A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel. Linda Miller Lael

was a thing he had no right to do, of course, but he felt a pang on the little girl’s behalf just the same. And against his own better judgment he dismounted, took off his hat, holding it in one hand and shoving the other through his hair, fingers splayed.

      “You go on and do what your mama tells you,” he said to Edrina, though his words had the tone of a suggestion, rather than a command.

      Edrina’s very fetching mother looked him over again, this time with something that might have been chagrin. Then she bristled again, like a little bird ruffling up faded feathers. “You’re him, aren’t you?” she accused. “The new marshal?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” Clay said, confounded by the strange mixture of terror and jubilation rising up within him. “I am the new marshal. And you are…?”

      “Dara Rose Nolan. You may address me as Mrs. Nolan, if you have any further reason to address me, which I do not anticipate.”

      With that, she turned on one shabby-heeled shoe and pointed herself toward the “cottage,” with its sagging roof, leaking rain barrel and sparkling-clean windows.

      Edrina and another little girl—the aforementioned Harriet, no doubt—darted out of the doorway as their mother approached, vanishing into the interior of the house.

      Clay watched appreciatively as the widow Nolan retreated hurriedly up the walk, with nary a backward glance.

      Chickens, pecking peacefully at the ground, squawked and flapped their wings as they fled.

      The door slammed behind her.

      Clay smiled, resettled his hat and got back on his horse.

      Before, he’d dreaded the long and probably idle months ahead, expecting the season to be a lonesome one, and boring, to boot, since he knew nothing much ever happened in Blue River, when it came to crime. That was the main reason the town fathers hadn’t been in any big rush to replace Parnell Nolan.

      Now, reining Outlaw away toward the edge of town, and the open country beyond, meaning to ride up onto a ridge he knew of, where the view extended for miles in every direction, Clay figured the coming winter might not be so dull, after all.

      INSIDE THE HOUSE, Dara Rose drew a deep breath and sighed it out hard.

      Heaven knew, she hadn’t been looking forward to the new marshal’s arrival, given the problems that were sure to result, but she hadn’t planned on losing her composure and behaving rudely, either. Poor as she was, Dara Rose still had high standards, and she believed in setting a good example for her children, prided herself on her good manners and even temperament.

      Imagining how she must have looked to Clay McKettrick, rushing out of the house, scaring the chickens half to death in the process, she closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed again.

      Edrina and Harriet watched her from the big rocking chair over by the wood-burning stove, Edrina wisely holding her tongue, Harriet perched close beside her, her rag doll, Molly, resting in the curve of one small arm.

      The regulator clock ticked ponderously on the wall, lending a solemn rhythm to the silence, and snow swirled past the windows, as if trying to find a way in.

      Dara Rose shivered.

      “What are we going to do, Mama?” Edrina asked reasonably, and at some length. She was a good child, normally, helpful and even tempered, but her restlessness and curiosity often led her straight into mischief.

      Dara Rose looked up at the oval-framed image of her late husband, Parnell Nolan, and her throat thickened as fresh despair swept over her. Despite the scandalous way he died, she missed him, missed the steadiness of his presence, missed his quiet ways and his wit.

      “I don’t rightly know,” Dara Rose admitted, after swallowing hard and blinking back the scalding tears that were always so close to the surface these days. “But never you mind—I’ll think of something.”

      Edrina slipped a reassuring arm around Harriet, who was sucking her thumb.

      Dara Rose didn’t comment on the thumb-sucking, though it was worrisome to her. Harriet had left that habit behind when she was three, but after Parnell’s death, nearly a year ago now, she’d taken it up again. It wasn’t hard to figure out why—the poor little thing was frightened and confused.

      So was Dara Rose, for that matter, though of course she didn’t let on. With heavy-handed generosity, Mayor Ponder and the town council had allowed her and the children to remain in the cottage on the stipulation that they’d have to vacate when a marshal was hired to take Parnell’s place.

      “Don’t worry,” Edrina told her sister, tightening her little arm around the child, just briefly. “Mama always thinks of something.”

      It was true that Dara Rose had managed to put food on the table by raising vegetables in her garden patch, taking in sewing and the occasional bundle of laundry and sometimes sweeping floors in the shops and businesses along Main Street. As industrious as she was, however, the pickings were already slim; without the house, the situation would go from worrisome to destitute.

      Oh, she had choices—there were always choices, weren’t there?—but they were wretched ones.

      She could become a lady of the evening over at the Bitter Gulch Saloon and maybe—maybe—earn enough to board her children somewhere nearby, where she could see them now and then. How long would it be before they realized how she was earning their living and came to despise her? A year, two years? Three?

      Her second option was only slightly more palatable; Ezra Maddox had offered her a job as his cook and housekeeper, on his remote ranch, but he’d plainly stipulated that she couldn’t bring her little girls along. In fact, he’d come right out and said she ought to just put Edrina and Harriet in an orphan’s home or farm them out to work for their keep. It would be good for their character, he’d claimed.

      In fact, the last time he’d come to call, the previous Sunday after church, he’d stood in this very room, beaming at his own generosity, and announced that if Dara Rose measured up, he might even marry her.

      The mere thought made her shudder.

      And the audacity of the man. He expected her to turn her daughters over to strangers and spend the rest of her days darning his socks and cooking his food, and in return, he offered room, board and a pittance in wages. If she “measured up,” as he put it, she’d be required to share his bed and give up the salary he’d been paying her, too.

      Dara Rose’s final prospect was to take her paltry savings—she kept them in a fruit jar, hidden behind the cookstove in the tiny kitchen—purchase train tickets for herself and her children and travel to San Antonio or Dallas or Houston, where she might find honest work and decent lodgings.

      But suppose she didn’t find work? Times were hard. The little bit of money she had would soon be eaten up by living expenses, and then what?

      Dara Rose knew she’d be paralyzed by these various scenarios if she didn’t put them out of her head and get busy doing something constructive, so she headed for the kitchen, meaning to start supper.

      Last fall, someone had given her the hindquarter of a deer, and she’d cut the meat into strips and carefully preserved it in jars. There were green beans and corn and stubby orange carrots from the garden, too, along with apples and pears from the fruit trees growing be hind the church, and berries she and the girls had gathered during the summer and brought home in lard tins and baskets. Thanks to the chickens, there were plenty of eggs, some of which she sold, and some she traded over at the mercantile for small amounts of sugar and flour and other staples. Once in a great while, she bought tea, but that was a luxury.

      She straightened her spine when she realized Edrina had followed her into the little lean-to of a kitchen.

      “I like Mr. McKettrick,” the child said conversationally. “Don’t you?”

      Keeping her back to the child, Dara Rose donned her apron and tied it in back with brisk motions