A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

kindness? If he was lookingfor favors, he was going to be disappointed, because she wasn’t that kind of woman.
    Not anymore.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œDo 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.
    â€œWhere 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, whichwas comprised of two barrels with a board nailed across their tops.
    â€œEdrina 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.”
    â€œWhat happened to him?” Clay asked.
    â€œParnell?” Dara Rose asked stupidly, feeling her cheeks go crimson.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œDo 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.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œBut where will you live?” Harriet wanted to know. Like her sister, she was astute and well-spoken. DaraRose had never used baby talk with her girls, and she’d been reading aloud to them since before they were