The McKettrick Legend (17 page)

“Hannah? What's the matter? Is Tobias all right?”

“He's…yes.”

Doss tossed his hat away, came up the steps, sat down next to Hannah and put an arm around her shoulders. She sagged against his side, even as she despised herself for the weakness. Turned her face into his cold-weather-and-leather-scented shoulder and wept with confusion and relief and a whole tangle of other emotions.

He held her until the worst of it had passed.

She sniffled and sat up straight. Even tried to smile.

“How was the widow Jessup?” she asked.

Present Day

That night Sierra invited Travis to supper. Just marched right out to his trailer, knocked on the door and, the moment he opened it, blurted, “We're having spaghetti tonight. It's Liam's favorite. It would mean a lot to him if you came and ate with us.”

Travis grinned. Evidently, he'd been changing clothes, because his shirt was half-unbuttoned. “If you're trying to make up for almost running over me backing out of the garage this afternoon, it's okay,” he teased. “I'm still pretty fast on my feet.”

Sierra was doing her level best not to admire what she could see of his chest, which was muscular. She wondered what it would be like to slide her hands inside that shirt, feel his skin against her palms and her splayed fingers.

Then she looked up into his eyes again, saw the knowing smile there and blushed. “It's more about thanking you for taking the Christmas tree down stairs,” she fibbed.

“At your service,” he said with a slight drawl.

Was that a double entendre?

Don't be silly, she told herself. Of course it wasn't.

“There's wine, too,” she blurted out, and then blushed again. At this rate, Travis would think she'd already had a few nips.

“Everything but music,” he quipped.

Afraid to say another word, she turned and hurried back toward the house, and she distinctly heard him chuckle before he closed the trailer door.

Liam was strangely quiet at supper. He usually gobbled spaghetti, but tonight he merely nibbled. He had a perfect opportunity to talk “cowboy” with Travis, or chatter on about his first day of school; instead, he asked to be excused so he could take a bath and get to bed early. At Sierra's nod, he murmured something and fled.

“He must be sick,” Sierra fretted, about to go after him.

“Let him go,” Travis counseled. “He's all right.”

“But—”

“He's
all right,
Sierra.” He refilled her wine glass, then his own.

They finished their meal, cleared the table together, loaded the dish washer. When Sierra would have walked away, Travis caught hold of her arm and gently stopped her. Switched on the countertop radio with his free hand.

Soft, smoky music poured into the room.

The next thing she knew, Sierra was in Travis's arms, close against that chest she'd admired earlier at the door of his trailer, and they were slow dancing.

Why didn't she pull away?

Maybe it was the wine.

“Relax,” he said. His breath was warm in her hair.

She giggled, more nervous than amused. What was the
matter with her? She was attracted to Travis, had been from the first, and he was clearly attracted to her. They were both adults. Why not enjoy a little slow dancing in a ranch-house kitchen?

Because slow dancing led to other things, especially when it was wine powered. She took a step back and felt the counter flush against her lower back. Travis naturally came with her, since they were holding hands and he had one arm around her waist.

Simple physics.

Then he kissed her.

Physics again—this time, not so simple.

“Yikes,” she said, when their mouths parted.

He grinned. “Nobody's ever said that after I kissed them.”

She felt the heat and substance of his body pressed against hers, right where it counted. If Liam hadn't been just upstairs, and likely to come back down at any moment, she might have wrapped her legs around Travis's waist and kissed him nuclear-style.

“It's going to happen, isn't it?” she heard herself whisper.

“Yep,” Travis answered.

“But not tonight,” Sierra said on a sigh.

“Probably not,” Travis agreed, grinding his hips a little. His erection burned into her abdomen like a fire brand. “When, then?”

He chuckled, gave her a slow, nibbling kiss. “Tomorrow morning,” he said. “After you drop Liam off at school.”

“Isn't that…a little…soon?”

“Not soon enough,” Travis answered. He cupped a hand around her breast, and even through the fabric of her shirt and bra, her nipple hardened against the chafing motion of his thumb. “Not nearly soon enough.”

After Travis had gone, Sierra felt like an idiot.

She looked in on Liam, who was sound asleep, and then took a cool shower. It didn't help.

She would come to her senses by morning, she told herself, as she stood at her bedroom window, gazing down at the lights burning in Travis's trailer.

She'd get a good night's sleep. That was all she needed.

She slept, as it happened, like the proverbial log, but she woke up thinking about Travis. About the way she'd felt when he kissed her, when he backed her up against the counter…

She made break fast.

Took Liam to school.

Zoomed straight back to the ranch, even though she'd intended to drive around town for a while, giving herself a chance to cool down.

Instead, she was on au to pilot.

But it wasn't as if she gave up easily. She raised every argument she could think of. It was
way
too soon. She didn't know Travis well enough to sleep with him.

She would regret this in the morning.

No, long
before
then.

The truth was, she'd denied herself so much, for so long, that she couldn't stand it any more.

She didn't even bother to park the Blazer in the garage. She shut it down between the house and Travis's trailer, up to the wheel wells in snow, jumped out, and double-timed it to his door.

Knocked.

Maybe he's not home, she thought desperately.

Let him be here.

Let him be in China.

His truck was parked in its usual place, next to the barn.

The trailer door creaked open.

He grinned down at her. “Hot damn,” he said.

Sierra shoved her hands into her coat pockets. Wished she could dig her toes right into the ground somehow and hold out against the elemental forces that were driving her.

Travis stepped back. “Come in,” he said.

So much for the toehold. She was inside in a single bound.

He leaned around her to pull the door shut.

“This is crazy,” she said.

He began unbuttoning her coat. Slipped it back off her shoulders. Bent his head to taste her earlobe and brush the length of her neck with his lips.

She groaned.

“Talk some sense into me,” she pleaded. “Say this is stupid and we shouldn't do it.”

He laughed. “You're kidding, right?”

“It's wrong.”

“Think of it as therapy.”

She trembled as he tossed her coat aside. “For whom? You or me?”

He opened her blouse, undid the catch at the front of her bra, caught her breasts in his hands when they sprang free.

“Oh, I think we'll both benefit,” he said.

Sierra groaned again. He sat her down on the side of his bed, crouched to pull off her snow boots, peel off her socks. Then he stood her up again, and undressed her, garment by garment. Blouse…bra…jeans…and, finally, her lacy under pants.

He suckled at her breasts, somehow managing to shed
his own clothes in the process; Sierra was too dazed, and too aroused, to consider the mechanics of it.

He laid her down on the bed, gently. Eased two pillows under her bottom. Knelt between her legs.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered. “You're not going to—?”

Travis kissed his way from her mouth to her neck.

“I sure am,” he mumbled, before pausing to enjoy one of her breasts, then the other.

He kept moving downward, stroking the tender flesh on the insides of her thighs. He plumped up the pillows, raising her higher.

Sierra moaned.

He parted the nest of moist curls at the junction of her thighs. Breathed on her. Touched her lightly with the tip of his tongue.

She arched her back and gave a low, throaty cry of need.

“I thought so,” Travis said, almost idly.

“You—thought—what?” Sierra demanded.

“That you needed this as much as I do.” He took her full into his mouth.

She welcomed him with a sob and an upward thrust of her hips.

He slid his hands under her buttocks and lifted her higher still.

She was about to explode, and she fought it. It wasn't as though she had orgasms every day. She wanted this experience to
last
.

He drove her straight over the edge.

She convulsed with the power of her release—once—twice—three times.

It was over.

But it wasn't.

Before she had time to lament, he was taking her to a new level.

She came again, voluptuously, piercingly, her legs over his shoulders now. And before she could begin the breathless descent, he grasped the under sides of her knees and parted them, tongued her until she climaxed yet again. Only, this time she couldn't make a sound. She could only buckle in helpless waves of pleasure.

And still it wasn't over.

He waited until she'd opened her eyes. Until her breathing had evened out. After all of the frenzy, he waited until she nodded.

He entered her in a long, slow, deep stroke, supporting himself with his hands pressing into the narrow mattress on either side of her shoulders, gazing intently down into her face. Taking in every response.

She began the climb again. Rasped his name. Clutched at his shoulders.

He didn't increase his pace.

She pumped, growing more and more frantic as the delicious friction in creased, degree by degree, toward certain meltdown.

The wave crashed over her like a tsunami, and when she stopped flailing and shouting in surrender—and only then—she saw him close his eyes. His neck corded, like a stallion's, as he threw back his head and let himself go.

His powerful body flexed, and flexed again, every muscle taut, and Sierra almost wept as she watched his control give way.

Afterward he lowered himself to lie beside her, wrapping her close in his arms. Kissed her temple, where the hair was moist with perspiration. Stroked her breasts and her belly.

She listened as his breathing slowed.

“You're not going to fall asleep, are you?” she asked.

He laughed. “No,” he said. He rolled on to his back, pulling her with him, so that she lay sprawled on top of him. Caressed her back, her shoulders, her buttocks.

She nestled in. Buried her face in his neck. Popped her head up again, suddenly alarmed. “Did you use…?”

“Yes,” he said.

She snuggled up again. “That was…great,” she confessed, and giggled.

He shifted beneath her. She felt some fumbling.

“We can't possibly do that again,” she said.

“Wanna bet?” He eased her upright, set her knees on either side of his hips.

Felt him move inside her, sleek and hard.

A violent tremor went through her, left her shuddering.

He cupped her breasts in his hands, drew her forward far enough to suck her breasts. All the while, he was raising and lowering her along his length. She took him deeper.

And then deeper still.

And then the universe dissolved into shimmering particles and rained down on them both like atoms of fire.

S
IERRA SLEPT, SNUGGLED AGAINST
T
RAVIS'S SIDE,
one arm draped across his chest, one shapely leg flung over his thighs.

Travis pulled the quilt up over them both, so she wouldn't get cold, and considered his situation.

He'd been to bed with a lot of women in his time.

He knew how to give and receive pleasure.

He said goodbye as easily as hello.

But this was different.

Different feeling. Different woman.

He'd been a dead man up until now, and this trailer had been his coffin.

Rance had sure been right about that.

Sierra McKettrick, who had probably expected no more from this en counter than he had—a roll in the hay, some much-needed satisfaction, a break in the monotony—had resurrected him. Probably in advertently, but the effect was the same.

“Shit,” he whispered. He'd
needed
that all-pervasive numbness and the insulation it provided. Needed
not
to feel.

Sierra had awakened everything inside him, and it hurt, to the center of his soul, like frost-bitten flesh thawing too fast.

She stirred against him, uttered a soft, hmmm sound, but didn't awaken.

He held her a little closer and thought about Brody. His little brother. Brody would never make love to a woman like Sierra. He'd never watch the moon rise over a mountain creek, the water purple in the twilight, or choke up at the sight of a ragged band of wild horses racing across a clearing for no other reason than that they had legs to run on. He'd never throw a stick for a faithful old dog to fetch, watch Fourth-of-July fire works with a kid perched on his shoulders or eat pancakes swimming in syrup in a roadside café while hokey music played on the jukebox.

There were so many things Brody would never do.

Travis's throat went raw, and his eyes stung.

The loss yawned inside him, a black hole, an abyss.

He'd thought losing his brother would be the hardest thing he'd ever had to do, but now he knew it wasn't. Dying inside was easy—it was having the guts to
live
that was hard.

He shifted.

Sierra sighed, raised her head, looked straight into his face.

It was too much to hope, he figured, that she wouldn't notice the tear that had just trickled out of the corner of his eye to streak toward his ear.

If she saw, she had the good grace not to comment, and the depth of his gratitude for that simple blessing was down right pathetic, by his reckoning.

“What time is it?” she asked, looking anxious and womanly.

Real
womanly.

He stretched, groped for his watch on the little shelf above the bed. “Twelve-thirty,” he answered gruffly. He wanted to say a whole lot more, but he wasn't sure what it was. He'd have to say it all to himself first, and make sense of it, before he could tell it to anyone else.

Especially Sierra.

Not that he loved her or anything. It was too early for that.

But he sure as hell felt
something,
and he wished he didn't.

“You okay?” she asked, raising herself on to one elbow and studying his face a lot more intently than he would have liked.

“Fine,” he lied.

“This doesn't have to change anything,” Sierra reasoned, hurrying her words a little—pushing them along, like rambunctious cattle toward a narrow chute. Was she trying to convince him, or herself?

“Right,” he said.

She pulled away, sat on the backs of her thighs, the quilt pulled up to her chin. “I'd better—get back to the house.”

He nodded.

She nodded.

Neither of them moved.

“What just happened here?” Sierra asked, after a long time had passed, with the two of them just staring at each other.

Whatever had happened, it had been a lot more than the obvious. He was sure of that, if nothing else.

“I'll be damned if I know,” Travis said.

“Me, neither,” Sierra said. Then she bent and kissed his fore head, before scrambling out of bed.

He sat up, watched as she gathered her scattered clothes and shimmied into them. He wished he smoked, because lighting a cigarette would have given him something to do. Some thing to distract him from the rawness of what he felt and his frustration at not being able to wrestle it down and give it a name.

“I guess you must think I do things like this all the
time,” she said. Maybe he wasn't alone in being confused. The idea stirred a forlorn hope within him. “And I don't. I
don't
sleep with men I barely know, and I don't—”

He smiled. “I believe you, Sierra,” he said. He did, too. Any body who came with the kind of sensual abandon she had, on a regular basis, would be superhuman, dead of exhaustion or both.

Actually, he admired her stamina, and her uncommon passion.

And she was up, moving around, dressing. He wasn't entirely sure he could stand.

She sat on the side of the bed, keeping a careful if subtle distance, to pull on her socks and boots. “Travis?” she said without looking at him. He saw a pink glow along the edge of her cheek, and thought of a summer dawn, rimming a mountain peak.

“What?”

“It was good. What we did was good. Okay?”

He swallowed. Reached out and squeezed her hand briefly before letting it go. “Yeah,” he agreed. “It was good.”

She left then, and Travis felt her absence like a vacuum.

He cupped his hands behind his head, lay back and began making a list in his mind.

All the things he had to do before he left the Triple M for good.

 

She'd made a damn fool of herself.

Sierra let herself into the house, closed the door behind her and leaned back against it.

What had she been thinking, throwing herself at Travis that way? She'd been like a woman possessed—and a
stupid
woman, at that.

Sierra McKettrick, the sexual sophisticate.

Right.

Sierra McKettrick, who had been intimate with exactly two men in her life—one of whom had fathered her child, lied to her and left her behind, apparently without a second thought.

What if Travis hadn't been telling the truth when he said he used protection?

What if she was pregnant again?

“Get a grip,” she told herself out loud. Travis had clearly had a lot of experience in these matters, unlike her. Further more he was a lawyer. He might not have given a damn whether
she
was protected or not, but he surely would have covered his
own
back side, if only to avoid a potential paternity suit.

She stood still, breathing like a woman in the early stages of labor, until she'd regained some semblance of composure. She had to pull herself together. In a couple of hours she'd be picking Liam up at school.

He'd want to tell her all about his class. The other kids. The teachers.

There would be supper to fix and homework to oversee.

She was a
mother,
for God's sake, not some bimbo in a soap opera, sneaking off to have prenoon monkey sex in a trailer with a virtual stranger.

She straightened.

Her own voice echoed in her mind.

It was good. What we did was good. Okay?

And it
had
been good, just not in the noble sense of the word.

Sierra went slowly upstairs, took a long, hot shower, dressed in fresh jeans and a white cotton blouse. Borrowed one of Meg's cardigans, to complete the “Mom” look.

By the time she was finished, she still had more than an hour until she had to leave for town.

Her gaze strayed to the china cabinet.

She would look at the pictures in the album. Get a frame of reference for all those McKettricks that had gone before. Try to imagine herself as one of them, a link in the bio logical chain.

She heard Travis's truck start up, resisted an urge to go to the window and watch him drive away. There was too much danger that she would morph into a desperate housewife, smile sweetly and wave.

Not gonna happen.

Keeping her thoughts and actions briskly business like, she retrieved the album, carried it to the table, sat down and lifted the cover.

A small blue book was tucked inside, its corners curled with age.

A tremor of something went through Sierra like a wash of ice water, some premonition, some sub conscious awareness straining to reach the surface.

She opened the smaller volume.

Focused on the beautifully scripted lines, penned in ink that had long since faded to an antique brown.

Sierra caught her breath. There was more, but her shock was such that, for the next few moments, the remaining words might as well have been gibberish.

Was
this woman, probably long dead, addressing her from another century?

Impossible.

But then, it was impossible for teapots and photograph albums to move by them selves, too. It was impossible for an ordinary piano to play itself, with no one touching the keys.

It was impossible for Liam to see a boy in his room.

Sierra swallowed, lowered her eyes to the journal again. The words had been written so very long ago, and yet they had the immediacy of an email.

How could this be happening?

She sucked in another breath. Read on.

Sierra glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes had passed since she sat down at the table, but it seemed like so much longer.

She got out of her chair, found a pen in the junk drawer next to the sink. This was
crazy.
She was about to deface what might be an important family record. And yet there was something so plaintive in Hannah's plea that she couldn't ignore it.

The telephone rang, jolting Sierra out of the spell.

Conditioned to unexpected emergencies, because of Liam's illness, she hurried to answer, squinting at the caller ID.

“Indian Rock Elementary School.”

The room swayed.

“This is Sierra McKettrick,” she said. “Is my son all right?”

The voice on the other end of the line was blessedly calm. “Liam is just a little sick at his stomach, that's all,” the woman said. “The school nurse thinks he ought to come home. He'll probably be fine in the morning.”

“I'll be right there,” Sierra answered, and hung up without saying goodbye.

Liam is safe, she told herself, but she felt panicky, just the same.

She deliberately closed Hannah McKettrick's journal, put it back inside the album. Placed the album inside the drawer.

Then she raced around the kitchen, frantically searching for the Blazer keys, before remembering that she'd left them in the ignition earlier, when she'd come back from town. She'd been so focused on having an illicit tryst with Travis Reid….

She grabbed her coat, dashed out the door, jumped into the SUV.

The roads were icy, and by the time Sierra sped into Indian Rock, huge flakes of snow were tumbling from a grim gray sky. She forced herself to slow down, but when
she reached the school parking lot, she almost forgot to shut off the motor in her haste to get inside, find her son.

Liam lay on a cot in the nurse's office, alarmingly pale. Some one had laid a cloth over his forehead, presumably cool, but he was all by himself.

How could these people have left him alone?

“Mom,” he said. “My stomach hurts. I think I'm gonna hurl again.”

She went to him. He rolled on to his side and vomited onto her shoes.

“I'm sorry!” he wailed.

She stroked his sweat-dampened hair. “It's all right, Liam. Everything is going to be all right.”

He threw up again.

Sierra snatched a handful of paper towels from the wall dispenser, wet them down at the sink and washed his face.

“My coat!” he lamented. “I don't want to leave my cowboy coat—”

“Don't worry about your coat,” Sierra said, wondering distractedly how she could possibly be the same woman who'd spent half the morning naked in Travis's bed.

The nurse, a tall blond woman with kindly blue eyes, stepped into the room, carrying Liam's coat and backpack. Silently she laid the things aside in a chair and came to assist in the cleanup effort.

Sierra went to get the coat.

“No!” Liam cried out, as she approached him with it. “What if I puke on it?”

“Sweet heart, it's cold outside, and we can always have it cleaned—”

The nurse caught her eye. Shook her head. “Let's just bundle Liam up in a couple of blankets. I'll help you get
him to the car. This coat is important to him—
so
important that, sick as he was, he insisted I go and get it for him.”

Sierra bit her lip. She and the nurse wrapped Liam in the blankets, and Sierra lifted him into her arms. He was getting so big. One day soon, she probably wouldn't be able to carry him any more.

The main doors whooshed open when Sierra reached them.

“Oh, great,” Liam moaned. “Everybody's looking. Every body knows I
ralphed.
”

Sierra hadn't noticed the children filling the corridor. The dismissal bell must have rung, but she hadn't heard it.