Montana Sky
own tune. Imagine dumb-ass Lily inheriting a third of one of the top ranches in the state. Worth a fucking fortune, too. All it was going to take was a year.
Jesse pulled his head out from under the hood and looked around. The mountains, the land, the sky—they were all hard. Hard and strong, like him. So this was his place, and Lily was going to learn that her place was with him. Divorce didn’t mean shit in Jesse Cooke’s book. The woman belonged to him, and if he had to use his fists to remind her of that from time to time, well, that was his right.
All he had to do was be patient. That was the hard part, he admitted, wiping a greasy hand over his cheek. If she found out he was close, she’d run. He couldn’t afford to let her run until the year was up.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep his eye on her, no, indeedy. He was going to keep watch over his useless stick of a wife.
It was easy enough to make friends with a couple of the asshole hands over at Mercy. Drink a few beers, play some cards, and pump them for information. He could wander over to the neighboring ranch at will, as long as he didn’t let Lily see him.
And the day Jesse Cooke, ex-Marine, let a woman outwit him was the day they’d eat cherry Popsicles in hell.
Ducking under the hood again, he got back to work. And reviewed his plans for his next visit to Mercy.
SEVEN
S ARAH MCKINNON FLIPPED FLAPJACKS ON THE GRIDDLE and enjoyed the fact that her older son was sitting at her kitchen table drinking her coffee. More often than not these days, he brewed his own in his quarters over the garage.
She missed him.
Fact was, she missed having both of her boys underfoot, squabbling and picking on each other. God knew there’d been times she’d thought they would set her crazy, that she would never have a moment’s peace again.
Now that they were grown and she had that peace, she found herself yearning for the noise, the work, the tempers.
She’d wanted more children. With all her heart she’d wanted a little girl to fuss over in her houseful of men. But she and Stu had never had any luck making a third baby. She’d comforted herself that they’d made two healthy, beautiful boys, and that was that.
Now she had a daughter-in-law she loved, and a granddaughter to dote on. She would have more grandchildren, too. If she could ever push Ben toward the right woman.
The boy was damn particular, she mused, slanting a looktoward him as he frowned over the morning paper. He wasn’t still single at thirty for lack of opportunity. Lord knew there’d been women in and out of his life—and his bed too, but she didn’t care to dwell on that.
But he’d never stumbled over a woman, and Sarah supposed it was just as well. You had to stumble before you could fall, and falling in love was a serious business. When a man chose carefully, he usually chose well.
But, damn it, she wanted those grandchildren.
With a plate heaped with flapjacks in her hand, she paused a moment by the kitchen window. Dawn had broken through the eastern sky, and she watched it bloom, going rosy with light and low-lying clouds.
In the bunkhouse the men would be up and at their own breakfast. Within moments, she would hear her husband’s feet hit the floor above her head. She’d always risen before him, hoarding these first cozy moments to herself in the core of the house. Then he would come down, all fresh-shaven and smelling of soap, his hair damp. He’d give her a big morning kiss, pat her bottom, and slurp up that first cup of coffee as if his life depended on it.
She loved him for his predictability.
And she loved the land for its lack of it.
She loved her son, this man who had somehow come from her, for his combination of both.
As she set the plate on the table, she ran her hand over the thick mop of Ben’s hair. Remembered, with odd and sudden clarity, his first paid-for haircut, at the age of seven.
How proud he’d been. And how foolishly she’d wept at those gilded curls hitting the barbershop floor.
“What’s on your mind, fella?”
“Hmm?” He set the paper aside. Reading at the table was allowed, until the food was on it. “Nothing much, beautiful. What’s on yours?”
She sat, cradled her coffee cup. “I know you, Benjamin McKinnon. The gears are turning in there.”
“Ranch business mostly.” To buy time, he started on his breakfast. The flapjacks were so light they should have been floating an inch off his plate, and the
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