The Christmas Brides: A McKettrick Christmas. Linda Miller Lael

fluttery hands and quiet gratitude.

      Finally, John Brennan came, on his feet but supported by Morgan. The old man accompanied them, carrying Woodrow’s covered cage.

      The peddler, after flashing a glance Whitley’s way, conjured more cups from his sample case, shiny new mugs coated in blue enamel, and gave them to the newer arrivals.

      “I’m starving,” Whitley said petulantly. “Is there any food?”

      “Starving!” Woodrow commented from his cage.

      The grin Morgan turned on Whitley was anything but cordial. “I thought maybe we could count on you, hero that you are, to hike out with a rifle and bag some wild game,” he said.

      Whitley reddened, looked for a moment as though he might fling aside the coffee mug he was hogging and go for Morgan’s throat. Apparently, he thought better of it, though, for he remained seated, taking up more than his share of room on the benchlike seat opposite Lizzie. Muttered something crude into his coffee.

      Lizzie stood, approached Morgan. “I was thinking if we could find a way to—well, unhook this car from the next—”

      “Stop thinking,” Morgan interrupted. “It only gets you in trouble.”

      Lizzie felt as though she’d been slapped. “But—”

      Morgan softened, but only slightly. Regarded her over the rim of his steaming coffee. “Lizzie,” he said, more gently, “it’s a question of weight. As shaky as our situation is, if we uncoupled the cars, we’d be more vulnerable, separated from the rest of the train, not less.”

      He was right, which only made his words harder for Lizzie to swallow. She averted her eyes, only to have her gaze land accidentally on Whitley. He was smirking at her.

      She lifted her chin, turned away from both Whitley and Morgan, and set about helping Mrs. Halifax make a bed for the children, using John Brennan’s quilt. That done, she turned to the elderly couple.

      Their names were Zebulon and Marietta Thaddings, Lizzie soon learned; they lived in Phoenix, but Mrs. Thaddings’s sister worked in Indian Rock, and they’d intended to surprise her with a holiday visit. Having no one to look after Woodrow in their absence, they’d brought him along.

      “He’s a good bird,” Mrs. Thaddings said sweetly. “No trouble at all.”

      Lizzie smiled at that. “Perhaps I know your sister,” she said.

      Mrs. Thaddings beamed. “Perhaps you do,” she agreed. “Her name is Clarinda Adams, and she runs a dressmaking business.”

      Lizzie felt a pitching sensation in the pit of her stomach. There was no dressmaker in Indian Rock, but there was a very exclusive “gentleman’s club,” and Miss Clarinda Adams ran it. Cowboys could not afford what was on offer in Miss Adams’s notorious establishment, but prosperous ranchers, railroad executives and others of that ilk flocked to the place from miles around to drink imported brandy, play high-stakes poker and dandle saucy women on their knees.

      Oh, Miss Adams was going to be surprised, all right, when the Thaddingses appeared on her doorstep, with a talking bird in tow. But the Thaddingses would be even more so.

      Lizzie felt a flash of mingled pity and amusement. She patted Mrs. Thaddings’s hand, still chilled from the perilous journey from one railroad car to another, and offered to refill her coffee cup.

      Once they’d finished off the coffee and started a second pot to brewing, Morgan and the peddler set out to break into and raid the freight car.

      As soon as they were gone, Whitley approached Lizzie, planted himself directly in front of her.

      “If I die,” he told her, “it will be your fault. If you hadn’t insisted on bringing me into this wilderness to meet your family—”

      Despite a dizzying sting—for there was truth in his words, as well as venom—Lizzie kept her backbone straight, her shoulders back and her chin high. “After staying alive,” she said, with what dignity she could summon, “my biggest problem will be explaining you to my family.”

      With a snort of disgust, he turned on one heel and strode to the other side of the car.

      And little Ellen tugged at the sleeve of the oversize conductor’s coat Lizzie had been wearing since the day before. “Do you think St. Nicholas will know where we are?” she asked, her eyes huge with worry. “Jack’s had a mean hankerin’ for that orange ever since Mama told us we could hang up stockings this year.”

      “I’m absolutely certain St. Nicholas will know precisely where we are,” Lizzie told Ellen, laying a hand on her shoulder. “But we’ll be in Indian Rock by Christmas Eve, you’ll see.”

      Would they? Ellen looked convinced. Lizzie, on the other hand, was beginning to have her doubts.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE CABOOSE, although not much safer than the passenger car, was at least warm. When Morgan and the peddler returned from their foray, they brought four gray woolen blankets, as many tins of canned food, all large, and a box of crackers.

      “There was a ham,” the peddler blustered, red from the cold and loud with relief to be back within the range of the stove, “but the doc here said it was probably somebody’s Christmas dinner, special-ordered, so we oughtn’t to help ourselves to it.”

      Everyone nodded in agreement, including Ellen and Jack, her younger brother. Only Whitley looked unhappy about the decision.

      There were no plates and no utensils. Morgan opened the tins with his pocket knife, and they all ate of the contents—peaches, tomatoes, pears and a pale-skinned chicken—forced to use their hands. When the meal was over, Morgan found an old bucket next to the stove and carried in more snow, to be melted on the stove, so they could wash up.

      While it was a relief to Lizzie to assuage her hunger, she was still restless. It was December twenty-third. Her father and uncles must be well on their way to finding the stalled train. She yearned for their arrival, but she was afraid for them, too. The trip from Indian Rock would be a treacherous one, cold and slow and very hard going, most of the way. For the first time it occurred to her that a rescue attempt might not avert calamity but invite it instead. Her loved ones would be putting their lives at risk, venturing out under these conditions.

      But venture they would. They were McKettricks, and thus constitutionally incapable of sitting on their hands when somebody—especially one of their own—needed help.

      She closed her eyes for a moment, willed herself not to fall apart.

      She thought of Christmas preparations going on at the Triple M. There were four different houses on the ranch, and the kitchens would be redolent with stove heat and the smells of good things baking in the ovens.

      By now, having expected to meet her at the station in Indian Rock the night before, her grandfather would definitely have raised the alarm….

      She started a little when Morgan sat down on the train seat beside her, offered her a cup of coffee. She’d drifted homeward, in her musings, and coming back to a stranded caboose and a lot of strangers was a painful wrench.

      She saw that the others were all occupied: John Brennan sleeping with his chin on his chest, Ellen and Jack playing cards with the peddler, Whitley reading a book—he always carried one in the inside pocket of his coat—Mrs. Halifax modestly nursing baby Nellie Anne beneath the draped quilt. Mrs. Thaddings had freed Woodrow from his cage, and he sat obediently on her right shoulder, a well-behaved and very observant bird, occasionally nibbling a sunflower seed from his mistress’s palm.

      “Brennan,” Morgan told Lizzie wearily, keeping his voice low, “is running a fever.”

      Lizzie was immediately alarmed. “Is it serious?”

      “A fever is always serious, Lizzie. He probably took a chill between here and the other car, if not before. From the rattle in his chest,