he said. “Shall I put this stuff upstairs?”
“Yes,” Sierra said. “Thanks.” At least that way she’d know which rooms were hers and Liam’s without having to ask. She might have been concerned, sharing the place with Travis, but Meg had told her he lived in a trailer out by the barn. What Meg hadn’t mentioned was that her resident care taker was in his early thirties, not his sixties, as Sierra had imagined, and too attractive for comfort, with his lean frame, blue-green eyes and dark-blond hair in need of a trim.
She blushed as these thoughts filled her mind, and shuffled Liam quickly toward the kitchen.
It was a large room, with the same plank floors she’d seen in the front of the house and modern appliances, strangely juxtaposed with the black, chrome-trimmed wood cookstove occupying the far-left-hand corner. The table was long and rustic, with benches on either side and a chair at each end.
“Tables like that are a tradition with the McKettricks,” a male voice said from just behind her.
Sierra jumped, startled, and turned to see Jesse in the doorway.
“Sorry,” he said. He was handsome, Sierra thought. His coloring was similar to Travis’s, and so was his build, and yet the two men didn’t resemble each other at all.
“No problem,” Sierra said.
Liam wrenched open the refrigerator. “Bologna!” he yelled triumphantly.
“Whoopee,” Sierra replied, with a dryness that was lost on her son. “If there’s bologna, there must be white bread, too.”
“Jesse!” Travis’s voice, from the direction of the front door. “Get out here and give me a hand!”
Jesse grinned, nodded affably to Sierra and vanished.
Sierra took off her coat, hung it from a peg next to the back door, and gestured for Liam to remove his, too. He complied, then went straight back to the bologna. He found a loaf of bread in a colorful polka-dot bag and started to build a sandwich.
Watching him, Sierra felt a faint brush of sorrow against the back of her heart. Liam was good at doing things on his own; he’d had a lot of practice, with her working the night shift at the club and sleeping days. Old Mrs. Davis from the apartment across the hall had been a conscientious babysitter, but hardly a mother figure.
She put coffee on to brew, once Liam was settled on a bench at the table. He’d chosen the side against the wall, so he could watch her moving about the kitchen.
“Cool place,” he observed, between bites, “but it’s haunted.”
Sierra took a can of soup from a shelf, opened it and dumped the contents into a saucepan, placing it on the modern gas stove be fore answering. Liam was an imaginative child, often saying surprising things. Rather than responding instantly, Sierra usually tried to let a couple of beats pass before she answered.
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t know,” Liam said, chewing. They’d had a drive-through break fast, but that had been hours ago, and he was obviously starving.
Another jab of guilt struck Sierra, keener than the one before. “Come on,” she prodded. “You must have had a reason.” Of course he’d had a reason, she thought. They’d just been to a grave yard, so it was natural that death would be on his mind. She should have waited, made the pilgrimage on her own, instead of dragging Liam along.
Liam looked thoughtful. “The air sort of…buzzes,” he said. “Can I make another sandwich?”
“Only if you promise to have some of this soup first.”
“Deal,” Liam said.
An old china cabinet stood against a far wall, near the cookstove, and Sierra approached it, even though she didn’t intend to use any of the dishes inside. Priceless antiques, every one.
Her family had eaten off those dishes. Generations of them.
Her gaze caught on a teapot, sturdy looking and, at the same time, exquisite. Spell bound, she opened the glass doors of the cabinet and reached inside to touch the piece, ever so lightly, with just the tips of her fingers.
“Soup’s boiling over,” Liam said mildly.
Sierra gasped, turned on her heel and rushed back to the modern stove to push the saucepan off the flame.
“Mom,” Liam interjected.
“What?”
“Chill out. It’s only soup.”
The inside door swung open, and Travis stuck his head in. “Stuff’s upstairs,” he said. “Anything else you need?”
Sierra stared at him for a long moment, as though he’d spoken in an alien language. “Uh, no,” she said finally. “Thanks.” Pause. “Would you like some lunch?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “Gotta see to that damn horse.”
With that, he ducked out again.
“How come I can’t ride the horse?” Liam asked.
Sierra sighed, setting a bowl of soup in front of him. “Because you don’t know how.”
Liam’s sigh echoed her own, and if they’d been talking about anything but the endangerment of life and limb, it would have been funny.
“How am I supposed to learn how if you won’t let me try? You’re being over protective. You could scar my psyche. I might develop psychological problems.”
“There are times,” Sierra confessed, sitting down across from him with her own bowl of soup, “when I wish you weren’t quite so smart.”
Liam waggled his eyebrows at her. “I got it from you.”
“Not,” Sierra said. Liam had her eyes, her thick, fine hair, and her dogged persistence, but his remarkable IQ came from his father.
Don’t think about Adam, she told herself.
Travis Reid sidled into her mind.
Even worse.
Liam consumed his soup, along with a second sandwich, and went off to explore the rest of the house while Sierra lingered thoughtfully over her coffee.
The telephone rang.
Sierra got up to fetch the cordless receiver and pressed Talk with her thumb. “Hello?”
“You’re there!” Meg trilled.
Sierra noticed that she’d left the china cabinet doors open and went in that direction, intending to close them. “Yes,” she said. Meg had been kind to her, in a long-distance sort of way, but Sierra had only been two when she’d last seen her half sister, and that made them strangers.
“How do you like it? The ranch house, I mean?”
“I haven’t seen much
