The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's HomecomingThe McKettrick Way (Hqn)

by Linda Lael Miller

  Jesse stood at Brad’s side, his own rifle ready. “I wouldn’t have believed he was real,” McKettrick said in a whisper, though whether he was referring to Ransom or the old wolf was anybody’s guess, “if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes.”

  The wolf yowled again, the sound raising something primitive in Brad.

  And then it was over.

  The leader turned, moving back through the pack at a trot, and they rounded, one by one, with a lethal and hesitant grace, to follow.

  Brad let out his breath, lowered his rifle. Jesse relaxed, too.

  Livie, carrying her kit in one hand, headed straight for Ransom.

  Brad moved to stop her, but Jesse put out his arm.

  “Easy,” he said. “This is no time to spook that horse.”

  It would be the supreme irony, Brad reflected grimly, if they had to shoot Ransom in the end, after going to all this trouble to save his hide. If the stallion made one aggressive move toward Livie, though, he’d do it.

  “It’s me, Olivia,” Livie told the legendary wild stallion in a companionable tone. “I came as soon as I could.”

  Brad brought his rifle up quickly when Ransom butted Livie with his massive head, but Jesse forced the barrel down, murmuring, “Wait.”

  Ransom stood, lathered and shining with sweat and fresh blood, and allowed Livie to stroke his long neck, ruffle his mane. When she squatted to run her hands over his forelegs, he allowed that, too.

  “I’ll be damned,” Jesse muttered.

  The vision was surreal—Brad wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming at home in his bed.

  “You’re going to have to come in,” Livie told the horse, “at least long enough for that leg to heal.”

  Unbelievably, Ransom nickered and tossed his head as though he were nodding in agreement.

  “How the hell does she expect to drive a band of wild horses all the way down the mountain to Stone Creek Ranch?” Brad asked. He wasn’t looking for an answer from Jesse—he was just thinking out loud.

  Jesse whacked him on the shoulder. “You’ve been in the big city too long, O’Ballivan,” he said. “You stay here, in case the wolves come back, and I’ll go gather a roundup crew. It’ll be a few hours before we get here, though—keep your eye out for the pack and pray for good weather. About the last thing we need is another of those blizzards.”

  By that time, Livie had produced a syringe from her kit, and was preparing to poke it through the hide on Ransom’s neck.

  Brad moved a step closer.

  “Stay back,” Livie said. “Ransom’s calm enough, but these mares are stressed out. I’d rather not find myself at the center of an impromptu rodeo, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Jesse chuckled, handed Brad his rifle, and turned to sprint back to the copter. Moments later, it was lifting off again, veering south west.

  Brad stood unmoving for a long time, still not sure he wasn’t caught up in the after math of a night mare, then leaned his and Jesse’s rifles against the trunk of a nearby tree.

  Ransom stood with his head down, dazed by the drug Livie had administered minutes before. The mares, still fitful but evidently aware that the worst danger had passed, fanned out to graze on the dry grass.

  In the distance, the old wolf howled with piteous fury.

  Pinkish-gold light rimmed the eastern hills as Meg returned to the house, after feeding the horses, and the phone was ringing.

  She dived for it, in case it was Travis calling to say Sierra had had the baby.

  In case it was Brad.

  It was Eve.

  “You’re an aunt again,” Meg’s mother announced, with brisk pride. “Sierra had a healthy baby boy at four-thirty this morning. I think they’re going to call him Brody, for Travis’s brother.”

  Joy fluttered inside Meg’s heart, like something trying delicate wings, and tears smarted in her eyes. “She’s okay? Sierra, I mean?”

  “She’s fine, by all reports,” Eve answered. “Liam and I are heading for Flag staff right after break fast. He’s beside himself.”

  After washing her hands at the kitchen sink, Meg poured herself a cup of hot coffee. By habit, she’d set it brewing before going out to the barn. Upstairs, she heard Ted’s slow step as he moved along the corridor.

  “Ted’s checking in today,” she said, keeping her voice down. “I’ll stop by to see Sierra and the baby after I get him settled.” She drew a breath, let it out softly. “Mother, Carly is not handling this well.”

  Eve sighed sadly. “I’m sure she isn’t, the poor child,” she said. “Why don’t you keep her out of school for the day and let her come along with you and Ted?”

  “I suggested that,” Meg replied, as her father appeared on the back stairs, dressed, with a shaving kit in one hand.

  Their gazes met.

  “And?” Eve prompted.

  “And Ted said he wants her to attend class and visit later, when school’s out for the day.”

  Ted nodded. “Is that Eve?”

  “Yes,” Meg said.

  He gestured for the phone, and Meg handed it to him.

  “This is Ted,” he told Meg’s mother. While he explained that Carly needed to settle into as normal a life as possible, as soon as possible, Carly herself appeared on the stairs, looking glum and stubborn.

  She wore jeans and the souvenir T-shirt Brad had given her, in spite of the fact that it reached almost to her knees. The expression in her eyes dared Meg to object to the outfit—or anything else in the known universe.

  “Hungry?” Meg asked.

  “No,” Carly said.

  “Too bad. In this house, we eat break fast.”

  “I might puke.”

  “You might.”

  Ted cupped a hand over one end of the phone. “Carly,” he said sternly, “you will eat.”

  Scowling, Carly swung a leg over the bench next to the table and plunked down, angrily bereft. Meg poured orange juice, carried the glass to the table, set it down in front of her sister.

  It was a wonder the stuff didn’t come to an instant boil, considering the heat of Carly’s glare as she stared at it.

  “This bites,” she said.

  “Okay, I’ll pass the word,” Ted told Eve. “See you later.”

  He hung up. “Eve’s hoping you can have lunch with her and Liam after you visit Sierra and the baby.”

  Meg nodded, distracted.

  “It bites,” Carly repeated, watching Ted with thunderous eyes. “You’re going to the hospital, and I have to go to that stupid school, where they’ll probably put me in kindergarten or something. I’m supposed to be in seventh grade.”

  Meg had no idea how Carly had fared on the tests she’d taken the day before, but it seemed safe to say things probably wouldn’t go as badly as all that.

  She got a frown for her trouble.

  “This time next week,” Ted told his younger daughter, “you’ll probably be a sophomore at Harvard. Drink your orange juice.”

  Carly took a reluctant sip and eye balled Meg’s jeans, which were covered with bits of hay. “Don’t you have like a job or something?”

  “Yeah,” Meg said, putting a pan on the stove to boil water for oatmeal. “I’m a ranch hand. The work’s hard, the pay is lousy, there’s no retirement plan and you have to shovel a lot of manure, but I love it.”

  Break fast was a dismal affair, one Carly did her best to drag out, but, finally, the time came to leave.

  Meg remained in the house for a few extra minutes while Ted and Carly got into the Blazer, giving them time to talk privately.

  When she joined them, Carly was in tears, and Ted looked weary to the center of his soul.

  Meg gave him a sympathetic look, pushed the button to roll up the garage door and backed out.

  When they reached the school, Ted climbed laboriously out of the Blazer and stood on the sidewalk with Carly. They spoke earnestly, though Meg couldn’t hear what they said, and Carly dashed at her cheeks with the back of one
hand before turning to march staunchly through the colorful herd of kids toward the entrance.

  Ted had trouble getting back into the car, but when Meg moved to get out and come around to help him, he shook his head.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  She nodded, thick-throated and close to tears herself.

  When they reached the hospital in Flag staff, Eve was waiting in the admittance office.

  “I’ll take over from here,” she told Meg, standing up extra-straight as she watched a nurse ease Ted into a waiting wheel chair. “You go upstairs and see your sister and your new nephew. Room 502.”

  Meg hesitated, nodded. Then, surprising even herself, she bent and kissed Ted on top of the head before walking purposefully toward the nearest elevator.

  Sierra glowed from the inside, as though she’d distilled sunlight to a golden potion and swallowed it down. The room was bedecked in flowers, splashes of watercolor pink, blue and yellow shimmered all around.

  “Aunt Meg!” Liam cried delightedly, zooming out of the teary blur. “I’ve got a brand-new brother and his name is Brody Travis Reid!”

  With a choked laugh, Meg hugged the little boy, almost displacing his Harry Potter glasses in the process. “Where is this Brody yahoo, anyhow?” she teased. “His legend looms large in this here town, but so far, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

  “Silly,” Liam said. “He’s in the nursery, with all the other babies!”

  Meg ruffled his hair. Went to give Sierra a kiss on the forehead.

  “Congratulations, little sister,” she said.

  “He’s so beautiful,” Sierra whispered.

  “Boys are supposed to be handsome, not beautiful,” Liam protested, dragging a chair up on the other side of Sierra’s bed and standing in the seat so he could be eye to eye with his mother. “Was I handsome?”

  Sierra smiled, squeezed his small hand. “You’re still hand some,” she said gently. “And Dad and I are counting on you to be a really good big brother to Brody.”

  Liam turned to Meg, beaming. “Travis is going to adopt me. I’ll be Liam McKettrick Reid, and Mom’s changing her name, too.”

  Meg lifted her eyebrows slightly.

  “Somebody had to break the tradition,” Sierra said. “I’ve already told Eve.”

  Sierra would be the first McKettrick woman to take her husband’s last name in generations.

  “Mom’s okay with that?” Meg asked.

  Sierra grinned. “Timing is everything,” she said. “If you want to break disturbing news to her, be sure to give birth first.”

  Meg chuckled. “You are a brave woman,” she told Sierra. Then, turning to her nephew, she held out a hand. “How about showing me that brother of yours, Liam McKettrick Reid?”

  Jesse returned at midmorning, as promised, with a dozen mounted cowboys. To Brad, the bunch looked as though they’d ridden straight out of an old black-and-white movie, their clothes, gear and horses only taking on color as they drew within hailing distance.

  Brad was bone-tired, and Livie, her doctoring completed for the time being, had fallen asleep under a tree, bundled in his coat as well as her own. He’d built a fire an hour or so before dawn, but he craved coffee something fierce, and he was chilled to his core.

  Before bedding down in the wee small hours, Livie had cheer fully informed her brother that while he ought to keep watch for the wolf pack, he didn’t need to worry that Ransom and the mares would run off. They knew, she assured him, that they were among friends.

  He’d kept watch through what remained of the night, pondering the undeniable proof that his sister had received an SOS from Ransom.

  Now, with riders approaching, Livie wakened and got up off the ground, smiling and dusting dried pine needles and dirt off her jeans.

  Jesse, Keegan and Rance were in the lead, ropes coiled around the horns of their saddles, rifles in their scabbards.

  Rance nodded to Brad, dismounted and walked over to Ransom. He checked the animal’s legs as deftly as Livie had.

  “Think he can make it down the mountain to the ranch?” Rance asked.

  Livie nodded. “If we take it slowly,” she said. Her smile took in the three McKettricks and the men they’d rallied to help. “Thanks, every body.”

  Most of the cowboys stared at Ransom as though they expected him to sprout wings, like Pegasus, and take to the blue-gold morning sky. One rode forward, leading mounts for Livie and Brad.

  Livie took off Brad’s coat and handed it to him, then swung up into the saddle with an ease he couldn’t hope to emulate. He kicked dirt over the last embers of the campfire while Rance handed up Livie’s veterinary kit.

  The ride down the mountain would be long and hard, though thank God the weather had held. The sky was blue as Meg’s eyes.

  Brad took a deep breath, jabbed a foot into the stirrup and hauled himself onto the back of a pinto gelding. He was still pretty sore from the last trip up and down this mountain.

  The cowboys went to work, starting Ransom and his mares along the trail with low whistles to urge them along.

  Livie rode up beside Brad and grinned. “You look like hell,” she said.

  “Gosh, thanks,” Brad grimaced, shifting in the saddle in a vain attempt to get comfortable.

  She chuckled. “Think of it as getting into character for the movie.”

  Seeing Brody for the first time was the high point of Meg’s day, but from there, it was all downhill.

  Ted’s tests were invasive, and he was drugged.

  Liam was hyper with excitement, and didn’t sit still for a second during lunch, despite Eve’s grandmotherly reprimands. The food in the cafeteria tasted like wood shavings, and she got a call from the police in Indian Rock on her way home.

  Carly had ditched school, and Wyatt Terp, the town marshal, had picked her up along Highway 17. She’d been trying to hitch hike to Flag staff.

  Meg sped to the police station, screeched to a stop in the parking lot and stormed inside.

  Carly sat forlornly in a chair near Wyatt’s desk, looking even younger than twelve.

  “I just wanted to see my dad,” she said in a small voice, taking all the bluster out of Meg’s sails.

  Meg pulled up a chair along side Carly’s and sat down, taking a few deep breaths to center herself. Wyatt smiled and busied himself in another part of the station house.

  “You could have been kidnapped, or hit by a car, or a thousand other things,” Meg said care fully.

  “Dad and I thumbed it lots of times,” Carly said defensively, “when our car broke down.”

  Meg closed her eyes for a moment. Waited for a sensible reply to occur to her. When that didn’t happen, she opened them again.

  “Will you take me to see him now?” Carly asked.

  Meg sighed. “Depends,” she said. “Are you under arrest, or just being held for questioning?”

  Carly relaxed a little. “I’m not busted,” she answered seriously. “But Marshal Terp says if he catches me hitchhiking again, I’ll probably do hard time.”

  “You pull any more stupid tricks like this one, kiddo,” Meg said, “and I’ll give you all the ‘hard time’ you can handle.”

  Wyatt approached, doing his best to look like a stern lawman, but the effect was more Andy-of-Mayberry. “You can go, young lady,” he told Carly, “but I’d better not see you in this office again unless you’re selling Girl Scout cookies or 4-H raffle tickets or something. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Carly said meekly, ducking her head slightly.

  Meg stood, motioned for her sister to head for the door.

  Carly didn’t move until the lawman raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Is it the badge that makes her mind?” she whispered to Wyatt, once Carly was out of earshot. “And if so, do you happen to have a spare?”

  He needed to see Meg.

  It was seven-thirty that night before Ransom and his band were corralled at Stone Creek Ranch, and the McKettricks and their helpers had unsa
ddled all their horses, loaded them into trailers and driven off. Livie had greeted Willie, taken a hot shower and, bundled in one of Big John’s ugly Indian-blanket bath robes, gobbled down a bologna sandwich before climbing the stairs to her old room to sleep.

  Brad was tired.

  He was cold and he was hungry and he was saddle sore.

  The only sensible thing to do was shower, eat and sleep like a dead man.

  But he still needed to see Meg.

  He settled for the shower and clean clothes.

  Calling first would have been the polite thing to do, but he was past that. So he scrawled a note to Livie—Feed the dog and the horses if I’m not back by morning—and left.

  The truck knew its way to the Triple M, which was a good thing, since he was in a daze.

  Lights glowed warm and golden from Meg’s windows, and his heart lifted at the sight, at the prospect of seeing her. The McKettricks, he recalled, tended to gather in kitchens. He parked the truck in the drive and walked around to the back of the house, knocked at the door.

  Carly answered. She looked wan, as worn-out and used-up as Brad felt, but her face lit up when she saw him.

  “I get to stay in seventh grade,” she said. “According to my test scores, I’m gifted.”

  Brad rustled up a grin and resisted the urge to look past her, searching for Meg. “I could have told you that,” he said as she stepped back to let him in.

  “Meg’s upstairs,” Carly told him. “She has a sick headache and I’m supposed to leave her alone unless I’m bleeding or there’s a national emergency.”

  Brad hid his disappointment. “Oh,” he said, because nothing better came to him.

  “I heard you were making a movie,” Carly said. Clearly she was lonesome, needed somebody to talk to.

  Brad could certainly identify. “Yeah,” he answered, and this time the grin was a little easier to find.

  “Can I be in it? I wouldn’t have to have lines or anything. Just a costume.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Brad said. “My people will call your people.”