Sierra's Homecoming (6 page)

Sierra sighed. It won't be that interesting, she answered, taking her time so she wouldn't have to revise. She was out of practice, and if she hoped to land anything better than a waitressing job in Indian Rock, she'd better polish her computer skills.

Meg sent a smiley face, followed by, Good night, Sis. (I've always wanted to say that.)

Sierra bit her lower lip. Good night, she tapped out, and rose from the chair with a glance at the clock on the mantel above the now-snapping fire.

Why had she lit it? She was exhausted, and now she would either have to throw water on the flames or wait until they died down. The first method, of course, would make a terrible mess, so that was out.

“Hurry up and finish what you're doing,” she told Liam, who had plopped in the chair again the moment Sierra got out of it. “Half an hour till bedtime.”

“I had a
nap,
” Liam reminded her, typing simultaneously.

“Finish,” Sierra repeated. With that, she left the study, climbed the stairs and went into Liam's room to get his favorite pajamas from one of the suitcases. She meant to put them in the clothes dryer for a few minutes, warm them up.

Something drew her to the window, though. She looked down, saw that the lights were on in Travis's trailer and his truck was parked nearby. Evidently, he hadn't stayed long in town, or wherever he'd gone.

Why did it please her so much, knowing that?

1919

Hannah stood in the doorway of Tobias's room, watching her boy sleep. He looked so peaceful, lying there, but she knew he had bad dreams sometimes. Just the night before, in the wee small hours, he'd crawled into bed beside her, snuggled as close as his little-boy pride would allow, and whispered earnestly that she oughtn't die anytime soon.

She'd been so choked up, she could barely speak.

Now she wanted to wake him, hold him tight in her arms, protect him from whatever it was in his mind that made him see little boys that weren't there.

He was lonely, that was all. He needed to be around other children. Way out here, he went to a one-room school, when it wasn't closed on account of snow, with only seven other pupils, all of whom were older than he was.

Maybe she
should
take him home to Montana. He had cousins there. They'd live in town, too, where there were shops and a library and even a moving-picture theater. He could ride his bicycle, come spring, and play baseball with other boys.

Hannah's throat ached. Gabe had wanted his son raised here, on the Triple M. Wanted him to grow up the way he had, rough-and-tumble, riding horses, rounding up stray cattle, part of the land. Of course, Gabe hadn't expected to die young—he'd meant to come home, so he and Hannah could fill that big house with children. Tobias would have had plenty of company then.

A tear slipped down Hannah's cheek, and she swatted it away. Straightened her spine.

Gabe was gone, and there weren't going to be any more children.

She heard Doss climbing the stairs, and wanted to move out of the doorway. He thought she was too fussy, always hovering over Tobias. Always trying to protect him.

How could a man understand what it meant to bear and nurture a child?

Hannah closed her eyes and stayed where she was.

Doss stopped behind her, uncertain. She could feel that, along with the heat and sturdy substance of his body.

“Leave the child to sleep, Hannah,” he said quietly.

She nodded, closed Tobias's door gently and turned to face Doss there in the darkened hallway. He carried a book under one arm and an unlit lantern in his other hand.

“It's because he's lonesome,” she said.

Doss clearly knew she was referring to Tobias's hallucination. “Kids make up playmates,” he told her. “And being lonesome is a part of life. It's a valley a person has to go through, not something to run away from.”

No McKettrick ever ran from anything. Doss didn't have to say it, and neither did she. But she
wasn't
a McKettrick, not by blood. Oh, she still wrote the word, whenever she had to sign something, but she'd stopped owning the name the day they put Gabe in the ground.

She wasn't sure why. He'd been so proud of it, like all the rest of them were.

“Do you ever wish you could live someplace else?” Hannah heard herself say.

“No,” Doss said, so quickly and with such gravity that Hannah almost believed he'd been reading her mind. “I belong right here.”

“But the others—your uncles and cousins—they didn't stay….”

“Ask any one of them where home is,” Doss answered, “and they'll tell you it's the Triple M.”

Hannah started to speak, then held her tongue. Nodded. “Good night, Doss,” she said.

He inclined his head and went on to his own room, shut himself away.

Hannah stood alone in the dark for a long time.

She'd been so happy on the Triple M when Gabe was alive, and even after he'd gone into the army, because she'd never once doubted that he'd return. Come walking up the path with a duffel bag over one shoulder, whistling. She'd rehearsed that day a thousand times in her mind—pictured herself running to meet him, throwing herself into his arms.

It was never going to happen.

Without him, she might as well have been alone on the barren landscape of the moon.

Her eyes filled.

She walked slowly to the end of the hall, into the room where Gabe had brought her on their wedding night. He'd been conceived and born in the big bed there, just as Tobias had. As so many other babes would have been, if only Gabe had lived.

Hannah didn't undress after she closed the door behind her. She didn't let her hair down and brush it, like usual, or wash her face at the basin on the bureau.

Instead, she sat down in Lorelei's rocking chair and waited. Just waited.

For what, she did not know.

Present Day

After Liam had gone to bed, Sierra went back downstairs to the computer and scanned her e-mail. When she spotted Allie Douglas-Fletcher's return address, she wished she'd waited until morning. She was always stronger in the mornings.

Allie was Adam's twin sister. Liam's aunt. After Adam was murdered, while on assignment in South America, Allie had been inconsolable, and she'd developed an unhealthy fixation for her brother's child.

After taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Sierra opened the message. Typically, there was no preamble. Allie got right to the point.

 

The guest house is ready for you and Liam. You know Adam would want his son to grow up right here in San Diego, Sierra. Tim and I can give Liam everything—a real home, a family, an education, the very best medical care. We're willing to make a place for you, too, obviously. If you won't come home, at least tell us you arrived safely in Arizona.

 

Sierra sat, wooden, staring at the stark plea on the screen. Although Allie and Adam had been raised in relative poverty, both of them had done well in life. Adam had been a photojournalist for a major magazine; he and Sierra had met when he did a piece on San Miguel.

Allie ran her own fund-raising firm, and her husband was a neurosurgeon. They had everything—except what they wanted most. Children.

You can't have Liam,
Sierra cried, in the silence of her heart.
He's mine.

She flexed her fingers, sighed, and hit Reply. Allie was a good person, just as Adam had been, for all that he'd told Sierra a lie that shook the foundations of the universe. Adam's sister sincerely believed she and the doctor could do a better job of raising Liam than Sierra could, and maybe they were right. They had money. They had social status.

Tears burned in Sierra's eyes.

 

Liam is well. We're safe on the Triple M, and for the time being, we're staying put.

 

It was all she could bring herself to say.

She hit Send and logged off the computer.

The fire was still flourishing on the hearth. She got up, crossed the room, pushed the screen aside to jab at the burning wood with a poker. It only made the flames burn more vigorously.

She kicked off her shoes, curled up in the big leather chair and pulled a knitted afghan around her to wait for the fire to die down.

The old clock on the mantel tick-tocked, the sound loud and steady and almost hypnotic.

Sierra yawned. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.

She thought about turning the TV back on, just for the sound of human voices, but dismissed the idea. She was so tired, she was going to need all her energy just to go upstairs and tumble into bed. There was none to spare for fiddling with the television set.

Again, she closed her eyes.

Again, she opened them.

She wondered if the lights were still on in Travis's trailer.

Closed her eyes.

Was dragged down into a heavy, fitful sleep.

She knew right away that she was dreaming, and yet it was so real.

She heard the clock ticking.

She felt the warmth of the fire.

But she was standing in the ranch house kitchen, and it was different, in subtle ways, from the room she knew.

She
was different.

Her eyes were shut, and yet she could see clearly.

A bare light bulb dangled overhead, giving off a dim but determined glow.

She looked down at herself, the dream-Sierra, and felt a wrench of surprise.

She was wearing a long woolen skirt. Her hands were smaller—chapped and work worn—someone else's hands.

“I'm dreaming,” she insisted to herself, but it didn't help.

She stared around the kitchen. The teapot sat on the counter.

“Now what's that doing there?” asked this other Sierra. “I know I put it away. I know for sure I did.”

Sierra struggled to wake up. It was too intense, this dream. She was in some other woman's body, not her own. It was sinewy and strong, this body. She felt the heartbeat, the breath going in and out. Felt the weight of long hair, pinned to the back of her head in a loose chignon.

“Wake up,” she said.

But she couldn't.

She stood very still, staring at the teapot.

Emotions stormed within her, a loneliness so wretched and sharp that she thought she'd burst from the inside and shatter. Longing for a man who'd gone away and was never coming home, an unspeakable sorrow. Love for a child, so profound that it might have been mourning.

And something else. A forbidden wanting that had nothing to do with the man who'd left her.

Sierra woke herself then, by force of will, only to find her face wet with another woman's tears.

She must have been asleep for a while, she realized. The flames on the hearth had become embers. The room was chilly.

She shivered, tugged the afghan tighter around her, and got out of the chair. She went to the window, looked out. Travis's trailer was dark.

“It was just a dream,” she told herself out loud.

So why was her heart breaking?

She made her way into the kitchen, navigating the dark hallway as best she could, since she didn't know where the light switches were. When she reached her destination, she walked to the middle of the room, where she'd stood in the dream, and suppressed an urge to reach up for the metal-beaded cord she knew wasn't there.

What she needed, she decided, was a good cup of tea.

She found a switch beside the back door and flipped it.

Reality returned in a comforting spill of light.

She found an electric kettle, filled it at the sink and plugged it in to boil. Earlier she'd been too weary to get out of that chair in the study and turn on the TV. Now she knew it would be pointless to try to sleep.

Might as well do this up right, she thought.

She went to the china cabinet, got the teapot out, set it on the table. Added tea leaves and located a little strainer in one of the drawers. The kettle boiled.

She was sitting quietly, sipping tea and watching fat snowflakes drift past the porch light outside the back door, when Liam came down the back stairway in his pajamas. Blinking, he rubbed his eyes.

“Is it morning?” he asked.

“No,” Sierra said gently. “Go back to bed.”

“Can I have some tea?”

“No, again,” Sierra answered, but she didn't protest when Liam took a seat on the bench, close to her chair. “But if there's cocoa, I'll make you some.”

“There is,” Liam said. He looked incredibly young, and so very vulnerable, without his glasses. “I saw it in the pantry. It's the instant kind.”