“They didn’t,” she said, at long last. Then, speaking so softly that Clay barely heard her, she went on. “He wanted me to put my children in an orphanage, or send them out to work for their board and room.”
That was when Clay took a chance. He held his arms out to her.
Dara Rose paused briefly, considering, and then moved slowly into his embrace.
Clay rested his chin on top of her head. “No matter how things turn out between you and me, Dara Rose,” he told her, “you will never have to send your girls away, I promise you that.”
She looked up at him, her eyes moist, though she still wouldn’t allow tears to fall. “How can you make a promise like that, Clay?” she whispered brokenly. “How?”
At least she hadn’t called him “Mr. McKettrick.” Wasn’t that progress?
“I just did make a promise like that,” he replied, wanting to kiss her more than he’d ever wanted to kiss a woman before, and still unwilling to take the chance, “and you’ll find that I’m a man of my word.”
She blinked. “There’s so much you don’t know about me,” she said.
He grinned, holding her loosely, with his hands clasped behind the small of her back. “There are, as it happens, a few things you don’t know about me,” he replied. “I didn’t come to Blue River to work as the town marshal for the rest of my life, for one. I mean to be a rancher, Dara Rose—I come from a family of them. That’s why I bought two thousand acres of good grazing land, and that’s why I plan to build a house on the site we visited today.”
“And that’s why you wanted a wife,” she said, almost forlornly.
“Not just any wife,” he pointed out.
“Parnell and I—” She looked at the large likeness on the wall. And suddenly, she choked up again. Couldn’t seem to go on.
“It’s all right, Dara Rose,” Clay said, kissing her lightly on her crown, where her silken hair parted. She smelled sweetly of rainwater and flowery soap. “We’ve both got stories to tell, but it doesn’t have to happen tonight.”
She sniffled, smiled bravely, but otherwise she gave no response.
“Exactly why did you come out here in the first place?” Clay asked.
Dara Rose looked flustered. “I forgot to feed the chickens,” she said. “And I was hoping you’d be asleep so I could sneak past.”
Clay chuckled. “Well, I have to admit, that’s some thing of a disappointment.”
“I never forget to feed the chickens,” Dara Rose fretted, chagrined. “The poor things—”
“I fed them, Dara Rose,” Clay said.
“When?”
“Before we went to find the Christmas tree,” he said, with a nod toward the tumbleweed.
She seemed to realize then that he was still holding her, and she stepped back suddenly, as though startled. “About Christmas,” she began.
“What about Christmas?”
“I’d really rather you didn’t encourage Edrina and Harriet to entertain fanciful notions.”
“Such as?” Clay asked, feigning innocence.
Dara Rose bristled up again.
He loved it when she did that.
“Well,” she huffed, “there was that tall tale about seeing St. Nicholas flying past your grandfather’s barn roof in a sleigh drawn by reindeer—”
He smiled. “Why, Mrs. McKettrick—are you calling me a liar?”
“You and your cousin must have been inebriated.”
“We were eight,” Clay said.
“Then you were dreaming.”
“The same dream, at the same time? Sawyer and I are blood kin, but we don’t share a brain.”
Dara Rose sighed again. It was plain that she didn’t know what to say next, or what to do, either.
Both were encouraging signs, Clay figured.
“Get some sleep,” he told her. “You’ve had a long day.”
She glanced at the settee, then took his measure with her eyes. Drew the obvious conclusion. “You are in for an uncomfortable night,” she said, without any discernible concern.
For more reasons than one, Clay thought. But what he said was, “I’ll be just fine. See you in the morning.”
Dara Rose nodded, turned around and went back into the bedroom.
Clay watched her go, rubbing his chin with one hand, calculating the number of settee nights he’d have to put in between now and spring, when the house would be ready.
In the end, he slept on the floor, next to Chester.
At least that way, he could stretch out.
WHEN HE OPENED HIS EYES again, it was morning, and Edrina and Harriet were standing over him, looking worried.
“We thought you might be dead,” Edrina said, with a relieved and somewhat wobbly smile.
“But you’re not,” Harriet added emphatically.
“No,” Clay said, with a laugh, as he sat up. “I do believe I’m still among the living.”
Both children were dressed for daytime, with their curly hair brushed and held back at the sides of their heads by small combs. Their faces were rosy from a recent scrubbing and their eyes shone.
“Mama is taking us over to the O’Reillys’ place to visit Addie,” Edrina said, “as soon as she’s finished feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs and making breakfast.”
Clay yawned expansively and got to his feet. “Where’s Chester?”
“He’s outside with Mama,” Harriet replied. “She said he needed to do his business.”
“What time is it?” Clay wondered aloud. He owned a pocket watch but seldom carried it; there had been no real need for that, back on the Triple M. There, where there was always a full day’s work to do, you started at sunrise and finished when you finished, whatever time it was.
Before either child replied, he caught sight of the time-piece hanging prominently on the wall. Eight o’clock.
“When we get back from the O’Reillys’,” Harriet piped up, “can we decorate the Christmas tree?”
Clay hesitated to answer, realizing that he didn’t even know if Dara Rose owned any decorations, or whether she’d take kindly to his buying some for her, over at the mercantile.
Reckon you should have thought about that before you cut down that sorry sprig of sagebrush you’re calling a Christmas tree, he told himself silently.
“That’s up to your mama,” he finally said.
Both children looked deflated.
“She’ll just say it’s a whole week ’til Christmas and St. Nicholas isn’t coming, anyhow, so what do we need with a silly tree,” Edrina said, in a rush of words.
Inwardly, Clay sighed. These were Dara Rose’s children, and she had a perfect right to raise them as she saw fit, but he hoped she’d ease up on that rigid personal code of hers a little, and let them be kids while they could.
In the near distance, the back door opened, and Clay felt the rush of cool air where he stood. Dara Rose called out, “Girls? You’re not bothering Mr. McKettrick, are you?”
Chester trotted through the inside doorway, came over to greet him.
Clay smiled and ruffled the dog’s ears.
“We don’t want to call you ‘Mr. McKettrick,’” Edrina told Clay.
“We want to call you ‘Papa,’” Harriet said.
The backs of Clay’s eyes stung a little. “I’d like that,” he said quietly, “but that’s another thing that’s got to be left up to your mama.”
“What’s to be left up to me?” Dara Rose asked, standing in the doorway. Her hair was pinned up, unlike last night, and like the girls’, her cheeks were pink with well-being.
“Whether or not we can call Mr. McKettrick ‘Papa,’” Harriet answered.
“And if we can put baubles on the Christmas tree,” Edrina added.
Both of them stared expectantly at their mother.
“Oh,” she finally said, shifting the handle of the egg basket from one wrist to the other. Her gaze flicked to Clay’s face and then back to the girls. “It’s too soon to address Mr. McKettri
ck in such a familiar fashion,” she said. “But I don’t see why we couldn’t get out the Christmas things.”
So she had Christmas things, Clay thought. That was something, anyway.
Edrina and Harriet swapped glances and made what would seem to be a tacit agreement to take what they could get.
“Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes,” Dara Rose said. “And there are plenty of eggs this morning. We can each have one—Mr. McKettrick may have two, if he wishes—and there will still be enough left to sell over at the mercantile.”
“One egg will suit me fine,” Clay said, gruff-voiced. Soon as he’d put in a few hours over at the jailhouse and walked through the town once or twice to make sure there wasn’t any trouble brewing, he’d head over to the mercantile and stock up on foodstuffs. See if old Philo would agree to deliver what he bought.
Dara Rose wouldn’t like it, he supposed, when the storekeeper turned up with sugar and coffee beans and a wagonload of other goods, but he already had an argument ready. He didn’t expect her to feed him and Chester; therefore, he wanted to contribute to the grubstake.
Plus, he had to have coffee of a morning, to get himself going.
So they ate their simple breakfast, the girls so excited, between the promised outing and the tree waiting to be festooned with geegaws, that they could barely sit still.
Dara Rose cleared the table while Clay donned his duster and his hat and summoned the dog. He’d left his gun belt and pistol over at the jailhouse, because of Edrina and Harriet, but he’d strap on the long-barreled .45 before he set out on his rounds. It wasn’t that he expected to need a firearm, but he wanted any potential troublemakers to know the new marshal was serious about upholding his duties.
“Thanks for breakfast,” Clay said, with a tug at his hat brim.
Dara Rose nodded, then looked away.
THE VISIT TO LITTLE Addie O’Reilly was necessarily brief since the child was bedridden. Last night’s snow hadn’t stuck, thank heaven, but there was still a bitter chill in the air, and Addie’s two younger brothers sat on the bare floor near the odd, cobbled-together stove, playing with half a dozen marbles.
Peg tried to put a good face on things, but Dara Rose could tell she was embarrassed. There was no place to sit, except on one of the two beds or an upended crate—undoubtedly the same one that had contained last night’s donated supper.
The girls, meanwhile, chatted with Addie.
“Somebody left a box of hot food at my doorstep,” Peg said, following Dara Rose’s gaze to the crate. Four clean plates, plus utensils, were stacked beside it. “We sure did have ourselves a fine feast, and there’s enough left to get us through today, too.”
“That’s…wonderful,” Dara Rose said.
“I figure it had to come from the dining room over to the hotel,” Peg went on, wiping her hands down the skirt of her calico dress. “I mean to take the plates and silverware back later.”
Dara Rose merely nodded. Clay must have wanted to keep his part in the enterprise a secret, so she didn’t say anything.
Fortunately, neither did Edrina or Harriet. They were busy telling Addie all about the little girl, Madeline, whose papa was a dentist.
“You’ll never guess who stopped by here yesterday,” Peg said, taking Dara Rose by surprise.
“Who?” Dara Rose asked, simply to make conversation.
“Ezra Maddox,” Peg said. “He’s offered me housekeeping work, Mrs. Nolan. The job doesn’t pay much, but at least there’ll be plenty of good farm food for these kids, and if things work out, Mr. Maddox and me will be married come the spring.” She paused. “You don’t mind, do you? Now that you’ve married the marshal and all?”
Dara Rose smiled. “I don’t mind,” she was quick to say. Then, cautiously, afraid Peg O’Reilly might have misunderstood Maddox’s offer, she asked, “He didn’t object to your bringing the children along?”
“He did,” Peg confided, in a whisper, “but I told him I wouldn’t be parted from my little ones for anything or anybody, and he finally agreed to take them in.”
The boys were still busy with their game of marbles, and Edrina was telling Addie that there wasn’t going to be a Christmas program over at the schoolhouse this year because that last snowstorm threw everything out of whack. “What about—?”
“My husband?” Peg asked. “Ezra knows about him, of course. Says we’ll look into getting me a divorce if it comes to that.”
Dara Rose’s heart ached for Peg O’Reilly. “This is what you want to do?” she asked, very quietly.
“It’s the answer to a prayer,” Peg replied, looking a little surprised by Dara Rose’s question.
Ezra Maddox, the answer to a prayer?
It just went to show, Dara Rose thought, that one woman’s idea of hell was another woman’s idea of heaven.
Chapter 9
Full of consternation, Dara Rose studied the Closed sign on the door at the mercantile, the handle of the egg basket looped over one wrist, and wondered what on earth could have prompted Mr. Bickham to close his establishment at midmorning. Edrina and Harriet, meanwhile, climbed onto the bench in front of the store and peered in through the display window.
“Mama!” Harriet suddenly cried, so startling Dara Rose that she almost dropped the egg basket. “She’s gone! Florence is gone!”
Dara Rose caught her breath, the fingers of her free hand splayed across her breastbone to keep her heart from jumping right out of her chest.
Florence?
Harriet let out a despairing wail.
“Hush!” Edrina told her sister, speaking sternly but slipping an arm around the child’s shoulders just the same. The two of them looked so small, standing there on the seat of that bench, like a pair of beautiful urchins.
The doll, Dara Rose realized belatedly.
Of course. Florence was the doll Harriet had been admiring—yearning after—ever since it first appeared in the mercantile window, the day after Thanksgiving. And now the doll was gone.
It would be set out for some other child to find on Christmas morning.
Although Dara Rose had never for one moment believed she could buy that doll for her little girl, Harriet’s disappointment grieved her sorely. Like any mother, she longed to give her children nice things, but that was a pleasure she couldn’t afford; they needed practical things, and some small measure of security, be it the egg money she squirreled away a penny at a time, or the ten dollars resting between the pages of her Bible.
Hurting as much as her child was—maybe more—and doing her best to hide it, Dara Rose set the egg basket down carefully and gathered Harriet into her arms, lifting her off the bench and holding her tightly. “There, now,” she whispered, her throat so thick she could barely speak. Not that there was a great deal to say at a moment like that, anyway. “There, now.”
“I should have sold my hair!” Harriet sobbed. “Then I would have had the money to buy Florence!”
Once again, Dara Rose thought of Piper’s gift, safe at home, and ached.
Edrina jumped down from the bench, tomboylike, and tugged at Harriet’s dangling foot. “Stop carrying on, goose,” she commanded, but there was a slight quaver in her voice. “You’ll have the whole town staring at us.”
Harriet shuddered and buried her wet face in Dara Rose’s neck. “I—really—thought—I—could—have— Florence—for—my—very—own,” she said, punctuating her words with small but violent hiccups.
“Shh,” Dara Rose said gently, still holding the child. “Everything will be all right, sweetheart. We’ll go home now. Edrina, bring the egg basket.”
By the time the three of them reached the end of Main Street and turned toward the house, Harriet had settled down to the occasional quivering sniffle.
A buckboard stood near Dara Rose’s front gate, with two mules hitched to it.
Philo Bickham sat in the wagon box, reins in hand, beaming at Dara Rose as she approached with the children.
“I was just
about to unload all this merchandise and leave it on the porch,” he said. “The marshal said he’d be here to accept delivery, but there’s been no sign of him so far.”
Dara Rose frowned, at once wary and intrigued.
Edrina bolted forward and scrambled right up the side of that buckboard, skillful as a monkey, using the wheel spokes as footholds. “Thunderation!” she whooped.
Mr. Bickham jumped to the ground, nimble for a man of his age and bulk. He strode around to the back of the wagon and lowered the tailgate. “He darned near bought the place out, your new husband,” the store keeper crowed, no doubt pleased to make such a sale. Blue River was not a wealthy community, which meant the owner of the mercantile scraped by like most every one else.
“Mama,” Edrina spouted, “there’s a tin of tea…and a big ham…and peaches…and all sorts of things wrapped in brown paper—”
“Edrina Nolan,” Dara Rose said, setting Harriet on her feet, “get down from there this instant.”
“Don’t go poking around in those packages,” Mr. Bickham said good-naturedly, shaking a finger at Edrina and then Harriet. “The marshal made himself mighty clear on that score. After all, it’s almost Christmas, and there’s a secret or two afoot.”
Dara Rose was still trying to think what to say when Clay rode around the corner on Outlaw, Chester trot ting in their wake.
Mr. Bickham hailed him, and Dara Rose sent the girls inside, over their protests.
“Sorry if I held you up any, Philo,” Clay told Mr. Bickham, barely glancing at Dara Rose as he swung down from the saddle. “A telegram came in from Sears, Roebuck and Company. They’ve shipped the makings of my house out by rail, and the whole works will be arriving here in about ten days.”
“You’d better get that foundation dug and that well put in, then,” Mr. Bickham said, giving Clay a congratulatory slap on one shoulder. “Reckon you can round up some hired help down at the Bitter Gulch, and if this weather holds, since you’ve got a put-together house coming, you’ll be out there on your own place in no time.”
Clay nodded and, once again, his gaze touched on Dara Rose’s face.
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