The Christmas Brides: A McKettrick Christmas. Linda Miller Lael

a stranger, too.

      A fresh wave of homesickness washed over Lizzie. She longed to be among people she knew. Lorelei, her stepmother, would be baking incessantly these days, hiding packages and keeping secrets. Her father, Holt, would be locked away in his wood shop between ranch chores, building sleds and toy buckboards and dollhouses, some of which would be gifts to Lizzie’s brothers and various cousins, though the majority were sure to find their way onto some of the poorer homesteads surrounding the Triple M.

      There were always a lot of presents tucked into the branches of the family’s tree and piled beneath it, and an abundance of savory food, too, but a McKettrick Christmas centered on giving to folks who didn’t have so much. Lorelei, Lizzie herself, and all the aunts made rag dolls and cloth animals with stuffing inside, to be distributed at the community celebration at the church on Christmas Eve.

      The stranger walked the aisle with the baby, bringing Lizzie’s mind back to the here and now. He glanced down into her upturned face as he passed. He didn’t actually smile—as little as she knew about him, she had figured out that he was both solemn and taciturn by nature—but something moved in his eyes.

      Lizzie felt a flash of shame. She should have offered to spell the anxious mother three rows back. Already the child was settling down a little, cooing and drooling on the man’s once-white shirt. If he minded that, he gave no indication of it.

      Beyond the train windows, heavy flakes of snow swirled in the gathering twilight, and while Lizzie willed the train to pick up speed, it seemed to be slowing down instead.

      She was just about to speak to the man, reach out for the baby, when a horrific roar, like a thousand separate thunderheads suddenly clashing together, erupted from every direction and from no direction at all. The car jerked violently, stopped with a shudder fit to fling the entire train off the tracks, tilted wildly to one side, then came right again with a sickening jolt.

      The bird squawked in terror, wings making a frantic slapping sound.

      Lizzie, nearly thrown from her seat, felt the clasp of a firm hand on her shoulder, looked up to see the stranger, still upright, the baby safe in the curve of his right arm. He’d managed somehow to stay on his feet, retain his hold on the child and keep Lizzie from slamming into the seat in front of her.

      “Wh-what…?” she murmured, bewildered by shock.

      “An avalanche, probably,” the man replied calmly, as though a massive snowslide was no more than he would have expected of a train ride through the rugged high country of the northern Arizona Territory.

      Whitley, shaken awake, was as frightened as the bird. “Are we derailed?” he demanded.

      The stranger ignored him. “Is anyone hurt?” he asked, of the company in general, patting the baby’s back and bouncing it a little against his shoulder.

      “My arm,” the woman in back whimpered. “My arm—”

      “Nobody panic,” the man in the aisle said, shoving the baby into Lizzie’s arms and turning to take the medical kit from the rack above his seat. He spoke quietly to the elderly couple; Lizzie saw them nod their heads. They were all right, then.

      “Nobody panic!” the bird cawed. “Nobody panic!”

      Despite the gravity of the situation, Lizzie had to smile at that.

      Whitley rubbed his neck, eyeing the medical bag, after tossing a brief, disgruntled glare at the bird. “I think I’m hurt,” he said. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you? I need laudanum.”

      “Laudanum!” the bird demanded.

      “Hush, Woodrow,” the old lady said. Her husband put the velvet drapery in place, covering the cage, and Woodrow quieted instantly.

      The doctor’s answer to Whitley was a clipped nod and, “Yes, I’m a physician. My name is Morgan Shane. I’ll look you over once I’ve seen to Mrs. Halifax’s arm.”

      The baby began to shriek in Lizzie’s embrace, straining for its mother.

      “Make him shut up,” Whitley said. “I’m in pain.”

      “Shut up!” Woodrow mimicked, his call muted by the drapery. “I’m in pain!”

      Lizzie paid Whitley no mind, got to her feet. “Dr. Shane?”

      He was crouched in the aisle now, next to the baby’s mother, gently examining her right arm. “Yes?” he said, a little snappishly, not looking away from what he was doing. The older children, a boy and a girl, huddled together in the inside seat, clinging to each other.

      “The baby—the way he’s crying—do you think he could be injured?”

      “My baby is a girl,” the woman said, between groans.

      “She’s just had a bad scare,” Dr. Shane told Lizzie, speaking more charitably this time. “Like the rest of us.”

      “I think we’s buried,” the soldier exclaimed.

      “Buried!” Woodrow agreed, with a rustle of feathers.

      Sure enough, solid snow, laced with tree branches, dislodged stones and other debris, pressed against all the windows on one side of the car. On the other, Lizzie knew from previous journeys aboard the same train, a steep grade plummeted deep into the red rocks of the valley below.

      “Just a bad sprain,” Dr. Shane told Mrs. Halifax matter-of-factly. “I’ll make you a sling, and if the pain gets to be too bad, I can give you a little medicine, but I’d rather not. You’re nursing the baby, aren’t you?”

      Mrs. Halifax nodded, biting her lower lip. Lizzie realized with a start that the woman was probably close to her own age, perhaps even a year or two younger. She was thin to the point of emaciation, and her clothes were worn, faded from much washing, and although the children wore coats, frayed at the cuffs and hems and long since outgrown, she had none.

      Lizzie thought with chagrin of the contents of her trunks. Woolen dresses. Shawls. The warm black coat with the royal blue velvet collar Lorelei had sent in honor of her graduation from normal school, so she’d be both comfortable and stylish on the trip home. She’d elected to save the costly garment for Sunday best.

      She went back up the aisle, still carrying the baby, to where Whitley sat. “We need that blanket,” she said.

      Whitley scowled and hunched deeper into the soft folds. “I’m injured,” he said. “I could be in shock.”

      Exasperated, Lizzie tapped one foot. “You are not injured,” she replied. “But Mrs. Halifax is. Whitley, give me that blanket.”

      Whitley only tightened his two-handed grasp, so that his knuckles went white, and shook his head stubbornly, and in that moment of stark and painful clarity, Lizzie knew she’d never marry Whitley Carson. Not even if he begged on bended knee, which was not very likely, but a satisfying fantasy, nonetheless.

      “Here’s mine, ma’am,” the soldier called out from the back, offering a faded quilt ferreted from his oversize haversack.

      The peddler, his cigar apparently snubbed out during the crash, but still in his mouth, opened his sample case. “I’ve got some dish towels, here,” he told Dr. Shane. “Finest Egyptian cotton, hand-woven. One of them ought to do for a sling.”

      The doctor nodded, thanked the peddler, took the quilt from the soldier.

      “If I could just get to my trunks,” Lizzie fretted, settling the slightly quieter baby girl on a practiced hip. Between her younger brothers and her numerous cousins, she’d had a lot of practice looking after small children.

      Dr. Shane, in the process of fashioning the fine Egyptian dish towel into a sling for Mrs. Halifax’s arm, favored her with a disgusted glance. “This is no time to be worrying about your wardrobe,” he said.

      Stung, Lizzie flushed. She opened her mouth to explain why she wanted access to her baggage—for truly altruistic reasons—but