Sierra's Homecoming (18 page)

Hannah held the thick volume reverently, savoring the anticipation for a few moments before opening it to look at the title page, memorize the author's name, as well as that of the artist who'd done the original woodcuttings and metal etchings for the pictures.

When she couldn't bear to wait another moment, Hannah turned that page, expecting to read the table of contents. Instead, there was a note, written in Doss's strong, clear handwriting.

An emotion Hannah could not recognize swelled in her throat, fairly cutting off her breath. She traced his name with her eyes and then with the tip of her index finger. Doss McKettrick. As if men by that name were common as thorns in a blackberry thicket, and any one of them might be her husband. As if he had to be sure she knew which one would give her a book and which had noticed how fiercely, how desperately she craved that first green stirring in the cold earth and in the bare-limbed branches of trees.

Did he know how she listened for the breaking of the ice on the pond far back in the woods behind the house? How she watched the frigid sky for the first brave birds, carrying back the merry little songs she pined for, in the secret regions of her heart, when the snow was just beginning to seep into the ground?

Hannah closed the book, held it against her chest.

Then she opened it again and carefully turned to the first illustration, a lovely colored woodcut of purple crocuses, blooming above a thin snowfall. She drank them in, surfeited herself on lilacs and climbing roses, sweet williams and peonies.

Doss had given her
flowers,
in the dead of winter. Just looking at the pictures, she could imagine their distinctive scents, the shape of their petals, the depth upon depth of their various colors—everything from the palest of whites to the fathomless purples and crimsons.

She gobbled them all greedily with her eyes, page after page of them, tumbled flower-drunk into sleep and dreamed of them. Dreamed of spring, of trout quickening in the creeks, of green grass and of fresh, warm breezes teasing her hair and tingling on her skin.

When she wakened, drowsy and confused, the room was lavender with twilight, and a rim of golden light edged the lower part of the door. She heard Doss and Tobias talking in the next room, knew by a series of decisive clicks that they were playing checkers. Tobias gave a shout of triumphant laughter, and the sound seemed so poignant to Hannah that tears thickened in her throat.

She got up, used the chamber pot, washed her hands at the basin. She rummaged for her flannel wrapper, pulled it on and crossed the cold wooden floor to the door.

Opened it.

Tobias and Doss both turned to look at her.

Tobias smiled, delighted.

Doss looked shy, as though they'd just met. He got up suddenly, came to her, took her arm. Escorted her to a chair.

“Don't fuss,” she scolded, but it was after the fussing was through.

“I beat Uncle Doss
four
times!” Tobias crowed.

“Did you?” Hannah asked, deliberately widening her eyes.

Doss went over to the other bed, pulled the quilt off, made Hannah stand, wrapped her up like renderings in a sausage skin and sat her down again.

What am I to make of you, Doss McKettrick?
she asked silently.

“I'll go down and order us some supper,” Doss said.

“Has your uncle Jeb gone?” Hannah asked Tobias, when they were alone.

Tobias nodded, kneeling on the floor, stacking checker pieces into red and black towers that teetered on the wooden board. “He took the afternoon train back to Phoenix. Said to tell you he hoped you'd be feeling better soon.”

“I wish I could have said goodbye,” Hannah said, but it wasn't the complete truth. She'd not been eager to face Doss's uncle; he was half again too wise and, besides, he must have known that her new husband had spent much of their wedding night in a saloon, just to avoid her. He'd never have mentioned it, of course, but she'd have seen the knowledge in his eyes.

Would he tell his wife, Chloe, when he got home? Would she, in turn, tell Emmeline and Mandy and the other McKettrick women? Get them all feeling sorry for poor Hannah?

She'd know soon enough. Concerned letters would begin arriving, probably in the next batch of mail, full of wary congratulations and carefully worded questions. The Aunts, as both Gabe and Doss had always referred to them, were not gossips, so she needn't fear scandal from that quarter, but they would have plenty of private discussions among themselves, and they'd give Doss what for when they returned to the Triple M in the spring, settling into their houses on all parts of the ranch, throwing open windows and doors, planting gardens and entertaining a steady stream of children and grandchildren.

Hannah thought she would have welcomed even their curiosity, if it meant the long winter was over.

“Ma?”

Hannah realized she'd let her mind wander and turned her attention to Tobias, who was studying her closely and clearly had something of moment to say. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Is Uncle Doss my pa, now that you and him are married?”

Hannah blinked. Took in a slow breath and took her time letting it out. “I told you before, Tobias. Doss is still your uncle. Your father will always be—your father.”

Tobias's forehead creased as he frowned. “But Pa's
dead,
” he said.

Hannah sighed. “Yes.”

“Uncle Doss is
alive.
”

“He certainly is.”

“I want a pa. Somebody to take me fishin' and teach me how to shoot.”

“Uncles can do those things.” Hannah didn't want Tobias within a mile of a gun, but she didn't have the strength to fight that battle just then, so she let it go.

“It isn't the same,” Tobias reasoned.

“Tobias, there are some things in this life a person has to accept. Your father is gone. Doss is your uncle, not your pa. You'll just have to make the best of that.”

“The best would be if he was my pa instead of my uncle.”

“Tobias.”

“You said once that Uncle Doss would be my stepfather if you got married. Now, you're his wife. So if you leave off the ‘step' part, that makes him my pa.”

Hannah rubbed her temples with her fingertips.

Tobias beamed. Eight years old, and he could argue like a senior senator at a campaign picnic.

The door to the corridor opened, and Doss came in, followed by two maids carrying trays laden with food.

“Pa's back,” Tobias said.

Hannah's gaze locked with Doss's. Something passed between them, silent and charged.

Hannah looked away first.

Present Day

“Y
ou need time to absorb all this,” Eve told Sierra the next morning at the breakfast table. Eve had made waffles for them all, and everyone had eaten with a hearty appetite. Now Liam was upstairs, dressing for his first visit to Indian Rock Elementary School—Sierra planned to register him but wasn't sure he was ready for a full day of class—and Travis had given the ranch house a wide berth ever since their return from Flagstaff the previous afternoon. “So I'm going to leave,” Eve finished, gently decisive.

Sierra, who had spent a largely sleepless night, had mixed feelings about Eve's going away. On the one hand, there were so many things she wanted to know about her mother—things that had nothing to do with their long separation. What kind of books did she read? What places had she visited? Had she loved anyone before or after Hank Breslin? What made her laugh? Did she cry at sad movies, or was she a stone-realist, prone to saying, “It's only a story”?

On the other, Sierra craved solitude, to think and reflect and sort what she had learned into some kind of sensible order. She wanted to huddle up somewhere, with her arms around her knees and decide what she believed and what she didn't.

“Okay,” she said.

“There is one thing I want to show you before I go,” Eve said, rising from the kitchen table and crossing to the china cabinet to lean down and open one of the drawers. She brought out a large, square object, wrapped in soft blue flannel, and set it before Sierra, who had shoved her plate and coffee cup aside in the meantime and wiped her part of the tabletop clean with a checkered cloth napkin.

Sierra's heart raced a little and, at a nod from Eve, she folded back the flannel covering to reveal an old photo album.

“These are your people, Sierra,” Eve said quietly. “Your ancestors. There are journals and other photographs in the attic, and they need cataloging. It would be a great favor to me if you would gather them and make sure they're properly preserved.”

“I can do that,” Sierra said. Her hand, resting on the album cover, trembled a little, with both anticipation and a certain reluctance to get involved. Biologically she had a connection with the faces and names between the battered leather covers of the book, but in terms of real life, she was just passing through. She couldn't afford to forget that.

Eve laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry about the Christmas tree,” she said with a slight smile. “I was the one who put it up, and I should be the one to take it down, but the plane will be arriving in an hour, so there isn't time. The corresponding boxes are in the basement, at the bottom of the steps.”

Sierra nodded a second time. Liam had finished opening his presents the night before, and the mess had been cleaned up. Putting away the tree, like sorting photos and journals, would be a bittersweet enterprise. She hadn't looked closely at the ornaments, but she supposed they were heirlooms, like so many other things in that house, each one with a meaning she could never fully understand.

So many McKettrick Christmases, and she hadn't been a part of any of them. With Hank the holiday had gone almost unnoticed, although there were always a few gifts. Sierra hadn't felt deprived at the time, because she hadn't known that other people made more of a fuss.

The McKettricks, most likely, made a lot of fuss, not just over Christmas, but other holidays, too. They'd probably kept happy secrets at Yuletide, sung carols around that haunted piano, toasted each other with eggnog poured into cut-glass cups that were older than any of them….

Enough, Sierra told herself sternly. That time is gone. You missed it. Get over wishing you hadn't.

Eve bent to kiss Sierra on top of the head, then went upstairs to the big master bedroom, to pack up her things.

Sierra cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, but her gaze kept straying to the album. It was as though the people in the photographs, all long dead, were calling to her.

Get to know us.

We are part of you. We are part of Liam.

Sierra shook off the feeling as a nostalgic whim. She was as much a Breslin as a McKettrick, after all. She knew how to be Hank's daughter, but being Eve's was a whole new ball game. It was as though she had an entirely separate and unfamiliar identity, and that person was a stranger to her.

Liam bounded down the back stairs as she was rinsing out the coffee carafe, beaming at the prospect of starting school. He'd been thrilled to learn, through the research he and Sierra had done on Meg's computer, after last night's present-unwrapping frenzy, that there was no “Geek Program” at Indian Rock Elementary.

He wanted to be an “ordinary” kid.

Not sick.

Not gifted.

“Just regular,” as he'd put it.

Sierra's heart ached with love and empathy. As a child, home taught by Magdalena, she'd yearned to go to a real school, but Hank had forbidden it.

Now she realized Hank had been hiding her, probably fearful that some visitor, ex-patriot parent or teacher might catch on to the fact that he'd snatched her, and look into the matter.

For a moment she indulged in a primitive anger so deep that it was visceral, causing her stomach to clench and her jaws to tighten.

“Grandma says we'd better take Meg's Blazer into town today, because ours is a heap, not to mention a veritable eyesore,” Liam reported cheerfully. “When are we going to get a new car?”

“When I win the lottery or get a job,” Sierra said, deliberately relaxing her shoulders, which had immediately tensed, and taking Liam's new “cowboy” coat, as he'd dubbed it, down from the peg. While she would have objected if she'd known Eve was out buying all those gifts, let alone wrapping them and putting them under a fully decorated Christmas tree, she was glad of this one. It was made of leather and lined with sheepskin, well beyond her budget, and it would definitely keep her little boy warm.

Just then Eve came back, bundled up for winter weather herself, and carrying a small, expensive suitcase in one hand. Her coat was full length and black, elegantly cut and probably cashmere.

“We're in the process of opening a branch office of McKettrickCo in Indian Rock,” she announced, evidently unabashed that she'd been eavesdropping. “Keegan is heading it up, but I'm sure there will be a place for you in the organization if you want one. You do speak Spanish, don't you?”

“Keegan,” Sierra mused mildly, letting the indirect job offer slide, along with the reference to her language skills, at least for the moment. “Another McKettrick cousin?”

“Descended from Kade and Mandy,” Eve confirmed, smiling slightly and nodding toward the album. “It's all in the book.”

“How are you getting back to the airstrip—or wherever your jet is landing?” Sierra asked, shrugging into her coat, which looked like something from the bottom of a grungy bin at a thrift store, compared to the ones Eve and Liam were decked out in.

“Travis is taking me in his truck,” Eve said, setting her suitcase down by the door, heading to the china cabinet to pluck a set of keys from a sugar bowl, taking Sierra's hand, opening it and placing them on her palm. “Use the Blazer. That wreck of yours won't make it out of the driveway, if it starts at all.”

Sierra hesitated a moment before closing her fingers around the keys. “Not to mention that it's a veritable eyesore,” she said pointedly, but with a little smile.

“You said it,” Eve replied brightly. “I didn't.”

“Yes, you did,” Liam countered. “Upstairs, you told me—”

Outside Travis honked the truck horn.

Eve touched her grandson's neatly groomed hair. “Give your old granny a hug,” she said. “I'll be back in a few weeks, and if the weather is good, maybe you'd like to take a ride in the company jet.”

Liam let out a whoop.

Sierra didn't get a chance to protest, because Travis rapped lightly, opened the back door and took up Eve's suitcase. He gave Sierra a nod for a greeting and grinned down at Liam.

“Hey, cowpoke,” he said. “Lookin' good in that new gear.”

Liam preened, showing off the coat. “I wanted to wear the hat, too,” he replied, “but Mom said I might lose it at school.”

“The world,” Travis replied, with a longer glance at Sierra, “is full of hats.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Sierra asked, feeling defensive again.

Travis sighed. A look passed between him and Eve. Then he simply turned, without answering and headed for the truck.

Eve hugged Liam, then Sierra.

Moments later she and Travis were in the truck and barreling away.

Sierra found the door leading into the garage—cleverly hidden in back of the pantry, like the architectural afterthought it surely was—and assessed her sister's shining red Blazer. Liam strained to reach the button on the wall, and the garage door grumbled up on its rollers, letting in a shivery chill.

Her station wagon was parked outside, behind the SUV, and Sierra muttered as she started Meg's vehicle, after she and Liam were both buckled in, and maneuvered around the eyesore.

1919

Despite the bitter cold, Hannah sat well away from Doss as they drove home in the sleigh two days after the wedding, Tobias cosseted between them.

She was married.

Each time her thoughts drifted in that direction, she started inwardly, surprised all over again.

She was a wife—but she certainly didn't
feel
like one.

Doss remained silent for the greater part of the journey, his gloved hands gripping the reins with the ease of long practice. Hannah felt his gaze on her a couple of times, but when she looked in his direction, he was always watching the snow-packed trail ahead.

By the time they reached the ranch, Hannah sorely wished she could simply crawl into bed, pull the covers up over her head and remain there until something changed.

It was an indulgence ranch women were not afforded.

Doss drew the team and sleigh up close to the house, lifted a half-sleeping Tobias from the seat and carried him in. Hannah got down on her own, bringing her valise, the flower book tucked safely inside among her dirty clothes, and followed stalwartly.

The kitchen was frigidly cold.

Doss pulled the string on the lightbulb in the middle of the room as he passed, heading for the stairs with Tobias.

Hannah rose above an inclination to turn it right back off again. She set her valise down and made for the stove. By the time Doss returned, she had a fire going and lamps lighted. She'd fetch some eggs from the spring house, she decided, provided that Willie had gathered them during their absence, and make an omelet for their supper. Perhaps she'd fry up some of the sausage she'd preserved last fall, and make biscuits and gravy, too.

“I'll see to the team,” Doss said.

“Where do you suppose Willie's got to?” Hannah asked. She'd seen no sign of the hired man when they were driving in, and she feared for her chickens, along with the livestock in the barn. Like many laborers, Willie was a drifter, and might have taken it into his head to kick off the traces and take to the road anywhere along the line.

“I saw him when we came in,” Doss answered, opening the door to go out again. “Out by the bunkhouse, stacking firewood.”

Hannah gave a sigh of relief. In the next moment, she wanted to tell Doss to stay inside where it was warm, that she'd have the coffee ready in a few minutes, but it would have been a waste of breath. He was a rancher, born and bred, and that meant he looked after the cattle and horses first and saw to his own comforts later, when the work was done.

“Supper will be on the table in half an hour,” she said, as though she were a landlady in a boarding house and he a paying guest, planning the briefest of stays. “Willie's welcome to join us, if he wants.”

Doss nodded, raised his coat collar around his ears and went out.

Sometime later, he returned alone. Hannah had already fetched the eggs from the spring house, and they were scrambled, cooked and waiting on a platter in the warming oven above the stove. The kitchen was snug, and the softer light of lanterns glowed, replacing the glare of the overhead bulb.

“Willie's gone on back to the main ranch house,” he said. “But he thanks you kindly for the invite to supper.”

Hannah wiped her hands on her apron and took plates from the china cabinet to set the table. That was when she noticed the album lying there, as though someone had been perusing it and intended to come back and look some more later.

She stopped in her tracks.

Doss, in the act of shedding his coat and hat, followed her gaze.

“What's the matter, Hannah?” he asked, with a quiet alertness in his voice.

“The album,” she said.

“What about it?” Doss asked, passing her to approach the stove. He poured himself a cup of coffee and came to stand beside her.