The Christmas Brides (11 page)

“Well then, when the proposal comes, you'll have to turn it down.”

“Couldn't you just—withdraw your permission? Tell Whitley you've changed your mind and he can't propose to me after all?”

Her father chuckled, shook his head. “It isn't like you to take the coward's way out,” he said. “You brought that young fella all the way up here from California, intending to show him off to all of us and, I suspect, hoping he'd give you an engagement ring. You'll have
to tell him the truth, Lizzie. However he might have behaved on that train, he deserves that much.”

Lizzie sighed heavily and sank back onto her pillows. “You're right,” she said dolefully.

Holt laughed. “It's nice to hear you admit that,” he said, as Lorelei came in with the promised tray, and despite the prospect of refusing Whitley Carson's suit, Lizzie ate with a good appetite. She expected to remember that particular meal for the rest of her natural life, it was so delicious.

When her father had gone—there had been a thaw, and he, Rafe, Kade and Jeb were heading out to the ranch to feed livestock—Lorelei had a bathtub brought to the room and filled bucket by bucket with gloriously hot water. After breakfast, a bath and a shampoo, Lizzie felt fully recovered from her ordeal. She dressed in clothes Lorelei had purchased for her at the mercantile, a green woollen dress with lace at the collar, lovely sheer stockings and fashionable high-button shoes.

“You mustn't overdo,” Lorelei fretted. Usually a practical person, today Lizzie's stepmother seemed almost fragile. The shadows under her eyes indicated that she'd worried a great deal over the past few days, and gotten little or no sleep.

“Lorelei,” Lizzie said, placing her hands on her stepmother's pale cheeks, “I'm home. I'm
fine.
You said it yourself—I'm McKettrick tough.”

“I was so frightened,” Lorelei confessed, with an uncharacteristic sniffle.

The two women embraced, clung tightly.

“I want to look in on the others,” Lizzie said, when they'd drawn apart. “Morgan—Dr. Shane—first. Then
Whitley and Mr. and Mrs. Thaddings and the Halifaxes and John Brennan and Mr. Christian—”

Lorelei frowned. “Mr. Christian? I recall the other names—and I met Dr. Shane last night. But no one mentioned a Mr. Christian.”

“You must have seen him,” Lizzie insisted. “He was very ill—with frostbite—and he would have needed tending. I'll ask Morgan.”

Lorelei still seemed puzzled. “Perhaps I'm mistaken,” she said doubtfully. Lorelei McKettrick was rarely mistaken about anything, and everyone knew it. She paused, rallied a little. “I'd better round up your brothers. They must have finished breakfast by now, and my guess is, they'll be up to mischief pretty soon.”

Lizzie and Lorelei went down the stairs together and parted in the lobby. Lizzie immediately noticed Whitley sitting alone in a leather chair, his injured leg propped on an ottoman, gazing out at the snowy street beyond the window. He looked almost forlorn.

Procrastinating, Lizzie decided resolutely, would only make matters worse. She approached, cleared her throat softly when Whitley didn't notice her right away.

When he did, his face lit up and he started to rise.

“Please,” Lizzie said. “Don't get up.”

He sank back into his chair, gestured goodnaturedly at the plaster cast replacing the improvised splint Morgan had applied onboard the stranded train. “Modern medicine,” he said. “I'll be walking properly within six weeks.”

“That's wonderful,” Lizzie said, wringing her hands
a little, then quickly tucking them behind her back. “I'm…I'm so sorry, Whitley.”

“For what?” he asked.

“Getting you into all this,” Lizzie answered, flustered. “Inviting you here— You wouldn't have broken your leg if I hadn't, or nearly perished in an avalanche—”

Whitley's smile faded, and he tried to stand again.

To keep him in his chair, Lizzie drew up a second ottoman and perched on it, facing him.

“Lizzie?” he prompted when she didn't say anything right away. She, affectionately known on the Triple M as “chatterbox,” couldn't seem to find words.

“I saw the ring,” she said. “When I took your good overcoat out of your trunk to put under the Christmas tree for John Brennan.”

“Ah,” Whitley said, still unsmiling. “The ring. It belonged to my grandmother, you know. I had it reset, before we left San Francisco.”

Pain flashed through Lizzie. For a moment, she actually considered accepting Whitley's ring, going through with the wedding, just to keep from dashing his hopes. Reason soon prevailed—she'd do him far greater harm if she trapped him in a loveless marriage. “It's very beautiful,” she said sadly.

Whitley's face filled with eagerness and hope. “Will you marry me, Lizzie? I know this isn't the most romantic proposal, and I don't even have the ring to put on your finger, since it's still in my trunk and none of our things have been recovered from the train yet, but I've already spoken to your father—”

“Whitley,” Lizzie said, almost moaning the name,
“stop.”

“Lizzie—”

“No,” she whispered raggedly. “Please. I can't marry you, Whitley. I don't…I don't love you.”

“You'll
learn
to love me—”

Lizzie shook her head.

Whitley reddened. “It's Shane, isn't it? He's stolen you away from me, turned your head, acting like a hero on the train—”

Again Lizzie shook her head. Then she couldn't bear it any longer, and she got to her feet and turned to flee, only to collide hard with Morgan.

M
ORGAN GRIPPED
L
IZZIE'S SHOULDERS
gently and steadied her. Spoke her name in a worried rasp. Behind her, Lizzie heard Whitley shoving to his feet, and his anger struck her back like a flood of something hot and dark.

“What can he give you?” Whitley demanded furiously. “Tell me what
Dr.
Morgan Shane can give you that I can't!”

Mortified, Lizzie gazed helplessly up into Morgan's concerned face. She saw a muscle twitch in his strong jawline, and his gaze sliced past her to Whitley.

His expression strained—he was clearly trying to rein in his temper—Morgan pressed Lizzie into a nearby chair and turned on Whitley. “What the
hell
is going on here?” he growled.

Awash in misery and abject humiliation, Lizzie sat up very straight and breathed deeply. She had not turned down Whitley's proposal precisely because of her feelings for Morgan, though they had certainly been part of her reasoning. Now Morgan would think she'd set her cap for him, refused Whitley so she could pursue Indian Rock's handsome new doctor instead.

In fact, she hadn't decided anything of the kind. Yes, she was drawn to Morgan, profoundly so, but it was far too soon to know if the attraction would last. And how
in the
world
was she going to look him directly in the eye, after a scene like this?

“You took advantage!” Whitley shouted at Morgan, every word ricocheting off Lizzie's most tender places like a stone flung hard and true to its mark.

“Sit down, before you fall over,” Morgan replied, his voice ominously calm. “And may I remind you that this is a public place?”

Lizzie couldn't look at either of them. Indeed, it was all she could do not to cover her face with both hands in absolute mortification.

“What can you give her, Shane?” Whitley persisted, sputtering now. “Tell me that! A name? A respectable home? Money?” He paused, gathering his forces to go on. “
My
family has a mansion on Nob Hill and a place in San Francisco society. Our name—”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lizzie saw her grandfather striding toward them, from the direction of the hotel dining room. “Lizzie
has
a name—a fine one,” Angus boomed. “It's McKettrick. And she'll never lack for money or a ‘respectable home,' either!”

Lizzie risked a glance at Morgan and saw that he looked confounded and not a little angry. He must have felt her gaze, because he returned it, though only briefly, a sharp, cutting edge.

“It is my understanding,” he said coolly, ignoring Angus and Lizzie, too, “that Miss McKettrick intends to teach school, rather than marry. If she's spurned you, Carson, you have my sympathies, but her decision has nothing to do with me. And if you want your nose broken as well as your leg, just keep raving like a lunatic. I'll be happy to oblige.”

At last, drawing some quiet strength from her grandfather's presence, Lizzie managed to look directly, and steadily, at Whitley and Morgan. They were standing dangerously close to each other, their hands clenched into fists at their sides, their eyes blazing.

“Reminds me of a couple of bucks facing off in rutting season,” Angus observed, looking and sounding amused, now that he knew what the ruckus was about, and that his granddaughter was in no physical danger.

Lizzie blushed so hard her cheeks ached. “Whitley misunderstood,” she told Morgan, after swallowing hard. “When I told him I couldn't accept his proposal, he jumped to the conclusion that…that something was happening between you and me.”

“Imagine that,” Morgan said, his tone scathing.

Inside, where no one could see, Lizzie flinched. Outside, she wore her fierce McKettrick pride like an inflexible garment. “Imagine that indeed,” she retorted, as a frown took shape on Angus's face. “It just so happens that I'm not the least bit interested in
either
of you.”

With that, she made for the doorway leading onto the street.

As she left, she heard mutters from both Whitley and Morgan, and a low burst of laughter from her grandfather.

 

A
T LEAST
L
IZZIE WASN'T
going to marry Carson, Morgan reflected, while he willed himself to simmer down. His pride stung, he'd retreated to his office, and once there, he took a fresh look around.

Carson was right. Morgan couldn't offer Lizzie
a mansion, or a name more prominent than the one she already had. God knew, he didn't have money, either.

Saddened, Morgan went on through the office and into his living quarters—the stove, the bulky bathtub, the too-narrow bed. He couldn't imagine Lizzie living happily in such a place—though the bed had a certain delicious potential—when she was used to big ranch houses, fancy schools, the best of everything.

He heard the office door open, shoved a hand through his hair and went to see if he had a patient. He found Angus McKettrick looming in the examining room, which must have seemed hardly larger than a tobacco tin to a man of his size and stature. White-haired and wise-eyed, McKettrick studied Morgan.

“Where there's smoke,” he said, in that portentous voice of his, “there's bound to be fire.”

Morgan studied him, at a loss for a response.

“Our Lizzie-bet,” Angus went on, after indulging in a crooked little smile and folding arms the size of tree trunks, “is too much woman for most men.”

Morgan felt his neck heat up. “Lizzie's independent-minded, all right,” he agreed evenly. “But if you're here because you think I wrecked her marriage plans with Mr. Nob Hill out there, I didn't.”

“Oh, I believe you did,” Angus said complacently. “You just don't seem to
know
it.”

Something inside Morgan soared, then dived straight back to hard ground, landing with shattering impact. “You heard Lizzie,” he said, when he was fairly certain he could speak rationally. “She's not interested in Carson
or
me.”

“So she says,” Angus drawled. “I don't think Lizzie knows what's going on here any more than you do.”

“Look around you,” Morgan bit out, waving one hand for emphasis. “This is what I have to offer your granddaughter.”

“Not much to it,” Angus agreed, his tone dry, his eyes twinkling. “But I think there's something to
you,
Dr. Shane. You've got some gumption and grit, the way I hear it, and Lizzie's cut from the same kind of cloth. She'd climb straight up the velvet draperies, penned up in some fancy house in San Francisco. She's a country girl, and something of a tomboy. She sits a horse as well as any of us, and she can shoot, too. Before you go deciding you don't have what she needs, you might want to spend a little time finding out just what that is.”

The old man's words nettled Morgan and, at the same time, gave him hope. “What makes you think I'm interested in Lizzie?” he asked.

Angus merely chuckled. Shook his head.

And, having said his piece, he turned and left Morgan's office, the door standing wide open behind him.

 

L
IZZIE STORMED TOWARD
nothing in particular, delighting in the bracing chill of the winter air as she left the Arizona Hotel, the familiar sights and sounds surrounding her, the hustle and bustle of wagons, buckboards and buggies weaving through the snowy street. Furious tears scalded her cheeks, and she wiped them away with a dash of one hand, walking faster and then faster still.

When she found herself in front of the mercantile, its wide display window cheerfully festooned with bright
ribbon and evergreen boughs, she stopped, drew a deep breath and went inside.

The scent of Christmas assailed her—a tall pine stood in the center of the general store, bedecked with costly German ornaments, shining and new. Brightly wrapped gifts, probably empty, encircled the base of the tree.

A woman in her early thirties rounded the counter, smiling. She wore a practical dress of lightweight gray woolen, and her blond hair, pinned into a loose chignon at her nape, escaped in wisps around her delicate face. Her eyes were a shining blue, and they smiled at Lizzie a fraction of a moment before her bow-shaped mouth followed suit.

“Aren't they lovely?” the woman asked, apparently referring to the blown-glass balls and angels and St. Nicholases shimmering on the fragrant tree.

Lizzie nodded. She had not come into the mercantile to admire the merchandise, but to inquire after John Brennan. When she'd last seen him, he'd been desperately ill. “Mrs. Brennan?” she asked.

The woman nodded. Approached Lizzie and put out a hand. “Call me Alice,” she said. “You must be Lizzie McKettrick. John told me how kind you were to him.”

Lizzie swallowed. “Is he—is he better?”

Alice Brennan smiled. She was as pretty, and as fragile, as the most delicate of the tree ornaments. “He's holding on,” she said, worry flickering in her eyes. “Would you like to see him?”

“I wouldn't want to disturb his rest,” Lizzie said.

“I think he'd welcome a visit from you,” Alice replied, turning slightly, beckoning for Lizzie to follow her.

Lizzie did follow, at once reluctant to impose on the
Brennans and eager to see John and measure his progress with her own eyes.

There were stairs at the back of the large store, behind cloth curtains. Alice led the way up, with Lizzie a few steps behind.

The family living quarters above were spare, by comparison to downstairs, where every shelf and surface was stuffed with merchandise of various kinds, but a large iron cookstove chortled out heat in one corner, and there was a smaller Christmas tree on a table in front of the windows overlooking the street.

John Brennan lay, cosseted in blankets, on a settee. He smiled wanly when he saw Alice.

“I've brought you a visitor,” Alice told her husband.

A little boy, undoubtedly Tad, sat on the floor near the settee, playing with a carved wooden horse. He looked up at Lizzie with benign curiosity, then went back to galloping the toy horse across a plain of pillows.

John beamed when he saw Lizzie; he'd been lying prone when she came in, and now he tried to sit up, but he was weak, and failed in the effort. Alice bent to kiss his forehead, smooth his hair back, murmur something to him. Then she stepped back and, with a gesture of one hand, offered Lizzie a seat in a sturdy wing-back chair nearby.

Lizzie sat, feeling like an intruder.

“You said I'd get home to Alice and the boy,” John said, his eyes shining, “and here I am.”

Lizzie only smiled, blinked back tears. John Brennan was home, but he was still a very sick man, obviously, and hardly out of danger. Had he survived the ordeal
on the train, and the rigorous journey to Indian Rock by horse-drawn sleigh, only to succumb to pneumonia after all?

“I reckon if you say I'll get well,” John labored to add, “that will happen, too. There's something real special about you, Lizzie McKettrick.”

Lizzie's throat ached. “You'll get well,” she said, more because she
wanted
to believe than because she did. Alas, there was no magic in her, as John seemed to think. She was an ordinary woman. “You've got little Tad to raise, and Alice and her folks will need your help running the store.”

John nodded, relaxed a little, as though Lizzie had given him some vital gift by saying what he needed to hear. “You seem to be holding up all right,” he said, the words rattling up out of his thin chest.

“I'll be fine,” she said, and she knew that was true, at least. She'd hurt Whitley, and alienated Morgan in the process, but she still had her family, her friends, her teaching certificate, her future. John Brennan might not be that lucky.

“The others?” John asked.

She told him what she could about their fellow passengers—Whitley, the Halifaxes, Morgan. Mr. and Mrs. Thaddings, who were staying, according to Lorelei, in Clarinda Adams's house. She spoke of everyone except Mr. Christian; for some reason, she was hesitant to mention him.

“That's good,” he said, and Lizzie saw that he could barely keep his eyes open. She'd stayed too long—it was past time for her to be on her way.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked Alice, at the top of the stairs.

“Just pray,” Alice said. “And come back to visit when you can. It heartens John, receiving company.” Lizzie nodded.

There had been no sign of Alice's parents, who actually owned the mercantile, according to what John had told her on the train. She'd meet them later, she was sure, since Indian Rock was a small town and she'd be trading at the store regularly, once she moved into the little room behind the schoolhouse.

Outside again, Lizzie decided she wasn't ready to go back to the hotel. Lorelei would insist that she lie down again, and even if she managed to avoid Morgan and Whitley as she passed through the lobby, she would still be painfully aware of their presence.

She pulled her cloak, provided by Lorelei, more tightly around her, raised the hood to protect her ears from the clear but bitter cold and proceeded along the sidewalk, again with no particular destination in mind. She wasn't headed
toward
anything, she realized uncomfortably, but
away
from Whitley's anger and Morgan's terse dismissal.

She went to the schoolhouse, a red-painted framework building with a tiny bell tower and quarters in back, for the teacher. Her aunt Chloe, Jeb's wife, had once taught here, and made her home in the little room behind the classroom.

All the doors were locked, but she stood on tiptoe to peer in a window at what would be her home directly after New Year's, when she took up her duties. There was a little stove, an iron bedstead, a table and chair and not much
else. She'd looked so forward to teaching school, earning her own money, paltry though her salary was, shaping the lives of children in small but important ways.