Montana Sky Read Free Page B

mudroom. Even there she could hear the beehive buzz of conversations from the other rooms, the occasional roll of laughter. Resenting all of it, she slammed out the door, then pulled up short when she saw the two men smoking companionably on the side porch.
    Her gaze narrowed on the older man and the bottle of beer dangling from his fingers. “Enjoying yourself, Ham?”
    Sarcasm from Willa didn’t ruffle Hamilton Dawson. He’d put her up on her first pony, had wrapped her head after her first spill. He’d taught her how to use a rope, shoot a rifle, and dress a deer. Now he merely fit his cigarette into the little hole surrounded by grizzled hair and blew out a smoke ring.
    “It’s”—another smoke ring formed—“a pretty afternoon.”
    “I want the fence checked along the northwest boundary.”
    “Been done,” he said placidly, and continued to lean on the rail, a short, stocky man on legs curved like a wishbone. He was ranch foreman and figured he knew what needed to be done as well as Willa did. “Got a crew out making repairs. Sent Brewster and Pickles up the high country. We lost a couple head up there. Looks like cougar.” Another drag, another stream of smoke. “Brewster’ll take care of it. Likes to shoot things.”
    “I want to talk to him when he gets back.”
    “I expect you will.” He straightened up from the rail, adjusted his mud-colored dishrag of a hat. “It’s weaning time.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    He expected she did, and nodded again. “I’ll go check on the fence crew. Sorry about your pa, Will.”
    She knew those simple words tacked onto ranch business were more sincere and personal than the acres of flowers sent by strangers. “I’ll ride out later.”
    He nodded, to her, to the man beside him, then hitched his bowlegged way toward his rig.
    “How are you holding up, Will?”
    She shrugged a shoulder, frustrated that she didn’t know what to do next. “I want it to be tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow’ll be easier, don’t you think, Nate?”
    Because he didn’t want to tell her the answer was no, he tipped back his beer. He was there for her, as a friend, a fellow rancher, a neighbor. He was also there as Jack Mercy’s lawyer, and he knew that before too much more time passed he was going to shatter the woman standing beside him.
    “Let’s take a walk.” He set the beer down on the rail, took Willa’s arm. “My legs need stretching.”
    He had a lot of them. Nathan Torrence was a tall one. He’d hit six two at seventeen and had kept growing. Now, at thirty-three, he was six six and lanky with it. Hair the color of wheat straw curled under his hat. His eyes were as blue as the Montana sky in a face handsomely scored by wind and sun. At the end of long arms were big hands. At the end of long legs were big feet. Despite them, he was surprisingly graceful.
    He looked like a cowboy, walked like a cowboy. His heart, when it came to matters of his family, his horses, and the poetry of Keats, was as soft as a down pillow. His mind, when it came to matters of law, of justice, of simple right and wrong, was as hard as granite.
    He had a deep and long-standing affection for WillaMercy. And he hated that he had no choice but to put her through hell.
    “I’ve never lost anybody close to me,” Nate began. “I can’t say I know how you feel.”
    Willa kept walking, past the cookhouse, the bunkhouse, by the chicken house where the hens were going broody. “He never let anyone get close to him. I don’t know how I feel.”
    “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