The Christmas Brides: A McKettrick Christmas. Linda Miller Lael

unfamiliar with the sight of Carson’s bare flesh. He shoved the idea aside—Lizzie McKettrick’s private life was patently none of his business. He certainly had no claim on her.

      “I’ve got a petticoat,” she said.

      The announcement startled Morgan. Meanwhile, Carson had begun to stir, writhing a little, tossing his head from side to side as, with consciousness, the pain returned. Morgan paused to glance at Lizzie.

      She went pink. “To bind the splints,” she explained.

      Morgan nodded, trying not to smile at her embarrassment.

      Lizzie stepped back, out of his sight. There followed a poignantly feminine rustle of fabric, and then she returned to present him with a garment of delicate ivory silk, frothing with lace. For one self-indulgent moment, Morgan held the petticoat in a tight fist, savoring the feel of it, the faint scent of lavender caught in its folds, then proceeded to rip the costly fabric into wide strips. In the interim, Lizzie fetched his bag without being asked.

      Carson opened his eyes, gazed imploringly up at her. “I meant…” he whispered awkwardly, the words scratching like sandpaper on splintery wood. “I meant to find help, Lizzie…. I’m so sorry…the way I acted before…”

      “Shh,” she said. She sat down on the bench, carefully placed Carson’s head on her lap, stroked his hair. Morgan felt another flash of envy, a deep gouge of emotion, raw and bitter.

      Christian returned with the requested tree branches, trimmed them handily with an ivory-handled pocket knife. The scent of pine sap lent the caboose an ironically festive air.

      “This is going to hurt,” Morgan warned Carson bluntly, gripping the man’s ankle in both hands.

      Carson bit his lower lip and nodded, preparing himself.

      “Can’t you give him something for the pain?” Lizzie interceded, looking up into Morgan’s face with anxious eyes.

      “Afterward,” Morgan said. He didn’t begrudge Carson a dose of morphine, but it was potent stuff, and the patient was in shock. If he happened to be sensitive to the drug, as many people were, the results could be disastrous. Better to administer a swallow of laudanum later. “It’ll be over quickly.”

      “Do it,” Carson said, and went up a little in Morgan’s estimation. Perhaps he had some character after all.

      Morgan closed his eyes; he had a sixth sense about bones and internal organs, something he’d never mentioned to a living soul, including his father, because there was no scientific explanation for it. He saw the break in his mind, as clearly as if he’d laid Carson’s hide and muscle open with a scalpel. When he felt ready, he gave the leg a swift, practiced wrench. Carson yelled.

      But the fractured femur was back in alignment.

      Quickly, deftly, and with all the gentleness he could manage—again, this was more for Lizzie’s sake than Carson’s—Morgan set the splints in place and bound them firmly with the long strips of petticoat.

      Taking a bottle of laudanum from his kit, Morgan pulled the cork and held it to Carson’s mouth. “One sip,” he said.

      Sweating and pale, Carson raised himself up a little from Lizzie’s lap and gulped down a mouthful of the bitter compound. The drug began taking effect almost immediately—Carson sighed, settled back, closed his eyes. Lizzie murmured sweet, senseless words to him, still smoothing his hair.

      Morgan had set many broken limbs in his time, but this experience left him oddly enervated. He couldn’t look at Lizzie as he put the vial of laudanum back in his kit, took out his stethoscope. There was something intensely private about the way she ministered to Carson, as tenderly as a mother with a child.

      Or a wife with a husband.

      Morgan turned away quickly, the stethoscope dangling from his neck, and crossed the railroad car to check Mr. Thaddings’s heart, which thudded away at a blessedly normal rate, then moved on to examine John Brennan again.

      “How are you feeling?” he asked the soldier gruffly. The question was a formality; the feverish glint in Brennan’s eyes and the intermittent shivers that seemed to rattle his protruding skeleton provided answer enough.

      Brennan’s voice was a hoarse croak. “I heard that feller yell—”

      “Broken leg,” Morgan said. “Don’t fret over it.”

      A racking cough tore itself from the man’s chest. When he’d recovered, following a series of wheezing gasps, Brennan reached out to clasp at Morgan’s hand, pulled. Morgan leaned down.

      Brennan rasped out a ragged whisper. “I got to stay alive long enough to see my boy again,” he pleaded. “It’s almost Christmas. I can’t have Tad recalling, all his life, that his pa passed….” The words fell away as another spate of coughing ensued.

      Morgan crouched alongside the bench seat, since there were no chairs in the caboose. He was not accustomed to smiling under the best of circumstances, so the gesture came a lot harder that day. Brennan had one foot dangling over an open grave, and unless some angel grabbed him by the coattails and held on tight, he was sure to topple in.

      “You’ll be all right,” he said. “Don’t think about dying, John. Think about living. Think about fishing with your son—about better times—” Much to his surprise, Morgan choked up. Had to stop talking and work hard at starting again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost control of his emotions—maybe he never had. If you’re going to be any damned use at all, he heard his father say, you’ve got to keep your head, no matter what’s going on around you.

      “My wife,” John said, laboring to utter every word, “makes a fine rum cake, every Christmas—starts it way down in the fall—”

      “You suppose she baked one this year?” Morgan asked quietly, when he could speak.

      John smiled. Managed a nod. As hard as talking was for him, he seemed comforted by the exchange. Probably he was clutching one end of the conversation for dear life, much as Lizzie had held on to Morgan’s looped belt earlier, when she’d slipped in the snow. “She doubled the receipt,” he ground out. “Just ’cause I was going to be home for Christmas.”

      Morgan noted the old-fashioned word receipt—his family’s cook, Minerva, had used that term, too, in lieu of the more modern recipe—and then registered Brennan’s use of the past tense. “You’ll be there, John,” he said.

      Exhausted, John settled back, seemed to relax a little. His gaze drifted, caught on someone, and Morgan realized Lizzie was standing just behind him. She held a mug of steaming ham and bean soup and one of the peddler’s fancy spoons.

      Morgan straightened, glanced back at Carson, who seemed to be sleeping now, though fitfully. Sweat beaded the man’s forehead and upper lip, and Morgan knew the pain was biting deep, despite the laudanum.

      “I thought Mr. Brennan might require some sustenance,” she said, her eyes big and troubled. She’d paled, and her luscious hair drooped as if it would throw off its pins at any moment and tumble down around her shoulders, falling to her waist.

      Morgan nodded, stepped back out of the way.

      Lizzie moved past him, her arm brushing his as she went by, and knelt alongside Brennan. “It would be better with onions,” she said gamely, holding a spoonful of the brew to the patient’s lips. “And salt, too.” When he opened his mouth, she fed him.

      “Them beans is sure bony,” Brennan said. “I guess they ain’t had time to cook through.”

      Lizzie gave a rueful little chuckle of agreement.

      And Morgan watched, struck by some stray and nameless emotion.

      It was a simple sight, a woman spooning soup into an invalid’s mouth, but it stirred Morgan just the same. He wondered if Lizzie would fall apart when this was all over, or if she’d carry on. He was betting on the latter.

      Of