Sierra's Homecoming

by Linda Lael Miller

  He blew out the candle—it wouldn’t do for the church to take fire and burn to the ground—and turned to head back down the aisle.

  Doc Willaby was standing just inside the door, leaning on his cane, because of that gouty foot of his, and dressed for a long, hard ride out to the Triple M.

  “You ought to tell Hannah,” the old man said.

  “Tell her what?” Doss countered, abashed at being caught pouring out his heart like some repentant sinner at a revival.

  “That you love her enough to die in place of her boy.”

  Doss heard a team and wagon clatter to a stop out front. “Nobody needs to know that besides God,” he said, and slammed his hat back on his head. “What are you doing here, anyhow? Besides eavesdropping on a man’s private conversation?”

  The doc smiled. He was heavy-set, with a face like a full moon, a scruff of beard and keen little eyes that never seemed to miss much of anything. “I’m going out to your place with you. And we’d better be on our way, if that boy’s as sick as you say he is.”

  “What about your nephew?”

  “He’d never stand the trip,” Doc said. “My bag’s out on the step, and I’ll thank you to help me up into the wagon so we can get started.”

  Doss felt a mixture of chagrin and relief. Doc Willaby was old as desert dirt, but he’d been tending McKettricks, and a lot of other folks, for as long as Doss could remember. His own health might be failing, but Doc knew his trade, all right.

  “Come on, old man,” Doss said. “And don’t be fussing over hard conditions along the way. I’ve got neither the time nor the inclination to be coddling you.”

  Doc chuckled, though his eyes were serious. He slapped Doss on the shoulder. “Just like your grandfather,” he said. “Tough as a boiled owl, with a heart the size of the whole state of Arizona and two others like it.”

  Getting the old coot into the box of the hired wagon was like trying to hoist a cow from a tar pit, but Doss managed it. He climbed up, took the reins in one hand and tossed a coin to the livery stable boy, shivering on the sidewalk, with the other. Cain and Abel would be spending the night in warm stalls, maybe longer, with all the hay they required and some grain to boot, and, cussed as they were, Doss was glad for them.

  He and the doc were almost to the ranch house when the lightning struck, loud enough to shake snow off the branches of trees, throwing the dark countryside into clear relief.

  The horses screamed and shied.

  The wagon slid on the icy trail and plunged on to its side.

  Doss heard the doc yell, felt himself being thrown sky high.

  Just before he hit the ground, it came to him that God had taken him up on the bargain he’d offered back there in Indian Rock at the church. He was about to die, but Tobias would be spared.

  Someone was pounding at the back door.

  Hannah muttered a hasty word of reassurance to Tobias, who sat up in bed, wide-eyed, at the sound.

  “That can’t be Pa,” he said. “He wouldn’t knock. He’d just come inside—”

  “Hush,” Hannah told him. “You stay right there in that bed.”

  She hurried down the stairs and was shocked to see old Doc Willaby limping over the threshold. He looked a sight, his clothes wet and disheveled, his hair wild around his head, without his hat to contain it. His skin was gray with exertion, and he seemed nigh on to collapsing.

  “There was an accident,” he finally sputtered. “Down yonder, at the base of the hill. Doss is hurt.”

  Hannah steered the old man to a chair at the table. “Are you all right?” she asked breathlessly.

  The doctor considered the question briefly, then nodded. “Don’t mind about me, Hannah. It’s Doss—I couldn’t wake him—I had to turn the horses loose so they wouldn’t kick each other to death.”

  She hurried into the pantry, moved the cracker tin aside and took down the bottle of Christmas whisky Doss kept there. She offered it to Doc Willaby, and he gulped down a couple of grateful swigs while she pulled on Gabe’s coat and grabbed for a lantern.

  “You’d better take this along, too,” Doc said, and shoved the whisky bottle at her.

  Hannah dropped it into her coat pocket. She didn’t like leaving the old man or Tobias alone, but she had to get to Doss.

  She raised her collar against the bitter wind and threw herself out the back door. Out in the barn, she tossed a halter on Seesaw and stood on a wheelbarrow to mount him. There was no time for saddles and bridles.

  Holding the lamp high in one hand and clutching the halter rope with the other, Hannah rode out. She soon met two of the horses Doc had freed, and followed their trail backward, until the shape of an overturned wagon loomed in the snowy darkness.

  “Doss!” she cried out. The name scraped at her throat, and she realized she must have called it over and over again, not just the once.

  She found him sprawled facedown in the snow, at some distance from the wagon, and feared he’d smothered, if not broken every bone in his body. Scrambling off Seesaw’s back, she plodded to where he lay, utterly still.

  She knelt, setting the lantern aside, and turned him over.

  “Doss,” she whispered.

  He didn’t move.

  Hannah put her cheek down close to his mouth. Felt his breath, his blessed breath, warm against her skin.

  Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away quickly, lest they freeze in her lashes.

  “Doss!” she repeated.

  He opened his eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, sounding befuddled.

  “I’ve come looking for you, you damn fool,” she answered.

  “You’re not dead, are you?”

  “Of course I’m not dead,” Hannah retorted, weeping freely. “And you’re not either, which is God’s own wonder, the way you must have been driving that wagon to get yourself into a fix like this. Can you move?”

  Doss blinked. Hoisted himself on to his elbows. Felt around for his hat.

  “Where’s the doc?” His features tightened. “Tobias—”

  “Tobias is fine,” she said. “And Doc’s up at the house, thawing out. It’s a miracle he made it that far, with that foot of his.”

  A grin broke over Doss’s face, and Hannah, filled with joy, could have slapped him for it. Didn’t he know he’d nearly killed himself? Nearly fixed it so she’d have to bear and raise their baby all alone?

  “I reckon Doc was right,” Doss said. “I ought to tell you—”

  “Tell me what?” Hannah fretted. “It’s getting colder out here by the minute, and the wind’s picking up, too. Can you get to your feet? Poor old Seesaw’s going to have to carry us both home, but I think he can manage it.”

  “Hannah.” Doss clasped both her shoulders in his hands, gave her just the slightest shake. “I love you.”

  Hannah blinked, stunned. “You’re talking crazy, Doss. You’re out of your head—”

  “I love you,” he said. He got to his feet, hauling Hannah with him. Knocked the lantern over in the process so it went out. “It started the day I met you.”

  She stared up at him.

  “I don’t know how you feel about me, Hannah. It would be a grand thing if you felt the same way I do, but if you don’t, maybe you can learn.”

  “I don’t have to learn,” she heard herself say. “I came out into this wretched snowstorm to find you, didn’t I? After I suffered the tortures of the damned wondering what was keeping you. Of course I love you!”

  He kissed her, an exultant kiss that warmed her to her toes.

  “I’m going to be a real husband to you from now on,” he told her. He made a stirrup of his hands, and Hannah stepped into them, landed astraddle Seesaw’s broad, patient old back.

  Doss swung up behind her, reached around to catch hold of the halter rope. “Let’s go home,” he said, close to her ear.

  Hannah forgot all about the whisky in her coat pocket.

  It was stone dark out, but t
he lights of the house were visible in the distance, even through the flurries of snow.

  Anyway, Seesaw knew his way home, and he plodded patiently in that direction.

  Present Day

  The world was frozen solid when Sierra awakened the next morning, to find herself clinging to the edge of Liam’s empty bed. Voices wafted up from downstairs, along with heat from the furnace and probably the wood stove, too.

  She scrambled out of bed, finger combed her hair and hurried down the hallway.

  Travis said something, and Liam laughed aloud. The sound affected Sierra like an injection of sunshine. Then a third voice chimed in, clearly female.

  Sierra quickened her pace, her bare feet thumping on the stairs as she descended them.

  Travis and Liam were seated at the table, reading the comic strips in the newspaper. A slender blond woman wearing jeans and a pink thermal shirt with the sleeves pushed up stood by the counter, sipping coffee.

  “Meg?” Sierra asked. She’d seen her sister’s picture, but nothing had prepared her for the living woman. Her clear skin seemed to glow, and her smile was a force of nature.

  “Hello, Sierra,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind my showing up unannounced, but I just couldn’t wait any longer, so here I am.”

  Travis stood, put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. Without a word, the two of them left the room, probably headed for the study.

  “Everything Mom said was true,” Meg told Sierra quietly. “You’re beautiful, and so is Liam.”

  Sierra couldn’t speak, at least for the moment, even though her mind was full of questions, all of them clamoring to be offered at once.

  “Maybe you should sit down,” Meg said. “You look as though you might faint dead away.”

  Sierra pulled back the chair at the head of the table and sank into it. “When…when did you get here?” she asked.

  “Last night,” Meg answered. She poured a fresh cup of coffee, brought it to Sierra. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Interrupting anything?”

  Meg’s enormous blue eyes took on a mischievous glint. She swung a leg over the bench and straddled it, as several generations of McKettricks must have done before her, facing Sierra.

  “Something’s going on between you and Travis,” Meg said. “I can feel it.”

  Sierra wondered if she could carry off a lie and decided not to try. She and Meg had been apart since they were small children, but they were sisters, and there was a bond. Besides, she didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.

  “The question is,” she said carefully, “is anything going on between you and Travis.”

  “No,” Meg answered, “more’s the pity. We tried to fall in love. It just didn’t happen.”

  “I’m not talking about falling in love.”

  Wasn’t she? Travis had rocked her universe, and much as she would have liked to believe it was only physical, she knew it was more. She’d never felt anything like that with Adam, and she had been in love with him, however naively. However foolishly.

  Meg grinned. “You mean sex? We didn’t even get that far. Every time we tried to kiss, we ended up laughing too hard to do anything else.”

  Sierra marveled at the crazy relief she felt.

  “Too bad he’s leaving,” Meg said. “Now we’ll have to find somebody else to look after the horses, and it won’t be easy.”

  The bottom fell out of Sierra’s stomach.

  “Travis is leaving?”

  Meg set her coffee cup down with a thump and reached for Sierra’s hand. “Oh, my God. You didn’t know?”

  “I didn’t know,” Sierra admitted.

  Damned if she’d cry.

  Who needed Travis Reid, anyway?

  She had Liam. She had a family and a home and a two-million-dollar trust fund.

  She’d gotten along without Travis, and his lovemaking, all her life. The man was entirely superfluous.

  So why did she want to lay her head down on her arms and wail with sorrow?

  Chapter Sixteen

  1919

  Come morning Hannah made her way through the still, chilly dawn to the barn. Besides their own stock, four livery horses were there, gathered at the back of the barn, helping themselves to the haystack. Remnants of harness hung from their backs.

  Hannah smiled, led each one into a stall, saw that they each got a bucket of water and some grain. She was milking old Earleen, the cow, when Doss joined her, stiff and bruised but otherwise none the worse for his trials, as far as Hannah could see.

  They’d shared a bed the night before, but they’d both been too exhausted, after the rigors of the day and getting Doc Willaby settled comfortably in the spare room, to make love.

  “You ought to go into the house, Hannah,” Doss said, sounding both confounded and stern. “This work is mine to do.”

  “Fine,” she said, still milking. There was a rhythm in the task that settled a person’s thoughts. “You can gather the eggs and get some butter from the spring house. I reckon Doc will be in the grip of a powerful hunger when he wakes up. He’ll want hotcakes and some of that bacon you brought from the smokehouse.”

  Doss moved along the middle of the barn, limping a little. Stopping to peer into each stall along the way. Hannah watched his progress out of the corner of her eye, smiling to herself.

  “I meant what I said last night, Hannah,” he said, when he finally reached her. “I love you. But if you really want to go back to your folks in Montana, I won’t interfere. I know it’s hard, living out here on this ranch.”

  Hannah’s throat ached with love and hope. “It is hard, Doss McKettrick, and I wouldn’t mind spending winters in town. But I’m not going to Montana unless you go, too.”

  He leaned against one of the beams supporting the barn roof, pondering her with an unreadable expression. “Gabe knew,” he said.

  She stopped milking. “Gabe knew what?”

  “How I felt about you. From the very first time I saw you, I loved you. He guessed right away, without my saying a word. And do you know what he told me?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Hannah said, very softly.

  “That I oughtn’t to feel bad, because you were easy to love.”

  Tears stung Hannah’s eyes. “He was a good man.”

  “He was,” Doss agreed gruffly, and gave a short nod. “He asked me to look after you and Tobias, before he died. Maybe he figured, even then, that you and I would end up together.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Hannah replied. Dear, dear Gabe. She’d loved him so, but he’d gone on, and he’d want her to carry on and be as happy as she could. Tobias, too.

  “What I mean to say is,” Doss went on, taking off his hat and turning it round and round in his hands by the brim, “I understand what he meant to you. You can say it, straight out, anytime. I won’t be jealous.”

  Hannah stood up so fast she spooked Earleen, who kicked over the milk bucket, three-quarters of the way full now, steaming in the cold and rich with cream. She put her arms around Doss and didn’t try to hide her tears.

  “You’re as good a man as Gabe ever was, Doss McKettrick,” she said, “and I won’t let you forget it.”

  He grinned down at her, wanly, but with that familiar spark in his eyes. “I’ll build you a house in town, Hannah,” he said. “We’ll spend winters there, so you can see folks and Tobias can go to school without riding two miles through the snow. Would you like that?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said. “But I’d stay on this ranch forever, too, if it meant I could be with you.”

  Doss bent his head. Kissed her. His hands rested lightly on the sides of her waist, beneath the heavy fabric of Gabe’s coat.

  “You go inside and see to breakfast, Mrs. McKettrick. I’ll finish up out here.”

  She swallowed, nodded. “I love you, Mr. McKettrick,” she said.

  His eyes danced mischievously. “Once we get Doc back to town,” he replied, “I mean to bed you, good and proper.”
>
  Hannah blushed. Batted her lashes. “When is he leaving?”

  Present Day

  Travis was packing, loading things into his truck. Even whistling as he went about it. Meg got into her Blazer and drove off somewhere.

  Sierra waited as long as she could bear to—she didn’t know how she was going to explain this to Liam, who was sleeping off his flu bug—didn’t know how to explain it herself.

  She got out the album, for something to do, and set the remembrance book aside without opening it. Even after seeing Hannah and Tobias the night before, in Liam’s room, she just didn’t believe in magic any more.

  So she took a seat at the table and lifted the cover of the album.

  A cracked and yellowed photograph, done in sepia, filled most of the page. Angus McKettrick, the patriarch of the family, stared calmly up at her. He’d been handsome in his youth; she could see that. Though, in the picture his thick hair was white, his stern, square-jawed face etched with lines of sorrow as well as joy. His eyes were clear, intelligent and full of stubborn humor.

  It was almost as though he’d known Sierra would be looking at the photo one day, searching for some part of herself in those craggy features, and crooked up one corner of his mouth in the faintest smile, just for her.

  Be strong, he seemed to say. Be a McKettrick.

  Sierra sat for a long time, silently communing with the image.

  I don’t know how to “be a McKettrick.” What does that mean, anyway?

  Angus’s answer was in his eyes. Being a McKettrick meant claiming a piece of ground to stand on and putting your roots down deep into it. Holding on, no matter what came at you. It meant loving with passion and taking the rough spots with the smooth. It meant fighting for what you wanted, letting go when that was the best thing to do.

  Sierra absorbed all that and turned to the next page.

  A good-looking couple posed in the front yard of the very house where Sierra sat, so many years later. A small boy and a girl in her teens stood proudly on either side of them, and underneath someone had written the names in carefully. Holt McKettrick. Lorelei McKettrick. John Henry McKettrick. Lizzie McKettrick.