1919
Doss left the house after supper, ostensibly to look in on the livestock one last time before heading upstairs to bed, leaving the dishwashing to Tobias and Hannah. He stood still in the dooryard, raising the collar of his coat against the wicked cold. Stars speckled the dark, wintry sky.
In those moments he missed Gabe with a piercing intensity that might have bent him double, if he wasn’t McKettrick proud. That was what his mother called the quality, anyhow. In the privacy of his own mind, Doss named it stubbornness.
Thinking of his ma made his pa come to mind, too. He missed them almost as sorely as he did Gabe. His uncles, Rafe and Kade and Jeb, along with their wives, were all down south, around Phoenix, where the weather was more hospitable to their aging bones. Their sons, to a man, were still in the army, even though the war was over, waiting to be mustered out. Their daughters had all married, every one of them keeping the McKettrick name, and lived in places as far-flung as Boston, New York and San Francisco.
There was hardly a McKettrick left on the place, save himself and Hannah and Tobias. It deepened Doss’s loneliness, knowing that. He wished everybody would just come back home, where they belonged, but it would have been easier to herd wild barn cats than that bunch.
Doss looked back toward the house. Saw the lantern glowing at the kitchen window. Smiled.
The moment he’d gone outside, Hannah must have switched off the bulb. She worried about running short of things, he’d noticed, even though she’d come from a prosperous family, and certainly married into one.
His throat tightened. He knew she’d been different before he brought Gabe home in a pine box, but then, they all had. Gabe’s going left a hole in the fabric of what it meant to be a McKettrick, and not a tidy one, stitched at the edges. Rather, it was a jagged tear, and judging by the raw newness of his own grief, Doss had little hope of it ever mending.
Time heals, his mother had told him after they’d laid Gabe in the ground up there on the hill, with his Grandpa Angus and those that had passed after him, but she’d had tears in her eyes as she said it. As for his pa, well, he’d stood a long time by the grave. Stood there until Rafe and Kade and Jeb brought him away.
Doss thrust out a sigh, remembering. “Gabe,” he said, under his breath, “Hannah says it’s wrong of me, but I still wish it had been me instead of you.”
He’d have given anything for an answer, but wherever Gabe was, he was busy doing other things. Maybe they had fishing holes up there in the sky, or cattle to round up and drive to market.
“Take care of Hannah and my boy,” Gabe had told him, in that army infirmary, when they both knew there would be no turning the illness around. “Promise me, Doss.”
Doss had swallowed hard and made that promise, but it was a hard one to keep. Hannah didn’t seem to want taking care of, and every morning when Doss woke up, he was afraid this would be the day she’d decide to go back to her own people, up in Montana, and stay gone for good.
The back door opened, startling Doss out of his musings. He hesitated for a moment, then tramped in the direction of the barn, trying to look like a man bent on a purpose.
Hannah caught up, bundled into a shawl and carrying a lighted lantern in one hand.
“I think I’m going mad,” she blurted out.
Doss stopped, looked down at her in puzzled concern. “It’s the grief, Hannah,” he told her gruffly. “It will pass.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Hannah challenged, catching up with herself. The snow was deep and getting deeper, and the wind bit straight through to the marrow.
Doss moved to the windward side, to be a buffer for her. “I’ve got to believe it,” he said. “Feeling this bad forever doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I put the teapot away,” Hannah said, her breath coming in puffs of white, “I know I put it away. But I must have gotten it out again, without knowing or remembering, and that scares me, Doss. That really scares me.”
They reached the barn. Doss took the lantern from her and hauled open one of the big doors one-handed. It wasn’t easy, since the snow had drifted, even in the short time since he’d left off feeding and watering the horses and the milk cow and that cussed mule Seesaw. The critter was a son of Doss’s mother’s mule, who’d borne the same name, and he was a son of something else, too.
“Maybe you’re a mite forgetful these days,” Doss said, once he’d gotten her inside, out of the cold. The familiar smells and sounds of the darkened barn were a solace to him—he came there often, even when he didn’t have work to do, which was seldom. On a ranch, there was always work to do—wood to chop, harnesses to mend, animals to look after. “That doesn’t mean you’re not sane, Hannah.”
Don’t say it, he pleaded silently. Don’t say you might as well take Tobias and head for Montana.
It was a selfish thought, Doss knew. In Montana, Hannah could live a city life again. No riding a mule five miles to fetch the mail. No breaking the ice on the water troughs on winter mornings, so the cattle and horses could drink. No feeding chickens and dressing like a man.
If Hannah left the Triple M, Doss didn’t know what he’d do. First and foremost, he’d have to break his promise to Gabe, by default if not directly, but there was more to it than that. A lot more.
“There’s something else, too,” Hannah confided.
To keep himself busy, Doss went from stall to stall, looking in on sleepy horses, each one confounded and blinking in the light of his lantern. He was giving Hannah space, enough distance to get out whatever it was she wanted to say.
“What?” he asked, when she didn’t speak again right away.
“Tobias. He just told me—he told me—”
Doss looked back, saw Hannah standing in the moonlit doorway, rimmed in silver, with one hand pressed to her mouth.
He went back to her. Set the lantern aside and took her by the shoulders. “What did he tell you, Hannah?”
“Doss, he’s seeing things.”
He tensed on the inside. Would have shoved a hand through his hair in agitation if he hadn’t been wearing a hat and his ears weren’t bound to freeze if he took it off. “What kind of things?”
“A boy.” She took hold of his arm, and her grip was strong for such a small woman. It did curious things to him, feeling her fingers on him, even through the combined thickness of his coat and shirt. “Doss, Tobias says he saw a boy in his room.”
Doss looked around. There was nothing but bleak, frozen land for miles around. “That’s impossible,” he said.
“You’ve got to talk to him.”
“Oh, I’ll talk to him, all right.” Doss started for the house, so fixed on getting to Tobias that he forgot all about keeping Hannah sheltered from the wind. She had to lift her skirts to keep pace with him.
Present Day
“Tell me about the boy you saw in your room,” Sierra said, when they’d eaten their fill of fried chicken, macaroni salad, mashed potatoes with gravy, and corn on the cob.
Liam’s gaze was clear as he regarded her from his side of the long table. “He’s a ghost,” he replied, and waited, visibly expecting the statement to be refuted.
“Maybe an imaginary playmate?” Sierra ventured. Liam was a lonely little boy; their lifestyle had seen to that. After her father had died, drunk himself to death in a back-street cantina in San Miguel, the two of them had wandered like gypsies. San Diego. North Carolina, Georgia, and finally Florida.
“There’s nothing imaginary about him,” Liam said staunchly. “He wears funny clothes, like those kids on those old-time shows on TV. He’s a ghost, Mom. Face it.”
“Liam—”
“You never believe anything I tell you!”
“I believe everything you tell me,” Sierra insisted evenly. “But you’ve got to admit, this is a stretch.” Again she thought of the teapot. Again she pushed the recollection aside.
“I never lie, Mom.”
She moved to pat his hand, but he pulled back. The set of his jaw was stubborn, and his gaze drilled into her, full of challenge. She tried again. “I know you don’t lie, Liam. But you’re in a strange new place and you miss your friends and—”
“And you won’t even let me see if they sent me e-mails!” he cried.
Sierra sighed, rested her elbows on the tabletop and rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands. “Okay,” she relented. “You can log on to the Internet. Just be careful, because that computer is expensive, and we can’t afford to replace it.”
Suddenly Liam’s face was alight. “I won’t break it,” he promised, with exuberance.
Sierra wondered if he’d just scammed her, if the whole boy-in-the-bedroom thing was a trick to get what he wanted.
In the next instant she was ashamed. Liam was direct to a fault. He believed he’d seen another child in his empty bedroom. She’d call his new doctor in Flagstaff in the morning, talk to the woman, see what a qualified professional made of the whole thing. She offered a silent prayer that her car would start, too, because the doctor was going to want to see Liam, pronto.
Meanwhile, Liam got to his feet and scrambled out of the room.
Sierra cleared away the supper mess, then followed him, as casually as she could, to the room at the front of the house.
He was already online.
“Just what I thought!” he crowed. “My mailbox is bulging.”
The TV was still on, a narrator dolefully describing the effects of a second ice age, due any minute. Run for the hills. Sierra shut it off.
“Hey,” Liam objected. “I was listening to that.”
Sierra approached the computer. “You’re only seven,” she said. “You shouldn’t be worrying about the fate of the planet.”
“Somebody’s got to,” Liam replied, without looking at her. “Your generation is doing a lousy job.” He was staring, as if mesmerized, into the computer screen. Its bluish-gray light flickered on the lenses of his glasses, making his eyes disappear. “Look! The whole Geek Group wrote to me!”
“I asked you not to—”
“Okay,” Liam sighed, without looking at her. “The brilliant children in the gifted program are engaging in communication.”
“That’s better,” Sierra said, sparing a smile.
“You’ve got a few e-mails waiting yourself,” Liam announced. He was already replying to the cybermissives, his small fingers ranging deftly over the keyboard. He’d skipped the hunt-and-peck method entirely, as had all the other kids in his class. Using a computer came naturally to Liam, almost as if he’d been born knowing how, and she knew this was a common phenomenon, which gave her some comfort.
“I’ll read them later,” Sierra answered. She didn’t have that many friends, so most of her messages were probably sales pitches of the penis-enlargement variety. How had she gotten on that kind of list? It wasn’t as if she visited porn sites or ordered battery-operated boyfriends online.
“They get to watch a real rocket launch!” Liam cried, without a trace of envy. “Wow!”
“Wow indeed,” Sierra said, looking around the room. According to Meg, it had originally been a study. Old books lined the walls on sturdy shelves, and there was a natural rock fireplace, too, with a fire already laid.
Sierra found a match on the mantelpiece, struck it and lit the blaze.
A chime sounded from the computer.
“Aunt Meg just IM’d you,” Liam said.
Where had he gotten this “Aunt Meg” thing? He’d never even met the woman in person, let alone established a relationship with her. “‘IM’d’?” she asked.
“Instant Message,” Liam translated. “Guess you’d better check it out. Just make it quick, because I’ve still got a pile of mail to answer.”
Smiling again, Sierra took the chair Liam so reluctantly surrendered and read the message from Meg.
Travis tells me your car died. Use my Blazer. The keys are in the sugar bowl beside the teapot.
Sierra’s pride kicked in. Thanks, she replied, at a fraction of Liam’s typing speed, but I probably won’t need it. My car is just…She paused. Her car was just what? Old? tired, she finished, inspired.
The Blazer won’t run when I come back if somebody doesn’t charge up the battery. It’s been sitting too long, Meg responded quickly. She must have been as fast with a keyboard as Liam.
Is Travis going to report on everything I do? Sierra wrote. She made so many mistakes, she had to retype the message before hitting Send, and that galled her.
Yes, Meg wrote. Because I plan to nag every last detail out of him.
Sierra sighed. It won’t be that interesting, she answered, taking her time so she wouldn’t have to revise. She was out of practice, and if she hoped to land anything better than a waitressing job in Indian Rock, she’d better polish her computer skills.
Meg sent a smiley face, followed by, Good night, Sis. (I’ve always wanted to say that.)
Sierra bit her lower lip. Good night, she tapped out, and rose from the chair with a glance at the clock on the mantel above the now-snapping fire.
Why had she lit it? She was exhausted, and now she would either have to throw water on the flames or wait until they died down. The first method, of course, would make a terrible mess, so that was out.
“Hurry up and finish what you’re doing,” she told Liam, who had plopped in the chair again the moment Sierra got out of it. “Half an hour till bedtime.”
“I had a nap,” Liam reminded her, typing simultaneously.
“Finish,” Sierra repeated. With that, she left the study, climbed the stairs and went into Liam’s room to get his favorite pajamas from one of the suitcases. She meant to put them in the clothes dryer for a few minutes, warm them up.
Something drew her to the window, though. She looked down, saw that the lights were on in Travis’s trailer and his truck was parked nearby. Evidently, he hadn’t stayed long in town, or wherever he’d gone.
Why did it please her so much, knowing that?
1919
Hannah stood in the doorway of Tobias’s room, watching her boy sleep. He looked so peaceful, lying there, but she knew he had bad dreams sometimes. Just the night before, in the wee small hours, he’d crawled into bed beside her, snuggled as close as his little-boy pride would allow, and whispered earnestly that she oughtn’t die anytime soon.
She’d been so choked up, she could barely speak.
Now she wanted to wake him, hold him tight in her arms, protect him from whatever it was in his mind that made him see little boys that weren’t there.
He was lonely, that was all. He needed to be around other children. Way out here, he went to a one-room school, when it wasn’t closed on account of snow, with only seven other pupils, all of whom were older than he was.
Maybe she should take him home to Montana. He had cousins there. They’d live in town, too, where there were shops and a library and even a moving-picture theater. He could ride his bicycle, come spring, and play baseball with other boys.
Hannah’s throat ached. Gabe had wanted his son raised here, on the Triple M. Wanted him to grow up the way he had, rough-and-tumble, riding horses, rounding up stray cattle, part of the land. Of course, Gabe hadn’t expected to die young—he’d meant to come home, so he and Hannah could fill that big house with children. Tobias would have had plenty of company then.
A tear slipped down Hannah’s cheek, and she swatted it away. Straightened her spine.
Gabe was gone, and there weren’t going to be any more children.
She heard Doss climbing the stairs, and wanted to move out of the doorway. He thought she was too fussy, always hovering over Tobias. Always trying to protect him.
How could a man understand what it meant to bear and nurture a child?
Hannah closed her eyes and stayed where she was.
Doss stopped behind her, uncertain. She could feel that, along with the heat and sturdy substance of his body.
“Leave the child to sleep, Hannah,” he said quietly.
She nodded, closed Tobias’s door gently and turned to face Doss there in the darkened hallway. He carried a book under one arm and an unlit lantern in his other hand.
“It’s because he’s lonesome,” she said.
Doss clearly knew she was referring to Tobias’s hallucination. “Kids make up playmates,” he told her. “And being lonesome is a part of life. It’s a valley a person has to go through, not something to run away from.”
No McKettrick ever ran from anything. Doss didn’t have to say it, and neither did she. But she wasn’t a McKettrick, not by blood. Oh, she still wrote the word, whenever she had to sign something, but she’d stopped owning the name the day they put Gabe in the ground.
She wasn’t sure why. He’d been so proud of it, like all the rest of them were.
“Do you ever wish you could live someplace else?” Hannah heard herself say.
“No,” Doss said, so quickly and with such gravity that Hannah almost believed he’d been reading her mind. “I belong right here.”
“But the others—your uncles and cousins—they didn’t stay….”
“Ask any one of them where home is,” Doss answered, “and they’ll tell you it’s the Triple M.”
Hannah started to speak, then held her tongue. Nodded. “Good night, Doss,” she said.
He inclined his head and went on to his own room, shut himself away.
Hannah stood alone in the dark for a long time.
She’d been so happy on the Triple M when Gabe was alive, and even after he’d gone into the army, because she’d never once doubted that he’d return. Come walking up the path with a duffel bag over one shoulder, whistling. She’d rehearsed that day a thousand times in her mind—pictured herself running to meet him, throwing herself into his arms.
It was never going to happen.
Without him, she might as well have been alone on the barren landscape of the moon.
Her eyes filled.
She walked slowly to the end of the hall, into the room where Gabe had brought her on their wedding night. He’d been conceived and born in the big bed there, just as Tobias had. As so many other babes would have been, if only Gabe had lived.
Hannah didn’t undress after she closed the door behind her. She didn’t let her hair down and brush it, like usual, or wash her face at the basin on the bureau.
Instead, she sat down in Lorelei’s rocking chair and waited. Just waited.
For what, she did not know.
Present Day
After Liam had gone to bed, Sierra went back downstairs to the computer and scanned her e-mail. When she spotted Allie Douglas-Fletcher’s return address, she wished she’d waited until morning. She was always stronger in the mornings.
Allie was Adam’s twin sister. Liam’s aunt. After Adam was murdered, while on assignment in South America, Allie had been inconsolable, and she’d developed an unhealthy fixation for her brother’s child.
After taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, Sierra opened the message. Typically, there was no preamble. Allie got right to the point.
The guest house is ready for you and Liam. You know Adam would want his son to grow up right here in San Diego, Sierra. Tim and I can give Liam everything—a real home, a family, an education, the very best medical care. We’re willing to make a place for you, too, obviously. If you won’t come home, at least tell us you arrived safely in Arizona.
Sierra sat, wooden, staring at the stark plea on the screen. Although Allie and Adam had been raised in relative poverty, both of them had done well in life. Adam had been a photojournalist for a major magazine; he and Sierra had met when he did a piece on San Miguel.
Allie ran her own fund-raising firm, and her husband was a neurosurgeon. They had everything—except what they wanted most. Children.
You can’t have Liam, Sierra cried, in the silence of her heart. He’s mine.
She flexed her fingers, sighed, and hit Reply. Allie was a good person, just as Adam had been, for all that he’d told Sierra a lie that shook the foundations of the universe. Adam’s sister sincerely believed she and the doctor could do a better job of raising Liam than Sierra could, and maybe they were right. They had money. They had social status.
Tears burned in Sierra’s eyes.
Liam is well. We’re safe on the Triple M, and for the time being, we’re staying put.
It was all she could bring herself to say.
She hit Send and logged off the computer.
The fire was still flourishing on the hearth. She got up, crossed the room, pushed the screen aside to jab at the burning wood with a poker. It only made the flames burn more vigorously.
She kicked off her shoes, curled up in the big leather chair and pulled a knitted afghan around her to wait for the fire to die down.
The old clock on the mantel tick-tocked, the sound loud and steady and almost hypnotic.
Sierra yawned. Closed her eyes. Opened them again.
She thought about turning the TV back on, just for the sound of human voices, but dismissed the idea. She was so tired, she was going to need all her energy just to go upstairs and tumble into bed. There was none to spare for fiddling with the television set.
Again, she closed her eyes.
Again, she opened them.
She wondered if the lights were still on in Travis’s trailer.
Closed her eyes.
Was dragged down into a heavy, fitful sleep.
She knew right away that she was dreaming, and yet it was so real.
She heard the clock ticking.
She felt the warmth of the fire.
But she was standing in the ranch house kitchen, and it was different, in subtle ways, from the room she knew.
She was different.
Her eyes were shut, and yet she could see clearly.
A bare light bulb dangled overhead, giving off a dim but determined glow.
She looked down at herself, the dream-Sierra, and felt a wrench of surprise.
She was wearing a long woolen skirt. Her hands were smaller—chapped and work worn—someone else’s hands.
“I’m dreaming,” she insisted to herself, but it didn’t help.
She stared around the kitchen. The teapot sat on the counter.
“Now what’s that doing there?” asked this other Sierra. “I know I put it away. I know for sure I did.”
Sierra struggled to wake up. It was too intense, this dream. She was in some other woman’s body, not her own. It was sinewy and strong, this body. She felt the heartbeat, the breath going in and out. Felt the weight of long hair, pinned to the back of her head in a loose chignon.
“Wake up,” she said.
But she couldn’t.
She stood very still, staring at the teapot.
Emotions stormed within her, a loneliness so wretched and sharp that she thought she’d burst from the inside and shatter. Longing for a man who’d gone away and was never coming home, an unspeakable sorrow. Love for a child, so profound that it might have been mourning.
And something else. A forbidden wanting that had nothing to do with the man who’d left her.
Sierra woke herself then, by force of will, only to find her face wet with another woman’s tears.
She must have been asleep for a while, she realized. The flames on the hearth had become embers. The room was chilly.
She shivered, tugged the afghan tighter around her, and got out of the chair. She went to the window, looked out. Travis’s trailer was dark.
“It was just a dream,” she told herself out loud.
So why was her heart breaking?
She made her way into the kitchen, navigating the dark hallway as best she could, since she didn’t know where the light switches were. When she reached her destination, she walked to the middle of the room, where she’d stood in the dream, and suppressed an urge to reach up for the metal-beaded cord she knew wasn’t there.
What she needed, she decided, was a good cup of tea.
She found a switch beside the back door and flipped it.
Reality returned in a comforting spill of light.
She found an electric kettle, filled it at the sink and plugged it in to boil. Earlier she’d been too weary to get out of that chair in the study and turn on the TV. Now she knew it would be pointless to try to sleep.
Might as well do this up right, she thought.
She went to the china cabinet, got the teapot out, set it on the table. Added tea leaves and located a little strainer in one of the drawers. The kettle boiled.
She was sitting quietly, sipping tea and watching fat snowflakes drift past the porch light outside the back door, when Liam came down the back stairway in his pajamas. Blinking, he rubbed his eyes.
“Is it morning?” he asked.
“No,” Sierra said gently. “Go back to bed.”
“Can I have some tea?”
“No, again,” Sierra answered, but she didn’t protest when Liam took a seat on the bench, close to her chair. “But if there’s cocoa, I’ll make you some.”
“There is,” Liam said. He looked incredibly young, and so very vulnerable, without his glasses. “I saw it in the pantry. It’s the instant kind.”
With a smile, Sierra got out of the chair, walked into the pantry and brought out the cocoa, along with a bag of semihard marshmallows. Thanks to Travis’s preparations for their arrival, there was milk in the refrigerator and, using the microwave, she had Liam’s hot chocolate ready in no time.
“I like it here,” he told her. “It’s better than any place we’ve ever lived.”
Sierra’s heart squeezed. “You really think so? Why?”
Liam took a sip of hot chocolate and acquired a liquid mustache. One small shoulder rose and fell in a characteristic shrug. “It feels like a real home,” he said. “Lots of people have lived here. And they were all McKettricks, like us.”
Sierra was stung, but she hid it behind another smile. “Wherever we live,” she said carefully, “is a real home, because we’re together.”
Liam’s expression was benignly skeptical, even tolerant. “We never had so much room before. We never had a barn with horses in it. And we never had ghosts.” He whispered the last word, and gave a little shiver of pure joy.
Sierra was looking for a way to approach the ghost subject again when the faint, delicate sound of piano music reached her ears.