A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [10]
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 children 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