Sierra's Homecoming

by Linda Lael Miller

  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 on to 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 bedroom, but the world beyond it.

  She lay still for a long time, recovering. Listening to her own quick, shallow breathing. Waiting for her heartbeat 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 downstairs,” 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 suitcases 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 downstairs 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 anything like it before and, for a long moment, she was spellbound. 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 sweatshirt, 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 reclaimed 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 someplace,” Travis said carefully. “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.

  Downstairs 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 livestock. When he got back, she’d be making breakfast, 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 breakfast 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 intertwined 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 painfully 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.

  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 inundated in the blizzard, and thousands 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 outside, 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 toward 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 ruefully. “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 Flagstaff 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 came face-to-face.”