The McKettrick Legend (14 page)

Sierra sat quietly, drawing careful, measured breaths, taking it all in. “Okay,” she said, finally. “I can buy all that. But there's still a pretty big gap between then and six weeks ago, when you finally contacted me.”

Eve was silent.

So I was right, Sierra thought bitterly. There's more.

“I was ashamed,” Eve said.

“Ashamed?”

Silence.

“Eve?”

“After the accident,” Eve went on, her voice pitched so low that Sierra had to lean forward to hear, “I took a lot of pain pills. They became less and less effective, while the pain seemed to get worse, so I started washing them down with alcohol.”

Sierra's mouth dropped open. “Meg never mentioned—”

“Of course she wouldn't,” Eve said. “It was my place to
tell you and, besides, you don't just email something like that to some body. What was she supposed to say? ‘Oh, by the way, Mother is a pill-freak and a drunk'?”

“My God,” Sierra whispered.

“I was intermittently clean and sober,” Eve went on. “But I always fell off the wagon eventually. If Rance hadn't stepped in after I took control of the company again, God bless him, I probably would have run McKettrickCo into the ground.”

“Rance?”

“Your cousin.”

Sierra struggled to hit a lighter note, because they both needed that. “Which branch of the family tree was
he
hatched in?”

Eve smiled weakly, but with a kind of gratitude that pinched Sierra's heart in one of the tenderest places. “Rance is descended from Rafe and Emmeline,” she answered. “Rafe was old Angus's son.”

“It took you all this time to get your life back together?” Sierra asked tentatively, after yet another lengthy silence had run its course.

“No,” Eve said. Color stained her cheeks. “No, I've been on the straight-and-narrow for ten years or so. I said it before, Sierra—I was ashamed. So much time had gone by, and I didn't know what to say. Where to start. It became a vicious cycle. The longer I put it off, the harder it was to take the risk.”

“But you finally tracked me down again. What changed?”

“I didn't have to track you down. I always knew where you were.” Eve sighed, and her shoulders stooped a little. “I found out about Liam's asthma, and I couldn't wait any longer.” She paused, straightened her back again. “Fair is fair, Sierra. I've answered the hard questions, though I
realize there will be more. Now, it's your turn. Why did you spend your life moving from place to place, serving cock tails, instead of putting down roots some where and making something of your life?”

Sierra considered her past and felt something sink within her. She'd taken a few night courses, here and there. She'd used her fluent Spanish with customers and volunteered, when she could, at some of Liam's schools. But she'd never had roots or any direction except “away.”

“There's nothing wrong with serving cock tails,” she said, trying not to sound defensive and not quite succeeding.

“Of course there isn't,” Eve readily agreed. “But why didn't you go to college?”

Sierra smiled ruefully. “There are only twenty-four hours in a day, Eve. I had a child to support.”

Eve nodded reflectively. And waited.

Sierra waited, too.

“That doesn't explain all the moving from place to place,” Eve said at last.

“I wish I had a ready answer,” Sierra said, after considerable searching. “I guess I just always had this low-grade anxiety, like I was trying to outrun something.”

Eve took that in silently.

“Why did you divorce my father?” Sierra asked. She hadn't seen the question coming, but she knew it had been fermenting in the back of her mind for a long time. Whenever it arose, she pushed it down, told herself it didn't matter, but this was a time for truth, however painful it might be.

“Hank,” Eve replied care fully, “was one of those men who believe they're entitled to call the shots, by virtue of possessing a penis. He quit his job a month after we were married—he sold condominiums—planning to become a
golf pro at the country club. He never actually got around to applying, of course, and it would have been quite a trick to get hired anyway, since there wasn't an opening and he didn't know a nine-iron from a putter.”

Sierra moistened her lips, uncomfortable.

“He was an emotional light weight,” Eve went on, quietly relentless. “But you knew that, didn't you, Sierra?”

She
had
known, but admitting it aloud was beyond her. She did manage a stiff nod, though.

“How did he earn a living?” Eve asked. “Even in Mexico, there's rent to pay, and food costs money.”

Sierra blushed. Hank had tended bar at the corner cantina on occasion, and played a lot of backroom poker. The house they'd lived in belonged to Magdalena. “He just seemed to…coast,” she said.

“But you had clothes, shoes. Medical care. Birthday cakes. Toys at Christmas?”

Sierra nodded. Her child hood had been marked by two things—a vague, pervasive loneliness, and a bohemian kind of freedom. At last, realization struck. “
You
were sending him money some how.”

“I was sending
you
money, through Hank's sister, from the day he took you away. Nell, your aunt, was pretty clever. She always cashed the check, then wired it to Hank, through various places—some times a bank, some times the courtesy desk in a super market, some times a convenience store. Eventually my investigators picked up the trail, but it wasn't so easy in those days, before computers.”

Sierra flashed on a series of memories—her dad walking away from one of the many
cambio
outlets in San Miguel, where tourists cashed traveler's checks and exchanged their own currency for
pesos.
She'd been very small, but she'd seen him folding a wad of bills and tucking it into his
pocket, and she'd wondered. Now she felt a stab of shame on his behalf, recalling his small, secret smile.

Eve was right. Hank Breslin had felt
entitled
to that money, and while he'd always made sure Sierra had the necessities, he'd never been overly generous. In fact, it had been Magdalena not Hank, who had provided extras. Sweet, plump, spice-scented Magdalena of the patient smile and manner.

Sierra's emotions must have been clearly visible in her face. Eve rose, came over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Then, without another word, she turned and left the room.

Sierra had loved her father, for all his short comings, and seeing him in this light destroyed a lot of fantasies. Even worse, she knew that Adam, Liam's father, had been a younger version of Hank. Oh, he'd had a career. But she'd been an amusement to him and nothing more. He'd been willing to sell her out, sell out his own wife and daughters, for a good time. Like Hank, he'd felt entitled to whatever pleasures happened to be available, and to hell with all the people who got hurt in the process.

For a moment she hated Adam, hated Hank, hated all men.

She'd been attracted to Travis Reid.

Now she took an internal step back, and an enormous
no!
boiled up from her depths, spewing like a geyser and then freezing solid at its height.

1919

D
OSS RETURNED TO THE ROOM
well after midnight, smelling of cigar smoke and whisky. Hannah lay absolutely still, playing possum, watching through her lashes as he shed his hat and coat and kicked off his boots. Maybe he knew she was awake, and maybe he was fooled. She wasn't about to give herself away by speaking to him and, besides, she didn't trust herself not to tear into him like a shrew. Once the first word tumbled out of her mouth, others would follow, like a raging horde with swords and cudgels.

On the other hand, if he had the pure audacity to think, for one blessed moment, that he was going to enjoy his husbandly privileges, she'd come up out of that bed like a tigress, claws bared and slashing.

She breathed slowly, deeply and regularly, making her body soft.

Doss moved to the bureau, filled the china wash basin from the pitcher provided, and washed. She waited, in delicious dread, for him to undress, since he obviously intended to sleep in that room, in that bed, with her.

To her surprise, relief and complete annoyance, he remained fully clothed, sat down on the edge of the bed, and stretched out on top of the covers.

“I know you're not asleep,” he said.

Hannah bit down hard on her lower lip. Though her eyes were shut tight, tears squeezed beneath her lids. Gabe would never have done such a thing to her, never have gone out on their wedding night to smoke and drink whisky and carouse with bad companions. Never have subjected her to such a public humiliation.

A sob shook her body. “I
hate
you, Doss McKettrick,” she said.

He sighed, sounding resigned. If he'd apologized, if he'd put his arm around her and held her close, she would have felt better, in spite of it all, but he didn't. He kept to his own side of the bed, a weight atop the blankets, within touching distance and yet as remote from Hannah as Indian Rock was from the Eastern Seaboard.

“We'll have to make the best of things,” he told her.

She rolled on to her side, with her back to him. “No, we won't,” she whispered snappishly, “because as soon as Tobias is well enough, he and I are getting on the train and leaving for good.”

“If it's a comfort to you,” Doss replied, “then you just go ahead and think that. The truth of the matter is, you're my wife now, and as long as there's a chance you're carrying my baby, you're not going anywhere.”

“I hate you,” Hannah repeated.

“So you said,” Doss answered, with a long-suffering sigh.

“I'll leave if I want to.”

“I'll bring you back. And believe me, Hannah, I can keep up the game as long as you can.”

“Then you mean to keep me prisoner.” Hannah spoke into the darkness, and it seemed like a shadow, cast by her very soul, that gloom, rather than mere night, with the moon following its ancient course and the stars in their right places. It was, in that moment, as if the sun would never rise again.

“I won't lock you in the cellar, if that's what you mean,” Doss told her. “I won't mistreat you or force my attentions on you, and I'll be civil as long as you are. But until I know whether you're pregnant or not, you're staying right here.”

Hannah huddled deeper into the covers, feeling small, and wiped away a tear with the edge of the sheet. “I hope I'm not,” she whispered. “I hope I'm not carrying your baby.”

Even as she said the words, though, she knew they were the frayed and tattered weavings of a lie. She longed for an other child, a girl this time, yearned to feel a life growing and stirring under her heart. She just didn't want Doss McKettrick to be the father, that was all.

She cried quietly, lying there next to Doss. Cried till her pillow was wet. She'd have bet money she wouldn't sleep a wink, but at some point she succumbed.

The next thing she knew, it was morning.

Doss's side of the bed was empty, and fat, lazy flakes of snow drifted past the window. The room was cold, but she could hear voices in the next room and the clattering of silverware against dishes. The aroma of bacon teased her nose; her stomach clenched with hunger, and then she was nauseous.

“No,” she said, in a whisper, sitting bolt-upright.

Yes, her body replied. She'd had the same reaction within ten days of Tobias's conception.

Tobias appeared in the doorway, with Doss standing just behind him.

“You want some break fast, Ma?” the boy asked. He looked slightly feverish, but stronger, too, and he was wearing a new suit of clothes—black woolen trousers, a blue-and-white-plaid flannel shirt, even suspenders.

The whole picture turned hazy, and the mention of food, let alone the smell, sent bile scalding into the back
of Hannah's throat. Avoiding Doss's gaze, she gulped and shook her head.

Doss laid a hand on Tobias's shoulder and gently steered him back into the other room. He pulled the door closed, too, and the instant he did, Hannah rolled out of bed, pulled the chamber-pot out from underneath, distractedly grateful that it was clean, and threw up until she collapsed onto the hooked rug, utterly spent.

She heard the door open again, heard Doss say her name, but she couldn't respond. She just lay there, on her side, wretch ed and empty, as though she'd lost her soul as well as the remains of her wedding supper.

Doss knelt, gathered her in his arms, and put her back into bed, covering her gently. He fetched a basin of tepid water from the other room, along with a wash cloth, and cleaned her up. When that was done, he handed her a glass, and she rinsed her mouth, then spat into the basin.

“I'll get the doctor,” he said.

She shook her head. “Don't,” she answered, and the word came out raspy and raw. “I just need to rest.”

Doss drew up a chair, sat beside the bed, keeping a silent vigil. Hannah wished he'd go away, and at the same time she dreaded his leave-taking with the whole echoing hollowness of her being.

A maid came in, replacing the fouled chamber pot, washing out the basin, taking the pitcher away and bringing it back full. Although she cast the occasional worried glance in Hannah's direction, the woman never said a word, and when she was gone, Doss remained.

He plumped the pillows behind Hannah's back and adjust ed the radiator to warm the room.

“I thought I'd bundle Tobias up,” Doss ventured, at some length, “and take him down to the general store.
Get him somethings to play with, maybe a book to read.”

Hannah was in a strange, dazed state, weak all over. “You see that he doesn't take a chill,” she muttered. Common sense said Tobias ought to stay in, out of the weather, and if she'd been herself, she would have insisted on that. As things stood, she didn't have the strength, and anyway she knew the boy was desperate to get out, if only for a little while.

Doss stood, tucked the covers in around her. To look at them, Hannah thought, anybody would have thought they were a normal husband and wife, people who loved each other. “Can I bring you something back?”

“No,” she said, and closed her eyes, drifting.

When she opened them again, Doss was back, with the chilly scent of fresh air surrounding him. She could hear Tobias in the next room, chatting with somebody.

“Feeling better?” Doss asked. He was holding a parcel in his hands, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

“Thirsty,” Hannah murmured.

Doss nodded, set the package aside and brought her another glass of water, this time from the pitcher on the bureau.

She drank it down, waited, and was pathetically pleased when it didn't come right back up.

“You'd best have something to eat, if you can,” Doss said.

Hannah nodded. Suddenly she was ravenous.

He left again, was gone so long that she wondered if he meant to hunt down the food, skin it, and cook it over a slow fire. Tobias wandered in, cheeks pink from the cold, eyes bright. “Uncle Jeb wants to buy me a sandwich,” he told her. “Down stairs, in the restaurant. Is it all right if I go?”

Hannah smiled. “Sure it is,” she said.

Tobias drew a step nearer, moving tentatively, as though approaching something fragile enough to fall over and break at the slightest touch. “Doss says you're not dying,” he said.

“He's right,” Hannah answered.

“Then what's the matter? You
never
stay in bed in the daytime.”

Hannah extended her hand, and after hesitating Tobias took it. “I'm being lazy,” she said, giving his fingers a squeeze.

He clung for a moment, then let go. His eyes were wide and worried. “I heard you being sick,” he told her.

A door opened in the distance, and Hannah heard Doss and Jeb exchange quiet words, though she couldn't make them out. “I'll be fine by tomorrow,” she promised. “You go and have that sandwich. It isn't every day you get to eat in a real restaurant.”

Tobias relaxed visibly. He smiled, planted a kiss on her fore head and fled, nearly colliding with Doss in the doorway. Doss tightened his grip on the tray of food he was carrying. A tea pot, with steam wisping from the spout. A bowl of something savory and fragrant.

Hannah's nose twitched, and her formerly rebellious stomach growled an audible welcome.

“Chicken and dumplings,” Doss said, with a grin.

He set the tray care fully on Hannah's lap. Poured her a cup of tea and probably would have spoon-fed her, too, if she hadn't taken charge of the situation.

“Thank you,” she said, trying to square this attentive man with the one who had left her alone on their wedding night to visit the Blue Garter Saloon.

“You're welcome,” he replied. He sat down to watch her eat, and his gaze strayed once or twice to the package on the night stand, still wrapped and mysterious.

Hannah did not assume it was for her, since she'd clearly refused Doss's earlier offer to bring her something from the mercantile, but she was curious, just the same. The shape was booklike, and before she'd married Gabe, she'd read so much her mother and father used to fret that her eyes might go bad. After she became a wife, she was too busy, and when Gabe went away to war, she found she couldn't concentrate on the printed word. Letters were all she'd been able to manage then.

She ate what she could and sipped her tea, hot and sweet and pale with milk, and Doss took the tray away, set it on the bureau. Jeb and Tobias had long since gone down stairs for their midday meal, and except for the sounds of wagons passing in the street below and the faint hiss of the radiator, the room was silent.

Doss cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Hannah, about last night—”

“Stop,” Hannah said quickly, and with as much force as she could manage, given her curiously fragile state. The tea cup rattled in its saucer, and Doss leaned forward to take it from her, set it next to the parcel. He looked resigned, and a little impatient.

Hannah leaned back on her pillows, fighting another spate of tears. She would have sworn she'd cried them all out the night before, after Doss came back from the Blue Garter and told her he wouldn't let her go home to Montana, but here they were, burning behind her eyes, threatening to spill over.

“I figure you know what this means, your being sick like this,” Doss said presently, and in a tone that said he wouldn't be silenced before he'd finished his piece. “That's the only reason I didn't bring the doctor over here, first thing.”

Hannah closed her eyes. Nodded.

“I know you'd rather it was Gabe sitting here,” he went
on. “That he'd be the one who fathered that child, the one taking you home to the ranch, the one bringing Tobias up to be a man. But the plain fact of the matter is, it'll be me doing those things, Hannah, and you might as well make peace with that.”

She didn't speak, because she couldn't. She tried to summon up Gabe's image in her mind, but it wouldn't come to her. All she saw was Doss, coming in after a night at the Blue Garter, taking off his coat and hat and boots, lying down be side her on the bed, keeping a careful distance.

He retrieved the parcel from the night stand and laid it in her lap. She listened, despondent, as he left the room, closed the door quietly behind him.

She ought to refuse the package, throw it against the wall or into Doss's face when he came back. But some part of her wanted a gift, something frivolous and impractical, chosen purely to bring a smile to her face.

She barely remembered what it was like to smile, without thinking about it first, without deciding she ought to, because it was called for or expected.

Her hands trembled as she undid the string, wound it into a little ball to keep, turned back the brown paper, which she would care fully fold and save against some future need, to find that Doss had indeed given her a book. Her breath caught at the beauty of the green leather cover. The title, embossed in shining gold, seemed to sing beneath the tips of her fingers.

The Flowers of Western America, Native and Imported: An Illustrated Guide.

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 wood cut tings 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 hand writing.

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 black berry 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.