Sierra's Homecoming by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2006-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

1919

Hannah couldn’t help comparing her second wedding to her first, at least in the privacy of her mind. She and Gabe had been married in the summer, in the side yard at the main ranch house. Gabe’s grandfather, Angus, had been alive then and, as head of the McKettrick clan, he’d issued a decree to that effect. There had been a big cake and a band and long improvised tables burdened with food. There had been guests and gifts and dancing.

After the celebration, Gabe had driven her to town in a surrey, and they’d stayed right here at the Arizona Hotel, caught the next day’s train out of Indian Rock. Traveled all the way to San Francisco for a honeymoon. Tobias had been conceived during that magical time, and the box of photographs commemorating the trip was one of Hannah’s most treasured possessions.

Now she found herself standing in the cramped and cluttered office behind the reception desk, a widow about to become a bride. Only, this time there was no cake, no honeymoon trip to look forward to, and certainly no music and dancing.

Those things wouldn’t have mattered, Hannah was certain, if she’d loved Doss and known he loved her. It wasn’t the modesty of the ceremony that troubled her, but the coldly practical reasons behind it.

While the preacher droned the sacred words, with Mr. Crenshaw and one of the maids for witnesses, Hannah stole the occasional sidelong glance at her groom.

Doss looked stalwart, determined and impossibly handsome.

What will become of us? Hannah wondered, in silent and stoic despair. She’d pasted a wobbly smile on her face, because she wouldn’t have the preacher gossiping afterward, saying she’d looked like a deer with one foot stuck in a railroad track, and the train about to come clackety-clacking round the bend at full throttle.

Oh, no. If she did what she really wanted to do, which was either run or break down and cry, that self-righteous old coot would spread the news from one end of the state to the other, and what a time folks would have with that.

A weeping bride.

A grimly resigned groom.

The talk wouldn’t die down for years.

So Hannah endured.

She repeated her vows, when she was prompted, and kept her chin high, her backbone straight and her eyes bone dry. The ordeal was almost over when suddenly the office door banged open and Doss’s uncle Jeb strolled in. He was still handsome, though well into middle age, and he grinned as he took in the not-so-happy couple.

“Thought I’d missed it,” he said.

Doss laughed, evidently pleased to set eyes on another blood-McKettrick.

The minister cleared his throat, not entirely approving of the interruption, it would seem.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” he said quickly.

“Kiss your bride,” Jeb prompted, watching his nephew closely.

Hannah blushed.

Doss kissed her, and she wondered if he’d have remembered to do it at all, if his uncle hadn’t provided a verbal nudge.

“No flowers?” Jeb asked, after Doss had paid the preacher and the man had gone. He looked around the office.

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