The Christmas Brides by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    â€œI know,” Morgan said, his voice a little gruff. “You would have made a fine nurse, Lizzie.”
    â€œI don’t have the patience,” she replied seriously, wringing her hands. They’d thawed by then, along withall 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—”
    â€œDo you have brothers and sisters, Lizzie?”
    â€œBrothers,” 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.”
    â€œI’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.”
    â€œWe’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 prancearound the room, and when he grows up, he means to be a telegraph operator.”
    â€œI’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 the McKettricks were leaders in the community. Naturally, as a newcomer to town, Morgan would seek to make their acquaintance. Her heart soaring only moments before, she now felt oddly deflated.
    Morgan stood. “I’d better go outside again,” he said. “See what I can round up in the way of fuel. What firewood we have isn’t going to last long, but there’s a fair supply of coal in the locomotive.”
    Lizzie hated the thought of Morgan braving the dangerous cold again, but she knew he had to do it, and she was equally certain that he wouldn’t let her go in his stead. Still, she caught at his hand when he would have walked away, looked up into his face. “How can I help, Morgan?”
    His free hand moved, lingered near her cheek, as though he might caress her. But the moment passed, and he did not touch her. “Maybe you