A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [42]
Hated starched shirts, too, for that matter.
He’d worn this suit exactly three times since he bought it—to one wedding and two funerals. Today, it was a wedding—his own—and even though it was his choice to get married, the occasion had its somber aspects, as well.
Up home, the ceremony would have been a community event, like a circus or a tent revival or the Independence Day fireworks, drawing crowds from miles around and working the womenfolk up into a frenzy of sewing and cooking and marking their calendars so they’d know how long the first baby took to show up. The men would complain about having to wear their Sunday duds, sip moonshine from a shared fruit jar out in the orchard behind the church after the “I do’s” had been said and lament that another unwitting member of their sex had been roped in and hog-tied.
Clay smiled to think of all that nuptial chaos and was glad he’d managed to escape it, though he felt a twinge of nostalgia, too. He and Dara Rose would be married quietly and sensibly, in a civil ceremony performed by Mayor Ponder at her place, with Edrina and Harriet the only guests. There would be no cake, no photographs, no rings and no wedding night, let alone a honeymoon, because this was an arrangement, a transaction—not a love match.
Which wasn’t to say that Clay didn’t fully expect to bed Dara Rose when the time came, and if they got a baby started right away, too, so much the better. He figured the actual consummation of their union would probably have to wait until spring, though, when the ranch house was finished and he and Dara Rose had a room to themselves.
Fine as the weather was, spring seemed a long way off when he thought of it in terms of making love to his wife.
Resigned, and leaving his hat behind because it didn’t look right with the suit, Clay bid his dog a temporary farewell—Chester had taken to curling up on the cot inside the jail’s one cell whenever he wanted to sleep, which was often—and set out for Dara Rose’s little house, following the sidewalk as far as he could and then crossing the street by way of the peculiar system of planks and discarded doors and the beds of old wagons.
Mayor Ponder arrived by the same means, followed single file by a thin woman in very prim garb and one of the town council members—they’d come along to serve as witnesses, Clay supposed. Clutching a copy of the Good Book and a rolled sheet of paper as he minced his way over the swamplike road, Ponder looked none too pleased at the prospect of joining the new marshal and the pretty widow in holy matrimony.
Clay disliked the mayor, mainly because of the remark Ponder had made about not minding if Dara Rose wound up working upstairs at the Bitter Gulch Saloon, but he could tolerate the man long enough to get hitched. The rest of the time, Wilson Ponder was fairly easy to ignore.
“There’s still time to change your mind,” Ponder boomed out, as if he wanted the whole town to hear, when he and Clay met at Dara Rose’s front gate. “Charity is charity, but I think you might be taking it a little too far in this instance.”
Charity is charity.
The front door of the house was open, probably to admit as much fresh air as possible before the winter weather returned, and Clay had to unlock his jawbones by an act of will. What if Dara Rose had heard what Ponder said? Or the children?
He didn’t respond, but simply glowered at Ponder until the other man cleared his throat and muttered, “Well, let’s get on with it, then.”
Edrina and Harriet appeared in the doorway, beaming. They had ribbons in their hair, and they were wearing summer dresses, very nearly outgrown and obviously their best.
“Mama looks so pretty in her wedding dress!” Edrina enthused, as Clay moved ahead of the others, stepped onto the porch and immediately swept both children off their feet, one in the curve of each arm.
They giggled at that, and the sound heartened Clay. Reminded him that he’d put on that itchy suit because he was going to a wedding, not a funeral.
Behind him, the female witness made a sighlike sound, long-suffering and full