A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel (10 page)

“Well, then,” Dara Rose managed, meeting the mayor's gaze, seeing both sympathy and resolve there, “that's that, isn't it? Thank you for letting me know.”

With that, she shut the door in his face.

And stood trembling, there in the small parlor, until she heard his footsteps retreating on the porch.

“Mama?” Harriet, light-footed as ever and half again too perceptive for a five-year-old, was standing directly behind her. “Can we get a dog? Edrina says we don't need another mouth to feed, but a puppy wouldn't eat very much, would it?”

All of Dara Rose's considerable strength gave way then, like a dam under the strain of rising water. She uttered a small, choked sob, shook her head and fled to the bedroom.

Dara Rose seldom cried—even at Parnell's funeral service, she'd been dry-eyed—but she was only human, after all.

And she'd come to the end of her resources, at least for the moment.

So she sat on the edge of the bed she shared with her daughters—Parnell had slept on the settee in the parlor—covered her face with both hands and wept softly into her palms.

 

C
LAY WAS HAVING BREAKFAST
over at the hotel dining room—bacon and eggs and hotcakes, with plenty of hot, fresh coffee—when Sawyer wandered in, looking well-rested and clean-shaven, his manner at once affable and distant.

“Mind if I join you?” he said, pulling back a chair opposite Clay and sitting down before Clay could answer. He picked up the menu and studied it with the same grave concentration their illustrious granddad reserved for government beef contracts.

Politicians and pencil pushers,
Angus had been known to remark, on the occasions he did business with such officials.
A man would have to be simpleminded to trust a one of them.

“Make yourself at home,” Clay said, dryly and long after the fact. He hadn't slept much the night before, thanks to Dara Rose and Sawyer's unexpected presence and the long slog through the snow to the O'Reilly place.

He'd found them huddled around a poor fire like characters in a Dickens novel, wrapped in thin blankets. They'd had fried eggs for supper, Mrs. O'Reilly had told him, and those were all gone, and he was welcome to what was left of yesterday's pinto beans if he was hungry.

Clay had thanked her kindly and said he'd already had supper, which happened to be the truth, though he would have lied without a qualm if it hadn't been, and then he'd carried in most of their dwindling wood supply to dry beside the homemade stove. Before coming to the hotel for breakfast that morning, he'd stopped by the mercantile, pounded at the front door until the storekeeper let him in, and purchased a sackful of dried beans, along with flour, sugar, a pound of coffee and assorted canned goods for the O'Reillys. He'd paid extra to have the food delivered before the store was open for business.

Now, sitting across from his pensive cousin in a warm, clean, well-lighted place where good food could be had in plenty, he felt vaguely ashamed of his own prosperity. While the McKettricks didn't live grandly, they didn't lack for money, either. Clay had never missed a meal in his life, never had to go without shoes or wear clothes that had belonged to somebody else first. Unlike the O'Reilly children, and too many others like them, he'd
had a strong, committed father, backed up by three uncles and a granddad.

The cook, a round-bellied man who doubled as a waiter, came over to the table to greet Sawyer and take his order.

Sawyer simply pointed toward Clay's plate and said, “That looks good.”

The cook nodded and went away.

Sawyer sat there, easy in his hide, dressed like a prosperous gambler. Instead of his usual plain shirt and even plainer denim trousers, he sported a suit, complete with a white shirt, a string tie and a brocade vest. “You look miserable this morning, cousin,” he said cheerfully, “but something tells me it isn't remorse over the uncharitable welcome you offered last night.”

Clay gave a raw chuckle, void of mirth. His appetite was gone, all of a sudden, and he set down his knife and fork, pushed his plate away. “It definitely isn't remorse,” he said.

Sawyer helped himself to a slice of toasted bread and bit into it, chewed appreciatively. Though his eyes twinkled, his voice was serious when he replied, “You could still go back to the Triple M, you know. They'd welcome you back into the fold with open arms and shouts of ‘hurrah.'”

“I'll pay them a visit one of these days,” he said. “There aren't any hard feelings on my side.”

“Nor theirs, either.” Sawyer shoved a hand through his unruly dark-gold hair, which was always a little too long. “You're lucky, Clay,” he said, his gaze moving to the window next to their table. “Pa and Granddad can't seem to make up their minds whether to kill the fatted calf in my honor or take a horsewhip to me.” He frowned, squinted at the foggy glass. “I think somebody's trying to get your attention,” he observed.

Clay looked, and there, on the other side of that steamed-up window, was Edrina, practically pressing her nose to the glass. She waved one unmittened hand and retreated a step.

“I'll be damned,” Clay muttered, gesturing for the child to come inside.

“Who's the kid?” Sawyer wanted to know.

“Friend of mine,” Clay answered, as Edrina scampered toward the entrance to the dining room.

She hurried over to the table, face flushed with cold and purpose, and stood there like a little soldier.

“Mama's crying,” she said. “Mama
never
cries.”

Clay scraped back his chair, took Edrina's small hands into his own, trying to chafe some warmth into them. “Where's your bonnet?” he fussed, trying to process the
idea of Dara Rose in tears. “You aren't wearing any mittens, and your coat is unbuttoned—”

“I was in a
hurry,
” Edrina told him, with a little sigh of impatience. She spared Sawyer the briefest glance, then looked back at Clay with a proud plea in her eyes. “You'll come home with me, won't you? Right now? Because Mama is crying and Mama never,
ever
cries.”

“Go on,” Sawyer said to Clay. “I'll settle up for your breakfast.”

Clay got up, retrieved his duster from the back of the chair beside his and his hat from the seat and put them on. “What's the matter with her?” he asked, more worried than he could ever remember being before. “Is she sick?”

Gravely, Edrina took his hand, tugged him in the direction of the door. “I don't know,” she said fretfully. “Maybe. But she was fine while we were having our oatmeal. Then Mr. Ponder stopped by, and they talked, and when Harriet asked Mama if we could please get a dog, Mama commenced to blubbering and ran right out of the room.”

Outside, the snow was melting under a steadily warming sky, but it was still deep. Clay curved an arm around Edrina's waist, much as he had done with Chester the night before, and set off for Dara Rose's place with long strides.

 

D
ARA
R
OSE MARCHED
herself out into the kitchen, pumped cold water into the basin she kept on hand and splashed her face repeatedly while Harriet watched her solemnly from the doorway.

“Are you through crying, Mama?” the child asked, very softly.

Dara Rose felt ashamed. Now she'd upset Edrina and Harriet, and for what? A few moments of self-pity?

“I'm quite through,” she said, drying her still-puffy face with a dish towel. “And I haven't the slightest idea what came over me.” She hugged Harriet, then frowned, looking around. “Where is Edrina?”

Harriet bit her lower lip, clearly reluctant to answer.

“Harriet?” Dara Rose said, taking her little girl gently but firmly by the shoulders.
“Where is your sister?”

Harriet's eyes were huge and luminous. “She went to fetch Mr. McKettrick,” she finally replied.

Alarm rushed through Dara Rose, and not just because a glance at the row of hooks beside the back door revealed that Edrina had gone off through the deep snow without her bonnet or her mittens. She was just reaching for her own cloak when she heard footsteps on the front porch—boots, stomping off snow.

Clay knocked, but then he came right in, carrying Edrina. His gaze locked with Dara Rose's as he set the little girl down and pulled the door closed behind him.

She'd never seen a man look so worried before, not even when Parnell came to that settlement house in Bangor, Maine, to claim her and the children. They'd been mere babies then, Edrina and Harriet, and memories of their real father, Parnell's younger brother, Luke, soon faded.

“Are you sick?” Clay demanded, in the same tone he might have employed to confront a drunk with disorderly conduct.

Dara Rose wasn't sick, except with mortification. “I'm quite all right,” she said, but she didn't sound very convincing, even to herself. She shifted her attention to her elder daughter, letting her know with a look that she was in big trouble. “I apologize for any inconvenience—”

Clay's neck reddened, and his eyes narrowed. “I'd be obliged if you girls would wait in the kitchen,” he said, though he never looked away from Dara Rose's face.

Edrina and Harriet, always ready with a protest when
she
made such a request, fled the room like rabbits with a fox on their trail.

“That little girl,” Clay said, in a furious whisper, one index finger jabbing in the general direction of the kitchen a few times, “was so worried about you that she braved all that snow to find me and bring me here. So don't think for one minute that you're going to put me off with an apology for any
inconvenience.
”

Dara Rose stared at him. “Why are you so angry?” she finally asked.
And why does it thrill me to see you like this?

“I'm not angry,” Clay rasped out, wrenching off his Wyatt Earp–style hat and flinging it so that it landed on the settee, teetered there and dropped to the floor. “Damn it, Dara Rose, whatever went on here this morning scared your daughter half to death, and since Edrina is the most courageous kid I've ever come across,
I
got scared, too.”

The thrill didn't subside, and Dara Rose prayed her feelings didn't show. “I lost my composure for a moment,” she confessed, as stiffly proud as a Puritan even as her heart raced and her breath threatened to catch in the back of her throat and never come loose. “Believe me, I regret it. I certainly didn't mean to frighten the children—”

“Well,” Clay said, in earnest, “you
did.
And I'm not leaving here until you tell me what Ponder said to you that made you go to pieces the way you did.”

Dara Rose swallowed, looked down at the floor. Right or wrong, Clay meant what he said—that much was obvious from his tone and his countenance. He wouldn't be going anywhere until she answered him.

“Dara Rose?” He was standing close to her now, his
hands resting lightly on her shoulders. He smelled of fresh air, snow and something woodsy. “Tell me.”

She knew she ought to pull away from him, ought to look anywhere but up into his face, but she couldn't manage either response. “Mayor Ponder stopped by to tell me that, since you don't want this house, the town council plans to sell it to Ezra Maddox for two hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. It was remarkable how calm she sounded, she thought, when her insides were buzzing like a swarm of bees smoked out of their hive. “We have to be out by the first of the year.”

“That son of a—” Clay ground out, before catching himself.

Dara Rose felt tears burning behind her eyes again, and she was determined not to disgrace herself by shedding them. “I have ten dollars,” she said, like someone talking in their sleep. “And I've saved some of the egg money. It won't take us far, but it's enough to leave town.”

“Where would you go?” Clay immediately asked.

“I don't know,” Dara Rose replied honestly. “Somewhere.”

“The town isn't going to sell this house,” Clay said.

“Of course they are,” Dara Rose argued, though not with any spirit.

“I'm the marshal,” Clay told her, “and under the terms
of our agreement, I'm entitled to living quarters. It just so happens that I've decided I'd rather live here than in the jailhouse.”

Dara Rose's jaw dropped, and it took her a moment to recover. A
long
moment. “But, we couldn't… Where would the children and I—?”

Clay hooked a finger under her chin. “Right here,” he said. “You and Edrina and Harriet could live right here, with me—if you and I were married.”

Dara Rose nearly choked.
“Married?”

“It wouldn't do for us to live under the same roof other wise,” Clay said reasonably.

“But, we're nearly total strangers—”

“For now,” Clay went on, when her words fell away, “it would be a private arrangement. All business. I won't press you to bed down with me, Dara Rose. This place is too small for such shenanigans, anyhow, with the girls around.”

Dara Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was Parnell, all over again. Clay was offering a marriage that
wasn't
a marriage, offering shelter and safety and respectability. But unless she wanted to send her children away and move in with Ezra Maddox, she couldn't afford to refuse.

“Why?” she asked, barely breathing the word. “Why would you want to do this, Clay McKettrick?”

He smiled at her. Tucked a tendril of hair behind her right ear, where it had escaped its pins. “I want a wife,” he said, as though that explained everything, instead of raising dozens, if not hundreds, of new questions.

“But you said the marriage wouldn't be real.”

“It won't be, at first,” Clay told her. Where did he get all that certainty, all that confidence? All that
audacity?
“But maybe, with time…”