A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [62]
He paid the men generously, turned the team and wagon in at the livery and took his time tending to Outlaw, lest the horse feel neglected after being left to stand idle in his stall all day.
Too tired to bother with supper, and too dirty to stand himself for much longer, Clay returned to the lonely jailhouse, lit a lantern, fed Chester some leftovers from the midday meal and commenced carrying and heating water to fill the round washtub he’d found hanging from a nail just outside the back door.
The new clothes he’d bought that morning were stiff with newness and smelled of starch.
Once there was enough hot water in the washtub to suit him, Clay stripped off his filthy clothes, climbed in and sat down, cross-legged like an Apache at a campfire, sighing as the strain eased out of his muscles. He was no stranger to hard physical work, coming from a family of ranchers, but it had been a while since he’d swung a pick or wielded a shovel.
He was sore.
As the water cooled, Clay scoured off a couple of layers of grime and sweat and planned what he’d say to Dara Rose, later tonight, when he intended to knock at her kitchen door and ask if he and Chester could bunk in her front room again. In the morning, they could talk things through.
Only it didn’t happen that way.
Clay was just coming to grips with the fact that he didn’t have a towel handy when the jailhouse door flew open and Dara Rose stormed in, wearing her cloak but no bonnet and, temper-wise, loaded for bear.
Seeing Clay sitting there in the washtub in the altogether, she stopped in her tracks and gasped.
“You’re just in time, Mrs. McKettrick,” he said. “It seems I’m in something of a predicament here.”
Dara Rose blinked and looked quickly away, keeping her head turned and not asking what the predicament might happen to be.
“My children,” she said, “refuse to decorate the Christmas tree unless you’re there.”
“If you’ll fetch me a towel, Mrs. McKettrick,” Clay drawled, enjoying her discomfort more than he’d enjoyed much of anything since yesterday’s kiss at her kitchen table, “I’ll make myself decent, and we’ll attend to that Christmas tree.”
Dara Rose kept her face averted. “Where…?”
“The towel? It’s hanging from a hook next to my shaving mirror, in the back room.”
“I meant to say,” Dara Rose sputtered, still not looking in his direction, “where have you been since last night?” She gave him a wide berth as she went in search of the towel.
“I’m glad you asked,” Clay said, smiling to himself as he waited for her to come back, so he could dry off and get dressed in his new duds. “It shows you care.”
She returned, flung the towel at him and turned her back. “Nonsense,” she said. “Edrina and Harriet were very disappointed when you left—that’s the only reason I’m here.”
Clay rose out of the tub, the towel around his middle, and sloshed his way into the spare room, where he hastily wiped himself dry and put on the other set of clothes.
Dara Rose had her eyes covered with both hands when he came back. “Are you dressed?” she asked pettishly.
“Yes, Mrs. McKettrick,” he said easily. “I am properly attired.”
She lowered her hands, looked at him with enough female fury to sear off some of his hide and repeated her original question, dead set on an answer.
“Where were you, Clay McKettrick?”
Chapter 10
Where were you, Clay McKettrick?
Clay crossed to Dara Rose, laid his hands gently on her shoulders and felt a tremor go through her slight but sumptuous body. “First,” he began, his voice low, “I’ll tell you where I wasn’t, Mrs. McKettrick. I wasn’t with a secret wife, and I wasn’t upstairs at the Bitter Gulch Saloon, enjoying the favors of a dance-hall girl. I’m not Luke, and I’m not Parnell. I’m Clay McKettrick, and it would behoove you to get that straight in your mind. As for where I was, I slept right here last night, and this morning I hired a crew and went out to the ranch to start digging a foundation and a well. The makings of our house will be here right after the first of the year, as I told Philo Bickham yesterday, in your