Montana Sky

doe while you were out?”
    “No, but someone had.” Revolted, he peeled off his coat, tossed it over the newel post. “They’d left it there, torn to pieces. Not for the game, not even for the trophy, just to kill. The wolves were at it.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I fired to scatter them and get a better look, but Lily and Tess rode up. I wanted to get them back here.”
    “I’ll get my coat.”
    Before Willa could turn, Adam stopped her. “There’s no point. There won’t be much left by now, and I saw enough.She’d been shot clean, in the head. Then she’d been gutted, hacked, left there. He cut off her tail. I guess that was enough trophy this time around.”
    “Like the others, then.”
    “Like the others.”
    “Can we track him?” Ben demanded.
    “Snow’s come in since it was done, a day ago at least. More’s coming in now. Maybe if I could have set off right then, I’d have had some luck.” Adam moved his shoulder, a gesture that communicated both frustration and acceptance. “I couldn’t go off and leave them to get back here alone.”
    “We’d better have a look anyway.” Ben was already reaching for his hat. “Ask Nate to drive Shelly home, Willa.”
    “I’m coming with you.”
    “There’s no point, and you know it.” Ben took her shoulders. “No point.”
    “I’m coming anyway. I’ll get my coat.”

ELEVEN
    T HE SNOW CAME DOWN IN SHEETS . WHITE AND WILD AND wicked. By nightfall, there was nothing to see from the windows but a constant fall of thick flakes that built a wall between the glass and the rest of the world.
    Lily stared at it, tried to stare through it, while the heat from the blazing logs in the fire licked at her back and worry ate at her nerves.
    “Will you sit down?” Tess snapped, and hated the edge in her voice. “There’s nothing you can do.”
    “They’ve been gone a long time.”
    Tess knew how long they’d been gone. Exactly ninety-eight minutes. “Like I said, there’s nothing you can do.”
    “You could use some more tea. This is cold.” Even as Lily turned to gather the tray, Tess leaped to her feet.
    “Will you stop? Just stop waiting on me—on everyone. You’re not a servant around here. Just sit the hell down, for Christ’s sake.”
    She shuddered once, pressed her fingers to her eyes, and took a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, as Lily stood where she was, hands locked together, eyesblank. “I’ve got no business yelling at you. I’ve never seen anything like that. Never seen anything like that.”
    “It’s all right.” Empathy eased the tension in her fingers. “It was horrible. I know. Horrible.”
    They sat, on either end of the long leather couch, silent for a full thirty seconds while the wind beat at the windows with vicious gusts. Tess found herself holding back a sickly laugh.
    “Oh, hell.” She blew out a breath and repeated, “Oh, hell. What have we got ourselves into here, Lily?”
    “I don’t know.” The wind sent a demon howl down the chimney. “Are you scared?”
    “Damn right I’m scared. Aren’t you?”
    Eyes sober and steady, Lily pursed her lips in consideration. She lifted a fingertip, rubbed it lightly over her bottom lip. It tended to quiver, she knew, when fear had a grip on her.
    “I don’t think I am. I don’t understand it, not really, but I’m not scared, not the way I expect to be. Just sorry and sad. And worried,” she added, as her eyes were pulled back to the window and her mind drew a picture of three riders, lost in whirling white. “About Adam and Willa and Ben.”
    “They’ll be all right. They live here.”
    Nerves bouncing, Tess rose to pace. The sharp snap of a flame in the fireplace made her jump. Swear. “They know what they’re doing.” If they didn’t, she thought, who the hell did? “Maybe that’s why I’m so scared right now. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And I always do, you know. It’s one of my best things. Set the goal, form the plan, take the steps. But this time I don’t know what I’m doing.”
    Turning, she sent Lily a thoughtful look. “You do. You know what you’re doing with your tea trays and soup simmering and fire building.”
    Lily shook her head, forced herself to keep her eyes away from the windows. “Those aren’t important things.”
    “Maybe they are,” Tess said softly, then stiffened when she saw the glare of lights through the curtain of snow. “Someone’s here.”
    Because she