A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel Read Free Page A

would have called it a shack—before one of the prettiest women he’d ever laid eyes on shot out through the front door like a bullet and stormed down the path toward them.
    Chickens scattered, clucking and squawking, as she passed.
    Her hair was the color of pale cider, pinned up in back and fluffing out around her flushed face, as was the fashion among his sisters and female cousins back home in the Arizona Territory. Her eyes might have been blue, but they might have been green, too, and right now, they were shooting fire hot enough to brand the toughest hide.
    Reaching the rusty-hinged gate in the falling-down fence, she stopped suddenly, fixed those changeable eyes on him and glared.
    Clay felt a jolt inside, as though Zeus had flung a lightning bolt his way and he’d caught it with both hands instead of sidestepping it, like a wiser man would have done.
    The woman’s gaze sliced to the little girl.
    â€œEdrina Louise Nolan,” she said, through a fine set of straight white teeth, “what am I going to do with you?” Her skin was good, too, Clay observed, with that part of his brain that usually stood back and assessed things. Smooth, with a peachy glow underneath.
    â€œLet me go to third grade?” Edrina ventured bravely.
    Clay gave an appreciative chuckle, quickly quelled by a glare from the lady. He didn’t wither easily, though he knew that was the result she’d intended, and he did take some pleasure in thwarting her.
    At that, the woman gave a huffy little sigh and turned her attention back to her daughter. She threw out one arm—like Edrina, she wore calico—and pointed toward the gaping door of the shack. “That will be quite enough of your nonsense, young lady,” she said, with a reassuring combination of affection and anger, thrusting open the creaky gate. “Get yourself into the house now and prepare to contemplate the error of your ways!”
    Before obeying her mother’s command, Edrina paused just long enough to look up at Clay, who was still in the saddle, as though hoping he’d intercede.
    That was a thing he had no right to do, of course,but he felt a pang on the little girl’s behalf just the same. And against his own better judgment he dismounted, took off his hat, holding it in one hand and shoving the other through his hair, fingers splayed.
    â€œYou go on and do what your mama tells you,” he said to Edrina, though his words had the tone of a suggestion, rather than a command.
    Edrina’s very fetching mother looked him over again, this time with something that might have been chagrin. Then she bristled again, like a little bird ruffling up faded feathers. “You’re him, aren’t you?” she accused. “The new marshal?”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” Clay said, confounded by the strange mixture of terror and jubilation rising up within him. “I am the new marshal. And you are…?”
    â€œDara Rose Nolan. You may address me as Mrs. Nolan, if you have any further reason to address me, which I do not anticipate.”
    With that, she turned on one shabby-heeled shoe and pointed herself toward the “cottage,” with its sagging roof, leaking rain barrel and sparkling-clean windows.
    Edrina and another little girl—the aforementioned Harriet, no doubt—darted out of the doorway as their mother approached, vanishing into the interior of the house.
    Clay watched appreciatively as the widow Nolan retreated hurriedly up the walk, with nary a backward glance.
    Chickens, pecking peacefully at the ground, squawked and flapped their wings as they fled.
    The door slammed behind her.
    Clay smiled, resettled his hat and got back on his horse.
    Before, he’d dreaded the long and probably idle months ahead, expecting the season to be a lonesome one, and boring, to boot, since he knew nothing much ever happened in Blue River, when it came to crime. That was the main reason the town