Montana Sky

ride?”
    “I can ride.”
    “Then I don’t want to stay here.” She drew a deep breath. “I say we head out at dusk.”
     
    I T WAS A COLD . CLEAR NIGHT WITH JUST A HINT OF FOG crawling low on the ground. A hunter’s moon guided them. Just, Willa thought, as that same hunter’s moon spotlighted them for whatever predator stalked them. The dog trotted ahead, his ears pricked up. Beneath her, Moon quivered as her nerves were transmitted to the mare.
    Every shadow was a potential enemy, every rustle in the brush a whispered warning. The hoot of an owl, the quick whoosh of wings on a downward flight, and the scream of something hunted well and killed quickly were no longer simply sounds of the mountains at night but reminders of mortality.
    The mountains were beautiful with the pale blue cast that moonlight made on snow, the dark trees outlined in fluffy ermine, the unbowed rock jutting up to challenge the sky.
    And they were deadly.
    He would have come this way, she thought, riding steadily east with his trophy strapped over his saddle. Wasn’t that what that poor girl had been to him? A trophy. Something to show how skilled he was, and how clever. How ruthless.
    She shuddered, hunched her shoulders against the kick of the wind.
    “You okay?”
    She glanced at Ben. His eyes gleamed in the dark like a cat’s. Sharp, watchful. “I thought, on the day of my father’s funeral when Nate read off how things were, would be, I thought nothing would ever be as hard, as hurtful as that. I thought I’d never feel that helpless, that out of control. That it was the worst that could happen to me.”
    She sighed, carefully guided her horse down an uneven slope where the shadows were long and the ground began to show through in patches. Thin fingers of mist parted like water.
    “Then when I found Pickles, when I saw what had been done to him, I thought that was the worst. Nothing couldbe more horrid than that. But I was wrong. I just keep being wrong about how much worse it can get.”
    “I won’t let anything happen to you. You can believe that.”
    There in the distance, the first glimmer of light that was Mercy. “You were a damn fool today, Ben, going out tracking on your own. I told you I didn’t like heroes, and I think less of fools.” She nudged her horse forward, toward the lights.
    “Guess she told me,” Ben murmured to Adam.
    “She was right.” Adam tilted his head at Ben’s quick frown. “I wasn’t any good to you, and she was too busy making sure I didn’t bleed to death to do anything else. Going looking on your own didn’t help things.”
    “You’d have done the same in my place.”
    True enough. “We’re not talking about me. She cried.”
    Uncomfortable now, Ben shifted, shot a look toward Willa as she rode a few paces ahead. “Oh, hell.”
    “Promised I wouldn’t tell, and I wouldn’t have if all the tears had been for me. But there were plenty for you. She was about to go out after you.”
    “Well, that’s just—”
    “Foolish.” Adam’s lips curved. “I’d have tried to stop her, but I doubt I’d have managed it. Maybe you’d better think of that next time.”
    He tried to ease his stiffening shoulder. “There’s going to be a next time, Ben. He isn’t finished.”
    “No, he isn’t finished.” And Ben quietly closed the distance to Willa.
     
    T HE DAMN SIGHT ON THE RIFLE HAD BEEN OFF . STINKING expensive biathlon sight, and it had been defective.
    That’s what Jesse told himself as he relived every moment of the ambush. It had been the rifle, the sight, the wind. It hadn’t been him, hadn’t been his aim, hadn’t been his fault.
    Just bad fucking luck, that was all.
    He could still see the way the half-breed, wife-stealing bastard’s horse had reared. He’d thought, oh, for one sweet moment he’d thought he nailed the target.
    But the sight had been off.
    It had been impulse, too. He hadn’t planned it out. If he’d planned it out instead of having it all just happen, Wolfchild would be cold and dead—and maybe McKinnon would be dead too. And maybe he’d have taken a taste of Lily’s half sister for good measure.
    Jesse blew out smoke, stared into the dark, and cursed.
    He’d get another chance, sooner or later, he’d get another chance. He’d make sure of it.
    And wouldn’t Lily be sorry then?
     
    E VERY NIGHT FOR A WEEK WILLA WOKE IN THE GRIP OF A nightmare, drenched in sweat, with screams locked in her throat. Always the same: She was naked,