Montana Sky

she glanced at Adam. “You’ve got a couple hours off,” she told him, “to get your life straightened out.” Walking out, she closed the door behind her.
    “I must seem ungrateful,” Lily began, but he only shook his head, so she crouched down and began to gather the papers. “I threw a vase. I’ve never done anything like that before. I didn’t know I’d want to. It was difficult to go back to feeling unnecessary.”
    “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.” He crossed to her,gathered papers himself. He picked up the list of acceptances for the wedding, then lifted his eyes to hers. “Nothing in my life is more necessary than you, or more precious. If you want to call off the wedding . . .” No, he couldn’t be patient or reasonable about this. All he could say was “Don’t.”
    And nothing he could have said, Lily realized, could have been more perfect. “After Tess and Will have gone to all this trouble? That would be rude.” She started to smile, nearly did, but he covered his face with his hands. Covered it, but not before she’d seen the stricken look in his eyes, and the hurt she’d put there.
    “I let him take you.”
    “No.”
    “I thought he would kill you.”
    “Adam.”
    “I thought if I touched you it would make you think of it, of him.”
    “No, no, Adam. Never.” So it was she who held him. “Never. Never. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just so angry, so frustrated. I love you, I love you, I love you. Oh, hold me, Adam. I won’t break.”
    But he might. Even as his arms came around her, his grip tightened convulsively, he thought he might shatter like thin glass. “I wanted to kill him.” His voice was muffled against her throat. “I would have. And living with the wanting isn’t nearly as hard as living with the fact that I didn’t. And worse is living with the thought that I nearly lost you.”
    “I’m here. And it’s over.” When his mouth found hers, she poured herself into it, her hands soothing him as he had always soothed her. “I need you so much. And I need you to need me back.”
    He framed her face. “I do. I always will.”
    “I want to plant gardens with you, Adam, and raise horses, paint porches.” Cupping his face in turn, she drew his head back and said what was trembling in her heart. “I want to make children. I want to make a child with you, Adam. Today.”
    Staggered, he lowered his brow to hers. “Lily.”
    “It’s the right time.” She lifted his hand, pressed it to her lips. “Take me home, Adam, to our bed. Make a child with me today.”
     
    F ROM THE SIDE WINDOW . TESS WATCHED LILY AND ADAM walk toward the white house. It made her think of the first time she’d seen them walk together, on the day of the funeral. “Check it out,” she called to Willa.
    “What?” A little impatient, Willa joined her at the window, then smiled. “That’s a relief.” Moments later, the shades on the bedroom windows of the white house came down, and she grinned. “Looks like we’ve still got a wedding going.”
    “I still want those striped umbrellas.”
    “You’re such a bitch.”
    “Ah, that’s what they all say. Will.” In a surprising move, she laid a hand on Willa’s shoulder. “Are you still driving cattle up to high country tomorrow?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I want to come.”
    “Very funny.”
    “No, I mean it. I can ride, and I think it might be an interesting experience, one I can use in my work. And since Adam’s going, Lily should too. It’s important that we stick together. It’s safer that way.”
    “I was going to have Adam stay behind.”
    Tess shook her head. “You need people you can trust. Adam won’t stay behind even if you ask him. So Lily and I go too.”
    “Just what I need. A couple of greenhorns.” But she’d already thought of it herself, and had weighed the pros and cons. “The McKinnons will be moving their herd up as well. We’ll take one man with us, leave Ham in charge of the rest. Better get your beauty sleep tonight, Hollywood. We ride out at dawn.”
     
    T HE ONLY THING MISSING , TESS THOUGHT AS SHE YAWNED in the saddle at daybreak, was the theme from Rawhide. So she hummed it to herself, struggled to remember the wordsthat were vaguely familiar only because of the bar scene in The Blues Brothers.
    Was it “Cut ’em in” or “Head ’em out”?
    “Head ’em out” was the obvious winner, as that was exactly what Willa called into the misty