his throat. “Speaking of, well, beds, I’m afraid the house we offered you is still occupied. We’ve been telling Dara Rose that she’d have to move when we found a replacement for Parnell, but so far, she’s stayed put.”
Dara Rose. Clay smiled slightly at the reminder of the fiery little woman who’d burst through the door of that shack a couple of hours before when he showed up with Edrina, stormed through a flock of cacophonous chickens and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t at all glad to see him.
There had been no shortage of women in Clay McKettrick’s life—he’d even fallen in love with one, to his eventual sorrow—but none of them had affected him quite the way the widow Nolan did.
“No hurry,” Clay said easily, resting his hands on his thighs. “I can get a room at the hotel, or bunk in at the jailhouse.”
“The town of Blue River cannot stand good for the cost of lodgings,” Ponder said, looking worried. “Having that power line strung all the way out here from Austin depleted our treasury.”
One of the other men huffed at that, and poured himself another shot of whiskey. “Hell,” he said, with a hiccup, “we’re flat busted and up to our hind ends in debt.”
Ponder flushed, and his big whiskers quivered along with those heavy jowls of his. “We can pay the agreed-upon salary,” he stated, after glaring over at his colleague for a long moment. “Seventy-five dollars a month and living quarters, as agreed.” He paused, flushed. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Nolan in the morning,” he clarified. “Tell her she needs to make other arrangements immediately.”
“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 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
