A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [38]
Ezra Maddox owned a farm, Dara Rose thought, dazed and frustrated and quite cornered. What did the man want with a run-down house miles from his crops and his dairy cows?
By now, everyone knew Clay had decided to live over at the jailhouse. Could it be that Mr. Maddox was simply trying to force her hand by buying the house out from under her? Was he hoping she would give in and accept his offer of a so-called housekeeping job, possibly followed by marriage, and send her children away in the bargain?
Dara Rose seethed, even as cold terror overtook her. “How long until we have to move?” she asked, amazed at how calm she sounded.
Mayor Ponder hesitated before he answered, perhaps ashamed of that morning’s mission. On the other hand, he’d gone to all the bother of hitching mules to a sleigh to get there bright and early, which did not indicate any real degree of reluctance on his part. “Ezra’s mighty anxious to take possession of the place,” he finally said. “But since Christmas is just two weeks away, well, he’s—we’re—willing to let you stay until the first of the year.”
Dara Rose gripped the door frame with one hand, thinking she might actually swoon. Behind her, in the kitchen, the girls’ voices rang like chimes as they conducted some merry disagreement, laced with giggles.
“Well, then,” Dara Rose managed, meeting the mayor’s gaze, seeing both sympathy and resolve there, “that’s that, isn’t it? Thank you for letting me know.”
With that, she shut the door in his face.
And stood trembling, there in the small parlor, until she heard his footsteps retreating on the porch.
“Mama?” Harriet, light-footed as ever and half again too perceptive for a five-year-old, was standing directly behind her. “Can we get a dog? Edrina says we don’t need another mouth to feed, but a puppy wouldn’t eat very much, would it?”
All of Dara Rose’s considerable strength gave way then, like a dam under the strain of rising water. She uttered a small, choked sob, shook her head and fled to the bedroom.
Dara Rose seldom cried—even at Parnell’s funeral service, she’d been dry-eyed—but she was only human, after all.
And she’d come to the end of her resources, at least for the moment.
So she sat on the edge of the bed she shared with her daughters—Parnell had slept on the settee in the parlor—covered her face with both hands and wept softly into her palms.
CLAY WAS HAVING BREAKFAST over at the hotel dining room—bacon and eggs and hotcakes, with plenty of hot, fresh coffee—when Sawyer wandered in, looking well-rested and clean-shaven, his manner at once affable and distant.
“Mind if I join you?” he said, pulling back a chair opposite Clay and sitting down before Clay could answer. He picked up the menu and studied it with the same grave concentration their illustrious granddad reserved for government beef contracts.
Politicians and pencil pushers, Angus had been known to remark, on the occasions he did business with such officials. A man would have to be simpleminded to trust a one of them.
“Make yourself at home,” Clay said, dryly and long after the fact. He hadn’t slept much the night before, thanks to Dara Rose and Sawyer’s unexpected presence and the long slog through the snow to the O’Reilly place.
He’d found them huddled around a poor fire like characters in a Dickens novel, wrapped in thin blankets. They’d had fried eggs for supper, Mrs. O’Reilly had told him, and those were all gone, and he was welcome to what was left of yesterday’s pinto beans if he was hungry.
Clay had thanked her kindly and said he’d already had supper, which happened to be the truth, though he would have lied without a qualm if it hadn’t been, and then he’d carried in most of their dwindling wood supply to dry beside the homemade stove. Before coming to the hotel for breakfast that morning, he’d stopped by the mercantile, pounded at the front door until the storekeeper let him in, and purchased a sackful of dried