Montana Sky Read Free

alone. She was better when she was alone. “I won’t keep you.”
    â€œWould you like to walk down? See some of the stock?”
    â€œThe horses? I—” Don’t be a coward, she ordered herself. He isn’t going to hurt you. “Yes, I’d like that. If I wouldn’t be in your way.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t.” Knowing she’d shy away, he didn’t offer a hand or take her arm, but merely led the way down the stairs and across the rough dirt road.
    Â 
    S EVERAL PEOPLE SAW THEM GO , AND TONGUES WAGGED as tongues do. Lily Mercy was one of Jack’s daughters, after all, though, as was pointed out, she hardly had a word to say for herself. Something that had never been Willa’s problem—no, indeed. That was a girl who said plenty, whatever and whenever she wanted.
    As for the other one—well, that was a different kettle of fish altogether. Snooty, she was, parading around in her fancy suit and looking down her nose. Anybody with eyes could see the way she’d stood at the gravesite, cold as ice. She was a picture, to be sure. Jack had sired fine-looking daughters, and that one, the oldest one, had his eyes. Hard and sharp and blue.
    It was obvious she thought she was better than the rest of them with her California polish and her expensive shoes, but there were plenty who remembered her ma had been a Las Vegas showgirl with a big, braying laugh and a bawdy turn of phrase. Those who did remember had already decided they much preferred the mother to the daughter.
    Tess Mercy could have cared less. She was here in this godforsaken outback only until the will could be read. She’dtake what was hers, which was less than the old bastard owed her, and shake the dust off her Ferragamos.
    â€œI’ll be back by Monday at the latest.”
    She carried the phone along as she paced about with quick, jerky motions, nervous energy searing the air around her. She’d closed the doors of what she supposed was a den, hoping to have at least a few moments of privacy. She had to work hard to ignore the mounted animal heads that populated the walls.
    â€œThe script’s finished.” She smiled a little, tunneled her fingers through the straightedge swing of dark hair that curved at her jaw. “Damn right it’s brilliant, and it’ll be in your hot little hands Monday. Don’t hassle me, Ira,” she warned her agent. “I’ll get you the script, then you get me the deal. My cash flow’s down to a dribble.”
    She shifted the phone and pursed her lips as she helped herself to a snifter of brandy from the decanter. She was still listening to the promises and pleas of Hollywood when she saw Lily and Adam stroll by the window.
    Interesting, she thought, and sipped. The little mouse and the Noble Savage.
    Tess had done some quick checking before she’d made the trip to Montana. She knew Adam Wolfchild was the son of Jack Mercy’s third and final wife. That he’d been eight when his mother had married Mercy. Wolfchild was Blackfoot, or mostly. His mother had been part Indian. The man had spent twenty-five years on Mercy Ranch and had little more to show for it than a tiny house and a job tending horses.
    Tess intended to have more.
    As for Lily, all Tess had discovered was that she was divorced, childless, and moved around quite a bit. Probably because her husband had used her for a punching bag, Tess thought, and made herself clamp down on a stir of pity. She couldn’t afford emotional attachments here. It was straight business.
    Lily’s mother had been a photographer who’d come to Montana to snap pictures of the real West. She’d snapped Jack Mercy—for all the good it had done her, Tess thought.
    Then there was Willa. Tess’s mouth tightened as she thought of Willa. The one who had stayed, the one the old bastard had kept.
    Well, she owned the place now, Tess assumed, shrugging her shoulders. And she