A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [58]
“You’re welcome,” he said, in a throaty drawl.
Dara Rose’s heart pounded, and she felt dizzy. “Clay—the children—”
He sighed. “They’re busy squeezing parcels,” he said.
Dara Rose sat very still, afraid to move.
Clay watched her mouth for a few moments, and managed to leave Dara Rose as breathless as if he’d actually kissed her, and soundly. Then he said, very quietly, “Just so we understand each other, Mrs. McKettrick, I do mean to bed you, right and proper, one day soon.”
Dara Rose gulped, knowing she ought to pull free and get back on her own two feet but strangely unable to do so. “But you said—”
He rested an index finger on her mouth, and a hot shiver went through her. “I know what I said, Dara Rose, and I’ll keep my word. But it’s only fair to tell you that I’m fixing to do everything I can to bring you around to my way of thinking.”
Dara Rose absolutely could not speak. She was full of indignation and longing and searing heat.
That was when he kissed her—softly at first, and then in a deep way that made everything inside her melt, including her very bones.
When their mouths finally parted, it was Clay’s doing, not Dara Rose’s.
She’d have been content to let that kiss go on forever, it felt so good.
“I believe I’m making progress,” he said, with a certain satisfaction.
He was indeed, Dara Rose thought. If Edrina and Harriet hadn’t been in the house, never mind the very next room, she might have taken Marshal Clay McKettrick by the hand and led him straight to her bed. She sighed wistfully.
It had been so long since she’d been held in a strong man’s arms, reveled in the sweet responses lovemaking roused in her.
She glanced at the doorway, but her children were still in the front room, playing some game with the dog, filling that little house with barks and giggles. “Parnell and I—we weren’t…we didn’t…”
Clay simply listened, looking thoughtful.
“What I mean is, we were never…intimate,” Dara Rose confessed. Even saying that much—telling such a small part of her story—was a tremendous relief. “He married me to give my children a name.”
“Go on,” Clay said.
Dara Rose checked the doorway again. “I was married—or I thought I was married—to Parnell’s younger brother, Luke.” She swallowed hard. “Edrina was born, and then Harriet, and then—”
Clay didn’t prompt her. He was a patient man.
“And then Luke was thrown from a horse and killed, and I learned—I learned that he’d had another wife all along. A real wife, and several children. I’d been a—a kept woman from the first, without even knowing it, and our—my—children had been born out of wedlock.”
Something moved in Clay’s handsome face.
Pain? Fury? Pity, perhaps? She couldn’t tell.
Afraid she’d lose her courage if she didn’t finish the story right now, Dara Rose went on. “I had no money, and no place to go, and after his brother’s funeral, Parnell came to me and offered marriage. He was such a good man, Clay.” She realized she was crying. When had the tears begun? “When he died upstairs at the Bitter Gulch, everyone felt so sorry for the children and me, and there was this huge scandal, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t explain that I wasn’t a true wife to him. He must have been so lonely….”
When she didn’t go on, Clay set her on her feet, and try though she did, Dara Rose couldn’t read his expression.
He got up from his chair, his coffee forgotten on the table, and whistled for his dog.
Chester came to him eagerly, without hesitation, as Clay was putting on his duster and his distinctive round-brimmed hat.
“This calls for some thinking about, Dara Rose,” he said. “And I need to get Outlaw back to the livery stable, see that he’s put up proper for the night.”
With that, Clay opened the back door, and he and Chester went out.
Edrina and Harriet appeared in the inside doorway the instant he’d closed the door behind him.
“Aren’t we going to decorate the Christmas tree?” Edrina asked plaintively.
Dara Rose didn’t answer. She hurried across the kitchen and through the front room to watch through the window as Clay rounded a corner of