The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's Homecoming. Linda Miller Lael
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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