A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [44]
“You belong to me,” Maddox reiterated.
“I belong to myself,” Dara Rose informed him. “And no one else, except for my children. I want nothing to do with you, Mr. Maddox, and I’ll count it as a favor if you leave, right now.”
“All right,” Maddox erupted, flinging his beefy arms out from his sides with such force that he nearly fell over sideways, “you can bring the girls along, and I’ll marry you straight off—today, if that’s what you want.”
“You are too late, Mr. Maddox,” Dara Rose said, in a clear and steady voice. “Please be on your way so we can get on with the wedding.”
Clay wondered distractedly if Dara Rose had ever seriously considered taking up with a lug like Maddox. He couldn’t imagine her parting with her children.
Maddox just stood there, evidently weighing his options, which were few, and broke the ensuing silence by spitting violently and barking out, “This feller might have a badge, Dara Rose, but he ain’t Parnell come back to life.”
He turned partially, as if to walk away, but he jabbed a finger in Dara Rose’s direction and went right on running off at the mouth. “I’ll tell you what he is, this man you’re so dead set on marryin’—he’s a stranger, a lying drifter, for all you know—and when he moves on, leavin’ you with another babe in your belly and no way to feed your brood, don’t you come cryin’ to me!”
Clay’s restraint snapped then, but before he could take more than a single step in Maddox’s direction, Dara Rose tightened her grip on his arm and stopped him.
Maddox spat again, but then he whirled around and headed for the gate and the waiting mule, every step he took making a sucking sound because of the mud.
Dara Rose let go of Clay’s arm and walked, with high-chinned dignity, back into the house, leaving Clay and Mayor Ponder standing on the porch.
Ponder’s gaze followed Maddox as he mounted the mule to ride away. “I’d watch my back if I were you, Marshal,” he said thoughtfully. “Ezra’s the kind to hold a grudge, and he’s got a sneaky side to him.”
INSIDE, DARA ROSE was shaken, but she made sure it didn’t show.
Mayor Ponder’s wife, Heliotrope, was a scandalmonger with nothing better to do than spread gossip, heavily laced with her own interpretation of any given person or situation, of course, and thanks to Ezra Maddox’s unexpected visit, she’d have plenty of fodder as it was.
Dara Rose wasn’t about to give her more to work with.
Besides, the children were watching her, and they’d follow whatever example she set. She wanted them to see strength in their mother, and courage, and dignity.
So she straightened her spine, lifted her chin and once again took her place at Clay McKettrick’s side.
Mayor Ponder opened his book again and began to read out the words that would bind her to this tall man standing next to her.
The mayor’s voice turned to a drone, and the very atmosphere seemed to pulse and buzz around Dara Rose, making her light-headed.
She spoke when spoken to, answered by rote.
After three weddings, she could have gotten married in her sleep.
Questions plagued her, swooped down on her like raucous birds. What if Ezra had been right? Suppose Clay was a liar and a drifter—or worse? Was she marrying him because some deluded part of her had him confused with Parnell?
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” Mayor Ponder said, slamming the book closed between his pawlike hands. “Mr. McKettrick, you may kiss the bride.”
Clay looked down at her, one eyebrow slightly raised, and a grin crooked at a corner of his mouth.
On impulse, and to get it over with, Dara Rose stood on tiptoe and kissed that mouth, very lightly, very quickly and very briefly.
“There,” she said. “It’s done.”
Clay merely chuckled.
She could still back out, Dara Rose reminded herself fitfully. She could refuse to sign the marriage certificate, ask Mayor Ponder to reverse the declaration that they were now man and wife.
Was that legal?
For a moment, Dara Rose thought she might swoon, just faint dead away right there in her own front parlor. But Clay