A McKettrick Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

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, I’d say he’s developing pneumonia.”
    “Dear God,” Lizzie whispered, thinking of the little boy, Tad, waiting to welcome his father at their new home in Indian Rock.
    “Giving up hope, Lizzie McKettrick?” Morgan asked, very quietly.
    She sucked in a breath, shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.
    Morgan smiled, squeezed her hand. “Good.”
    Lizzie had seen pneumonia before. While she’d never contracted the dreaded malady herself, she’d known it to snatch away a victim within days or even hours. Concepcion, her stepgrandmother, and Lorelei had often attended the sick around Indian Rock and in the bunkhouses on the Triple M, and Lizzie had kept many a vigil so the older women could rest. “I’ll help,” she said now, though she wondered where she was going to get the strength. She was young, and she was healthy, but her nerves felt raw, exposed—strained to the snapping point.
    “I know,” Morgan said, his voice a little gruff. “You would have made a fine nurse, Lizzie.”
    “I don’t have the patience,” she replied seriously, wringing her hands. They’d thawed by then, along with all her other extremities, but they ached, deep in the bone. “To be a nurse, I mean.”
    Morgan arched one dark eyebrow. “Teaching doesn’t require patience?” he asked, smiling.
    Lizzie found a small laugh hiding somewhere inside her, and allowed it to escape. It came out as a ragged chuckle. “I see your point,” she admitted. She turned her head, saw Ellen and Jack enjoying their game with the peddler, and smiled. “I love children,” she said softly. “I love the way their faces light up when they’ve been struggling with some concept and it suddenly comes clear to them. I love the way they laugh from deep down in their middles, the way they smell when they’ve been playing in summer grass, or rolling in snow—”
    “Do you have brothers and sisters, Lizzie?”
    “Brothers,” she said. “All younger. John Henry—he’s deaf and Papa and Lorelei adopted him after his folks were killed in Texas, in an Indian raid. Lorelei, that’s my stepmother, sent away for some special books from back east, and taught him to talk with his hands. Then she taught the rest of us, too. Gabe and Doss learned it so fast.”
    “I’ll bet you did, too,” Morgan said. By the look in his eyes, Lizzie knew his remark wasn’t intended as flattery. Unless she missed her guess, Dr. Morgan Shane had never flattered anyone in his life. “John Henry is a lucky little boy, to be a part of a family like yours.”
    “We’ve always thought it was the other way around,” Lizzie said. “John Henry is so funny, and so smart. He can ride any horse on the ranch, draw them, too, so you think they’ll just step right off the paper and prance around the room, and when he grows up, he means to be a telegraph operator.”
    “I’m looking forward to meeting him, along with the rest of the McKettricks,” Morgan told her. His gaze had strayed to Whitley, narrowed, then swung back to Lizzie’s face.
    Something deep inside her leapt and pirouetted. Morgan wanted to meet her family. But of course it wasn’t because he had any personal interest in her. Her uncle Kade had encouraged him to come to Indian Rock to practice medicine, and