“Okay,” she said.
“There is one thing I want to show you before I go,” Eve said, rising from the kitchen table and crossing to the china cabinet to lean down and open one of the drawers. She brought out a large, square object, wrapped in soft blue flannel, and set it before Sierra, who had shoved her plate and coffee cup aside in the meantime and wiped her part of the tabletop clean with a checkered cloth napkin.
Sierra’s heart raced a little and, at a nod from Eve, she folded back the flannel covering to reveal an old photo album.
“These are your people, Sierra,” Eve said quietly. “Your ancestors. There are journals and other photographs in the attic, and they need cataloging. It would be a great favor to me if you would gather them and make sure they’re properly preserved.”
“I can do that,” Sierra said. Her hand, resting on the album cover, trembled a little, with both anticipation and a certain reluctance to get involved. Biologically she had a connection with the faces and names between the battered leather covers of the book, but in terms of real life, she was just passing through. She couldn’t afford to forget that.
Eve laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry about the Christmas tree,” she said with a slight smile. “I was the one who put it up, and I should be the one to take it down, but the plane will be arriving in an hour, so there isn’t time. The corresponding boxes are in the basement, at the bottom of the steps.”
Sierra nodded a second time. Liam had finished opening his presents the night before, and the mess had been cleaned up. Putting away the tree, like sorting photos and journals, would be a bittersweet enterprise. She hadn’t looked closely at the ornaments, but she supposed they were heirlooms, like so many other things in that house, each one with a meaning she could never fully understand.
So many McKettrick Christmases, and she hadn’t been a part of any of them. With Hank the holiday had gone almost unnoticed, although there were always a few gifts. Sierra hadn’t felt deprived at the time, because she hadn’t known that other people made more of a fuss.
The McKettricks, most likely, made a lot of fuss, not just over Christmas, but other holidays, too. They’d probably kept happy secrets at Yuletide, sung carols around that haunted piano, toasted each other with eggnog poured into cut-glass cups that were older than any of them….
Enough, Sierra told herself sternly. That time is gone. You missed it. Get over wishing you hadn’t.
Eve bent to kiss Sierra on top of the head, then went upstairs to the big master bedroom, to pack up her things.
Sierra cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, but her gaze kept straying to the album. It was as though the people in the photographs, all long dead, were calling to her.
Get to know us.
We are part of you. We are part of Liam.
Sierra shook off the feeling as a nostalgic whim. She was as much a Breslin as a McKettrick, after all. She knew how to be Hank’s daughter, but being Eve’s was a whole new ball game. It was as though she had an entirely separate and unfamiliar identity, and that person was a stranger to her.
Liam bounded down the back stairs as she was rinsing out the coffee carafe, beaming at the prospect of starting school. He’d been thrilled to learn, through the research he and Sierra had done on Meg’s computer, after last night’s present-unwrapping frenzy, that there was no “Geek Program” at Indian Rock Elementary.
He wanted to be an “ordinary” kid.
Not sick.
Not gifted.
“Just regular,” as he’d put it.
Sierra’s heart ached with love and empathy. As a child, home taught by Magdalena, she’d yearned to go to a real school, but Hank had forbidden it.
Now she realized Hank had been hiding her, probably fearful that some visitor, ex-patriot parent or teacher might catch on to the fact that he’d snatched her, and look into the matter.
For a moment she indulged in a primitive anger so deep that it was visceral, causing her stomach to clench and her jaws to tighten.
“Grandma says we’d better take Meg’s Blazer into town today, because ours is a heap, not to mention a veritable eyesore,” Liam reported cheerfully. “When are we going to get a new car?”
“When I win the lottery or get a job,” Sierra said, deliberately relaxing her shoulders, which had immediately tensed, and taking Liam’s new “cowboy” coat, as he’d dubbed it, down from the peg. While she would have objected if she’d known Eve was out buying all those gifts, let alone wrapping them and putting them under a fully decorated Christmas tree, she was glad of this one. It was made of leather and lined with sheepskin, well beyond her budget, and it would definitely keep her little boy warm.
Just then Eve came back, bundled up for winter weather herself, and carrying a small, expensive suitcase in one hand. Her coat was full length and black, elegantly cut and probably cashmere.
“We’re in the process of opening a branch office of McKettrickCo in Indian Rock,” she announced, evidently unabashed that she’d been eavesdropping. “Keegan is heading it up, but I’m sure there will be a place for you in the organization if you want one. You do speak Spanish, don’t you?”
“Keegan,” Sierra mused mildly, letting the indirect job offer slide, along with the reference to her language skills, at least for the moment. “Another McKettrick cousin?”
“Descended from Kade and Mandy,” Eve confirmed, smiling slightly and nodding toward the album. “It’s all in the book.”
“How are you getting back to the airstrip—or wherever your jet is landing?” Sierra asked, shrugging into her coat, which looked like something from the bottom of a grungy bin at a thrift store, compared to the ones Eve and Liam were decked out in.
“Travis is taking me in his truck,” Eve said, setting her suitcase down by the door, heading to the china cabinet to pluck a set of keys from a sugar bowl, taking Sierra’s hand, opening it and placing them on her palm. “Use the Blazer. That wreck of yours won’t make it out of the driveway, if it starts at all.”
Sierra hesitated a moment before closing her fingers around the keys. “Not to mention that it’s a veritable eyesore,” she said pointedly, but with a little smile.
“You said it,” Eve replied brightly. “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” Liam countered. “Upstairs, you told me—”
Outside Travis honked the truck horn.
Eve touched her grandson’s neatly groomed hair. “Give your old granny a hug,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few weeks, and if the weather is good, maybe you’d like to take a ride in the company jet.”
Liam let out a whoop.
Sierra didn’t get a chance to protest, because Travis rapped lightly, opened the back door and took up Eve’s suitcase. He gave Sierra a nod for a greeting and grinned down at Liam.
“Hey, cowpoke,” he said. “Lookin’ good in that new gear.”
Liam preened, showing off the coat. “I wanted to wear the hat, too,” he replied, “but Mom said I might lose it at school.”
“The world,” Travis replied, with a longer glance at Sierra, “is full of hats.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sierra asked, feeling defensive again.
Travis sighed. A look passed between him and Eve. Then he simply turned, without answering and headed for the truck.
Eve hugged Liam, then Sierra.
Moments later she and Travis were in the truck and barreling away.
Sierra found the door leading into the garage—cleverly hidden in back of the pantry, like the architectural afterthought it surely was—and assessed her sister’s shining red Blazer. Liam strained to reach the button on the wall, and the garage door grumbled up on its rollers, letting in a shivery chill.
Her station wagon was parked outside, behind the SUV, and Sierra muttered as she started Meg’s vehicle, after she and Liam were both buckled in, and maneuvered around the eyesore.
1919
Despite the bitter cold, Hannah sat well away from Doss as th
ey drove home in the sleigh two days after the wedding, Tobias cosseted between them.
She was married.
Each time her thoughts drifted in that direction, she started inwardly, surprised all over again.
She was a wife—but she certainly didn’t feel like one.
Doss remained silent for the greater part of the journey, his gloved hands gripping the reins with the ease of long practice. Hannah felt his gaze on her a couple of times, but when she looked in his direction, he was always watching the snow-packed trail ahead.
By the time they reached the ranch, Hannah sorely wished she could simply crawl into bed, pull the covers up over her head and remain there until something changed.
It was an indulgence ranch women were not afforded.
Doss drew the team and sleigh up close to the house, lifted a half-sleeping Tobias from the seat and carried him in. Hannah got down on her own, bringing her valise, the flower book tucked safely inside among her dirty clothes, and followed stalwartly.
The kitchen was frigidly cold.
Doss pulled the string on the lightbulb in the middle of the room as he passed, heading for the stairs with Tobias.
Hannah rose above an inclination to turn it right back off again. She set her valise down and made for the stove. By the time Doss returned, she had a fire going and lamps lighted. She’d fetch some eggs from the spring house, she decided, provided that Willie had gathered them during their absence, and make an omelet for their supper. Perhaps she’d fry up some of the sausage she’d preserved last fall, and make biscuits and gravy, too.
“I’ll see to the team,” Doss said.
“Where do you suppose Willie’s got to?” Hannah asked. She’d seen no sign of the hired man when they were driving in, and she feared for her chickens, along with the livestock in the barn. Like many laborers, Willie was a drifter, and might have taken it into his head to kick off the traces and take to the road anywhere along the line.
“I saw him when we came in,” Doss answered, opening the door to go out again. “Out by the bunkhouse, stacking firewood.”
Hannah gave a sigh of relief. In the next moment, she wanted to tell Doss to stay inside where it was warm, that she’d have the coffee ready in a few minutes, but it would have been a waste of breath. He was a rancher, born and bred, and that meant he looked after the cattle and horses first and saw to his own comforts later, when the work was done.
“Supper will be on the table in half an hour,” she said, as though she were a landlady in a boarding house and he a paying guest, planning the briefest of stays. “Willie’s welcome to join us, if he wants.”
Doss nodded, raised his coat collar around his ears and went out.
Sometime later, he returned alone. Hannah had already fetched the eggs from the spring house, and they were scrambled, cooked and waiting on a platter in the warming oven above the stove. The kitchen was snug, and the softer light of lanterns glowed, replacing the glare of the overhead bulb.
“Willie’s gone on back to the main ranch house,” he said. “But he thanks you kindly for the invite to supper.”
Hannah wiped her hands on her apron and took plates from the china cabinet to set the table. That was when she noticed the album lying there, as though someone had been perusing it and intended to come back and look some more later.
She stopped in her tracks.
Doss, in the act of shedding his coat and hat, followed her gaze.
“What’s the matter, Hannah?” he asked, with a quiet alertness in his voice.
“The album,” she said.
“What about it?” Doss asked, passing her to approach the stove. He poured himself a cup of coffee and came to stand beside her.
“Willie wouldn’t have gone through our things, would he?”
Doss shook his head. “Not likely it would even have occurred to him to do that,” he said. “Judging by how cold it was in here when we got home, he probably didn’t set foot in the house once he’d finished off that chicken soup you made before we left.”
Hannah wrung her hands, took a step toward the table and then paused. “Do you…do you ever get the feeling we’re not alone in this house?” she asked, almost whispering the words.
“No,” Doss said, with conviction.
“It was bad enough when the teapot kept moving. Now, the album—”
“Hannah.” He touched her arm. “You sound like Tobias, going on about seeing a boy in his room.”
“Maybe,” Hannah ventured to speculate, almost breathless with the effort of speaking the words aloud, “he’s not imagining things. Maybe it wasn’t the fever.”
Doss cupped Hannah’s elbow in one hand and steered her to the table, letting go only to pull back a chair. It was pure fancy, of course, but as Hannah sat down, it seemed to her that the album, fairly new and reverently cared for, was very old. The sensation lasted only a moment or so, but it was so powerful that it left her feeling weak.
“We’ve all been under a strain, Hannah,” Doss reasoned. “One of us must have gotten the album out and forgotten about it.”
She looked up into his face. “Did you?” she challenged softly.
He paused, shook his head.
“I know I didn’t,” she insisted.
“Tobias, then,” Doss said.
“No,” Hannah replied. “He was too sick.”
Doss set his coffee on the table, sat astride the bench, facing her. “There’s a simple explanation for this, Hannah. Somebody might have come up from one of the other places, let themselves in.”
As close as the McKettricks were, they didn’t go into each other’s houses when no one was at home. If one of them had wanted to see the album, they’d have said so. Anyway, the aunts and uncles were all in Phoenix, their children grown and gone. The people who looked after their places wouldn’t have considered snooping like this, even if they’d been interested, which seemed unlikely.
“The biscuits will burn if you don’t take them out of the oven,” Hannah said, staring at the album, almost expecting it to move on its own, float through the air like a spirit medium’s trumpet at a séance.
Doss got up, crossed the room and rescued the biscuits. The sausage gravy was done, warming at the back of the stove, so he retrieved one of the plates Hannah had gotten out, filled it for her and brought it to the table.
“Tobias will be hungry,” she said, thinking aloud.
“I’ll see to him,” Doss answered. “Eat.”
Hannah moved the album out of the way and pulled the plate toward her, resigned to taking her supper, even though she didn’t want it. Doss brought her silverware, then filled another plate for Tobias and took it downstairs.
When he returned, he dished up his own meal and joined Hannah at the table. She was still staring at her scrambled eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits.
“Eat,” he repeated.
She took up a fork. “There’s someone here,” she said. “Someone we can’t see. Someone who moves the teapot and now the album, too.”
“Let’s assume, for a moment, that that’s true,” Doss ruminated, tucking into his food with an energy Hannah envied. “What do you plan to do about it?”
Hannah swallowed a bite of tasteless food. “I don’t know,” she answered, but it wasn’t the complete truth. An idea was already brewing in her mind.
They finished their supper.
Hannah cleared the table, put the album back in its drawer in the china cabinet, and went upstairs to look in on Tobias while Doss washed the dishes.
Her son was sitting up in bed when she entered his room, his supper half-eaten and set aside on the bedside table. “The boy’s not here,” he said. “I wonder if he’s gone away.”
Hannah frowned. “What boy?” she asked, even though she knew.
“The one I see sometimes. With the funny clothes.”
Hannah stroked her boy’s hair. Sat down on the edge of his bed. “Does this boy ever speak to you? Does he have a name?”
T
obias shook his head. His eyes were large in his pale face. The trip back from Indian Rock had been hard on him, and Hannah was both worried about her son and determined not to let on.
“We mostly just look at each other. I reckon he’s as surprised to see me as I am to see him.”
“Next time he shows up, will you tell me?”
Tobias bit his lower lip, then nodded. “You believe me?”
“Of course I do, Tobias.”
“Pa said he was imaginary. When we talked about it, I mean.”
Hannah sighed. “Tobias, Doss is your uncle, not your pa.”
Suddenly, Tobias’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Why won’t you let him be my pa?” he asked. “He’s your husband, isn’t he? If you can have a husband, why can’t I have a pa?”
Had Tobias been older, Hannah thought, she might have explained that Doss wasn’t a real husband, that theirs was a marriage of convenience, but he was still far too young to understand.
In point of fact, she didn’t entirely understand the situation herself.
“A woman can have more than one husband,” she said cautiously. “A boy has only one father. And your father was Gabriel Angus McKettrick. I don’t want you to forget that.”
“I won’t forget,” Tobias said. “You can wash my mouth out with soap, if you want to, but I’m still going to call Uncle Doss my pa. I’ve got enough uncles—Jeb and Kade and Rafe, and John Henry, too. What I need is a pa.”
Hannah was too exhausted to argue, and she knew she wouldn’t win anyhow. “So long as you promise me you will never forget who your real father is,” she said. “And I would appreciate it if you would include your uncle David—my brother—in that list of relations you just mentioned.”
Tobias brightened and put out one small hand for a shake. “It’s a deal,” he agreed. “I like Uncle David. He can spit a long way.”
“Go to sleep,” Hannah told him with a smile, reaching to turn down the wick in the lantern next to his bed.
“I didn’t wash my face or brush my teeth,” he confessed, settling back on to his pillows.
“Just this once we’ll pretend you did,” she said.
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