Sierra's Homecoming (13 page)

She'd be his cross to bear, and he would be hers.

There was a perverse kind of justice in that.

They reached the outskirts of Indian Rock in the late afternoon, with the sun about to go down. Doss drove straight to Dr. Willaby's big house on Third Street, secured the horses and reached into the sleigh for Tobias before Hannah got herself unwrapped enough to get out of the sleigh.

Doc Willaby's daughter, Constance, met them at the door. She was a beautiful young woman, and she'd pursued Gabe right up to the day he'd put a gold band on Hannah's finger. Now, from the way she looked at Doss, she was ready to settle for his younger brother.

The thought stirred Hannah to fury, though she'd have buttered, baked and eaten both her shoes before admitting it.

“We have need of a doctor,” Doss said to Constance, holding Tobias's bundled form in both arms.

“Come in,” Constance said. She had bright-auburn hair and very green eyes, and her shape, though slender, was voluptuous. What, Hannah wondered, did Doss think when he looked at her? “Papa's ill,” the other woman went on, “but my cousin is here, and he'll see to the boy.”

Hannah put aside whatever it was she'd felt, seeing Constance, for relief. Tobias would be looked after by a real doctor. He'd be all right now, and nothing else mattered but that.

She would darn Doss McKettrick's socks for the rest of her life. She would cook his meals and trim his hair and wash his back. She would take him water and sandwiches in summer, when he was herding cattle or working in the hayfields. She'd bite her tongue, when he galled her, which would surely be often, and let him win at cards on winter nights.

The one thing she would never do was love him—her heart would always belong to Gabe—but no one on earth, save the two of them, was ever going to know the plain, regrettable truth.

“It's a bad cold,” the younger doctor said, after carefully examining Tobias in a room set aside for the purpose. He was a very slender man, almost delicate, with dark hair and sideburns. He wore a good suit and carried a gold watch, which he consulted often. He was a city dweller, Hannah reflected, used to schedules. “I'd recommend taking a room at the hotel for a few days, though, because he shouldn't be exposed to this weather.”

Doss took out his wallet, like it was his place to pay the doctor bills, and Hannah stepped in front of him. She was Tobias's mother, and she was still responsible for costs such as these.

“That'll be one dollar,” the doctor said, glancing from Hannah's face, which felt pink with conviction and cold, to Doss's.

Hannah shoved the money into his hand.

“Give the boy whisky,” the physician added, folding the dollar bill and tucking it into the pocket of his fine tailored coat. “Mixed with honey and lemon juice, if the hotel dining room's got any such thing on hand.”

Doss, to his credit, did not give Hannah a triumphant look at this official prescription for a remedy he'd already suggested and she'd disdained, but she elbowed him in the ribs anyway, just as if he had.

They checked into the Arizona Hotel, which, like many of the businesses in Indian Rock, was McKettrick owned. Rafe's mother-in-law, Becky Lewis, had run the place for years, with the help of her daughter, Emmeline. Now it was in the hands of a manager, a Mr. Thomas Crenshaw, hired out of Phoenix.

Doss was greeted like a visiting potentate when he walked in, once again carrying Tobias. A clerk was dispatched to take the sleigh and horses to the livery stable, and they were shown, the three of them, to the best rooms in the place.

The quarters were joined by a door in between, and Hannah would have preferred to be across the hall from Doss instead, but she made no comment. While Mr. Crenshaw hadn't gone quite so far as to put them all in the same room, it was clearly his assumption, and probably that of the rest of Indian Rock, too, that she and Doss were intimate. She could imagine how the reasoning went: Doss and his brother's widow shared a house, after all, way out in the country, and heaven only knew what they were up to, with only the boy around. He'd be easy to fool, being only eight years old.

Hannah went bright red as these thoughts moved through her mind.

Doss dismissed the manager and put Tobias on the nearest bed.

“I'll go downstairs and fetch that whisky concoction,” he said, when it was just the three of them.

Tobias had never stayed in a hotel and, sick as he was, he was caught up in the experience. He nestled down in the bearskins, cupped his hands behind his head and gazed smiling up at the ceiling.

“Do as you please,” Hannah told Doss, removing her heavy cloak and bonnet and laying them aside.

He sighed. “While we're in town, we'd best get married,” he said.

“Yes,” Hannah agreed acerbically. “And let's not forget to place an order at the feed-and-grain, buy groceries, pay the light bill and renew our subscription to the newspaper.”

Doss gave a ragged chuckle and shook his head. “Guess I'd better dose you up with whisky, too,” he replied. “Maybe that way you'll be able to stand the honeymoon.”

Hannah's temper flared, but before she could respond, Doss was out the door, closing it smartly behind him.

“I like this place,” Tobias said.

“Good,” Hannah answered irritably, pulling off her gloves.

“What's a honeymoon,” Tobias asked, “and how come you need whisky to stand it?”

Hannah pretended she hadn't heard the question.

She'd packed hastily before leaving the house, things for Tobias and for herself, but nothing for a wedding and certainly nothing for a wedding
night.
If the valises had been brought upstairs, she'd have something to do, shaking out garments, hanging them in the wardrobes, but as it was, her choices were limited. She could either pace or fuss over Tobias.

She paced, because Tobias would not endure fussing.

Doss returned with their bags, followed by a woman from the kitchen carrying two steaming mugs on a tray. She set the works down on a table, accepted a gratuity from Doss, stole a boldly speculative look at Hannah and bustled out.

“Drink up,” Doss said cheerfully, handing one mug to Hannah and carrying the other to Tobias, who sat up eagerly to accept it.

Hannah sniffed the whisky mixture, took a tentative sip and was surprised at how good the stuff tasted. “Where's yours?” she asked, turning to Doss.

“I'm not the one dreading tonight,” he answered.

Hannah's hands trembled. She set the mug down, beckoned for Doss to follow, and swept into the adjoining room. “What do you mean,
tonight?
” she whispered, though of course she knew.

Doss closed the door, examined the bed from a distance and proceeded to walk over to it and press hard on the mattress several times, evidently testing the springs.

Hannah's temper surged again, but she was speechless this time.

“Good to know the bed won't creak,” Doss observed.

She found her voice, but it came out as a sputter. “Doss McKettrick—”

He ran his eyes over her, which left a trail of sensation, just as surely as if he'd stripped her naked and caressed her with his hands. “The preacher will be here in an hour,” he said. “He'll marry us downstairs, in the office behind the reception desk. If Tobias is well enough to attend, he can. If not, we'll tell him about it later.”

Hannah was appalled. “You made arrangements like that without consulting me first?”

“I thought we'd said all there was to say.”

“Maybe I wanted time to get used to the idea. Did you ever think of that?”

“Maybe you'll
never
get used to the idea,” Doss reasoned, sitting now, on the edge of the bed he clearly intended to share with her that very night. He stood, stretched in a way that could only have been called risqué. “I'm going out for a while,” he announced.

“Out where?” Hannah asked, and then hated herself for caring.

He stepped in close—too close.

She tried to retreat and found she couldn't move.

Doss hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. “To buy a wedding band, among other things,” he said. She felt his breath on her lips, and it made them tingle. “I'll send a wire to my folks and one to yours, too, if you want.”

Hannah swallowed. Shook her head. “I'll write to Mama and Papa myself, when it's over,” she said.

Sad amusement moved in Doss's eyes. “Suit yourself,” he said.

And then he left her standing there.

She heard him speak quietly to Tobias, then the opening and closing of a door. After a few moments she returned to the next room.

Tobias had finished his medicinal whisky, and his eyelids were drooping. Hannah tucked the covers in around him and kissed his forehead. Whatever else was happening, he seemed to be out of danger. She clung to that blessing and tried not to dwell on her own fate.

He yawned. “Will Uncle Doss be my pa, once you and him are married?” he asked drowsily.

“No,” Hannah said, her voice firm. “He'll still be your uncle.” Tobias looked so disheartened that she added, “And your stepfather, of course.”

“So he'll be
sort of
my father?”

“Sort of,” Hannah agreed, relenting.

“I guess we won't be going to Montana now,” Tobias mumbled, settling into his pillow.

“Maybe in the spring,” Hannah said.

“You go,” Tobias replied, barely awake now. “I'll stay here with Uncle Pa.”

It wounded Hannah that Tobias preferred Doss's company to hers and that of her family, but the boy was ill and she wasn't going to argue with him. “Go to sleep, Tobias,” she told him.

As if he'd needed her permission, the little boy lapsed into slumber.

Hannah sat watching him sleep for a long time. Then, seeing snow drift past the windows in the glow of a gas streetlamp, she stood and went to stand with her hands resting on the wide sill, looking out.

It was dark by then, and the general store, the only place in Indian Rock where a wedding band could be found, had probably been closed for an hour. All Doss would have to do was rap on the door, though, and they'd open the place to him. Same as the telegraph office, or any other establishment in town.

After all, he was a McKettrick.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

She was a bride, and she should be happier.

Instead she felt as if she was betraying Gabe's memory. Letting down her folks, too, because they'd hoped she'd come home and eventually marry a local man, though they hadn't actually come out and said that last part. Now, because she'd been foolish enough, needy enough, to lie with Doss, not once but twice, she'd have to stay on the Triple M until she died of old age.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it away quickly with the back of one hand.

“You made your bed, Hannah McKettrick,” she told her reflection in the cold, night-darkened glass of the window, “and now you'll just have to lie in it.”

By the time Doss returned, she'd washed her face, taken her hair down for a vigorous brushing and pinned it back up again. She'd put on a fresh dress, a prim but practical gray wool, and pinched some color into her cheeks.

He had on a brand-new suit of clothes, as fancy as the ones the doctor's nephew wore, and he'd gotten a haircut and a shave, too.

She was strangely touched by these things.

“I'd have bought you a dress for the wedding,” he told her, staring at her as though he'd never seen her before, “but I didn't know what would fit, and whether you'd think it proper to wear white.”

She smiled, feeling a tender sort of sorrow. “This dress will do just fine,” she said.

“You look beautiful,” Doss told her.

Hannah blushed. It was nonsense, of course—she probably looked more like a schoolmarm than anything else in her stern gray frock with the black buttons coming up to her throat—but she liked hearing the words. Had almost forgotten how they sounded, with Gabe gone.

Doss took her hand, and there was an uncharacteristic shyness in the gesture that made her wonder if he was as frightened and reluctant as she was.

“You don't have to go through with this, Doss,” she said.

He ran his lips lightly over her knuckles before letting her hand go. “It's the right thing to do,” he answered.

She swallowed, nodded.

“I guess the preacher must be here.”

Doss nodded. “Downstairs, waiting. Shall we wake Tobias?”

Hannah shook her head. “Better to let him sleep.”

“I'll fetch a maid to watch over him while we're gone,” Doss said.

Now it was Hannah who nodded.

He left her again, and this time she felt it as a tearing-away, sharp and prickly. He came back with a plump, older woman clad in a black uniform and an apron, and then he took Hannah's hand once more and led her out of the room, down the stairs and into the office where she would become Mrs. McKettrick, for the second time.