A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel by Linda Lael Miller Page A

anything more could be said, Harriet going on about that doll she meant to name Florence, and Edrina replying in lofty, big-sister fashion that Harriet ought to wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one got full faster.
    Clay went to the sink, rolled up his shirtsleeves and commenced to washing his hands with the harsh yellow soap Dara Rose kept in an old saucer wedged behind the pump handle.
    He felt a combination of things while he was at it, but mainly, he realized, he was glad. Glad just to be where he was, right there in that kitchen, out of the cold wind, with a lovely woman, two kids and a dog for company.
    For the first time since he’d left the Arizona Territory, Clay didn’t have to fight down a hankering for home, didn’t second-guess his decision to strike out on his own instead of making a life on the ever-expanding Triple M with the rest of the family.
    Be sure you’re leaving because it’s what you really want todo, Clay, his pa had counseled him, and not because Annabel Carson broke your heart.
    It made Clay smile a little to remember that conversation, and others like it, with various members of the home outfit, and he reckoned now that Annabel hadn’t broken his heart at all—she’d just sprained it a little.
    The stuff in the pot on the stove turned out to be some kind of mixture of canned venison and leftover vegetable preserves, and it was better, in Clay’s opinion, than a big steak at Delmonico’s.
    â€œMiss Krenshaw keeps a picture of a soldier in her top desk drawer,” Edrina chimed, in the middle of the meal, pretty much out of nowhere.
    Snow rasped at the windows and the small cookstove seemed to strain to put out more heat.
    â€œAnd how would you know a thing like that, Edrina Nolan?” Dara Rose asked, arching one eyebrow, her spoon poised halfway between her mouth and the bowl of soup sitting in front of her.
    â€œShe takes it out and looks at it, when she thinks nobody’s looking,” Edrina explained nonchalantly. “Sometimes, she gets tears in her eyes, and her lips move like she’s talking to somebody.”
    Clay’s gaze connected with Dara Rose’s.
    â€œAre you going to fight in the war, Mr. McKettrick?” Edrina asked, without missing a beat.
    â€œNo,” Clay answered. The armed forces would need beef, and plenty of it, and like his granddad said, some body had to raise the critters. “But my cousin Gabriel thinks he might join up, if things don’t simmer down some over the next year or two.”
    A sad expression flickered across Dara Rose’s expressive face; he figured the war was a subject she tried not to think about, since there was nothing she could do to change it.
    After supper, Edrina and Harriet cleared the table and set the dishes in the sink, without being told.
    Dara Rose crossed the room to take her cloak and bonnet down from their peg near the door. She clearly dreaded whatever she was about to do, and Clay found himself beside her before he’d made a conscious decision to move, reaching for his hat and duster.
    Dara Rose looked up at him, and he caught the briefest glimpse into the shimmering vastness of her heart and mind and spirit. There was so much more to her than just her flesh-and-blood person, he realized, with a start akin to waking up suddenly after a long, deep sleep.
    â€œThe chickens—” she began, and then went silent.
    â€œI’ll see to them,” Clay said, very quietly. “You stay here, with the girls.”
    She considered the idea briefly, then shook her headno. She meant to go out to that chicken coop and that was that. He’d be wasting his breath to argue.
    â€œI’ll heat water to wash the dishes when I get back,” she told the children. “Don’t get too close to the stove, and no scuffling.”
    â€œOh, Mama,” Edrina said, with a roll of her eyes. “You’ve told us that a thousand