The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's Homecoming

CHAPTER SEVEN

1919

HANNAH AND DOSS RETURNED separately from the barn, by tacit agreement. Hannah, weak-kneed with residual pleasure and reeling with guilt, pumped water into a bucket to pour into the near-empty reservoir on the cookstove, then filled the two biggest kettles she had and set them on the stove to heat. She was adding wood to the fire when she heard Doss come in.

She blushed furiously, unable to meet his gaze, though she could feel it burning into her flesh, right through the clothes he’d sweet-talked her out of just an hour before, laying her down in the soft, surprisingly warm hay in an empty stall, kissing and caressing and nibbling at her until she’d begged him to take her.

Begged him.

She’d carried on something awful while he was at it, too.

“Look at me, Hannah,” he said.

She glared at Doss, marched past him into the pantry and dragged out the big wash tub stored there under a high shelf. She set it in front of the stove with an eloquent clang.

“Hannah,” Doss repeated.

“Go upstairs,” she told him, flustered. “Leave me to my bath.”

“You can’t wash away what we did,” he said.

She whirled on him that time, hands on her hips, fiery with temper. “Get out,” she ordered, keeping her voice down in case Tobias was still awake or even listening at the top of the stairs. “I need my privacy.”

Doss raised both hands to shoulder height, palms out, but his words were juxtaposed to the gesture. “If we’re going to talk about what you need, Hannah, it’s not a bath. It’s a lot more of what we just did in the barn.”

“Tobias might hear you!” Hannah whispered, outraged. If the broom hadn’t been on the back porch, she’d have grab bed it up and whacked him silly with it.

“He wouldn’t know what we were talking about even if he did,” Doss argued mildly, lowering his hands. He approached, plucked a piece of straw from Hannah’s hair and tickled her under the chin with it.

She felt as though she’d been electrified, and slapped his hand away.

He laughed, a low, masculine sound, leaned in and nibbled at her lower lip. “Good night, Hannah,” he said.

A hot shiver of renewed need went through her. How could that be? He’d satisfied her that night, and the one be fore. Both times he’d taken her to heights she hadn’t even reached with Gabe. The difference was, she’d been Gabe’s wife, in the eyes of God and man, and she’d loved him. She not only wasn’t married to Doss, she didn’t love him. She just wanted him, that was all, and the realization galled her.

“You’ve turned me into a hussy,” she said.

Doss chuckled, shook his head. “If you say so, Hannah,” he answered, “it must be true.”

With that, he kissed her forehead, turned and left the kitchen.

She listened to the sound of his boot heels on the stairs, heard his progress along the second-floor hallway, even knew when he opened Tobias’s door to look in on the boy before retiring to his own room. Only when she’d heard his door close did Hannah let out her breath.

When the water in the kettles was scalding hot, Hannah poured it into the tub, sneaked upstairs for a towel, a bar of soap and a night gown. By the time she’d put out all the lanterns in the kitchen and stripped off her clothes, her bath water had cooled to a temperature that made her sigh when she stepped into it.

She soaked for a few minutes, and then scrubbed with a vengeance.

It turned out that Doss had been right.

She tried but she couldn’t wash away the things he’d made her feel.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she dried herself off, then donned her night gown. She dragged the tub to the back door and on to the step, drained it over one side and dashed back in, covered with goose flesh from the chill.

“I’m sorry, Gabe,” she said, very quietly, huddling by the stove. “I’m sorry.”

Present Day

Travis was building up the fire when Sierra opened her eyes the next morning. “Stay in your sleeping bag,” he told her. “It’s colder than a meat locker in here.”

Liam, lying between them through out the night, was still asleep, but his breathing was a shallow rattle. Sierra sat bolt-upright, watchful, holding her own breath. Not feeling the external chill at all, except as a vague biting sensation.

Liam opened his eyes, blinked. “Mom,” he said. “I can’t—”

Breathe, Sierra finished the sentence for him, replayed it in her mind.

Mom, I can’t breathe.

She bounded out of the sleeping bag, scram bled for her purse, which was lying on the counter and rummaged for Liam’s inhaler.

He began to wheeze, and when Sierra turned to rush back to him, she saw a look of panic in his eyes.

“Take it easy, Liam,” she said, as she handed him the inhaler.

He grasped it in both hands, all too familiar with the routine, and pressed the tube to his mouth and nose.

Travis watched grimly.

Sierra dropped on to her knees next to her boy, put an arm loosely around his shoulders. Let it work, she prayed silently. Please let it work!

Liam lowered the inhaler and stared apologetically up into Sierra’s eyes. He could barely get enough wind to speak. He was, in essence, choking. “It’s—I think it’s broken, Mom—”

“I’ll warm up the truck,” Travis said, and banged out of the house.

Desperate, Sierra took the inhaler, shook it and shoved it back into Liam’s hands. It wasn’t empty—she wouldn’t have taken a chance like that—but it must have been clogged or somehow defective. “Try again,” she urged, barely avoiding panic herself.

Outside, Travis’s truck roared audibly to life. He gunned the motor a couple of times.

Liam struggled to take in the medication, but the inhaler simply wasn’t working.

Travis returned, picked Liam up in his arms, sleeping bag and all, and headed for the door again. Sierra, frightened as she was, had to hurry to catch up, snatching her coat from the peg and her purse from the counter on the way out.

The snow had stopped, but there must have been two feet of it on the ground. Travis shifted the truck into four-wheel drive and the tires grabbed for purchase, finally caught.

“Take it easy, buddy,” he told Liam, who was on Sierra’s lap, the seat belt fastened around both of them. “Take it real easy.”

Liam nodded solemnly. He was drawing in shallow gasps of air now, but not enough. Not enough. His lips were turning blue.

Sierra held him tight, but not too tight. Rested her chin on top of his head and prayed.

The roads hadn’t been plowed—in fact, except for sloping drifts on either side, Sierra wouldn’t have known where they were. Still, the truck rolled over them as easily as if they were bare.

What if we’d been alone, Liam and me? Sierra thought frantically. Her old station wagon, a snow-covered hulk in the driveway in front of the house, probably wouldn’t have started, and even if it had by some miracle, the chances were good that they’d have ended up in the ditch some where along the way to safety.

“It’s going to be okay,” she heard Travis say, and she’d thought he was talking to Liam. When she glanced at him, though, she knew he’d meant the words for her.

She kept her voice even. “Is there a hospital in Indian Rock?” She and Liam had passed through the town the day they arrived, but she didn’t remember seeing anything but houses, a diner or two, a drug store, several bars and a gas station. She’d been too busy trying to follow the hand-drawn map Meg had scanned and sent to her by email—the McKettricks’ private cemetery was marked with an X, and the ranch house an uneven square with lines for a roof.

“A clinic,” Travis said. He looked down at Liam again, then turned his gaze back to the road. The set of his jaw was hard, and he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his coat and handed it to Sierra.

She dialed 411 and asked to be connected.

When a voice answered, Sierra explained the situation as calmly as she could, keeping it low-key for Liam’s sake. They’d been through at least a dozen similar episodes during his short life, and it never got easier. Each time, Sierra was hysterical, though she didn’t dare let that show. Liam was taking his cues from her. If she lost it, he would, too, and the results could be disastrous.

The clinic receptionist seemed blessedly unruffled. “We’ll be ready when you get here,” she said.

Sierra thanked the woman and ended the call, set the phone on the seat.

By the time they arrived at the town’s only medical facility, Liam was struggling to remain conscious. Travis pulled up in front, gave the horn a hard blast and was around to Sierra’s side with the door open before she managed to get the seat belt unbuckled.

Two medical assistants, accompanied by a gray-haired doctor, met them with a gurney. Liam was whisked away. Sierra tried to follow, but Travis and one of the nurses stopped her.

Her first instinct was to fight.

“My son needs me!” She’d meant it for a scream, but it came out as more of a whimper.

“We’ll need your name and that of the patient,” a clerk in formed her, advancing with a clip board. “And of course there’s the matter of insurance—”

Travis glared the woman into retreat. “Her name,” he said, “is McKettrick.”

“Oh,” the clerk said, and ducked behind her desk.

Sierra needed something, anything, to do, or she was going to rip apart every room in that place until she found Liam, gathered him into her arms. “My purse,” she said. “I must have left it in the truck—”

“I’ll get it,” Travis said, but first he steered her toward a chair in the waiting area and sat her down.

Tears of frustration and stark terror filled her eyes. What was happening to Liam? Was he breathing? Were they forcing the hated tube down into his bronchial passage even at that moment?

Travis cupped her face between his hands, for just a moment, and his palms felt cold and rough from ranch work.

The sensation triggered something in Sierra, but she was too distraught to know what it was.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised.

And he was.

Sierra snatched her bag from his hands, scrabbled through it to find her wallet. Found the insurance card Eve had sent by express the same day Sierra agreed to take the McKettrick name and spend a year on the Triple M, with Liam. She might have kissed that card, if Travis hadn’t been watching.

The clerk nodded a little nervously when Sierra walked up to the desk and asked for the papers she needed to fill out.

Patient’s Name. Well, that was easy enough. She scrawled Liam Bres—crossed out the last part, and wrote McKettrick instead.

Address? She had to consult Travis on that one. Everybody in Indian Rock knew where the Triple M was, she was sure, but the people in the insurance company’s claims office might not.

Occupation? Child.

Damn it, Liam was a little boy, hardly more than a baby. Things like this shouldn’t happen to him.

Sierra printed her own name, as guarantor. She bit her lip when asked about her job. Unemployed? She couldn’t write that.

Travis, watching, took the clip board and pen from her and inserted, Damn good mother.

The tears came again.

Travis got up, with the forms and the clip board and the insurance card, in scribed with the magical name and carried them over to the waiting clerk.

He was halfway back to Sierra when the doctor re appeared.

“Hello, Travis,” he said, but his gaze was on Sierra’s face, and she couldn’t read it, for all the practice she’d had.

“I’m Sierra McKettrick,” she said. The name still felt like a garment that didn’t quite fit, but if it would help Liam in any way, she would use it every chance she got. “My son—”

“He’ll be fine,” the doctor said kindly. His eyes were a faded blue, his features craggy and weathered. “Just the same, I think we ought to send him up to Flag staff to the hospital, at least over night. For observation, you understand. And because they’ve got a reliable power source up there.”

“Is he awake?” Sierra asked anxiously.

“Partially sedated,” replied the doctor, exchanging glances with Travis. “We had to perform an intubation.”

Sierra knew how Liam hated tubes, and how frightened he probably was, sedated or not. “I have to see him,” she said, prepared for an argument.

“Of course” was the immediate and very gentle answer.

Sierra felt Travis’s hand close around hers. She clung, in stead of pulling away, as she would have done with any other virtual stranger.

A few minutes later they were standing on either side of Liam’s bed in one of the treatment rooms. His eyes widened with recognition when he saw Sierra, and he pointed, with one small finger, to the mouth piece of his oxygen tube.

She nodded, blinking hard and trying to smile. Took his hand.

“You have to spend the night in the hospital in Flag staff,” she told him, “but don’t be scared, okay? Because I’m going with you.”

Liam relaxed visibly. Turned his eyes to Travis. Sierra’s heart twisted at the hope she saw in her little boy’s face.

“Me, too,” Travis said hoarsely.

Liam nodded and drifted off to sleep.

The doctor had ordered an ambulance, and Sierra rode with Liam, while Travis followed in the truck.

There was more paper work to do in Flag staff, but Sierra was calmer now. She sat in a chair next to Liam’s bed and filled in the lines.

Travis entered with two cups of vending-machine coffee, just as she was finishing.

“Thank you,” Sierra said, and she wasn’t just talking about the coffee.

“Wranglers like Liam and me,” he replied, watching the boy with a kind of fretful affection, “we stick together when the going gets tough.”

She accepted the paper cup Travis offered and set the ubiquitous clip board aside to take a sip. Travis drew up a second chair.

“Does this happen a lot?” he asked, after a long and remarkably easy silence.

Sierra shook her head. “No, thank God. I don’t know what we would have done without you, Travis.”

“You would have coped,” he said. “Like you’ve been doing for a long time, if my guess is any good. Where’s Liam’s dad, Sierra?”

She swallowed hard, glanced at the boy to make sure he was sleeping. “He died a few days before Liam was born,” she answered.

“You’ve been alone all this time?”

“No,” Sierra said, stiffening a little on the inside, where it didn’t show. Or, at least, she hoped it didn’t. “I had Liam.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant,” Travis said.

Sierra looked away, made herself look back. “I didn’t want to—complicate things. By getting involved with someone, I mean. Liam and I have been just fine on our own.”

Travis merely nodded, and drank more of his coffee.

“Don’t you have to go back to the ranch and feed the horses or something?” Sierra asked.

“Eventually,” Travis answered with a sigh. He glanced around the room again and gave the slightest shudder.

Sierra remembered his younger brother. The wounds must be raw. “I guess you probably hate hospitals,” she said. “Be cause of—” the name came back to her in Eve’s telephone voice “—Brody.”

Travis shook his head. His eyes were bleak. “If he’d gotten this far—to a hospital, I mean—it would have meant there was hope.”

Sierra moved to touch Travis’s hand, but just before she made contact, his cell phone rang. He pulled it from the pocket of his western shirt, flipped open the case. “Travis Reid.”

He listened. Raised his eyebrows. “Hello, Eve. I wouldn’t have thought even your pilot could land in this kind of weather.”

Sierra tensed.

Eve said something, and Travis responded. “I’ll let Sierra explain,” he said, and held out the phone to her.

Sierra swallowed, took it. “Hello, Eve,” she said.

“Where are you?” her mother asked. “I’m at the ranch. It looks as if you’ve been sleeping in the kitchen—”

“We’re in Flag staff, in a hospital,” Sierra told her. Only then did she realize that she and Travis were both wearing the clothes they’d slept in. That she hadn’t combed her hair or even brushed her teeth.

All of a sudden she felt in credibly grubby.

Eve drew in an audible breath. “Oh, my God—Liam?”

“He had a pretty bad asthma attack,” Sierra confirmed. “He’s on a breathing machine, and he has to stay until tomorrow, but he’s okay, Eve.”

“I’ll be up there as soon as I can. Which hospital?”

“Hold on,” Sierra said. “There’s really no need for you to come all this way, especially when the roads are so bad. I’m pretty sure we’ll be home tomorrow—”

“Pretty sure?” Eve challenged.

“Well, he’ll need his medication adjusted, and the inflammation in his bronchial tubes will have to go down.”

“This sounds serious, Sierra. I think I should come. I could be there—”

“Please,” Sierra interrupted. “Don’t.”

A thoughtful silence followed. “All right, then,” Eve said finally, with a good grace Sierra truly appreciated. “I’ll just settle in here and wait. The furnace is running and the lights are on. Tell Travis not to rush back—I can certainly feed the horses.”

Sierra could only nod, so Travis took the phone back.

Evidently, a barrage of orders followed from Eve’s end.

Travis grinned through out. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I will.”

He ended the call.

“You will what?” Sierra inquired.

“Take care of you and Liam,” Travis answered.

1919

That morning the world looked as though it had been carved from a huge block of pure white ice. Hannah marveled at the beauty of it, staring through the kitchen window, even as she longed with bittersweet poignancy for spring. For things to stir under the snow bound earth, to put out roots and break through the surface, green and growing.

“Ma?”

She turned, troubled by something she heard in Tobias’s voice. He stood at the base of the stairs, still wearing his night shirt and barefoot.

“I don’t feel good,” he said.

Hannah set aside her coffee with exaggerated care, even took time to wipe her hands on her apron before she approached him. Touched his forehead with the back of her hand.

“You’re burning up,” she whispered, stricken.

Doss, who had been re reading last week’s newspaper at the table, his barn work done, slowly scraped back his chair.

“Shall I fetch the doc?” he asked.

Hannah turned, looked at him over one shoulder, and nodded. If you hadn’t insisted on taking him with you to the widow Jessup’s place, she thought—