Montana Sky

beautiful woman, and that little boy of hers, sweet face. Angel face.”
    “He’s grown up now, and he’s still got the angel face. He lives on the ranch, works with horses or something.”
    “His father was a wrangler, as I recall.” Louella reached in the pocket of her scarlet robe, found a pack of Virginia Slims. “How about Bess?” She let out smoke and a big, lusty laugh. “Christ, that was a woman. Had to watch my p ’s and q ’s around her. Had to admire her—she ran that house like a top and didn’t take any crap off Jack either.”
    “She’s still running the house, as far as I could tell.”
    “Hell of a house. Hell of a ranch.” Louella’s bright-red lips curved at the memory. “Hell of a country. Though I can’t say I’m sorry I only spent one winter there. Goddamn snow up to your armpits.”
    “Why did you marry him?” When Louella arched a brow, Tess shifted uncomfortably. “I know I never asked before, but I’m asking now. I’d like to know why.”
    “It’s a simple question with a simple answer.” Louella poured an avalanche of sugar into her coffee. “He was the sexiest son of a bitch I’d ever seen. Those eyes of his, the way they could look right through you. The way he’d cock his head and smile like he knew just what he’d be up to later and wanted to take you along.”
    She remembered it all perfectly. The smells of sweat and whiskey, the lights dazzling her eyes. And the way Jack Mercy had swaggered into the nightclub when she’d beenonstage in little more than feathers and a twenty-pound headdress.
    The way he’d puffed on a big cigar and watched her.
    Somehow she’d expected that he’d be waiting for her after the last show. And she’d gone with him without a thought, from casino to casino, drinking, gambling, wearing his Stetson perched on her head.
    Within forty-eight hours, she’d stood with him in one of those assembly-line chapels with canned music and plastic flowers. And she’d had a gold ring on her finger.
    It was hardly a surprise that the ring had stayed put for less than two years.
    “Trouble was, we didn’t know each other. It was hot pants and gambling fever.” Philosophically, Louella crushed out her cigarette on her empty plate. “I wasn’t cut out for life on a goddamn cattle ranch in Montana. Maybe I could’ve made a go of it—who knows? I loved him.”
    Tess swallowed cake before it stuck in her throat. “You loved him?”
    “For a while I did.” With the ease of years and distance, Louella shrugged. “A woman couldn’t love Jack for long unless she was missing brain cells. But for a while, I loved him. And I got you out of it. And a hundred large. I wouldn’t have my girl, and I wouldn’t have my club if Jack Mercy hadn’t walked in that night and taken a shine to me. So I owe him.”
    “You owe the man who kicked you, and his own daughter, out of his life? Cut you off with a lousy hundred thousand dollars?”
    “A hundred K went a lot farther thirty years ago than it does today.” Louella had learned to be a mother and a businesswoman from the ground up. She was proud of both. “And from where I’m sitting, I got a pretty good deal.”
    “Mercy Ranch is worth twenty million. Do you still think you got a good deal?”
    Louella pursed her lips. “It was his ranch, honey. I just visited there for a while.”
    “Long enough to make a baby and get the boot.”
    “I wanted the baby.”
    “Mom.” Most of Tess’s anger faded at the words, but the injustice of it remained hot in her heart. “You had a right to more. I had a right to more.”
    “Maybe, maybe not, but that was the deal at the time.” Louella lit another cigarette, decided to be late for her afternoon session at the beauty parlor. There was more here, she thought. “Time goes on. Jack ended up making three daughters, and now he’s dead. You want to tell me what he left you?”
    “A problem.” Tess took the cigarette from Louella’s hand and indulged in a quick drag. Smoking was a habit she didn’t approve of—what sensible person did? But it was either that or the several million calories still on her plate. “I get a third of the ranch.”
    “A third of the—Good Jesus and little fishes, Tess, honey, that’s a fortune.” Louella bounced up. She might have been five ten and a generous one-fifty, but she’d been trained as a dancer and could move when she had to. She moved now, skimming around the counter to crush her daughter’s ribs