A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [21]
Parnell had been kind to her, cherished the girls like they were his daughters instead of his nieces, and married her.
She would have felt disloyal, discussing Parnell with a relative stranger; though, oddly enough, in some ways she felt as if she’d always known Clay McKettrick, and known him well. He stirred vague memories in her, like dreams that left only an echo behind when the sun rose. The silence was awkward.
Dara Rose didn’t ask the marshal to sit down, and she couldn’t offer him coffee because she didn’t have any.
So the two of them just stood there, each one waiting for the other to speak.
Finally, Clay grinned ever so slightly and turned his hat decisively in his hands. He went to the door and opened it, pausing to look back at Dara Rose, his impressive form rimmed in wintry light.
“Good day to you, Mrs. Nolan,” he said.
Dara Rose swallowed. “Good day, Mr. McKettrick,” she replied formally. “And, once again, thank you.”
“Anytime,” he said, and then he left the house, closed the door behind him.
Dara Rose resisted the temptation to rush to the window and watch him heading down the walk.
Harriet appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, hair rumpled, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I thought I heard Papa’s voice,” she said.
Dara Rose’s heart cracked and then split down the middle. “Sweetheart,” she said, bending her knees so she could look directly into the child’s sleep-flushed face, “Papa’s gone to heaven, remember?”
Harriet’s lower lip wobbled, which further bruised Dara Rose’s already injured heart. How could such a small child be expected to understand the permanence of death?
“Is heaven a real place?” Harriet asked. “Or is it just pretend, like St. Nicholas?”
“I believe it’s a real place,” Dara Rose said.
Harriet frowned, obviously puzzled. “Is it like here? Are there trees and kittens and trains to ride?”
Dara Rose blinked rapidly and rose back to her full height. “I don’t know, sweetheart. One day, a long, long time from now, we’ll find out for sure, but right now, we have to live in this world, and we might as well make the best of it.”
“I think I would like this world better,” Harriet told her, “if there was a St. Nicholas in it.”
Dara Rose gave a small, strangled chuckle at that, and pulled her daughter close for a hug. “We don’t need St. Nicholas, you and Edrina and me,” she said. “We have one another.”
Chapter 4
After the chickens were fed and had retreated into their coop to roost for the night, Dara Rose made a simple supper of baked potatoes and last summer’s string beans, boiled with bits of salt pork and onion, for herself and the girls, and the three of them sat at the table in the kitchen, eating by the light of a kerosene lantern and chatting quietly.
The subject of St. Nicholas did not come up again, thankfully. In Dara Rose’s humble opinion, Clement C. Moore had a lot to answer for. By writing that lengthy and admittedly charming poem, “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” he’d created expectations in children that many parents couldn’t hope to meet.
Instead, Edrina recounted her visit to the O’Reillys’ after lunch, and fretted that it wasn’t fair that she had to wash the blackboard every single day for a week when all she’d done was defend herself against that wretched Thomas. Large flakes of snow drifted, like benevolent ghosts, past the darkened window next to the back door, and brought a sigh to hover in the back of Dara Rose’s throat.
Winter. As a privileged only child, back in Massachusetts, she’d loved everything about that season, even the cold. It was a time to skate and sled and build castles out of snow and then drink hot chocolate by the fire while Nanny told stories or recited long, exciting poems about shipwrecks and ghosts and Paul Revere’s ride.
Had she ever really lived such a life? Dara Rose wondered now, as she did whenever her childhood came to mind.
“Mama?