A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [61]
And that was that.
The girls went off to get ready for bed, without being told.
Dara Rose, not quite sure what she was feeling exactly, put on her cloak and went outside to make sure the chickens were safe in their coop, with their feed and water pans full.
When that was done, she tarried, looking up at the silvery stars popping out all over the black-velvet sky, hoping Clay would step through the backyard gate.
He didn’t, of course.
So Dara Rose went back into the house, to her children, to oversee the washing of faces and the brushing of teeth and the saying of prayers.
Edrina, hands clenched together and one eye slightly open, asked God to make sure Mr. McKettrick and Chester found their way back home, please, and soon.
Harriet said she hoped whatever little girl had Florence would take good care of her and not lose the doll’s shoes or break her head.
Dara Rose offered no comment on either prayer.
She simply kissed her precocious children good-night, tucked them in and left the room.
In the kitchen, she brewed tea, and sat savoring it at the table, with the kerosene lantern burning low on the narrow counter.
After Luke, and again after Parnell, Dara Rose had solemnly promised herself she would never wait up for another man as long as she lived.
And here she was, waiting for Clay McKettrick.
HAVING MADE HIS DECISION, Clay locked up the street door and banked the dwindling fire, and he collapsed onto the bed in the back room of the jailhouse, not expecting to sleep.
He must have been more tired than he thought, because he awakened with sunlight streaming into his face through the one grimy window, and Chester snoring away in the nearby cell.
Clay got up, made his way into the office, made a fire in the stove and put on a pot of coffee. He let Chester out the rear door and stood on what passed for a porch, studying the sky.
It was bluer than blue, that sky, and the day promised to be unseasonably warm.
Even with half his mind down the road, following Dara Rose around that little house of hers, there was room in Clay’s brain for all the things that needed to be done before the kit-house arrived.
He heated water on the stove top, once the coffee had come to a good boil, and washed up as best he could, but his shaving gear and his spare clothes were stashed behind the settee at Dara Rose’s.
In the near distance, church bells rang, and Clay realized it was Sunday.
The good folks of the town would be settling them selves in pews right about now, waiting for the sermon to start—and then waiting for it to end.
The ones who wouldn’t mind working on the Sabbath Day, on the other hand, were probably gathered down at the Bitter Gulch Saloon, defiant in their state of sin.
Since he needed a well dug, and a foundation, too, Clay figured he’d better get to the latter bunch before they got a real good start on the day’s drinking.
An hour later, Chester stuck to his heels the whole time, he’d hired seven men, roused a blinking and grimacing Philo Bickham to open the mercantile and sell him picks and shovels, a pair of trousers and a plain shirt, and rented two mules and a wagon from the livery to haul the workers and the tools out to the ranch.
For a pack of habitual drunks, those men got a lot of digging done.
Clay worked right alongside them, while Chester roamed the range, probably hunting for rabbits. He’d make a fine cattle-dog when there was a herd to tend.
At noon, Clay drove the team and wagon back to town, Chester along for the ride, bought food enough for an army at the hotel dining room and returned to the work site and his hungry crew.
He’d felt a pang passing the turn to Dara Rose’s place, having finally remembered that he’d promised Edrina and Harriet that they’d decorate the Christmas tree the night before, but he’d make that up to them later.
Somehow.
Just about supper time, Clay called a halt to the work, satisfied that the foundation was dug and they’d made good progress on the well. The crew climbed into the back of the wagon, as did Chester, and the marshal of Blue River, Texas, turned