The McKettrick Legend (8 page)

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.

Hannah hadn't expected anything except shame, but she was stung by it, just the same. “We'll just pretend—” She had to stop, clear her throat, blink a couple of times. “We'll just pretend it didn't happen.”

His jaw tightened. “Hannah, it
did
happen, and pretending won't change that.”

She inter twined her fingers, clasped them so tightly that the knuckles ached. Looked down at the floor. “What else can we do, Doss?” she asked, almost in a whisper.

“Suppose there's a child?”

Hannah hadn't once thought of that possibility, though it seemed pain fully obvious in the bright, rational light of day. She drew in a sharp breath and put a hand to her throat.

How would they explain such a thing to Tobias? To the McKettricks and the people of Indian Rock?

“I'd have to go to Montana,” she said, after a long time. “To my folks.”

“Not with my baby growing inside you, you wouldn't,” Doss replied, so sharply that Hannah's gaze shot back to his face.

“Doss, the scandal—”

“To hell with the scandal!”

Hannah reached out, pulled back Holt's chair at
the table and sank into it. “Maybe I'm not. Surely just once—”

“Maybe you are,” Doss insisted.

Hannah's eyes smarted. She'd wanted more children, but not like this. Not out of wedlock, and by her late husband's brother. Folks would call her a hussy, with considerable justification, and they'd make Tobias's life a plain misery, too. They'd point and whisper, and the other kids would tease.

“What are we going to do, then?” she asked.

He crossed the room, sat astraddle the long bench next to the table, so close she could feel the warmth of his body, glowing like the fresh fire blazing inside the cookstove.

His very proximity made her remember things better forgotten.

“There's only one thing we can do, Hannah. We'll get married.”

She gaped at him.
“Married?”

“It's the only decent thing to do.”

The word
decent
stabbed at Hannah. She was a proud person, and she'd always lived a respectable life. Until the night before. “We don't love each other,” she said, her voice small. “And anyway, I might not be—expecting.”

“I'm not taking the chance,” Doss told her. “As soon as the trail clears a little, we're going into Indian Rock and get married.”

“I have some say in this,” Hannah pointed out.

Outside, on the back porch, Tobias thumped his boots against the step, to shake off the snow.

“Do you?” Doss asked.

Present Day

W
HILE
T
RAVIS AND
L
IAM WERE
in the barn, Sierra inspected the wood-burning stove. She found a skillet, set it on top, took bacon and eggs from the refrigerator, which was ominously dark and silent, and laid strips of the bacon in the pan. When the meat began to sizzle, she felt a little thrill of accomplishment.

She was actually
cooking
on a stove that dated from the nineteenth century. Briefly, she felt connected with all the McKettrick women who had gone before her.

When the electricity came on, with a startling revving sound, she was almost sorry. Keeping an eye on breakfast, she switched on the small countertop TV to catch the morning news.

The entire northern part of Arizona had been in undated in the blizzard, and thou sands were without power. She watched as images of people skiing to work flashed across the screen.

The telephone rang, and she held the portable receiver between her shoulder and ear to answer. “Hello?”

“It's Eve,” a gracious voice replied. “Is that you, Sierra?”

Sierra went utterly still. Travis and Liam tramped in from out side, laughing about something. They both fell
silent at the sight of her, and neither one moved after Travis pushed the door shut.

“Hello?” Eve prompted. “Sierra, are you there?”

“I'm…I'm here,” Sierra said.

Travis took off his coat and hat, crossed the room and elbowed her away from the stove. “Go,” he told her, cocking a thumb to ward the center of the house. “Liam and I will see to the grub.”

She nodded, grateful, and hurried out of the warm kitchen. The dining room was frigid.

“Is this a bad time to talk?” Eve asked. She sounded uncertain, even a little shy.

“No—” Sierra answered hastily, finally gaining the study. She closed the door and sat in the big leather chair she'd occupied the night before, waiting for the fire to go out. Now she could see her breath, and she wished the blaze was still burning. “No, it's fine.”

Eve let out a long breath. “I see on the Weather Channel that you've been hit with quite a storm up there,” she said.

Sierra nodded, remembered that her mother—this woman she didn't know—couldn't see her. “Yes,” she replied. “We have power again, thanks to Travis. He got the generator running right away, so the furnace would work and—”

She swallowed the rush of too-cheerful words. She'd been blathering.

“Poor Travis,” Eve said.

“Poor Travis?” Sierra echoed. “Why?”

“Didn't he tell you? Didn't Meg?”

“No,” Sierra said. “Nobody told me anything.”

There was a long pause, then Eve sighed. “I'm probably speaking out of turn,” she said, “but we've all been a little worried about Travis. He's like a member of the family,
you know. His younger brother, Brody, died in an explosion a few months ago. It really threw Travis. He walked away from the company and just about everyone he knew. Meg had to talk fast to get him to come and stay on the ranch.”

Sierra was very glad she'd brought the phone out of the kitchen. “I didn't know,” she said.

“I've already said more than I should have,” Eve told her rue fully. “And anyway, I called to see how you and Liam are doing. I know you're not used to cold weather, and when I saw the storm report, I had to call.”

“We're okay,” Sierra said. Had she known the woman better, she might have confided her worries about Liam—how he claimed he'd seen a ghost in his room. She still planned to call his new doctor, but driving to Flag staff for an appointment would be out of the question, considering the state of the roads.

“I hear some hesitation in your voice,” Eve said. She was treading lightly, Sierra could tell, and she would be a hard person to fool. Eve ran McKettrickCo, and hundreds of people answered to her.

Sierra gave a nervous laugh, more hysteria than amusement. “Liam claims the house is haunted,” she admitted.

“Oh, that,” Eve answered, and she actually sounded relieved.

“‘Oh, that'?” Sierra challenged, sitting up straighter.

“They're harmless,” Eve said. “The ghosts, I mean. If that's what they are.”

“You know about the ghosts?”

Eve laughed. “Of course I do. I grew up in that house. But I'm not sure
ghosts
is the right word. To me, it always felt more like sharing the place than its being haunted. I got the sense that they—the other people—were as alive
as I was. That they'd have been just as surprised, had we ever come face-to-face.”

Sierra's mind spun. She squeezed the bridge of her nose between a thumb and fore finger. The piano notes she'd heard the night before tinkled sadly in her memory. “You're not saying you actually
believe
—”

“I'm saying I've had experiences,” Eve told her. “I've never seen anyone. Just had a strong sense of someone else being present. And, of course, there was the famous disappearing teapot.”

Sierra sank against the back of the chair, both relieved and confounded. Had she told Meg about the teapot? She couldn't recall. Perhaps Travis had mentioned it—called Eve to report that her daughter was a little loony?

“Sierra?” Eve asked.

“I'm still here.”

“I would get the teapot out,” Eve re counted, “and leave the room to do something else. When I came back, it was in the china cabinet again. The same thing used to happen to my mother, and my grandmother, too. They thought it was Lorelei.”

“How could that be?”

“Who knows?” Eve asked, patently unconcerned. “Life is mysterious.”

It certainly is, Sierra thought. Little girls get separated from their mothers, and no one even comes looking for them.

“I'd like to come and see you,” Eve went on, “as soon as the weather clears. Would that be all right, Sierra? If I spent a few days at the ranch? So we could talk in person?”

Sierra's heart rose into her throat and swelled there. “It's your house,” she said, but she wanted to throw down the phone, snatch Liam, jump into the car and speed away before she had to face this woman.

“I won't come if you're not ready,” Eve said gently.

I may never be ready, Sierra thought. “I guess I am,” she murmured.

“Good,” Eve replied. “Then I'll be there as soon as the jet can land. Barring another snow storm, that should be tomorrow or the next day.”

The jet? “Should we pick you up some where?”

“I'll have a car meet me,” Eve said. “Do you need anything, Sierra?”

I could have used a mother when I was growing up. And when I had Liam and Dad acted as though nothing had changed—well, you would have come in handy then, too, Mom. “I'm fine,” she answered.

“I'll call again before I leave here,” Eve promised. Then, after another tentative pause and a brief goodbye, she rang off.

Sierra sat a long time in that chair, still holding the phone, and might not have moved at all if Liam hadn't come to tell her break fast was on the table.

1919

It was a cold, seemingly endless ride to the Jessup place, and hard going all the way. More than once Doss glanced anxiously at his nephew, bundled to his eyeballs and jostling patiently along side Doss's mount on the mule, and wished he'd listened to Hannah and left the boy at home.

More than once, he at tempted to broach the subject that was uppermost in his mind—he'd been up half the night wrestling with it—but he couldn't seem to get a proper handle on the matter at all.

I mean to marry your ma.

That was the straight for ward truth, a simple thing to say.

But Tobias was bound to ask why. Maybe he'd even raise an objection. He'd loved his pa, and he might just put his old uncle Doss right square in his place.

“You ever think about livin' in town?” Tobias asked, catching him by surprise.

Doss took a moment to change directions in his mind. “Some times,” he answered, when he was sure it was what he really meant. “Especially in the wintertime.”

“It's no warmer there than it is here,” Tobias reasoned. Whatever he was getting at, it wasn't coming through in his tone or his manner.

“No,” Doss agreed. “But there are other folks around. A man could get his mail at the post office every day, instead of waiting a week for it to come by wagon, and take a meal in a restaurant now and again. And I'll admit that library is an enticement, small as it is.” He thought fondly of the books lining the study walls back at the ranch house. He'd read all of them, at one time or another, and most several times. He'd borrowed from his uncle Kade's collection, and his ma sent him a regular supply from Texas. Just the same, he couldn't get enough of the damn things.

“Ma's been talking about heading back to Montana,” Tobias blurted, but he didn't look at Doss when he spoke. Just kept his eyes on the close-clipped mane of that old mule. “If she tries to make me go, I'll run away.”

Doss swallowed. He knew Hannah thought about moving in with the home folks, of course, but hearing it said out loud made him feel as if he'd not only been thrown from his horse, but stomped on, too. “Where would you go?” he asked, when he thought he could get the words out easy. He wasn't entirely successful. “If you ran off, I mean?”

Tobias turned in the saddle to look him full in the face. “I'd hide up in the hills some where,” he said, with the conviction of innocence. “Maybe that canyon where Kade and Mandy faced down those outlaws.”

Doss suppressed a smile. He'd grown up on that story him self, and to this day, he wondered how much of it was fact and how much was legend. Mandy was a sharpshooter, and she'd given Annie Oakley a run for her money, in her time. Kade had been the town marshal, with an office in Indian Rock back then, so maybe it had happened just the way his pa and uncles related it.

“Mighty cold up there,” he told the boy mildly. “Just a cave for shelter, and where would you get food?”

Tobias's shoulders slumped a little, under all that wool Hannah had swaddled him in. If the kid took a spill from the mule, he'd probably bounce. “I could hunt,” he said. “Pa taught me how to shoot.”

“McKettricks,” Doss replied, “don't run away.”

Tobias scowled at him. “They don't live in
Missoula,
either.”

Doss chuckled, in spite of the heavy feeling that had settled over his heart after he and Hannah had made love and stayed there ever since. Gabe was dead, but it still felt as if he'd betrayed him. “They live in all sorts of places,” Doss said. “You know that.”

“I won't go, anyhow,” Tobias said.

Doss cleared his throat. “Maybe you won't have to.”

That got the boy's full attention. His eyes were full of questions.

“I wonder what you'd say if I married your ma.”

Tobias looked as though he'd swallowed a lantern with the wick burning. “I'd like that,” he said. “I'd like that a
lot!
”

Too bad Hannah wasn't as keen on the prospect as
her son. “I thought you might not care for the idea,” Doss confessed. “My being your pa's brother and all.”

“Pa would be glad,” Tobias said. “I know he would.”

Secretly, Doss knew it, too. Gabe had been a practical man, and he'd have wanted all of them to get on with their lives.

Doss's eyes smarted something fierce, all of a sudden, and he had to pull his hat brim down. Look away for a few moments.

Take care of Hannah and my boy,
Gabe had said.
Promise me, Doss.

“Did Ma say she'd hitch up with you?” Tobias asked, frowning so that his face crinkled comically. “Last night I said she ought to, and she said it wouldn't be right.”

Doss stood in the stirrups to stretch his legs. “Things can change,” he said cautiously. “Even in a night.”

“Do you love my ma?”

It was a hard question to answer, at least aloud. He'd loved Hannah from the day Gabe had brought her home as his bride. Loved her fiercely, hopelessly and honorably, from a proper distance. Gabe had guessed it right away, though. Waited until the two of them were alone in the barn, slapped Doss on the shoulder and said,
Don't you be ashamed, little brother. It's easy to love my Hannah.

“Of course I do,” Doss said. “She's family.”

Tobias made a face. “I don't mean like that.”

Doss's belly tightened. The boy was only eight, and he couldn't possibly know what had gone on last night in the spare room.

Could he?

“How
do
you mean, then?”

“Pa used to kiss Ma all the time. He used to swat her on the bustle, too, when he thought nobody was looking. It always made her laugh, and stand real close to him, with her arms around his neck.”

Doss might have gripped the saddle horn with both hands, because of the pain, if he'd been riding alone. It wasn't the reminder of how much Hannah and Gabe had loved each other that seared him, though. It was the loss of his brother, the way of things then, and it all being over for good.

“I'll treat your mother right, Tobias,” he said, after more hat-brim pulling and more looking away.

“You sound pretty sure she'll say yes,” the boy commented.

“She already has,” Doss replied.

Present Day

More snow began to fall at midmorning and, worried that the power would go off again, and stay off this time, Sierra gathered her and Liam's dirty laundry and threw a load into the washing machine. She'd telephoned Liam's doctor in Flag staff, from the study, while he and Travis were filling the dish washer, but she hadn't mentioned the hallucinations. She'd heard the piano music herself, after all, and then Eve had made such experiences seem almost normal.