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 before 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 breakfast, 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 graveyard, 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. Spellbound, 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 overprotective. 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 of it,” Sierra answered. “Liam and I just got here, and then we had lunch….” Her hand went, of its own accord, to the teapot, and she imagined she felt just the faintest charge when she touched it. “Lots of antiques around here,” she said, thinking aloud.
“Don’t be afraid to use them,” Meg replied. “Family tradition.”
Sierra withdrew her hand from the teapot, shut the doors. “Family tradition?”
“McKettrick rules,” Meg said, with a smile in her voice. “Things are meant to be used, no matter how old they are.”
Sierra frowned, uneasy. “But if they get broken—”
“They get broken,” Meg finished for her. “Have you met Travis yet?”
“Yes,” Sierra said. “And he’s not at all what I expected.”
Meg laughed. “What did you expect?”
“Some gimpy old guy, I guess,” Sierra admitted, warming to the friendliness in her sister’s voice. “You said he took care of the place and lived in a trailer by the barn, so I thought—” She broke off, feeling foolish.
“He’s cute and he’s single,” Meg said.
“Even the teapot?” Sierra mused.
“Huh?”
Sierra put a hand to her forehead. Sighed. “Sorry. I guess I missed a segue there. There’s a teapot in the china cabinet in the kitchen—I was just wondering if I could—”
“I know the one,” Meg answered, with a soft fondness in her voice. “It was Lorelei’s. She got it for a wedding present.”
Lorelei. The matriarch of the family. Sierra took a step backward.
“Use it,” Meg said, as if she’d seen Sierra’s reflexive retreat.
Sierra shook her head. “I couldn’t. I had no idea it was that old. If I dropped it—”
“Sierra,” Meg said, “it’s not china. It’s cast iron, with an enamel overlay.”
“Oh.”
“Kind of like the McKettrick women, Mom always says.” Meg went on. “Smooth on the outside,
