The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's Homecoming

CHAPTER FIVE

“DO YOU HEAR THAT?” she asked Liam.

His brow furrowed as he shifted on the bench and took another sip of his cocoa. “Hear what?”

The tune continued, flowing softly, forlornly, from the front room.

“Nothing,” Sierra lied.

Liam peered at her, perplexed and suspicious.

“Finish your chocolate,” she prompted. “It’s late.”

The music stopped, and she felt relief and a paradoxical sorrow, reminiscent of the all-too-vivid dream she’d had earlier while dozing in the big chair in the study.

“What was it, Mom?” Liam pressed.

“I thought I heard a piano,” she admitted, because she knew her son wouldn’t let the subject drop until she told him the truth.

Liam smiled, pleased. “This house is so cool,” he said. “I told the Geek—the kids—that it’s haunted. Aunt Allie, too.”

Sierra, in the process of lifting her cup to her mouth, set it down again, shakily. “When did you talk to Allie?” she asked.

“She sent me an email,” he replied, “and I answered.”

“Great,” Sierra said.

“Would my dad really want me to grow up in San Diego?” Liam asked seriously. The idea had, of course, come from Al lie. While Sierra wasn’t without sympathy for the woman, she felt violated. Allie had no business trying to entice Liam behind her back.

“Your dad would want you to grow up with me,” Sierra said firmly, and she knew that was true, for all that Adam had betrayed her.

“Aunt Allie says my cousins would like me,” Liam confided.

Liam’s “cousins” were actually half sisters, but Sierra wasn’t ready to spring that on him, and she hoped Allie wouldn’t do it, either. Although Adam had told Sierra he was divorced when they met, and she’d fallen immediately and helplessly in love with him, she’d learned six months later, when she was carrying his child, that he was still living with his wife when he wasn’t on the road. It had been Allie, earnest, meddling Allie, who traveled to San Miguel, found Sierra and told her the truth.

Sierra would never forget the family photos Allie showed her that day—snap shots of Adam with his arm around his smiling wife, Dee. The two little girls in matching dresses posed with them, their eyes wide with innocence and trust.

“Forget him, kiddo,” Hank had said airily, when Sierra went to him, in tears, with the whole shameful story. “It ain’t gonna fly.”

She’d written Adam immediately, but her letter came back, tattered from forwarding, and no one answered at any of the telephone numbers he’d given her.

She’d given birth to Liam eight weeks later, at home, attended by Hank’s long-time mistress, Magdalena. Three days after that, Hank brought her an American newspaper, tossed it into her lap without a word.

She’d paged through it slowly, possessed of a quiet, escalating dread, and come across the account of Adam Douglas’s death on page four. He’d been shot to death, according to the article, on the out skirts of Caracas, after infiltrating a drug cartel to take pictures for an exposé he’d been writing.

“Mom?” Liam snapped his fingers under Sierra’s nose. “Are you hearing the music again?”

Sierra blinked. Shook her head.

“Do you think my cousins would like me?”

She reached out, her hand trembling only slightly, and ruffled his hair. “I think anybody would like you,” she said. When he was older, she would tell him about Adam’s other family, but it was still too soon. She took his empty cup, carried it to the sink. “Now, go upstairs, brush your teeth again and hit the sack.”

“Aren’t you going to bed?” Liam asked practically.

Sierra sighed. “Yes,” she said, resigned. She didn’t think she’d sleep, but she knew Liam would wonder if she stayed up all night, prowling around the house. “You go ahead. I’m just going to make sure the front door is locked.”

Liam nodded and obeyed without protest.

Sierra considered marking the occasion on the calendar.

She went straight to the front room, and the piano, the moment Liam had gone upstairs. The keyboard cover was down, the bench neatly in place. She switched on a lamp and inspected the smooth, highly polished wood for finger prints. Nothing.

She touched the cover, and her fingers left distinct smudges.

No one had touched the piano that night, unless they’d been wearing gloves.

Frowning, Sierra checked the lock on the front door.

Fastened.

She inspected the windows—all locked—and even the floor. It was snowing hard, and anybody who’d come in out of that storm would have left some trace, no matter how careful they were—a puddle some where, a bit of mud.

Again, there was nothing.

Finally she went upstairs, found a night gown, bathed and got ready for bed. Since Travis had left her bags in the room adjoining Liam’s, she opened the connecting door a crack and crawled between sheets worn smooth by time.

She was asleep in an instant.

1919

Hannah closed the cover over the piano keys, stacked the sheet music neatly and got to her feet. She’d played as softly as she could, pouring her sadness and her yearning into the music, and when she returned to the upstairs corridor, she saw light under Doss’s door.

She paused, wondering what he’d do if she went in, took off her clothes and crawled into bed beside him.

Not that she would, of course, because she’d loved her husband and it wouldn’t be fitting, but there were times when her very soul ached within her, she wanted so badly to be touched and held, and this was one of them.

She swallowed, mortified by her own wanton thoughts.

Doss would send her away angrily.

He’d remind her that she was his brother’s widow—if he ever spoke to her again at all.

For all that, she took a single, silent step toward the door.

“Ma?”

Tobias spoke from behind her. She hadn’t heard him get out of bed, come to the threshold of his room.

Thanking heaven she was still fully dressed, she turned to face him.

“What is it?” she asked gently. “Did you have another bad dream?”

Tobias shook his head. His gaze slipped past Hannah to Doss’s door, then back to her face, solemn and worried. “I wish I had a pa,” he said.

Hannah’s heart seized. She approached, pulled the boy close, and he allowed it. During the day, he would have balked. “So do I,” she replied, bending to kiss the top of his head. “I wish your pa was here. Wish it so much it hurts.”

Tobias pulled back, looked up at her. “But Pa’s dead,” he said. “Maybe you and Doss could get hitched. Then he wouldn’t be my uncle any more, would he? He’d be my pa.”

“Tobias,” Hannah said very softly, praying Doss hadn’t over heard somehow. “That wouldn’t be right.”

“Why not?” Tobias asked.

She crouched, looked up into her son’s face. One day, he’d be handsome and square-jawed, like the rest of the McKettrick men. For now he was still a little boy, his features childishly innocent. “I was your pa’s wife. I’ll love him for the rest of my days.”

“That might be a long time,” Tobias said, with a measure of dubiousness, as well as hope. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t want Doss to marry somebody else, Ma,” he said. “All the women in Indian Rock are sweet on him, and one of these days he might take a notion to get himself a wife.”

“Tobias,” Hannah reasoned, “you must put this foolishness out of your head. If Doss chooses to take a bride, that’s certainly his right. But it won’t be me he marries. It’s too hard to explain right now, but Doss was your pa’s brother. I couldn’t—”

“You’d marry some man in Montana, though, wouldn’t you?” Tobias demanded, suddenly angry, and this time, he made no effort to keep his voice down. “Some stranger who wears a suit to work!”

“Tobias!”

“I won’t go to Montana, do you hear me? I won’t leave the Triple M unless Doss goes, too!”

Hannah reddened with embarrassment and anger— Doss had surely heard—and rose to her full height. “Tobias McKettrick,” she said sternly, “you go to bed this instant, and don’t you ever talk to me like that again!”

Tobias’s chin jutted out, in the McKettrick way, and his eyes flashed. “You go anyplace you want to,” he told her, turning on one bare heel to flee into his room, “but I’m not going with you!” With that, he slammed the door in her face.

Hannah took a step toward it, even reached for the knob.

But in the end she couldn’t face her son.

“Hannah.”

Doss.

She stiffened but didn’t turn. Doss would see too much if she did. Guess too much.

He caught hold of her arm, brought her gently around.

She whispered his name, despondent.

He took her hand, led her to the opposite end of the hall, opened the last door on the right, the one where she kept her sewing machine.

“What are you—?”

Doss stepped over the threshold first, turned, and drew her in behind him. Reached around her to shut the door.

She leaned against the panel. It was hard at her back.

“Doss,” she said.

He cupped her face in his hands, bent his head, and kissed her, full on the mouth.

A sweet shock went through her. She knew she ought to break away, knew he wouldn’t force himself on her if she uttered the slightest protest, but she couldn’t say a word. Her body came alive as he pressed himself against her. His weight was hard and warm and blessedly real.

Doss reached behind her head, pulled the pins from her hair, let it fall around her shoulders, to her waist. He groaned, buried his face in it, burrowed through to take her earlobe between his lips and nibble on it.

Hannah gasped with guilty pleasure. Her knees went weak, and Doss held her upright with the lower part of his body.

She moaned softly.

“We can’t,” she whispered.

“We’d damn well better,” Doss answered, “before we both go crazy.”

“What if Tobias…?”

Doss leaned back, opened the buttons on her bodice, put his hands inside, under her camisole, to take the weight of her breasts. Chafed the nipples lightly with the sides of his thumbs.

“He won’t hear,” he said.

He bent to find a nipple, take it into his mouth. Suckled in the same nibbling, teasing way he’d tasted her earlobe.

Hannah plunged her fingers into his hair, groaned and tilted her head back, already surrendering. Already lost.

She tried to bring Gabe’s face to her mind, hoping the image would give her the strength to stop—stop—before it was too late, but it wouldn’t come.

Doss made free with her breasts, tonguing them until she was in a frenzy.

She sank against the door, barely able to breathe.

And then he knelt.

Hannah trembled. Even though the room was cold, perspiration broke out all over her body. She made a slight whimpering sound when Doss lifted her skirts, went under them and pulled down her drawers.

She felt him part her private place with his fingers, felt his tongue touch her, like fire. Sobbed his name, under her breath.

He took her full in his mouth, hungrily.

Her hips moved frantically, seeking him, and her knees buckled.

He braced her securely against the door, put her legs over his shoulders, first one, and then the other, and through all that, he drew on her.

She writhed against him, one hand pressed to her mouth so that the guttural cries pounding at the back of her throat wouldn’t get out.

He suckled.

She felt a surge of heat, radiating from her center into every part of her, then stiffened in a spasm of release so violent that she was afraid she would splinter into pieces.

“Doss,” she pleaded, because she knew it was going to happen again, and again.

And it did.

When it was over, he ducked out from under the hem of her skirt and held her as she sagged, spent, to her knees. They were facing each other, her breasts bared to him, her body still quivering with an ebbing tide of passion.

“We can stop here,” he said quietly.

She shook her head. They’d gone past the place of turning back.

Doss opened his trousers, reached under her skirt and petticoat to take hold of her hips. Lifted her onto him.

She slid along his length, letting him fill her, exalting in the size and heat and slick hardness of him. She gave a loud moan, and he covered her mouth with his, kissed her senseless, even as he raised and lowered her, raised and lowered her. The friction was slow and exquisite. Hannah dug her fingers into his shoulders and rode him shamelessly until satisfaction overtook her again, convulsed her, like some giant fist, and didn’t let go until she was limp with exhaustion.

Only when she wept with relief did Doss finish. She felt him erupt inside her, swallowed his groans as he gave himself up to her.

He brushed away her tears with his thumbs, still inside her, and looked deep into her eyes. “It’s all right, Hannah,” he said gruffly. “Please, don’t cry.”

He didn’t understand.

She wasn’t weeping for shame, though that would surely come, but for the most poignant of joys.

“No,” she said softly. She plunged her fingers into his hair, kissed him boldly, fervently. “It’s not that. I feel…”

He was growing hard within her again.

“Oh,” she groaned.

He played with her nipples. And got harder still.

“Doss,” she gasped. “Doss—”

Present Day

Sierra awakened with a start, sounding from the depths of a dream so erotic that she’d been on the verge of climax. The light dazzled her, and the muffled silence seemed to fill not only her bed room, but the world beyond it.

She lay still for a long time, recovering. Listening to her own quick, shallow breathing. Waiting for her heart beat to slow down.

Liam peeked through the doorway linking her room to his.

“Mom?”

“Come in,” Sierra said.

He bounded across the threshold. “It snowed!” he whooped, heading straight for the window. “I mean, it really snowed!”

Sierra smiled, sat up in bed and put her feet on the floor.

A jolt of cold went through her.

“It’s freezing in here!”

Liam turned from the window to grin at her. “Travis says the furnace is out.”

“Travis?”

“He’s down stairs,” Liam said. “He’ll get it going.”

A dusty-smelling whoosh rose from the nearest heat vent, as if to illustrate the point.

“What’s he doing here?” Sierra asked, scrambling through her suit cases for a bathrobe. All she had was a thin nylon thing, and when she saw it, she knew it would be worse than nothing, so she pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped herself in that instead.

“Don’t be a grump,” Liam replied. “Travis is doing us a favor, Mom. We’d probably be icicles by now if it wasn’t for him. Did you know that old stove down stairs works? Travis built a fire in it, and he put the coffee on, too. He said to tell you it will be ready in a couple of minutes and we’re snowed in.”

“Snowed in?”

“Keep up, Mom,” Liam chirped. “There was a blizzard last night. That’s why Travis came to make sure we were all right. I heard him knock, and I let him in.”

Sierra joined Liam at the window and drew in her breath.

The whiteness of all that snow practically blinded her, but it was beautiful, too, in an apocalyptic way. She’d never seen any thing like it before and, for a long moment, she was spell bound. Then her sensible side kicked in.

“Thank God the power didn’t go out,” she said, easing a little closer to the vent, which was spewing deliciously warm air.

“It did,” Liam informed her happily. “Travis got the generator started right away. We don’t have lights or anything, but he said the furnace is all that matters.”

She frowned. “How could he have made coffee?”

“On the cookstove, Mom,” Liam said, with a roll of his eyes.

For the first time Sierra noticed that Liam was fully dressed.

He headed for the door. “I’d better go help Travis bring in the wood,” he said. “Get some clothes on, will you?”

Five minutes later Sierra joined Travis and Liam in the kitchen, which was blessedly warm. Her jeans would do well enough, but she’d had to raid Meg’s room for socks and a thick sweat shirt, because her tank tops weren’t going to cut it. “Are we stranded here?” she demanded, watching as Travis poured coffee from a blue enamel pot that looked like it came from a stash of camping gear.

He grinned. “Depends on how you look at it,” he said. “Liam and I, we see it as an adventure.”

“Some adventure,” Sierra grumbled, but she took the coffee he offered and gave a grateful nod of thanks.

Travis chuckled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll adjust.”

Sierra hastened over to stand closer to the cookstove. “Does this happen often?”

“Only in winter,” Travis quipped.

“Hilarious,” she drawled.

Liam laughed uproariously. “You are enjoying this,” she accused, tousling her son’s hair.

“It’s great!” Liam cried. “Snow! Wait till the Geeks hear about this!”

“Liam,” Sierra said.

He gave Travis a long-suffering look. “She hates it when I say ‘geek,’” he explained.

Travis picked up his own mug of coffee, took a sip, his eyes full of laughter. Then he headed toward the door, put the cup on the counter and re claimed his coat down from the peg.

“You’re leaving?” Liam asked, horrified.

“Gotta see to the horses,” Travis said, putting on his hat.

“Can I go with you?” Liam pleaded, and he sounded so desperately hopeful that Sierra swallowed the “no” that instantly sprang from her vocal cords.

“Your coat isn’t warm enough,” she said.

“Meg’s got an old one around here some place,” Travis said care fully. “Hall closet, I think.”

Liam dashed off to get it.

“I’ll take care of him, Sierra,” Travis told her quietly, when the boy was gone.

“You’d better,” Sierra answered.

1919

Hannah knew by the profound silence, even before she opened her eyes, that it had been snowing all night. Lying alone in the big bed she’d shared with Gabe, she burrowed deeper into the covers and groaned.

She was sore.

She was satisfied.

She was a trollop.

A tramp.

She’d practically thrown herself at Doss the night before. She’d let him do things to her that no one else besides Gabe had ever done.

And now it was morning and she’d come to her senses and she would have to face him.

For all that, she felt strangely light, too.

Almost giddy.

Hannah pulled the covers up over her head and giggled.

Giggled.

She tried to be stern with herself.

This was serious.

Down stairs the stove lids rattled.

Doss was building a fire in the cookstove, the way he did every morning. He would put the coffee on to boil, then go out to the barn to attend to the live stock. When he got back, she’d be making break fast, and they’d talk about how cold it was, and whether he ought to bring in extra wood from the shed, in case there was more snow on the way.

It would be an ordinary ranch morning.

Except that she’d behaved like a tart the night before.

Hannah tossed back the covers and got up. She wasn’t one to avoid facing things, no matter how awkward they were. She and Doss had lost their heads and made love. That was that.

It wouldn’t happen again.

They’d just go on, as if nothing had happened.

The water in the pitcher on the bureau was too cold to wash in.

Hannah decided she would heat some for a bath, after the break fast dishes were done. She’d send Tobias to the study to work at his school lessons, and Doss to the barn.

She dressed hastily, brushed her hair and wound it into the customary chignon at the back of her head. Just before she opened the bedroom door to step out into the new day, the pit of her stomach quivered. She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders and turned the knob resolutely.

Doss had not left for the barn, as she’d expected. He was still in the kitchen, and when she came down the back stairs and froze on the bottom step, he looked at her, reddened and looked away.

Tobias was by the back door, pulling on his heaviest coat. “Doss and me are fixing to ride down to the bend and look in on the widow Jessup,” he told Hannah matter-of-factly, and he sounded like a grown man, fit to make such decisions on his own. “Could be her pump’s frozen, and we’re not sure she has enough firewood.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Doss watching her.

“Go out and see to the cow,” Doss told Tobias. “Make sure there’s no ice on her trough.”

It was an excuse to speak to her alone, Hannah knew, and she was unnerved. She resisted an urge to touch her hair with both hands or smooth her skirts.

Tobias banged out the back door, whistling.

“He’s not strong enough to ride to the Jessups’ place in this weather,” Hannah said. “It’s four miles if it’s a stone’s throw, and you’ll have to cross the creek.”

“Hannah,” Doss said firmly, grimly. “The boy will be fine.”

She felt her own color rise then, remembering all they’d done together, on the spare room floor, herself and this man. She swallowed and lifted her chin a notch, so he wouldn’t think she was ashamed.

“About last night—” Doss began. He looked distraught.

Hannah waited, blushing furiously now. Wishing the floor would open, so she could fall right through to China and never be seen or heard from again.

Doss shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.