Montana Sky

painting of Jack Mercy astride a black stallion. His head was cocked, his hattipped back, a bullwhip curled in one hand. Many felt that those hard blue eyes damned them as they sat drinking his whiskey and toasting his death.
    For Lily Mercy, the second daughter Jack had conceived and discarded, it was terrifying. The house, the people, the noise. The room the housekeeper had given her the day before when she’d arrived was so beautiful. So quiet, she thought now as she moved closer to the rail of the side porch. The lovely bed, the pretty golden wood against the silky wallpaper.
    The solitude.
    She wanted that now, so very much, as she looked out toward the mountains. Such mountains, she thought. So high, so rough. Nothing at all like the pretty little hills of her home in Virginia. And all the sky, the shuddering and endless blue of it curving down to more land than could possibly exist.
    The plains, that wild roll of them, and the wind that seemed never to stop. And the colors, the golds and russets, the scarlets and bronzes of both hill and plain exploding with autumn.
    And this valley, where the ranch spread in a spot of such impossible strength and beauty. She’d seen deer out the window that morning, drinking from a stream that glowed silver in the dawn. She’d heard horses, the voices of men, the crow of a rooster, and what she thought—hoped—might have been an eagle’s cry.
    She wondered whether, if she found the courage to walk into the forest that danced up those foothills, she would see the moose, the elk, the fox that she had read about so greedily on the flight west.
    She wondered if she would be allowed to stay even another day—and where she would go, what she would do, if she was asked to leave.
    She couldn’t go back east, not yet. Self-consciously she fingered the yellowing bruise she’d tried to hide with makeup and sunglasses. Jesse had found her. She’d been so careful, but he’d found her, and the court orders hadn’t stopped his fists. They never had. Divorce hadn’t stoppedhim, all the moving and the running hadn’t stopped him.
    But here, she thought, maybe here, thousands of miles away, in a country so huge, she could finally start again. Without fear.
    The letter from the attorney informing her of Jack Mercy’s death and requesting her to travel to Montana had been like a gift from God. Though her expenses had been paid, Lily had cashed in the first-class airfare and booked zigzagging flights across the country under three different names. She wanted desperately to believe Jesse Cooke couldn’t find her here.
    She was so tired of running, of being afraid.
    She wondered if she could move to Billings or Helena and find a job. Any job. She wasn’t without some skills. There was her teaching degree, and she knew how to use a keyboard. Maybe she could find a small apartment of her own, even just a room to start until she got on her feet again.
    She could live here, she thought, staring out at the vast and terrifying and glorious space. Maybe she even belonged here.
    She jumped when a hand touched her arm, barely stifled the scream as her heart leaped like a rabbit into her throat.
    Not Jesse, she realized, feeling the fool. The man beside her was dark, where Jesse was blond. This man had bronzed skin and hair that streamed to his shoulders. Kind eyes, dark, very dark, in a face as beautiful as a painting.
    But then Jesse was beautiful, too. She knew how cruel beauty could be.
    “I’m sorry.” Adam’s voice was as soothing as it would have been if he’d frightened a puppy or a sick foal. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Iced tea.” He took her hand, noting the way it trembled, and wrapped it around the glass. “It’s a dry day.”
    “Thank you. I didn’t hear you come up behind me.” In a habit she wasn’t even aware of, Lily took a step aside, putting distance between them. Running room. “I was just . . . looking. It’s so beautiful here.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    She sipped, cooling her dry throat, and ordered herself tobe calm and polite. People asked fewer questions when you were calm. “Do you live nearby?”
    “Very.” He smiled, stepped closer to the rail, and gestured east. He liked her voice, the slow, warm southern flavor of it. “The little white house on the other side of the horse barn.”
    “Yes, I saw it. You have blue shutters and a garden, and there was a little black dog sleeping in the yard.” Lily remembered how homey it had looked,