by Nora Roberts
“You’ve got it, on both counts. We can do it peaceable, or we can do it adversarial.” He gave Charlie an absent pat when the dog sat down beside him. “Don’t matter much to me either way.”
There were shadows under her eyes, he noted. Like smudged fingerprints against the golden skin. And her mouth, which he’d always found particularly appealing, was set in a hard, thin line. He preferred it snarling—and figured he knew how to bring that about.
“Are your sisters as pretty as you?” When she didn’t answer, his lips twitched. “Bet they’re friendlier. I’ll have to come calling, see for myself. Why don’t you invite me to supper, Will, and we can sit ourselves down and discuss plans for the ranch.” Now her eyes flashed up to his, and he grinned hugely. “Thought that would do it. Christ Almighty, you’ve got a face, and nothing suits it better than pure orneriness.”
She didn’t want him to tell her she was pretty, if that’s what he was doing. It always made her insides fumble around. “Why don’t you save your breath for getting this carcass up to bleed out?”
Rocking back on his heels, he studied her. “We can get this whole thing over quick. Just get ourselves married and be done with it.”
Though her hand clenched on the bloody knife, she took three slow, easy breaths. Oh, he was riding her, and she knew he’d like nothing better than to watch her scream and shout and stomp her feet. Instead she angled her head, and her voice was as cool as the water in the nearby stream.
“There’s about as much chance of that as there is of what’s left of this bear rearing up and biting you on the ass.”
He rose as she did, circled her wrist with his fingers, and ignored her quick jolt of protest. “I don’t want you any more than you want me. I just thought it would be easy on everybody if we got it out of the way. Life’s long, Willa,” he said more gently. “A year isn’t much.”
“Sometimes a day’s too much. Let go of me, Ben.” Her gaze lifted slowly. “A man who hesitates to listen to a woman with a knife in her hand deserves whatever he gets.”
He could have had the knife out of her hand in three seconds flat, but he decided to leave it where it was. “You’d like to stick me, wouldn’t you?” The fact that he knew it to be true both aroused and irritated him. But then, she usually managed to do both. “Get it through your head: I don’t want what’s yours. And I don’t plan on being bartered for more land and more cattle any more than you do.” She went pale at that, and he nodded. “We know where we stand, Will. Could be I’ll find one of your sisters to my taste, but meanwhile, it’s just business.”
The humiliation of it was as raw as the blood on her hands. “You son of a bitch.”
He shifted his grip to her knife hand, just in case. “I love you too, sweetheart. Now, I’ll hang the bear. You go wash up.”
“I shot it, I can—”
“A woman who hesitates to listen to a man with a knife in his hand deserves what she gets.” He smiled again, slow and easy. “Why don’t we try to make this business go down smooth for both of us?”
“It can’t.” All the passion and frustration that whirled inside her echoed in the two words. “You know it can’t. How would you take it if you were standing where I am?”
“I’m not,” he said simply. “Go wash the blood off. We’ve got a ways to ride yet today.”
He let her go, crouched again, knowing she was standing over him fighting to regain control. He didn’t fully relax until she’d stomped off toward the stream with his dog happily at her heels. Blowing out a breath, he looked down at the exposed fangs.
“She’d rather a bite from you than a kind word from me,” he muttered. “Goddamn women.”
While he finished the gruesome task, he admitted to himself that he’d lied. He did want her. The puzzle of it was, the less he wanted to, the more he did.
I T WAS NEARLY AN HOUR BEFORE SHE SPOKE AGAIN. THEY wore sheepskin jackets now against the cold and wind, and the horses were plodding through nearly a foot of snow, with Charlie happily blazing the trail.
“You take half the bear meat. It’s only right,” Willa said.
“I’m obliged.”
“Being obliged is the problem, isn’t it? Neither of us wants to be.”
He understood her, he thought, better than she might like. “Sometimes you have to swallow what you can’t spit out.”
“And sometimes you choke.” One of the wounds in her heart split open. “He left Adam next to nothing.”
Ben studied her profile. “Jack drew a hard line.” And Adam Wolfchild wasn’t blood, Ben thought. That would have been uppermost in Jack’s mind.
“Adam should have more.” Will have more, she promised herself.
“I’m not going to disagree with you when it comes to Adam. But if I know anyone who can take care of himself and make his own, it’s your brother.”
He’s all I’ve got left. She nearly said it before she caught herself, before she remembered it would be a mistake to open any part of her heart to Ben. “How’s Zack? I saw his plane this morning.”
“Checking fences. I’d have to say he’s happy, the way he goes around grinning like a fool day and night. He and Shelly dote on that baby.” They all did, Ben thought, but he wasn’t going to mention the fact that he couldn’t keep his hands off his infant niece.
“She’s a pretty baby. It’s still hard to see Zack McKinnon settling down to family life.”
“Shelly knows when to yank his reins.” Unable to resist, Ben grinned at her. “You’re not still carrying a torch for my baby brother, are you, Will?”
Amused, she shifted and smiled sweetly. There had been a brief time when they were teenagers that she and Zack had made calf’s eyes at each other. “Every time I think of him, my heart goes pitty-pat. Once a woman’s been kissed by Zack McKinnon, she’s spoiled for anyone else.”
“Honey . . .” He reached over, flipped her braid behind her back. “That’s because I’ve never kissed you.”
“I’d sooner kiss a two-tailed skunk.”
Laughing, he shifted his horse just enough so that his knee bumped Willa’s. “Zack’d be the first to tell you, I taught him everything he knows.”
“Maybe so, but I think I can live without either one of the McKinnon boys.” She jerked a shoulder, then turned her head slightly. “Smoke.” There was relief in that, in the sign of people and the near end of her solitary ride with Ben. “The crew’s probably in the cabin. It’s dinnertime.”
With another woman, any other woman, Ben thought, he could have reached over, pulled her close, and kissed her breathless. Just on principle. Since it was Willa, he eased back in the saddle and kept his hands to himself.
“I could eat. I’m going to want to round up the herd, get them down. More snow’s coming.”
She only grunted. She could smell it. But there was something else in the air. At first she wondered if it was the sensory echo from the bear and the blood on her hands, but it lingered, seemed to grow stronger.
“Something’s dead,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Something’s dead.” She straightened in the saddle, scanned the ridges and trees. It was dead quiet, dead still. “Can’t you smell it?”
“No.” But he didn’t doubt she could, and he turned his horse as she did. Already on the scent, Charlie was moving ahead. “It’s the Indian in you. One of the hands probably shot dinner.”
It made sense. They would have brought provisions, and the cabin was always stocked, but fresh game was hard to resist. Still, that didn’t explain the dread in her stomach or the chill along her spine.
There was the scream of an eagle overhead, the wild, soul-stirring echo of it, then the utter silence of the mountains. The sun glittered off the snow, blinding. Following instinct, Willa left the rough path and walked her horse over broken, uneven ground.
“We don’t have a lot of time for detours,” Ben reminded her.
“Then go on.”
He swore, reaching around to
check that his rifle was within easy reach. There were bear here, too. And cougar. He thought of camp, hardly more than ten minutes away, and the hot coffee that would be boiling to mud on the stove.
Then he saw it. His nose might not have been as sharp as hers, but his eyes were. Blood was splattered and pooled over the snow, splashed against rock. The black hide of the steer was coated with it. The dog stopped circling the mangled steer and raced back to the horses.
“Well, shit.” Ben was already dismounting. “Made a mess of it.”
“Wolves?” It was more than the market price to Willa. It was the waste, the cruelty.
He started to agree, then stopped short. A wolf didn’t kill, then leave the meat. A wolf didn’t hack and slice. No predator but one did.
“A man.”
Willa drew a sharp breath as she stepped closer, saw the damage. The throat had been slit, the belly disemboweled. Charlie pressed against her legs, shivering. “It’s been butchered. Mutilated.”
She crouched, and thought of the bear. No choice there but to kill, and the field dressing had been done efficiently with the tools at hand. But this—this was wild and vicious and without purpose.
“Almost within sight of the cabin,” she said. “The blood’s frozen. It was probably done hours ago, before sunup.”
“It’s one of yours,” Ben told her after checking the brand.
“Doesn’t matter whose.” But she noted the number on the yellow ear tag. The death would have to be recorded. She rose and stared over at the stream of smoke rising. “It matters why. Have you lost any cattle this way?”
“No.” He straightened to stand beside her. “Have you?”
“Not until now. I can’t believe it’s one of my men.” She took a shallow breath. “Or yours. There must be someone else camping up here.”
“Maybe.” He was frowning down at the ground. They stood shoulder to shoulder now, linked by the waste at their feet. She didn’t jerk away when he ran a hand down her braid, or when he laid that hand companionably on her arm. “We had more snow, a lot of wind. The ground’s pretty trampled up, but it looks like some tracks heading north. I’ll take some men and check it out.”
“It’s my cow.”
He shifted his eyes to hers. “It doesn’t matter whose,” he repeated. “We have to get both herds rounded up and down the mountain, and we have to report this. I figure I can count on you for that.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again. He was right. She was next to useless at tracking, but she could organize a drive. With a nod, she turned back to her horse. “I’ll talk to my men.”
“Will.” Now he laid a hand over hers, leather against leather, before she could mount. “Watch yourself.”
She vaulted into the saddle. “They’re my men,” she said simply, and rode toward the rising smoke.
S HE FOUND HER MEN ABOUT TO HAVE THEIR MIDDAY MEAL when she came into the cabin. Pickles was at the little stove, sturdy legs spread, ample belly spilling over the wide buckle of his belt. He was barely forty and balding fast, compensating for it with a ginger-colored moustache that grew longer every year. He’d earned his name from his obsessive love of dill pickles, and his personality was just as sour.
When he saw Willa, he grunted in greeting, sniffed, and turned back to the ham he was frying.
Jim Brewster sat with his booted feet on the table, enjoying the last of a Marlboro. He was just into his thirties with a face pretty enough for framing. Two dimples winked in his cheeks, and dark hair waved to his collar. He beamed at Willa and sent her a cocky wink that made his blue eyes twinkle.
“Got us company for dinner, Pickles.”
Pickles gave another sour grunt, belched, and flipped his ham. “Barely enough meat for two as it is. Get your lazy ass up and open some beans.”
“Snow’s coming.” Willa tossed her coat over a hook and headed for the radio.
“ ’Nother week easy.”
She turned her head, met Pickles’s sulky brown eyes. “I don’t think so. We’ll start rounding up today.” She waited, holding his gaze. He hated taking his orders from a female, and they both knew it.
“Your cattle,” he muttered, and turned the ham out onto a platter.
“Yes, they are. And one of them’s been butchered a quarter mile east of here.”
“Butchered?” Jim paused in the act of handing Pickles an open can of beans. “Cougar?”
“Not unless cats are carrying knives these days. Someone opened one up, hacked it to pieces, and left it.”
“Bullshit.” Eyes narrowed, Pickles took a step forward.
“That’s just shit, Will. We’ve lost a couple to cougar. Jim and me tracked a cat just yesterday. She musta circled around and got another cow, that’s all.”
“I know the difference between claws and a knife.” She inclined her head. “Go look for yourself. Dead east, about a quarter mile.”
“Damned if I won’t.” Pickles stomped over for his coat, muttering about women.
“Sure it couldn’t have been a cat?” Jim asked the minute the door slammed.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Get me some coffee, would you, Jim? I’m going to radio the ranch. I want Ham to know we’re heading down.”
“McKinnon’s men are up here, but—”
“No.” She shook her head, pulled out a chair. “No cowboy I know does that.”
She contacted the ranch, listening to static, waiting for it to clear. The coffee and the crackling fire chased the worst of the chill away as she made arrangements for the drive. She was on her second cup when she finished passing the information along to the McKinnon ranch.
Pickles slammed back in. “Son of a bitching bastard.”
Accepting this as the only apology she’d get, Willa moved to the stove and filled her plate. “I rode up with Ben McKinnon. He’s following some tracks. We’re going to help get his herd down with our own. Has either of you seen anyone around here? Campers, hunters, eastern assholes?”
“Came across a campsite yesterday when we were tracking the cat.” Jim sat again with his plate. “But it was cold. Two or three days cold.”
“Left goddamn beer cans.” Pickles ate standing up. “Like it was their own backyard. Oughta be shot for it.”
“Sure that cow wasn’t shot?” Jim looked to Pickles for confirmation, a fact that Willa struggled not to resent. “You know how some of those city boys are—shoot at anything that moves.”
“Wasn’t shot. Ain’t no tourist done that.” Pickles shoved beans into his mouth. “Fucking teenagers what it is. Fucking crazy teenagers all doped up.”
“Maybe. If it was, Ben’ll find them easy enough.” But she didn’t think it had been teenagers. It seemed to Willa it took a lot more years to work up that kind of rage.
Jim pushed the barely warm beans around on his plate. “Ah, we heard about how things are.” He cleared his throat. “We radioed in last night, and Ham, he figured he should, you know, tell us how things are.”
She pushed her plate away and stood. “Then I’ll tell you just how things are.” Her voice was very cool, very quiet. “Mercy Ranch runs the way it always has. The old man’s in the ground, and now I’m operator. You take your orders from me.”
Jim exchanged a quick look with Pickles, then scratched his cheek. “I didn’t mean to say different, Will. We were just sorta wondering how you were going to keep the others, your sisters, on the ranch.”
“They’ll take their orders from me too.” She jerked her coat off the hook. “Now, if you’ve finished your meal, let’s get saddled up.”
“Goddamn women,” Pickles muttered as soon as the door was safely closed behind her. “Don’t know one that isn’t a bossy bitch.”
“That’s ’cause you don’t know enough women.” Jim strolled over for his coat. “And that one is the boss.”
“For the time being.”
“She’s the boss today.” Jim shrugged into his coat, pulled out his gloves. “And today’s what we’ve got.”
/> FOUR
I N DEALINGS WITH HER MOTHER—AND TESS ALWAYS thought of contacts with Louella as dealings—Tess prepped herself with a dose of extra-strength Excedrin. There would be a headache, she knew, so why chase the pain?
She chose mid-morning, knowing it was the only time of day she would be likely to find Louella at home in her Bel Air condo. By noon she would be out and about, having her hair done, or her nails, indulging in a facial or a shopping spree.
By four, Louella would be at her club, Louella’s, joking with the bartender or regaling the waitresses with tales of her life and loves as a Vegas showgirl.
Tess did her very best to avoid Louella’s. Though the condo didn’t make her much happier.
It was a lovely little stucco in California Spanish with a tiled roof, graceful shrubbery. It could, and should, have been a small showplace. But as Tess had said on more than one occasion, Louella Mercy could make Buckingham Palace tacky.
When she arrived, promptly at eleven, she tried to ignore what Louella cheerfully called her lawn art. The lawn jockey with the big, stupid grin, the rearing plaster lions, the glowing blue moonball on its concrete pedestal, and the fountain of the serene-faced girl pouring water from the mouth of a rather startled-looking carp.
Flowers grew in profusion, in wild, clashing colors that seared the eyes. There was no rhyme or reason to the arrangement, no plot or plan. Whatever plants caught Louella’s eye had been plunked down wherever Louella’s whim had dictated. And, Tess mused, she had a lot of whims.
Standing amid a bed of scarlet and orange impatiens was the newest addition, the headless torso of the goddess Nike. Tess shook her head and rang the bell that played the first bump-and-grind bars of “The Stripper.”
Louella opened the door herself and enfolded her daughter in draping silks, heavy perfume, and the candy scent of discount cosmetics. Louella never stepped beyond her own bedroom door in less than full makeup.
She was a tall woman, lushly built, with mile-long legs that still could—and did—execute a high kick. The natural color of her hair had been forgotten long ago. It had been blond for years, as brassy a tone as Louella’s huge laugh, and worn big, in a teased and lacquered style admired by TV evangelists. She had a striking face despite the troweled-on layers of base and powder and blush, with strong bones and full lips, slicked now with high-gloss red. Her eyes were baby blue, as was the shadow that decorated their lids, with the brows above them mercilessly plucked and stenciled into dark, thin brackets.
