"Roberts, Nora - Mind Over Matter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

It was up to her now. It was all up to her. Jack Mercy was no longer
Mercy Ranch, Willa reminded herself. She was.

She listened to the preacher speak of everlasting life, of forgiveness
and the welcome of heaven. And thought that Jack Mercy would spit on
anyone's welcome into a place other than his own. Montana had been
his, this wide country of mountain and meadow, of eagle and wolf.

Her father would be as miserable in heaven as he would in hell.

Her face remained calm as the fancy coffin was lowered into the newest
scar in the earth. Her skin was pale gold, a legacy from her mother
and her Blackfoot blood as much as the sun. Her eyes, nearly as black
as the hair she'd hurriedly twisted into a braid for the funeral,
remained fixed on the box that held her father's body. She hadn't worn
a hat, and the sun beamed like fire into her eyes. But she didn't let
them tear.

She had a proud face, high cheekbones, a wide, haughty mouth, dark,
exotic eyes with heavy lids and thick lashes. She'd broken her nose
falling off an angry wild mustang when she was eight. Willa liked to
think the slight left turn it took in the center of her face added
character.

Character meant a great deal more to Willa Mercy than beauty. Men
didn't respect beauty, she knew. They used it.

She stood very still, the wind picking up strands from her braid and
teasing them into a dance. A woman of average height and tough, rangy
build in an ill-fitting black dress and dainty black heels that had
never been out of their box before that morning. A woman of
twenty-four with work on her mind, and a raging, tearing grief in her
heart.

She had, despite everything, loved Jack Mercy. And she said nothing,
not one word, to the two women, the strangers who shared her blood and
had come to see their father buried.

For a moment, just one moment, she let her gaze shift, let it rest on
the grave of Mary Wolfchild Mercy. The mother she couldn't remember
was buried under a soft mound of wildflowers that bloomed like jewels
in the autumn sun. Adam's doing, she thought, and looked up and into
the eyes of her half brother. He would know as no one else could that
she had tears in her heart she could never let free.

When Adam took her hand, Willa linked fingers with his. In her mind,
and heart, he was all the family she had now.

"He lived the life that satisfied him," Adam murmured. His voice was