I don't want to bury him for a long time.”

“I could've finished.” He bumped his toe on the rail, stared at it. “Hell, Will, I was making the boy do most of the work. I know my limits.”

“I need you here.” She waited for her system to calm again. “I need you, Ham. I'm asking you to stay.”

He moved his shoulders, kept his eyes on his feet. “I guess I got no place better to be. I shouldn'ta bucked you. I guess I knew you were thinking of me.” He shifted his feet, cleared his throat. “You're doing a fine job around here, all in all. I'm, ah . . . I'm proud of you.”

And that's why he was the one who counted, she thought. The father of her blood had never said those words to her. “I can't do it alone. You want to come in?” She opened the door again. “Have some of that peach ice cream. You
can tell me all the things I'm doing wrong.”

He scratched his beard. “Maybe. I guess there's a few things I could straighten you out on.”

 

W
HEN HE LEFT
,
HIS BELLY WAS FULL AND HIS HEART
considerably lighter. He strolled toward the bunkhouse, light of step. He heard the sounds, the disturbed braying of cattle, the click of boot heels.

Who the hell was on guard duty? He couldn't quite place it. Jim or Billy, he thought, and decided to wander over to check things out.

“That you, Jim? Billy? What are you playing with the penned head for this time of night?”

He saw the calf first, bleeding, eyes rolling in fear and pain. He'd taken two running steps before he saw the man rise up out of the shadows.

“What the devil's this? What the hell have you done?”

And he knew, before he saw the knife arch up, but there was no time to scream.

The panic came first. With the knife dripping in his hand, he stared down at Ham, the blood. Wiped a hand over his mouth. He'd just needed a quick fix, that was all. One calf. He'd meant to drag it away from the ranch yard, but the knife had just leaped into his hand.

And now Ham. He'd never meant to hurt Ham. Ham had trained him, worked with him, paid attention when attention needed to be paid. He'd always felt Ham had known the truth about where he'd come from and who he was.

And Ham was loyal.

But now there was no choice. It had to be finished. He crouched down, prepared, just as Willa rushed out of the night.

“Ham? Is that you? I forgot to tell you about the—” Her boots skidded. Lightning flashed, bursting light onto the men all but at her feet. “Oh, sweet God, what happened to him? What happened?” She was already on her knees, turning him over into her arms. “Did he—” And there was blood on her hands.

“I'm sorry, Will. I'm sorry.” He turned the knife on her,
held it to her throat. “Don't call out. I don't want to hurt you. I swear I don't want to hurt you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I'm your brother.”