Sierra's Homecoming Read Free

high ceilings, the antique grandfather clock ticking ponderously beside the door. She peeked into a spacious living room, probably called a parlor when the house was new, and admired the enormous natural-rock fireplace, with its raised hearth and wood-nook. Worn but colorful rugs gave some relief to the otherwise uncompromisingly masculine decor of leather couches and chairs and tables of rough-hewn pine, as did the piano set in an alcove of floor-to-ceiling windows.
    An odd nostalgia overtook Sierra; she’d never set foot on the Triple M before that day, let alone entered the home of Holt and Lorelei McKettrick, but she might have, if her dad hadn’t snatched her the day Eve filed for divorce, and carried her off to San Miguel de Allende to share his expatriate lifestyle. She might have spent summers here, as Meg had, picking blackberries, wading in mountain streams, riding horses. Instead, she’d run barefoot through the streets of San Miguel, with no more memory of her mother than a faint scent of expensive perfume, sometimes encountered among the waves of tourists who frequented the markets, shops and restaurants of her home town.
    Liam tugged at the sleeve of her coat. “Mom?”
    She snapped out of her reverie, looked down at him, and smiled. “You hungry, bud?”
    Liam nodded solemnly, but brightened when the door bumped open and Travis came in, lugging two suitcases.
    Travis cleared his throat, as though embarrassed. “Plenty of grub in the kitchen,” he said. “Shall I put this stuff upstairs?”
    â€œYes,” 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 caretaker 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.
    â€œTables 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.
    â€œSorry,” 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.
    â€œNo problem,” Sierra said.
    Liam wrenched open the refrigerator. “Bologna!” he yelled triumphantly.
    â€œWhoopee,” Sierra replied, with a dryness that was lost on her son. “If there’s bologna, there must be white bread, too.”
    â€œJesse!” 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