by Nora Roberts
“That’s the way.”
“Yeah. But the other two.” She turned, looked out again at the snow and the hills and the land. “I don’t think they understand yet just how much money’s involved, what those jackasses’ll pay to get hold of a ranch like this. Hollywood, she’ll figure it out sooner or later. And then . . . they’ve got me two to one, Ben.”
“The will holds the land for ten years.”
“I know what it said. But things change. With enough money and enough pressure they could change quicker.” And ten years was nothing, she thought, in the grand scheme of things. Her grand scheme to turn Mercy into not one of the best but the best. “I can’t buy them out after the year’s up. I’ve figured it every way it can be figured, and I just can’t. There’s money, sure, but most of it’s in the land and on the hoof. When the year’s up, they’ll own two-thirds to my one.”
“No point worrying over what can’t be changed, or what may or may not happen.” He stroked a hand down her hair once, then a second time. “Maybe what you need is a distraction. Just a little one.”
He turned her again, then shook his head. “Don’t go shying off. I’ve been thinking a lot about this since the first time.” He touched his lips to hers, a teasing brush. “See? That didn’t hurt anything.”
Her lips were vibrating, but she couldn’t claim it was painful. “I don’t want to get all started up again. There’s too much going on for distractions.”
“Darling.” He leaned down, toyed with her lips again. “That’s just when you need them most. And I’m willing to bet this makes us both feel a lot better.”
His eyes stayed open and on hers as he gathered her close, as he lowered his head, rubbed lip to lip. “It’s working for me already,” he murmured, then quick as lightning, deepened the kiss.
The jolt, the heat, the yearning all melded together to swim in her head, through her whole body. And she forgot, when the sensations seized her, to be worried or tired or afraid. It was easy to move into him, to press close and let everything else fall away.
And harder, much harder than she’d anticipated, to pull back and remember.
“Maybe I’ve been thinking about it, too.” She raised a hand to keep the distance between them. “But I haven’t finished thinking about it.”
“As long as I’m the first to know when you do.” He twined her hair around his finger, released it. “We’d better go downstairs before I give you too much to think about.”
The riders coming in fast caught his eye. With one hand resting on Willa’s shoulder, he stepped closer to the window. “Adam’s back with your sisters.”
She saw them, and more. “Something’s wrong. Something’s happened.”
He could see for himself the way Adam helped Lily out of the saddle, and held on to her. “Something’s happened,” he agreed. “Let’s go find out.”
They were halfway down the stairs when the front door swung open. Tess strode in first. The cold had whipped strong color into her cheeks, but her eyes were huge, her lips white.
“It was a deer,” she said. “Just a deer. Bambi’s mom,” she managed, and a tear slipped out of her eye as Nate came down the hall from the kitchen. “Oh, God, why would anybody do that to Bambi’s mom?”
“Ssh.” Nate draped an arm over her shoulders. “Let’s go sit down, honey.”
“Lily, let’s go in with Tess.”
She shook her head and kept her hand gripped tight in Adam’s. “No, I’m all right. Really. I’m going to make some tea. It would be better if we had some tea. Excuse me.”
“Adam.” Willa watched Lily hurry toward the kitchen. “What the hell happened? Did you shoot a 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, eyes blank. “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. “Th
ose 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 once again didn’t know what to do—run? hide?—Tess turned deliberately and walked into the foyer, to the front door to open it. Moments later, Nate appeared, coated with white.
“Get back inside,” he ordered, nudging her out of the way as he closed the door behind him. “Are they back yet?”
“No. Lily and I . . .” She gestured toward the living area. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a bad one,” he said. “I got Shelly and the baby home all right, but barely made it back.” He took off his hat, shook off snow. “It’s been two hours now. I’ll give them a few more minutes before I head out after them.”
“You’re going out again. In that?” She’d never experienced a blizzard, but was certain she was living through one now. And blizzards killed. “Are you insane?”
He merely gave her shoulder an absent pat—a man with his mind obviously elsewhere. “Got any coffee hot? I could use a cup. And a thermos to go.”
“You’re not going out in that.” In a gesture she knew to be foolish even as she made it, she stepped between Nate and the door. “No one’s going out in that.”
He smiled, traced a fingertip down her cheek. He didn’t see her gesture as foolish, but as sweet. “Worried about me?”
Terrified was closer to it, but she’d think about that later. “Frostbite, hypothermia. Death.” She snapped off the words like frozen twigs. “I’d be worried about anyone who didn’t have the good sense to stay inside during a storm like this.”
“Three of my friends are out in it.” His voice was quiet, the purpose behind them unshakable. “Coffee would help, Tess. Black and hot.” Before she could speak, he held up a hand, cocked his head. “There. That should be them.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“They’re back,” Nate said simply, and settling his hat again, went out to meet them.
• • •
H E WAS RIGHT. WHICH MADE TESS DECIDE NATE HAD THE ears of a cat. They came in out of the howling wind layered with snow. Gathered in the living room, drinking coffee Bess had delivered within minutes, they thawed out.
“Too much snow to see anything.” Ben sank into a deep chair as Adam sat cross-legged in front of the fire. “We got out all right, but there was already a couple new inches down. No way to track.”
“But you saw.” Tess perched on the arm of the sofa. “You saw what was there.”
“Yeah.” With a quick glance at Adam, Willa moved her shoulders. She didn’t see any point in adding that the wolves had come back. “I’ll talk to the men about it in the morning. There’s enough to do now.”
“To do now?” Tess echoed.
“They’re already out rounding up the herd, getting them into shelter. I’ll find Ham.”
“Wait.” Certain that she was the only sane person left, Tess held up a hand. “You’re going back out in this. For cows?”
“They’d die in this,” Willa said briskly.
As Tess watched in amazement, everyone but her and Lily shrugged back into outdoor gear and headed out. With a shake of her head, she reached for the brandy. “For cows,” she muttered. “For a bunch of stupid cows.”
“They’ll be hungry when they get back.” Lily didn’t look out the window this time, nor did she listen for the engine of the four-wheeler. “I’ll go help Bess with supper.”
She could be irritated, Tess thought, or resigned. She decided that being resigned was easier on the system. “I’m not going to sit here alone.” But she took the brandy with her as she caught up with Lily. “Do you get storms like this back east?”
Distracted, Lily shook her head. “We get our share of snow in Virginia, but I haven’t seen anything quite like this. It comes in so quickly, with so much wind. I can’t imagine having to be out in it, to work in it. I expect Nate will stay the night, don’t you? I’ll have to ask Bess if there’s a room ready for him.”
She pushed open the kitchen door and found Bess already at the stove nursing an enormous pot steaming fragrantly. “Stew,” Bess announced, sampling from a wooden spoon. “Enough for an army. Needs an hour or two yet to simmer.”
“They’ve gone out again.” Automatically, Lily went to the pantry to take an apron from a peg. Tess raised an eyebrow at the ease of the gesture. Already routine, she realized.
“Figured as much,” said Bess. “I’m going to put together an apple cobbler here.” She glanced at Tess, sniffed at the brandy in her hand. “You looking to be useful?”
“Not particularly.”
“The woodboxes are half empty,” Bess told her, and hauled a basket of apples out of the pantry. “The men don’t have time to bring in fuel.”
Tess swirled the brandy in her hand. “You expect me to go outside and bring in wood?”
“The power goes out, girl, you’ll want to keep your butt warm just like the rest of us.”
“The power.” At the idea of losing power, of being stuck in the cold, in the dark through the night, her color drained.
“We got a generator.” Bess moved her shoulders as she began briskly paring apples. “But we can’t waste it on heating bedrooms when we got plenty of fuel. You want to sleep warm, you bring in wood. You give her a hand, Lily. She needs it more than I do. There’s a rope leading from that door there to the woodpile. You follow that, and bring it in by hand. You won’t be able to push the wheelbarrow through the snow, and there’s no use shoveling the path out until it’s done falling. Get bundled up good, take a flashlight.”
“All right.” Lily took one look at Tess’s annoyed face. “I can bring it in. Why don’t you stay inside, and you can carry wood up to the bedrooms?”
It was tempting. Very. Even now Tess could hear the frigid howl of the wind threatening the kitchen windows. But the smirk on Bess’s face caused her to set her snifter aside. “We’ll both bring it in.”
“Not with those fancy lady’s gloves,” Bess called out as they started out. “Get yourself some work gloves from the mudroom after you’ve got the rest of your gear on.”
“Hauling in wood,” Tess muttered on her way to the foyer closet. “There’s probably enough inside already to last a week. She’s just doing this to get to me.”
“She wouldn’t ask us to go out if it wasn’t necessary.”
Tess dragged on her coat, then shrugged. “She wouldn’t ask you,” she agreed, then plopped down at the base of the steps to tug on her boots. “The two of you seem to be pretty chummy.”
“I think she’s great.” Lily wound the knit scarf around her neck twice before buttoning her coat over it. “She’s been nice to me. She’d be nice to you too, if you’d . . .”
Squashing a ski cap onto her head, Tess nodded. “No, don’t spare my feelings. If I’d what—?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re a little abrasive with her. Abrupt.”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be if she wasn’t always finding some idiotic chore for me to do, then complaining that I don’t do it to her specifications. I’ll get frostbite bringing in this damn wood, and she’ll say I didn’t stack it right. You wait and see.”
Miffed, she headed back down the hall again, went through the kitchen without a word and into the mudroom to hunt up a pair of thick, oversized work gloves.
“Ready?” Lily grabbed a flashlight and prepared to follow Tess.
The minute Tess opened the door, the wind slapped ice-edged snow into their faces. Wide-eyed, they stared at each other; it was Lily who took the first step into the wolf bite of the wind.
They grabbed the leading rope, pulling themselves along as the wind shoved them rudely back a step for every three they took. Boots sank knee-deep into snow, and the flashlight bobbled along through the dark like a drunken moonbeam. They all but stumbled over the tarp-covered woodpile.
Tess kept a grip on the
flashlight and held her arms out while Lily filled them with wood. Legs spread to hold her balance, the tip of her nose tingling, Tess gritted her teeth. “Hell has nothing to do with fire,” she shouted. “Hell is winter in Montana.”
Lily smiled a little and began to fill her own arms. “Once we’re inside and warm, with the fires going, we’ll look out and think it’s pretty.”
“Bullshit,” Tess muttered as they fought their way back to the house to dump the first load. “How bad do you want a warm bed?”
Lily looked toward the toasty kitchen, then back out into the thundering storm. “Pretty bad.”
“Yeah.” Tess sighed, rolled her shoulders. “Me too. Once more into the breach.”
They repeated the routine three times, and Tess began to get into the swing of it. Until she lost her footing and fell headlong and face first into a three-foot drift. The flashlight buried itself like a mole in topsoil.
“Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?” In her rush to help, Lily leaned over, lost her balance, overcompensated, and sat down hard on her butt. With her breath gone, she stayed where she was, sunk to the waist, while Tess rolled over and spat out snow.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Struggling to sit up, Tess narrowed her eyes at Lily’s giggles. “What’s so goddamn funny? We’ll be buried any minute, and they won’t find us until the spring thaw.” But she felt her own laughter bubbling up as she studied Lily, sitting in a deep throne of snow like some miniature ice queen. “And you look like an idiot.”
“So do you.” Breath hitching, Lily pressed a snow-coated glove to her heart. “And you’re the one with a beard.”
Philosophically, Tess swiped the snow off her chin and tossed it into Lily’s face. It was all they needed. Despite the mule kick of the wind, they scooped snow into lopsided balls and pummeled each other. Shrieking now, scrambling to their knees, they heaved and tossed and dodged. They were no more than a foot apart, so aim wasn’t a factor in the battle. Speed was all that mattered. As snow slapped her face and snuck down the collar of her coat, Tess had to admit that Lily had her there. She might appear delicate, but she had an arm like a bullet.