The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's Homecoming

“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.

CHAPTER SIX

Present Day

WHILE TRAVIS AND LIAM 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.