A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

by Linda Lael Miller

  Clay shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “It’s been a long day, and I’m ready for a meal, a hot bath and a bed.”

  Ponder cleared his throat. “Speaking of, well, beds, I’m afraid the house we offered you is still occupied. We’ve been telling Dara Rose that she’d have to move when we found a replacement for Parnell, but so far, she’s stayed put.”

  Dara Rose. Clay smiled slightly at the reminder of the fiery little woman who’d burst through the door of that shack a couple of hours before when he showed up with Edrina, stormed through a flock of cacophonous chickens and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t at all glad to see him.

  There had been no shortage of women in Clay McKettrick’s life—he’d even fallen in love with one, to his eventual sorrow—but none of them had affected him quite the way the widow Nolan did.

  “No hurry,” Clay said easily, resting his hands on his thighs. “I can get a room at the hotel, or bunk in at the jailhouse.”

  “The town of Blue River cannot stand good for the cost of lodgings,” Ponder said, looking worried. “Having that power line strung all the way out here from Austin depleted our treasury.”

  One of the other men huffed at that, and poured himself another shot of whiskey. “Hell,” he said, with a hiccup, “we’re flat busted and up to our hind ends in debt.”

  Ponder flushed, and his big whiskers quivered along with those heavy jowls of his. “We can pay the agreed-upon salary,” he stated, after glaring over at his colleague for a long moment. “Seventy-five dollars a month and living quarters, as agreed.” He paused, flushed. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Nolan in the morning,” he clarified. “Tell her she needs to make other arrangements immediately.”

  “Don’t do that,” Clay said, quietly but quickly, too. He took a breath, slowed himself down on the inside. “I don’t mind paying for a hotel room or sleeping at the jail, for the time being.”

  The little group exchanged looks.

  Snow spun at the few high windows the Bitter Gulch Saloon boasted, like millions of tiny ghosts in search of someplace to haunt.

  “A deal,” Ponder finally blustered, “is a deal. We offered you a place to live as part of your salary, and we intend to keep our word.”

  Clay rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His beard was coming in again, even though he’d shaved that morning, on board the train. Nearly cut his own throat in the process, as it happened, because of the way the car jostled along the tracks. “Where are Mrs. Nolan and her little girls likely to wind up?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too concerned. “Once they’ve moved out of that house, I mean.”

  “Ezra Maddox offered for her,” said another member of the council. “He’s a hard man, old Ezra, but he’s got a farm and a herd of dairy cows and money in the bank, and she could do a lot worse when it comes to husbands.”

  Clay felt a strange stab at the news, deep inside, but he was careful not to let his reaction show. He felt something for Dara Rose Nolan, but what that something was exactly was a matter that would require some sorting out.

  “Ezra ain’t willing to take the girls along with their mama, though,” imparted the first man, pouring himself yet another dose of whiskey and throwing it back without so much as a shudder or a wince. The stuff might have been creek water, for all the effect it seemed to have going down the fellow’s gullet. “And he didn’t actually offer to marry up with Dara Rose right there at the beginning, either. He means to try her out as a housekeeper before he makes her his wife. Ezra likes to know what he’s getting.”

  Someplace in the middle of Clay’s chest, one emotion broke away from the tangle and filled all the space he occupied.

  It was pure anger, cold and urgent and prickly around the edges.

  What kind of man expects a woman to part with her own children? he wondered, silently furious. His neck turned hot, and he had to release his jaw muscles by force of will.

  “Dara Rose is a bit shy on choices at the moment, if you ask me,” Ponder put in, taking a defensive tone suggesting he was a friend of Ezra Maddox’s and meant to take the man’s part if a controversy arose. With a wave of one hand, he indicated their surroundings, including the half dozen saloon girls, waiting tables in their moth-eaten finery. “If she turns Ezra down, she’ll wind up right here.” He paused to indulge in a slight smile, and Clay underwent another internal struggle just to keep from backhanding the mayor of Blue Creek hard enough to send him sprawling in the dirty sawdust. “Can’t say as I’d mind that, really.”

  Clay seethed, but his expression was schooled to quiet amusement. He’d grown up playing poker with his granddad, his pa and uncles, his many rambunctious cousins, male and female. He knew how to keep his emotions to himself.

  Mostly.

  “And you a married man,” scolded one of the other council members, but his tone was indulgent. “For shame.”

  Clay pushed his chair back, slowly, and stood. Stretched before retrieving his hat from its place on the table. “I will leave you gentlemen to your discussion,” he said, with a slight but ironic emphasis on the word gentlemen.

  “But we meant to swear you in,” Ponder protested. “Make it official.”

  “Morning will be here soon enough,” Clay said, putting his hat on. “I’ll meet you at the jailhouse at eight o’clock. Bring a badge and a Bible.”

  Ponder did not look pleased; he was used to piping the tune, it was obvious, and most folks probably danced to it.

  Most folks weren’t McKettricks, though.

  Clay smiled an idle smile, tugged at the brim of his hat in a gesture of farewell and turned to leave the saloon. Just beyond the swinging doors, he paused on the sidewalk to draw in some fresh air and look up at the sky.

  It was snow-shrouded and dark, that sky, and Clay wished for a glimpse, however brief, of the stars.

  He’d come to Blue River to start a ranch of his own, marry some good woman and raise a bunch of kids with her, build a legacy comparable to the one his granddad had established on the Triple M. Figuring he’d never love anybody but Annabel Carson, who had made up her mind to wed his cousin Sawyer, come hell or high water, he hadn’t been especially stringent with his requirements for a bride.

  He wanted a wife and a partner, somebody loyal who’d stand shoulder to shoulder with him in good times and bad. She had to be smart and have a sense of humor—ranching was too hard a life for folks lacking in those characteristics, in his opinion—but she didn’t necessarily have to be pretty.

  Annabel was mighty easy on the eyes, after all, and look where that got him. Up shit creek without a paddle, that was where. She’d claimed to love Clay with her whole heart, but at the first disagreement, she’d thrown his promise ring in his face and gone chasing after Sawyer.

  Even now, all these months later, the recollection carried a powerful sting, racing through Clay’s veins like snake venom.

  Crossing the street to the town’s only hotel, its electric lights glowing a dull gold at the downstairs windows, Clay rode out the sensation, the way he’d trained himself to do, but a remarkable thing happened at the point when Annabel’s face usually loomed up in his mind’s eye.

  He saw Dara Rose Nolan there instead.

  BY THE TIME DARA ROSE got up the next morning, washed and dressed and built up the fires, then headed out to feed and water the chickens and gather the eggs, the snow had stopped, the ground was bare and the sky was a soft blue.

  She hadn’t slept well, but the crisp bite of approaching winter cleared some of the cobwebs from her beleaguered brain, and she smiled as she worked. Her situation was as dire as ever, of course, but daylight invariably raised her hopes and quieted her fears.

  When the sun was up, she could believe things would work out in the long run if she did her best and maintained her faith.

  She would find a way to earn an honest living and keep her family together. She had to believe that to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  This very day, as soon as the c
hildren had had their breakfast and Edrina had gone off to school, Dara Rose decided, flinging out ground corn for the chickens, now clucking and flapping around her skirts and pecking at the ground, she and her youngest daughter would set out to knock on every respectable door in town if they had to.

  Someone in Blue River surely needed a cook, a housekeeper, a nurse or some combination thereof. She’d work for room and board, for herself and the girls, and they wouldn’t take up much space, the three of them. What little cash they needed, she could earn by taking in sewing.

  The idea wasn’t new, and it wasn’t likely to come to fruition, either, given that most people in town were only a little better off than she was and therefore not in the market for household help, but it heartened Dara Rose a little, just the same, as she finished feeding the chickens, dusted her hands together and went to retrieve the egg basket, hanging by its handle from a nail near the back door.

  Holding her skirts up with one hand, Dara Rose ducked into the tumbledown chicken coop and began gathering eggs from the straw where the hens roosted.

  That morning, there were more than a dozen—fifteen, by her count—which meant she and Edrina and Harriet could each have one for breakfast. The remainder could be traded at the mercantile for salt—she was running a little low on that—and perhaps some lard and a small scoop of white sugar.

  Thinking these thoughts, Dara Rose was humming under her breath as she left the chicken coop, carrying the egg basket.

  She nearly dropped the whole bunch of them right to the ground when she caught sight of the new marshal, riding his fancy spotted horse, reining in just the other side of the fence, a shiny nickel star gleaming on his worn coat.

  It made him look like a gunslinger, that long coat, and the round-brimmed hat only added to the rakish impression.

  Already bristling, Dara Rose drew a deep breath and rustled up a smile. It wasn’t as if the man existed merely to irritate and inconvenience her, after all.

  The marshal, swinging down out of the saddle and approaching the rickety side gate to stroll, bold as anything, into her yard, did not smile back.

  Dara Rose’s high hopes shriveled instantly as the obvious finally struck her: Clay McKettrick had come to send her and the children packing. He’d want to move himself—and possibly a family—in, and soon. The fact that he had a fair claim to the house did nothing whatsoever to make her feel better.

  “Mornin’,” he said, standing directly in front of her now, and pulling politely at the brim of his hat before taking it off.

  “Good morning,” Dara Rose replied cautiously, still mindful of her rudeness the day before and the regret it had caused her. Her gaze moved to the polished star pinned to his coat, and she felt an achy twinge of loss, remembering Parnell.

  Poor, well-meaning, chivalrous Parnell.

  Greetings exchanged, both of them just stood there looking at each other, for what seemed like a long time.

  Finally, Marshal McKettrick cleared his throat, holding his hat in both hands now, and the wintry sun caught in his dark hair. He looked as clean as could be, standing there, his clothes fresh, except for the coat, and his boots brushed to a shine.

  Dara Rose felt a small, peculiar shift in a place behind her heart.

  “I just wanted to say,” the man began awkwardly, inclining his head toward the house, “that there’s no need for you and the kids to clear out right away. I spent last night at the hotel, but there’s a cot and a stove at the jail house, and that will suit me fine for now.”

  Dara Rose’s throat tightened, and the backs of her eyes burned. She didn’t quite dare to believe her own ears. “But you’re entitled to live here,” she reminded him, and then could have nipped off her tongue. “And surely your wife wouldn’t want to set up housekeeping in a—”

  In that instant, the awkwardness was gone. The marshal’s mouth slanted in a grin, and mischief sparkled in his eyes. They were the color of new denim, those eyes.

  “I don’t have a wife,” he said simply. “Not yet, any how.”

  That grin. It did something unnerving to Dara Rose’s insides.

  Her heartbeat quickened inexplicably, nearly racing, then fairly lurched to a stop. Did Clay McKettrick expect something in return for his kindness? If he was looking for favors, he was going to be disappointed, because she wasn’t that kind of woman.

  Not anymore.

  “It’s almost Christmas,” Clay said, assessing the sky briefly before meeting her gaze again.

  Confused, Dara Rose squinted up at him. Christmas was important to Edrina and Harriet, as it was to most children, but it was the least of her own concerns.

  “Do you need spectacles?” Clay asked.

  Taken aback by the question, Dara Rose opened her mouth to speak, found herself at a complete loss for words and pressed her lips together. Then she shook her head.

  Clay McKettrick chuckled and reached for the egg basket.

  It wasn’t heavy, and the contents were precious, but Dara Rose offered no resistance. She let him take it.

  “Where did Edrina learn to ride a horse?” he asked.

  They were moving now, heading slowly toward the house, as though it were the least bit proper for the two of them to be behind closed doors together.

  Dara Rose blinked, feeling as muddled as if he’d spoken to her in a foreign language instead of plain English. “I beg your pardon?”

  They stepped into the small kitchen, with its slanted wall and iron cookstove, Dara Rose in the lead, and the marshal set the basket of eggs on the table, which was comprised of two barrels with a board nailed across their tops.

  “Edrina was there to meet Outlaw and me when we got off the train yesterday,” Clay explained quietly, keeping his distance and folding his arms loosely across his chest. “The child has a way with horses.”

  Dara Rose heard the girls stirring in the tiny room the three of them shared, just off the kitchen, and such a rush of love for her babies came over her that she almost teared up. “Yes,” she said. “Parnell—my husband—kept a strawberry roan named Gawain. Edrina’s been quite at home in the saddle since she was a tiny thing.”

  “What happened to him?” Clay asked.

  “Parnell?” Dara Rose asked stupidly, feeling her cheeks go crimson.

  “I know what happened to your husband, ma’am,” Clay said quietly. “I was asking about the horse.”

  Dara Rose felt dazed, but she straightened her spine and looked Clay McKettrick in the eye. “We had to sell Gawain after my husband died,” she said. It was the simple truth, and almost as much of a sore spot as Parnell’s death. They’d all loved the gelding, but Ezra Maddox had offered a good price for him, and Dara Rose had needed the money for food and firewood and kerosene for the lamps.

  Edrina, already mourning the man she’d believed to be her father, had cried for days.

  “I see,” Clay said gravely, a bright smile breaking over his handsome face like a sunrise as Edrina and Harriet hopped into the room and hurried to stand by the stove, wearing their calico dresses but no shoes or stockings.

  “Do we have to go live in the poorhouse now?” Harriet asked, groping for Edrina’s hand, finding it and evidently forgetting that the floor was cold enough to sting her bare feet. In the dead of winter, the planks sometimes frosted over.

  To Dara Rose’s surprise, Clay crouched, putting him self nearly at eye level with both children. He kept his balance easily, still holding his hat, and when his coat opened a ways, she caught an ominous glimpse of the gun belt buckled around his lean hips.

  “You don’t have to go anywhere,” he said, very solemnly.

  Edrina’s eyes widened. Her unbrushed curls rioted around her face, like gold in motion, and her bow-shaped lips formed a smile. “Really and truly?” she asked. “We can stay here?”

  Clay nodded.

  “But where will you live?” Harriet wanted to know. Like her sister, she was astute and well-spoken. Dara Rose had never used baby talk with her girls,
and she’d been reading aloud to them since before they were born.

  “I’ll be fine over at the jailhouse, at least until spring,” Clay replied, rising once again to his full height. He was tall, this man from the Arizona Territory, broad through the shoulders and thick in the chest, but the impression he gave was of leanness and agility. He was probably fast with that pistol he carried, Dara Rose thought, and was disturbed by the knowledge.

  It was the twentieth century, after all, and the West was no longer wild. Hardly anyone, save sheriffs and marshals, carried a firearm.

  “I’m going to school today,” Edrina announced happily, “and I plan on staying until Miss Krenshaw rings the bell at three o’clock, too.”

  Clay crooked a smile, but his gaze, Dara Rose discovered, had found its way back to her. “That’s good,” he said.

  “Why don’t you stay for breakfast?” Edrina asked the man wearing her father’s badge pinned to his coat.

  “Edrina,” Dara Rose almost whispered, embarrassed.

  “I’ve already eaten,” Clay replied. “Had the ham and egg special in the hotel dining room before Mayor Ponder swore me in.”

  “Oh,” Edrina said, clearly disappointed.

  “That’s a fine horse, mister,” Harriet chimed in, her head tipped way back so she could look up into Clay’s recently shaven face.

  Dara Rose was still trying to bring the newest blush in her cheeks under control, and she could only manage that by avoiding Clay McKettrick’s eyes.

  “Yes, indeed,” Clay answered the child. “His name’s Outlaw, but you can’t go by that. He’s a good old cay use.”

  “I got to ride him yesterday, down by the railroad tracks,” Edrina boasted. Then her face fell a little. “Sort of.”

  “If it’s all right with your mother,” Clay offered, “and you go to school like you ought to, you can ride Outlaw again.”

  “Me, too?” Harriet asked, breathless with excitement at the prospect.