Montana Sky

The henhouse erupted with clucking and squawking as neighboring hens joined the fray. Tess managed to get her hand around a nice warm egg, wrenched it clear, then stepped back red-faced and panting.
    “That’s quite a technique you got there.”
    At the voice behind her, Tess let loose of the egg. It spurted out of her fingers and fell splat on the floor. “Goddamn it! After all that.”
    “I spooked you.” The commotion inside the henhouse had lured Nate. Instead of heading on to see Willa, he’d detoured and found the California connection—in her designer jeans and shiny new boots—battling chickens. He could only think she made a picture. “Looking for breakfast?”
    “More or less.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “What are you looking for?”
    “I’ve got some business with Will. Your hand’s bleeding,” he added.
    “I know it.” In a bad temper, she sucked on the wounds on the back of her hand. “That vicious birdbrain attacked me.”
    “You’re just not going about it right.” He offered her a bandanna to wrap around her hand, then stepped up to the next roost. And managed, Tess noted, to look graceful despite the necessity of stooping and bending to keep from bashing his head on the ceiling. “You’ve just got to go in like it’s natural. Make it quick but not abrupt.” He demonstrated, slipping a hand under the roosting hen and pulling it out with an egg. Not a feather stirred.
    “It’s my first day on the job.” Pouting only a little, sheheld up the bucket. “I like to find my chicken in the freezer section, wrapped in cellophane.” As he walked along, gathering eggs, she followed behind. “I suppose you keep chickens.”
    “Used to. I don’t bother with them now.”
    “Cattle?”
    “Nope.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Sheep? Isn’t that a risk? I’ve seen all those western movies, the range wars.”
    “I don’t raise sheep either.” He settled an egg in the bucket. “Just horses. Quarter horses. You ride, Miz Mercy?”
    “No.” She tossed her hair back with a shrug. “Though I’m told I’d better learn. And I suppose it would give me something to do around here.”
    “Adam would teach you. Or I could.”
    “Really?” She smiled slowly with a flutter of lashes. “And why would you do that, Mr. Torrence?”
    “Just being neighborly.” She sure had a nice smell about her, he thought. Something just a little dark, just a little dangerous. And all female. He set another egg inside the bucket. “It’s Nate.”
    “All right.” Her voice warmed to a purr, and her eyes slanted up a sly look under thick, spiky lashes. “Are we neighbors, Nate?”
    “In a manner of speaking. My place is east of here. You smell good, Miz Mercy, for someone who’s been fighting with chickens.”
    “It’s Tess. Are you flirting with me, Nate?”
    “Just flirting back.” His smile was slow and easy. “That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it?”
    “In a manner of speaking. Habit.”
    “Well, if you want advice—”
    “And lawyers are full of it,” she interrupted.
    “We are. My advice would be to tone down the power. The boys around here aren’t used to women with as much style as you’ve got.”
    “Oh.” She wasn’t sure if she’d been complimented or insulted, but she decided to give him the benefit of thedoubt. “And are you used to women with style?”
    “Can’t say I am.” He gave her a long, thoughtful look out of quiet blue eyes. “But I recognize one. You’ll have them crazy and thinking of killing each other within a week.”
    Now that, she decided, was a compliment. “That ought to liven things up.”
    “From what I hear, they’ve been lively enough.”
    “Dead cats and cows.” She grimaced. “A nasty business. I’m glad I missed it.”
    “You’re here now. That seems to be the lot,” he added, and she looked down in the bucket.
    “Plenty of them. And Christ, they’re filthy.” It was liable to put her off omelets for quite a while.
    “They’ll wash.” He took the bucket from her and started out. “You settling in?”
    “As best I can. It’s not my milieu—my usual environment.”
    He tucked his tongue in his cheek. “Folks from your—what was it?—milieu come out here all the time. Not that they stay.” Automatically he ducked down to avoid rapping his head on the low doorway of the henhouse. “Those Hollywooders come charging out, buying up land, plunking down houses that cost the earth and more. Think