A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [37]
Sawyer crossed to the door, took his hat and canvas duster down from their pegs and put them on. Then he hesitated, one hand on the old-fashioned iron latch. “You’re right,” he said, with more sadness than Clay had heard in his voice since they were ten years old and Sawyer’s dog took sick and died. “I guess there’s no getting back on your good side. I’ll be on tomorrow’s train, if it gets here, and you can get on with whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing.”
With that, Sawyer opened the door and went out, letting in a blast of snow-speckled cold that reached into the deepest parts of Clay and held on.
He almost relented, almost called Sawyer back—but in the end, he figured it was best to let him go.
THE SNOW LAY LIKE A THICK, glittering mantle over the countryside when Dara Rose went out to feed the chickens, carrying the egg basket and a jug to refill their water pan, but the sky was the purest blue, cloudless and benign. As quickly as it had arisen, the storm was over; water dripped rhythmically from the edges of the roof, and the path to the henhouse was slushy under the soles of her high-button shoes.
Hope stirred, springlike, in Dara Rose’s heart, as she crossed the yard. She could hear the chickens clucking away in the coop, wanting their breakfast and their liberty from a long night of confinement.
Using the side of her foot, Dara Rose cleared a patch of ground for the birds and let them out while she ducked inside to fetch the water pan. Pleased to see that every member of her little flock had survived, she scattered their feed and then went on to collect the eggs.
There were six—a better count than the day before, though still less than she’d hoped for—and Dara Rose set each one carefully in the basket and returned to the house.
Edrina and Harriet were up and dressed, Edrina full of glee because she didn’t have to go to school that day, and Harriet equally happy to have a playmate.
Dara Rose took off her bonnet and cloak, hung them up, washed her hands at the pump in the sink and put a pot of water on to boil, for oatmeal.
In the middle of the meal, a knock sounded at the front door.
Frowning, wondering who would be out and about so early, with the snow still deep enough to make traveling through it a trial, she pushed back her chair, told the children to finish eating and behave themselves and hurried through the small parlor. On some level, she realized, she’d hoped to find Clay McKettrick standing on her tiny porch, but this only came to her when she saw Mayor Wilson Ponder there instead.
Through the glass oval in the door, the older man’s face looked purposeful, and a little grim.
Dara Rose opened the door. “Mayor Ponder,” she said, not bothering to hide her surprise. He’d arrived, she saw now, looking past him to the street, in a sleigh drawn by two sturdy mules. “Come in.”
“I won’t tarry,” Ponder said gravely, with a distracted tug at the brim of his bowler hat. He remained where he was, forcing Dara Rose to stand in the bright cold of the doorway and wait to hear what business he had with her. “I know this isn’t a convenient time, what with the blizzard and all, but frankly, I’m not comfortable putting the task off any longer.” He reddened slightly, though that might have been because of the weather, and not any sense of chagrin, and his muttonchop whiskers wobbled as he prepared to go on. “The town purchased this house for the use of the marshal, Mrs. Nolan, and if Clay McKettrick doesn’t mean to use the place, well, we—the town council, that is—would prefer to sell it.”
Dara Rose felt the floor shift under her feet, but she kept her shoulders squared and even managed not to shiver at the cold, and the news the mayor had just delivered.
“Oh,” she said, hugging herself and wishing for her cloak, wishing for summer and better times. “Do you have a prospective buyer?”
“Ezra Maddox wants the property,” Mayor Ponder said, after more