A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [36]
Clay had no answer for that, had already done all the explaining he ever intended to do, where the decision to put home behind him for good—at least as far as living there—was concerned, anyhow. Much as he loved his granddad and his pa and his uncles, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life taking orders from them. He wanted to build and run his own outfit, marry and have sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“You hungry?” Clay asked, hoping to get the conversation going in another direction.
“I had fried chicken over at the hotel, soon as I’d checked in and stowed my gear,” Sawyer answered, with a shake of his head. He looked around at the humble quarters Clay presently called home, sighed. “Nobody can accuse you of living high on the hog, I reckon,” he finished, sounding weary now.
Clay shoved a hand through his hair, recalling the difficult trek back from Dara Rose’s place. It had taken him and Chester the better part of half an hour to cover the five hundred yards or so between the jail and that snug little house.
Once he’d warmed up, had some coffee and put on long johns and an extra layer of clothes, he meant to venture out again, track down that family Dara Rose had mentioned—the O’Reillys—and see for himself that they were warm and had something to eat. He figured it was his duty, as marshal, to see that folks made it through when there was an emergency like that snowstorm, especially women and children.
“Finding your way back to the hotel in this blizzard might be tricky,” Clay told his cousin, in his own good time. “You can bunk in the cell there if you want.”
One side of Sawyer’s mouth quirked upward in a grin. “And give you a prime opportunity to lock me up, soon as I shut my eyes, and then drop the key down a deep well? Not likely, cousin.”
“You sorely overestimate my ability to tolerate your company,” Clay responded dryly. “The sooner you’re on your way, the happier I’m going to be.”
Sawyer didn’t reply right away, which was a telling thing, because he was usually quick to shoot off his mouth. There was a whole other side to Sawyer, though—one nobody, including Clay, really knew much about.
“You must know I never laid a hand on your girl, Clay,” Sawyer said, as a chunk of wood crackled and splintered to embers inside the stove. “So what exactly is it about me that sticks in your craw? We used to be as close as brothers.”
Too warm now that he’d been standing near the stove for a while, Clay moved on to his desk, reclaimed the creaky wooden chair, sat back in it with his hands cupped behind his head. Chester, lying nearby on his blanket pile, gave a single, chortling snore, and another piece of wood collapsed in the fire, with a series of sharp snaps.
“You come here,” Clay answered presently, “uninvited, I might add, and let on that I’m a grief to the family, like some prodigal son off squandering his birthright in a far country, and then you have the gall to ask what sticks in my craw? It’s the hypocrisy of it. You’re a gunslinger, Sawyer, a hired gun. Little better than an outlaw, most likely. It might even be that if I went through all these wanted posters on my desk, I’d come across a fair likeness of your face.”
“I’m not an outlaw,” Sawyer said flatly. “You know that.”
“Do I?” Clay asked. “You blow through the Triple M every few years like a breeze—just long enough last time to turn my girl’s head—and then, one fine day, a telegram comes in, and you’re gone again, without a word to anybody. Like you know somebody’s picked up your trail so you’d better be moving on, pronto.”
Sawyer sighed again, and it came out raspy. “I don’t reckon anything I say is going to get through that inch-thick layer of bone you call a skull,” he said. “You made up your mind about me a long time ago, didn’t you, cousin?”
There was no denying that. “I reckon I did,” Clay replied quietly, feeling wrung out. “You can tell Ma and the rest of the family that you’ve seen me and I’m fine. Seems to me that your business here is finished.”
Even as he spoke those words, Clay wondered what