A Lawman's Christmas_ A McKettricks of Texas Novel - Linda Lael Miller [9]
“Don’t do that,” Clay said, quietly but quickly, too. He took a breath, slowed himself down on the inside. “I don’t mind paying for a hotel room or sleeping at the jail, for the time being.”
The little group exchanged looks.
Snow spun at the few high windows the Bitter Gulch Saloon boasted, like millions of tiny ghosts in search of someplace to haunt.
“A deal,” Ponder finally blustered, “is a deal. We offered you a place to live as part of your salary, and we intend to keep our word.”
Clay rubbed his chin thoughtfully. His beard was coming in again, even though he’d shaved that morning, on board the train. Nearly cut his own throat in the process, as it happened, because of the way the car jostled along the tracks. “Where are Mrs. Nolan and her little girls likely to wind up?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound too concerned. “Once they’ve moved out of that house, I mean.”
“Ezra Maddox offered for her,” said another member of the council. “He’s a hard man, old Ezra, but he’s got a farm and a herd of dairy cows and money in the bank, and she could do a lot worse when it comes to husbands.”
Clay felt a strange stab at the news, deep inside, but he was careful not to let his reaction show. He felt something for Dara Rose Nolan, but what that something was exactly was a matter that would require some sorting out.
“Ezra ain’t willing to take the girls along with their mama, though,” imparted the first man, pouring himself yet another dose of whiskey and throwing it back without so much as a shudder or a wince. The stuff might have been creek water, for all the effect it seemed to have going down the fellow’s gullet. “And he didn’t actually offer to marry up with Dara Rose right there at the beginning, either. He means to try her out as a housekeeper before he makes her his wife. Ezra likes to know what he’s getting.”
Someplace in the middle of Clay’s chest, one emotion broke away from the tangle and filled all the space he occupied.
It was pure anger, cold and urgent and prickly around the edges.
What kind of man expects a woman to part with her own children? he wondered, silently furious. His neck turned hot, and he had to release his jaw muscles by force of will.
“Dara Rose is a bit shy on choices at the moment, if you ask me,” Ponder put in, taking a defensive tone suggesting he was a friend of Ezra Maddox’s and meant to take the man’s part if a controversy arose. With a wave of one hand, he indicated their surroundings, including the half dozen saloon girls, waiting tables in their moth-eaten finery. “If she turns Ezra down, she’ll wind up right here.” He paused to indulge in a slight smile, and Clay underwent another internal struggle just to keep from backhanding the mayor of Blue Creek hard enough to send him sprawling in the dirty sawdust. “Can’t say as I’d mind that, really.”
Clay seethed, but his expression was schooled to quiet amusement. He’d grown up playing poker with his granddad, his pa and uncles, his many rambunctious cousins, male and female. He knew how to keep his emotions to himself.
Mostly.
“And you a married man,” scolded one of the other council members, but his tone was indulgent. “For shame.”
Clay pushed his chair back, slowly, and stood. Stretched before retrieving his hat from its place on the table. “I will leave you gentlemen to your discussion,” he said, with a slight but ironic emphasis on the word gentlemen.
“But we meant to swear you in,” Ponder protested. “Make it official.”
“Morning will be here soon enough,” Clay said, putting his hat on. “I’ll meet you at the jailhouse at eight o’clock. Bring a badge and a Bible.”
Ponder did not look pleased; he was used to piping the tune, it was obvious, and most folks probably danced to it.
Most folks weren’t McKettricks, though.
Clay smiled