A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [15]
Clay waited as she approached, then dismounted to meet her at the gate, though he kept to his own side and she kept to hers, as was proper.
The lady introduced herself. “Miss Alvira Krenshaw,” she said, putting out a bony hand. She hadn’t missed the star pinned to his coat, of course; her eyes had gone right to it. “You must be our new town marshal.”
Clay shook her hand and acknowledged her supposition with another nod and, “Clay McKettrick.”
“How do you do?” she said, not expecting an answer.
Clay gave her one, anyway. “So far, so good,” he replied, with a slight grin. Miss Alvira Krenshaw looked like a sturdy, no-nonsense soul, and although she wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t homely, either. She’d probably make some man a good wife, given half a chance, and though thin, she looked capable of carrying healthy babies to full-term, delivering them without a lot of fuss and raising them to competent adulthood.
Wanting a wife to carry over the threshold of his new house, come spring, and impregnate as soon as possible, Clay might have set right to courting Miss Alvira, pro vided she was receptive to such attentions, if not for one problem. He’d gone and met Dara Rose Nolan.
Stepping off the train the day before, he’d been sure of almost everything that concerned him. What he wanted, what sort of man he was, all of it. Now, after just two brief encounters with his predecessor’s widow, he wasn’t sure of much of anything.
Considerable figuring out would be called for before he undertook to win himself a bride, and that was for certain.
Over Alvira’s shoulder, he saw a boy run over to where the girls were playing hopscotch, grab at Edrina’s dangling bonnet and yank on it hard enough to knock her down.
The bonnet laces held, though, and the boy ran, laughing, his friends shouting a mingling of mockery and encouragement, while a disgruntled, flaming-faced Edrina got back to her feet, dusting off her coat as she glared at the transgressor.
“Looks like trouble,” Clay observed dryly, causing Miss Alvira to flare out her long, narrow nostrils and then spin around to see for herself.
Edrina, still flushed with fury, marched right into the middle of that cluster of small but earnest rascals, stood face-to-face with the primary mischief-maker and landed a solid punch to his middle. Knocked the wind right out of him.
Miss Alvira was on the run by then, blowing shrill toots through the whistle every schoolmarm seemed to come equipped with, but the damage, such as it was, was done.
The thwarted bonnet thief was on his knees now, clutching his belly and gasping for breath, and though his dignity had certainly suffered, he didn’t look seriously hurt.
Clay suppressed a smile and lingered there by the gate, watching.
Edrina looked a mite calmer by then, but she was still pink in the face and her fists remained clenched. She stood her ground, spotted Clay when she turned her head toward Miss Alvira and that earsplitting whistle of hers.
“What is going on here?” Alvira demanded, her voice carrying, almost as shrill as the whistle. She reached down, caught the gasping boy from behind, where his suspenders crossed, and wrenched him unceremoniously to his feet.
Clay felt a flash of sympathy for the little fellow. Like as not, he’d taken a shine to Edrina and, boys being what boys have always been, hoped to gain her notice by snatching her bonnet and running off with it—the equivalent of tugging at a girl’s pigtail or surprising her with a close-up look at a bullfrog or a squirmy garter snake, and glory be and hallelujah if she squealed.
Miss Alvira, still gripping the boy’s suspenders, turned to frown at Edrina.
“Edrina Nolan,” she said, “young ladies do not strike others with their fists.”
Edrina, who had been looking in Clay’s direction until that moment, faced her accuser, folded her arms and staunchly replied, “He had it coming.”
“Go inside this