Montana Sky

shifted. “I’ve been thinking about this since the first time I saw you.”
    He gripped her hips as she rose over him, held her there while both of them quivered. “Yeah? Well, that makes two of us.”
    She braced her hands on his shoulders, let her fingers dig in for purchase. “Why’d we wait so long?”
    “Damned if I know.” Slowly, his eyes locked on hers, he lowered her, pierced her, filled her. She shuddered once, moaned low and long in her throat, and didn’t move a muscle. Her eyes closed, then opened.
    “Yes,” she said, and smiled again.
    “Yes.” His hands stayed fastened on her hips as she rode him, hard and fast and well.
     
    L ATER . WHEN SHE WAS LIMP IN HIS ARMS . HE MANAGED to reach the phone. She moaned a little as he shifted her, dialed.
    “Will? It’s Nate. Tess is here . . . Yeah. She’ll be staying here tonight.” He turned his head, nipped at her bare shoulder, and realized he’d never gotten that dress completely off. Plenty of time for that, he thought, and tuned back in to Willa’s voice. “No, she’s fine. She’s great. She’ll be back in the morning. ’Bye.”
    “That was considerate of you,” Tess murmured. She’d popped a few of the buttons off his shirt somewhere along the line, and now enjoyed the smooth bare skin of his chest under her lazy fingertips.
    “She’d worry.” He worked the bunched-up dress from around her waist and pulled it over her head. Now she wore nothing but lace-topped stockings, sexy high heels, and a satisfied smirk. The smirk was the only thing he wanted to see slip off her. “How do you feel?”
    “I feel wonderful.” Tossing back her hair, she linked her hands behind his neck. “And you?”
    He slipped his hands under her bottom, lifting her as he rose. “Lucky,” he told her, and laid her back on his desk. He took a moment to toss the legal pad that rested beside her head over his shoulder. “And about to get luckier.”
    Surprised, interested, she grinned. “My, my, round two already?”
    “Just hold on, honey.” He ran his hands up and over her, pleased when she trembled. “And hold on tight.”
    It didn’t take long for her to take the warning seriously.

THIRTEEN
    T HE TEMPERATURE ROSE ON NEW YEAR ’ S EVE . ONE OF EL Niño’s wild weather patterns that make sense only to God brought bright blue skies, sunlight, and warm air. Though it would mean mud and slop—and ice when the wind blew capriciously again—it was a moment to be enjoyed.
    Willa rode fences in a light denim jacket, whistling as she made repairs. The mountains were snowcapped, the white lacing deep in the folds and waves. The chinook had teased patches of ground and grass through the white in pastures, while the snowpack along the ranch roads was still higher than a rig. But the cottonwoods had lost their ermine trim and stood bare and black with wet while the pines rose sassily green.
    She thought it was Lily’s simple happiness that was influencing her mood. The woman’s holiday mood was still in high gear, and only a true grinch could have resisted it.
    Why else, Willa thought, had she agreed to Lily’s hesitant request for a New Year’s Eve party? All those people in the house, Willa mused, having to dress up, make conversation. With everything else on her mind, it should have been a misery.
    But she could admit, at least to herself, that she was looking forward to it.
    Even now, Lily and Bess and Nell were huddled in the kitchen creating the feast. The house had been scrubbed raw and polished blind, and Willa had orders to be bathed and dressed by eight sharp. She would do it, Willa realized, for Lily.
    Somehow over the months she’d fallen in love with the stranger who had become her sister.
    Who wouldn’t? she asked herself as she mounted Moon and rode on. Lily was sweet and kind and patient. And vulnerable. No matter how hard she’d tried to maintain a distance between them, they had grown closer and closer until now she couldn’t imagine Mercy without Lily’s touch.
    Lily liked to gather twigs, stick them in old bottles. And somehow she made them look cheerful and charming. She hunted up old bowls out of cupboards, filled them with fruit, or dumped pinecones into straw baskets. She snuck plants out of the pool house and scattered them through the rooms.
    When no one complained, she’d foraged for more, digging candlesticks out of closets, buying scented candles and lighting them in the evening so that the house smelled of