LITMIR.BIZ

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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 an idle smile, tugged at the brim of his hat in a gesture of farewell and turned to leave the saloon. Just beyond the swinging doors, he paused on the sidewalk to draw in some fresh air and look up at the sky.

      It was snow-shrouded and dark, that sky, and Clay wished for a glimpse, however brief, of the stars.

      He’d come to Blue River to start a ranch of his own, marry some good woman and raise a bunch of kids with her, build a legacy comparable to the one his granddad had established on the Triple M. Figuring he’d never love anybody but Annabel Carson, who had made up her mind to wed his cousin Sawyer, come hell or high water, he hadn’t been especially stringent with his requirements for a bride.

      He wanted a wife and a partner, somebody loyal who’d stand shoulder to shoulder with him in good times and bad. She had to be smart and have a sense of humor—ranching was too hard a life for folks lacking in those characteristics, in his opinion—but she didn’t necessarily have to be pretty.

      Annabel was mighty easy on the eyes, after all, and look where that got him. Up shit creek without a paddle, that was where. She’d claimed to love Clay with her whole heart, but at the first disagreement, she’d thrown his promise ring in his face and gone chasing after Sawyer.

      Even now, all these months later, the recollection carried a powerful sting, racing through Clay’s veins like snake venom.

      Crossing the street to the town’s only hotel, its electric lights glowing a dull gold at the downstairs windows, Clay rode out the sensation, the way he’d trained himself to do, but a remarkable thing happened at the point when Annabel’s face usually loomed up in his mind’s eye.

      He saw Dara Rose Nolan there instead.

      BY THE TIME DARA ROSE got up the next morning, washed and dressed and built up the fires, then headed out to feed and water the chickens and gather the eggs, the snow had stopped, the ground was bare and the sky was a soft blue.

      She hadn’t slept well, but the crisp bite of approaching winter cleared some of the cobwebs from her beleaguered brain, and she smiled as she worked. Her situation was as dire as ever, of course, but daylight invariably raised her hopes and quieted her fears.

      When the sun was up, she could believe things would work out in the long run if she did her best and maintained her faith.

      She would find a way to earn an honest living and keep her family together. She had to believe that to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

      This very day, as soon as the children had had their breakfast and Edrina had gone off to school, Dara Rose decided, flinging out ground corn for the chickens, now clucking and flapping around her skirts and pecking at the ground, she and her youngest daughter would set out to knock on every respectable door in town if they had to.

      Someone in Blue River surely needed a cook, a housekeeper, a nurse or some combination thereof. She’d work for room and board, for herself and the girls, and they wouldn’t take up much space, the three of them. What little cash they needed, she could earn by taking in sewing.

      The idea wasn’t new, and it wasn’t likely to come to fruition, either, given that most people in town were only a little better off than she was and therefore not in the market for household help, but it heartened Dara Rose a little, just the same, as she finished feeding the chickens, dusted her hands together and went to retrieve the egg basket, hanging by its handle from a nail near the back door.

      Holding her skirts up with one hand, Dara Rose ducked into the tumbledown chicken coop and began gathering eggs from the straw where the hens roosted.

      That morning, there were more than a dozen—fifteen, by her count—which meant she and Edrina and Harriet could each have one for breakfast. The remainder could be traded at the mercantile for salt—she was running a little low on that—and perhaps some lard and a small scoop of white sugar.

      Thinking these thoughts, Dara Rose was humming under her breath as she left the chicken coop, carrying the egg basket.

      She nearly dropped the whole bunch of them right to the ground when she caught sight of the new marshal, riding his fancy spotted horse, reining in just the other side of the fence, a shiny nickel star gleaming on his worn coat.

      It made him look like a gunslinger, that long coat, and the round-brimmed hat only added to the rakish impression.

      Already bristling, Dara Rose drew a deep breath and rustled up a smile. It wasn’t as if the man existed merely to irritate and inconvenience her, after all.

      The marshal, swinging down out of the saddle and approaching the rickety side gate to stroll, bold as anything, into her yard, did not smile back.

      Dara Rose’s high hopes shriveled instantly as the obvious finally struck her: Clay McKettrick had come to send her and the children packing. He’d want to move himself—and possibly a family—in, and soon. The fact that he had a fair claim to the house did nothing whatsoever to make her feel better.

      “Mornin’,” he said, standing directly in front of her now, and pulling politely at the brim of his hat before taking it off.

      “Good morning,” Dara Rose replied cautiously, still mindful of her rudeness the day before and the regret it had caused her. Her gaze moved to the polished star pinned to his coat, and she felt an achy twinge of loss, remembering Parnell.

      Poor, well-meaning, chivalrous Parnell.

      Greetings exchanged, both of them just stood there looking at each other, for what seemed like a long time.

      Finally, Marshal McKettrick cleared his throat, holding his hat in both hands now, and the wintry sun caught in his dark hair. He looked as clean as could be, standing there, his clothes fresh, except for the coat, and his boots brushed to a shine.

      Dara Rose felt a small, peculiar shift in a place behind her heart.

      “I just wanted to say,” the man began awkwardly, inclining his head toward the house, “that there’s no need for you and the kids to clear out right away. I spent last night at the hotel, but there’s a cot and a stove at the jail house, and that will suit me fine for now.”

      Dara Rose’s throat tightened, and the backs

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