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

winter was going to feel like. Eternal rest.
    He sighed, crossed to the single cell and peered through the bars, almost wishing he had a prisoner. That way, there would have been somebody to talk to, at least.
    Alas, lawbreakers seemed to be pretty thin on the ground around those parts at the moment, a fact he supposed he should have been grateful to note.
    Clay sat down in the creaky wooden chair behind the scarred wooden table that served as a desk and reached for the dusty stack of wanted posters and old mail piled on one corner.
    If anybody stopped by, he’d like to give the impression that he was working, even if he wasn’t. It made him smile to imagine what his granddad would think if he could see him now, collecting seventy-five dollars a month for doing not much of anything except drinking bad coffee and flipping through somebody else’s correspondence.
    He set aside the older wanted posters and read the few missives that looked even remotely official—none of them were, it turned out—and he was thinking maybe heought to meander over to the livery stable and brush old Outlaw down, when he came to the last two letters and realized they were addressed to Mrs. Parnell B. Nolan.
    The first, from an outfit called the Wildflower Salve Company, was most likely a sales pitch of some kind, but the second looked personal and smelled faintly of lemon verbena. The envelope was fat, made of good vellum, and the handwriting on the front was flowing cursive, with all kinds of loops and swirls.
    Clay looked at the postmark, but couldn’t make out where the letter had been mailed, or when, and there wasn’t any return address.
    Not that any of this was his concern in the first place.
    Clay frowned, wondering how long the letters had been moldering in that pile, and then he smiled, holding the envelopes in one hand and lightly slapping them against the opposite palm.
    Maybe it wasn’t his sworn duty to make sure the mail got delivered, but it was as good an excuse as any for calling on Dara Rose Nolan.
    Clay rose from his chair, fetched his coat and hat and set out on foot.
    Â 
    T HERE HE STOOD, on her front doorstep this time, looking affably handsome.
    For the briefest fraction of a moment, Dara Rosefeared that Clay McKettrick had changed his mind, decided he wanted the house, after all. Her stomach quivered in a peculiar way that didn’t seem to have much to do with the fear of eviction.
    â€œI found these letters over at the office,” he said, and produced two envelopes from an inside pocket of his duster. “They’re addressed to you.”
    Dara Rose’s eyes rounded. Getting a letter was a rare thing indeed. Getting two at once was virtually unheard of.
    She opened the door a little wider, extended a hand for the envelopes and spoke very quietly because Harriet was napping. “Thank you,” she said.
    He let her take the envelopes, but he held on to them for a second longer than necessary, too.
    Although her curiosity was great, Dara Rose wanted to savor the prospect of those letters for a little while. She’d read them later, by lamplight, when the girls were both down for the night and the house was quiet.
    She tucked them into the pocket of her apron, blushing a little.
    â€œCome in,” she heard her own voice say, much to her surprise.
    It simply wasn’t proper for a widow to invite a man into her home, even in broad daylight, but she’d donejust that and already stepped back so he could pass, and the marshal didn’t hesitate to step over the threshold.
    He stood in the middle of the front room, seeming to fill it to capacity with the width of his shoulders and the sheer unwieldy substance of his presence. His gaze went straight to the oversize daguerreotype of Parnell on one wall.
    He seemed to consider her late husband’s visage for a few moments, before turning to meet her eyes.
    â€œHe doesn’t look like the kind of man who’d