Mary Connealy by Lassoed in Texas Trilogy

else?” she asked through clenched teeth.
    Clay shook his head. He stood up and brought out the remaining steak. He set it on the table. “The girls said you didn’t eat. That was stupid.”
    Sophie almost picked up the plate and threw it at him. She would have if she hadn’t been starving. The smell of the meat she’d started smoking had been taunting her for the last hour until she’d almost chewed on it raw. If she’d have met a cougar at the creek, he might have been in more danger of being eaten than she was.
    Instead of attacking Clay, Sophie focused on the incongruity between Clay holding supper for her and then calling her stupid. It was a good thing she was too tired to think, because it didn’t bear thinking about. She started eating the tough, succulent venison, and she could tell Clay had been careful not to let it dry out. He silently brought her coffee and set what was left of the biscuits in front of her.
    Sophie’s stomach started to fill enough that she could think about something besides eating. She realized the house had been put in order. There were no more cobwebs in the ceiling corners. The windows shined brightly against the lantern light. The girls—she glanced around sharply—the girls must have all gone to bed. How had Clay managed all this? And why? Why hadn’t he come out and taken over the butchering, surely a man’s job, and left the house to her? “The girls are asleep?” Sophie asked.
    “Yep. I put all three of the older girls in there.” He pointed to the bedroom on the northeast corner of the house.
    “And I put Laura in there.” He pointed to the northwest corner of the house.
    “Why didn’t you split them up two and two so the one room isn’t so crowded?”
    “Mandy and Beth said that room was always the nursery. When I tried to put Sally in there, she thought that meant I was calling her a baby, and that didn’t set well,” Clay said with a faint air of panic.
    Sophie bit back a smile, afraid he’d take offense since he was obviously upset. She knew exactly how it had gone. The tears and the whining and the begging. “No, I don’t suppose it would have.”
    “Are they supposed to cry so much and giggle every second when they’re not crying? They never quit finding something so funny that I thought it’d break my eardrums a few times. And Laura pitched a daisy of a fit when Beth tried to give her a bath. Then Beth asked me to help, but Laura was stark naked, and I didn’t think that was proper, so I said no. Then, well, maybe I said no a little…loud. Beth started crying.” Clay ran his hands into his hair and made it stand up on end.
    “Anyway, they’re finally asleep, so please…please don’t move them. If you can convince Sally to stop wailing about it, we can move them around tomorrow.”
    At least he’d been doing something. She’d pictured him sitting in here warming his feet by the fire while she butchered the deer.
    Her belly filled as her plate emptied. She rose from the table to wash up.
    “You look real tuckered. Go on to bed. The girls said you always slept in there.” Clay pointed to the bedroom on the south side of the house. She had always loved the view from the window in there. She would rise each morning and look out on a sweeping green valley descending away from her and know she had a place where she belonged in the world. A place that was truly hers. Then she’d learned the hard way that nothing was ever truly hers.
    She almost staggered when she took her first step. Clay steadied her. It occurred to her that he might not be so strong if he’d been working as hard as she had been today. Even so, she appreciated the strength of his grip. Without looking at him, she gathered herself and went to bed, thinking kindly of her new husband for the first time.
    That wasn’t strictly true. She’d thought kindly of him when she’d first found out he was Cliff’s brother. She’d had several very kindly thoughts of him in fact. Then