Montana Sky

still around, watching?”
    “Like you said, nothing’s happened in weeks. Odds are he’s long gone.”
    “If you believe that, why are you here most every day, using every lame excuse in the book to drop by?”
    “They aren’t so lame,” he muttered, then shrugged. “There’s you.” He didn’t bother to scowl when she snorted. “There is you,” he repeated. “And there’s the ranch. And yeah, I think about it.” He tilted her head up again and kissed her hard and quick. “Tell you what, I’ll just ride by Nate’s and make sure she got there.”
    “Nobody’s asking you to check up on my problems.”
    “Nope, nobody is.” He lifted her, set her aside, then rose. “One day you might just ask me for something, Willa. You might just break down and ask. Meanwhile I’ll do things my own way. Go on to bed,” he told her. “You need a decent night’s sleep. I’ll see to your sister.”
    She frowned after him as he walked out, and wondered what he was waiting for her to ask.
     
    T ESS GOT THERE . SHE CONSIDERED IT A FINE ADVENTURE to drive through the light snowfall in the deep country dark. She had the radio turned up to blast, and by some minor miracle she found a station that played downright rock. She wailed along with Rod Stewart as she approached the lights of Nate’s ranch.
    Tidy as a Currier and Ives painting, she decided. The well-plowed dirt road with its fresh sprinkle of white, theneat outbuildings and rectangles of fence, the rising shadows of trees.
    Her headlights must have stirred the horses, as three trotted out of the barn and into the corral to watch her drive by.
    Pretty as a painting themselves, she thought, with their flowing tails and dancing hooves. One of them loped over to the fence, luring her into slowing down to study its trim lines and glossy color.
    She drove on, taking the gentle curve in the road that led to the main house. It, too, was pretty and neat. Unpretentious, she decided, a boxy two stories with a generous covered porch, white shutters against dark wood, double chimneys with smoke pumping into the snowy sky. Simple, she mused, hold the pretenses and fancywork. Just like the man who lived there.
    She was smiling as she gathered up her bag, the gift, and climbed out of the rig. And managed, barely, to hold back the scream when she spotted the wildcat.
    She took three stumbling steps back, rapped up hard against the rig. The cat’s eyes stared into hers. It was dead, stone cold dead and draped over the hitching rail. But it gave her a very bad moment.
    The fangs and claws were lethally sharp and told her exactly what would happen to a woman careless enough to stumble onto a live one. It hadn’t been mutilated, and the lack of blood settled her thundering heart. It was simply draped, like a rug, she thought in wonder, over the rail. With a shudder, she gave it a wide berth and climbed the steps to the front door.
    What kind of people, she wondered, draped the carcass of a wildcat over their front entrance? With a nervous laugh, she looked down at the gift in her hand. Then read Keats?
    Jesus, what a country.
    Even as she lifted her hand to knock, the door opened. In the mood she was in, Tess was pleased she didn’t add a shriek to her jolt.
    The short, dark woman studied her solemnly. She was nearly as wide as she was tall, wrapped now in a thick blackcoat and many scarves. Her black hair was bundled under yet another scarf, but Tess could see it was salted with gray.
    “Señorita,” she said in a gorgeous, fluid voice. “May I help you?”
    The liquid, sexy voice coming out of the tiny, wrinkled face fascinated Tess, and she immediately started casting character. Her smile spread and brightened. “Hello, I’m Tess Mercy.”
    “Yes, Señorita Mercy.” At the Mercy name, the woman opened the door wider, stepping back in invitation.
    “I’d like to see Nate, if he’s free.”
    “He’s in his office. Just down the hall. I will show you.”
    “You’re on your way out.” And Tess didn’t want her arrival announced. “I can find it. Señora . . . ?”
    “Cruz.” She blinked a moment at Tess’s offered hand, then took it in a brisk grip. “Mister Nate will be pleased to see you.”
    Will he? Tess thought, but she continued to smile. “I have a little gift for him,” she said, and held up the brightly wrapped book. “A surprise.”
    “That is very generous. It is the third door on the left.” The ghost of a smile around the woman’s