Montana Sky

for willpower, lit the cigarette.
    “Oh.” Now that she had a face to focus on, Lily felt the shame grow. “Yes, I’ve seen him. He was stabbed, wasn’t he?”
    “I think it was worse than that, but I don’t have a lot of the details other than Will found him on one of those roads that go all over the ranch.”
    “It must have been horrible for her.”
    “Yeah.” Tess grimaced, picked up her wine. She might not have been fond of her youngest half sister, but she wouldn’t have wished this particular experience on anyone.“She’ll handle it. They breed them tough out here. Anyway . . .” She sipped, found the wine not quite as inferior as she’d thought. “What about you? Are you staying or going?”
    More out of a need to do something with her hands than a desire for wine, Lily reached for her glass. “I don’t really have anyplace else to go. I suppose you’ll be going back to California.”
    “I’ve thought about it.” Tess leaned back, studied the woman across from her. Keeps her eyes down, Tess mused, and her hands busy. She’d been certain that shy Lily would already have booked a flight to anywhere. “I figure it this way. People are murdered every day in LA. Kids regularly whack each other for painting graffiti in the wrong territory. There are drug hits every time you blink. Shootings, knifings, muggings, bludgeonings.” She smiled. “God, I love that town.”
    Catching Lily’s appalled expression, Tess threw back her head and laughed. “Sorry,” she managed after a moment, pressing a hand to her heart. “My point is that as bad as this is, as close as it is, it’s only one murder. Comparatively, it just isn’t that big a deal, certainly not big enough to chase me away from collecting what’s mine.”
    Lily drank again, struggled to gather her thoughts. “You’re staying. You’re going to stay.”
    “Yeah, I’m going to stay. Nothing’s changed.”
    “I thought—” Closing her eyes, Lily let the relief run through her and twine with the shame. “I was sure you wouldn’t, and then I’d have to leave.” She opened her eyes again, soft, quiet blue with hints of haunted gray. “That’s horrible. That poor man’s dead, and all I’ve been able to think about is how it affects me.”
    “That’s just honest. You didn’t know him. Hey.” Because there was something about Lily that tugged at her, Tess reached for her sister’s hand. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. We’ve all got a lot at stake here. We’re entitled to think about what’s ours.”
    Lily looked down at the joined hands. Tess’s were so pretty, she thought, with the glitter of rings and the enviablestrength and confidence in the fingers. She lifted her gaze. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this place. Neither did you.”
    Tess merely nodded and, withdrawing her hand, lifted her glass again. “I didn’t do anything to deserve being ignored my entire life. And neither did you.”
    Willa came into the kitchen, stopped short when she saw the women at the table. Her face was still pale, her movements still jerky. After all the questions, the going over and over her discovery of the body, she’d been more than happy to see the police on their way.
    “Well, this is cozy.” She slipped her hands into her pockets as she stepped toward the table. Her fingers still tended to shake. “I figured the two of you would be packing, not sitting around having a chat.”
    “We’ve been talking about that.” Tess lifted an eyebrow but made no comment when Will picked up her wineglass and drank. “We’re not going anywhere.”
    “Is that so?” Because wine seemed like a fine idea, Willa crossed to the cupboards and took out a tumbler. Then she just stood there, unable to move, barely able to think.
    She hadn’t been able to fully consider the loss of the ranch. It had been there, in the back of her mind, the certainty that the two women who had been pushed on her would run. And with them would go her life. But it wasn’t until now, until she knew they would stay, that it hit her. And it hit hard.
    Giving in, she rested her head against the cupboard door and closed her eyes.
    Pickles. Dear God, would she see him for the rest of her life, what had been done to him, what had been left of him? And all that blood, baking in the sun. The way his eyes had stared up at her, the horror frozen in them.
    But the ranch, for now, was safe.
    “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
    She didn’t realize she’d