The Christmas Brides (15 page)

Marietta took a roast from the oven and placed it carefully on a platter. Lizzie picked up a bowl brimming with fluffy mashed potatoes, answering, “People are full of surprises.”

“Whatever she's done in the past, it's kind of Clarinda to let Zebulon and me live here. Heaven only knows what we'd have done if she hadn't given us shelter. Why, she even wired the people at the mercantile, instructing them to let us buy whatever we needed on her account.”

When the four of them were seated in the massive dining room, huddled together at one end, Zebulon offered grace. After the amen, they all ate in earnest. Woodrow remained in the parlor, squawking away.

“It hardly seems possible,” Zebulon said, “that a whole year has gone by since we all met.”

Morgan gave Lizzie a sidelong glance. “It seems like a long time to some of us,” he said.

Lizzie elbowed him and smiled at Zebulon. “When will the children arrive?”

It was Marietta who answered. “Right after New Year's,” she said. “We'll have a lot to do, Zebulon and I, to get ready.”

“I can promise a whole crowd of McKettrick women to help out,” Lizzie told her, with absolute confidence that it was so.

After supper, Lizzie and Marietta attended to the dishes while Zebulon, Morgan and Woodrow talked politics in the parlor.

A fresh snowfall had begun when Lizzie and Morgan left the Thaddingses' house. Instead of heading for the schoolhouse, Morgan steered Lizzie toward their cottage on the outskirts of town.

To Lizzie's surprise, lights glowed in the windows, and the tiny front room was warm when they stepped inside. They visited the house often, separately and together—Lizzie liked to imagine what it would be like, living there with Morgan, and she suspected the reverse was true, too.

The plank floors gleamed with varnish, the scent of it still sharp in the air. Two wing-backed chairs faced the small brick fireplace, and lace curtains, sewn by her stepmother and aunts, graced the many-paned windows. A hooked rug, Concepcion's handiwork, added a splash of cheery color to the room.

Dreaming, Lizzie moved on to the kitchen, with its brand-new cookstove, its stocked shelves. There was a table with four chairs; her father had built it himself, in his wood shop on the ranch.

In addition to the parlor and kitchen, there was a little bathroom with all the latest in plumbing. A bedroom stood on either side—the smaller one empty, the larger one furnished with a bureau and a wardrobe, donated by Lizzie's grandfather, but no bed.

“Where are we going to sleep?” Lizzie asked.

Morgan laughed and drew her into his arms. Kissed the tip of her nose. “I'm not planning on doing all that much sleeping,” he said. “Not on our wedding night, at least.”

Lizzie's cheeks burned with both anticipation and embarrassment. “Be practical,” she said. “We need a bed. Shouldn't we order one at the mercantile?”

Morgan held her close, and then closer still. “Stop worrying,” he said. “Things always turn out for the best, don't they? Look at Zebulon and Marietta—at John Brennan—and us.”

Lizzie rested her forehead against Morgan's shoulder, content to be there, wrapped in his strong embrace. Things
had
turned out for the best—the Halifaxes were living happily on the Triple M, Ellen and Jack attending Chloe's school, rather than her own, because the ranch was a long way out of town. Whitley had written recently to say that he'd met the woman he wanted to marry; they'd met at a party following a polo match. Morgan's practice was thriving, though he earned next to nothing, and Lizzie loved teaching school.

“Do you ever think about Mr. Christian?” she asked.

Morgan stroked her hair. “Sometimes,” he said. “Especially with Christmas coming on. Mostly, though, Lizzie McKettrick, I think about you.”

She tilted her head back to look up into his face. “I love you, Dr. Morgan Shane,” she said.

He kissed her, with a hungry tenderness, then forced himself to step back. They had been intimate, but never in the cottage. They were saving that.

“And I love you,” he said, after catching his breath. “Does it bother you, Lizzie, to take my name? You won't be a McKettrick anymore, after we're married.”

“I'll
always
be a McKettrick,” Lizzie told him. “No matter what name I go by. I'll also be your wife, Morgan. I'll be Lizzie Shane.”

He grinned, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. His eyes glistened, and when he spoke, his voice came
out sounding hoarse. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “I never once thought—”

Lizzie stroked his cheek with gentle fingers still chilled from being outside in the snowy cold. “Hush,” she told him. “Stop talking and kiss me again.”

 

T
HE MAIN RANCH HOUSE
seemed about to burst at the corners, the morning of Christmas Eve, as Lizzie stood obediently on a milk stool in Angus and Concepcion's bedroom upstairs, feeling resplendent in her lacy wedding dress, while Lorelei and the aunts, Emmeline, Mandy and Chloe, pinned and stitched and chattered.

Katie, the child born late in life to Angus and Concepcion, now eleven-going-on-forty, as Lorelei liked to say, sat on the side of her parents' bed, watching the proceedings. With her dark hair and deep-blue eyes, Katie was exquisitely beautiful, although she hadn't realized it yet.

“When I get married,” she said, her gaze sweeping over Lizzie's dress, “
I'm
not going to change my name. I'm still going to be Katie McKettrick, forever and ever, no matter what.”

“You won't be getting married for a while yet,” Chloe told her. Married to Lizzie's uncle Jeb, Chloe was a beauty herself, with copper-colored hair and bright, intelligent eyes. She taught all the children on and around the ranch in the little schoolhouse Jeb had built for her as a wedding present. “By then, you might have changed your mind about taking your husband's name.”

Stubbornly, Katie folded her arms. “No, I won't,” she said.

“You're just like your father,” Concepcion told her daughter, entering the room and closing the door quickly
behind her, so none of the men would get a glimpse of Lizzie in her dress. “Katie, Katie, quite contrary.”

Lizzie smiled. “You'll make a very lovely bride,” she told the little girl.

Katie beamed. “You look so pretty,” she told Lizzie. “Like a fairy queen.”

Lizzie thanked her, and the pinning and stitching went on. Finally, though, the sewing was done, and she was able to step behind the changing screen, shed the sumptuous dress and get back into her everyday garb. That day, it was a light-blue woolen frock with prim black piping and a high collar that tickled her under the chin.

Ducking around the screen again, she was surprised to see that though Concepcion, Lorelei and the aunts had gone, Katie remained.

Lizzie sat down on the bed beside her and draped an arm around Katie's shoulders. Although Katie was much younger, she was actually Lizzie's aunt, a half sister to Holt, Rafe, Jeb and Kade.

“All right,” Lizzie said gently, “what's bothering you, Katie-did?”

Tears brimmed in Katie's eyes. “You're getting married,” she said. “Everything is going to be different now.”

“Not so different,” Lizzie replied. “I'll still be your niece.”

Katie giggled at that, and sniffled. “I missed you so much when you went away to San Francisco,” she whispered.

Lizzie hugged her. “And I missed you. But I'm home now, and I'm staying.”

“You're getting
married,
” Katie repeated insistently.
“You're going to be Lizzie Shane, not Lizzie McKettrick. What if Morgan decides he doesn't like living in Indian Rock and takes you somewhere far away?”

“That isn't going to happen,” Lizzie said.

“How can you be so sure? When a woman gets married, the man's the boss from then on. You have to do what he says.”

Lizzie smiled. “Now, where would you have gotten such an idea, Katie McKettrick?” she teased. “Does your mama do what your papa tells her? Do any of your sisters-in-law take orders from your brothers?”

Katie brightened. “No,” she said.

“Morgan and I have talked all this through, Katie. We're staying right in Indian Rock, for good. He'll do his doctoring, and I'll teach school.”

“Will you have babies?”

The question made Lizzie squirm a little. She'd checked the calendar that morning, for a perfectly ordinary reason, and realized something important. “I certainly hope so,” she said carefully.

Katie wrapped both arms around Lizzie and squeezed hard. “The little kids think St. Nicholas is coming on Christmas Eve,” she confided. “But I'm big now, and I know it's Papa and Mama who fill my stocking and put presents under the tree.”

“Do you, now?” Lizzie countered mysteriously, thinking of Nicholas Christian—Mr. Christmas, as the Halifax children had called him.

“You're all grown up,” Katie said. “You don't believe in St. Nicholas.”

“Maybe not precisely,” Lizzie replied, “but I certainly believe in miracles.”

“What kind of miracles?” Katie wanted to know.
Young as she was, she had a tenaciously skeptical mind.

“I think angels visit earth, disguised as ordinary human beings, for one thing.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Maybe to help us be strong and keep going when we're discouraged.”

“Have you ever been discouraged, Lizzie?”

“Yes,” Lizzie answered. “Last Christmas, when Morgan and I and all the rest of us were trapped aboard that train, up in the high country, I wondered if we'd make it home. I kept my chin up, but I was worried.”

“You knew Papa and Holt and Rafe and Kade and Jeb would come get you,” Katie insisted. Lizzie nodded.

“Then why were you scared?”

“It was cold, and folks were sick and injured, and I was far away from all of you. There had been an avalanche, and one avalanche often leads to another.”

“And an angel came? Did it have wings?”

Lizzie laughed. “No wings,” she said. “Just a sample case and a flask of whiskey. He went out into the blizzard, though, and came back with a Christmas tree.”

Katie wrinkled her nose, clearly disappointed. “That doesn't sound like any angel I've ever heard of,” she replied. “They're supposed to fly, and have wings and halos—”

“Sometimes they have bowler hats and overcoats instead,” Lizzie said. “I know I met an angel, Katie McKettrick, a real, live angel, and you're not going to change my mind.”

“How did you
know?
” Katie wondered, intrigued in spite of herself. “That he was an angel, I mean?”

Lizzie glanced from side to side, even though they were alone in the room. “He disappeared,” she said. “I was talking to him last year, around this time, in the schoolyard in town. I turned away for a moment, and when I looked back, he was gone.”

Katie's wondrous eyes widened. “Are you joshing me, Lizzie?” she demanded. “I'm not a little kid anymore, you know.”

Lizzie chuckled. “I'm telling you the truth,” she said, holding up one hand, oath-giving style. “And you know what else? He didn't leave any footprints in the snow. Mine were there, and so were Morgan's, but it was as if Mr. Christmas hadn't been there at all.”

Katie let out a long breath.

Lizzie gave her young aunt another squeeze. “The point of all this, Katie-did,” she said, “is that it's important to believe in things, even when you're all grown up.”

“I still don't believe in St. Nicholas,” Katie said staunchly.

A knock sounded at the bedroom door, and Concepcion stuck her head in. “We're all leaving for town early,” she announced. “Angus says the way this snow is coming down, we might be in for another Christmas blizzard.”

T
HE WIND RATTLED THE WALLS
and windows of that sturdy little church, and as Holt McKettrick waited to walk his daughter up the aisle, following the Christmas Eve service, he thought about miracles. A year before, he'd come closer to losing Lizzie for good than he was willing to admit, even to himself. Now, here she stood, at his side, almost unbearably lovely in her wedding dress.

His little girl. About to be married.

Married.

She'd been twelve when she'd come to live with him—before that, he hadn't even known she existed. For a brief, poignant moment, he yearned for those lost years—Lizzie, learning to walk and talk. Wearing bows in her hair. Coming to him with skinned knees, disappointments and little-girl secrets.

But if there was one thing he'd learned in his life, it was that there was no sense in regretting the past. The
present,
that was what was important. It was all any of them really had.

The children in the congregation were restless, having sat through the service—it was Christmas Eve, after all—and the adults were eager. A low murmur rose from the crowd, and then a small voice rang out like a bell.

“Is it over yet?”

Doss, his and Lorelei's youngest.

The wedding guests laughed, and Holt joined in. Relaxed a little when his gaze connected with Lorelei's. She favored him with a smile and nodded slightly.

Holt nodded back.
I love you,
he told her silently.

And she nodded again.

Holt shifted his attention to the bridegroom.

The man standing up there at the altar, straight-backed and bright-eyed, was the
right
man for Lizzie, Holt was convinced of that. He suspected they'd jumped the gun a little, Lizzie and Morgan, and if Morgan hadn't been exactly who he was, Holt would have horsewhipped him for it.

They were young, as Lorelei had reminded him, when he'd told her he thought the bride and groom had been practicing up for the wedding night ahead of time, and they were in love.

He warmed at the memory of Lorelei's smile. “Remember how it was with us?” she'd asked. In truth, that part of their relationship hadn't changed. They had children and a home together now, so they couldn't be quite as spontaneous as they'd once been, but the passion between them was as fiery as ever.

The organist struck the first note of the wedding march.

“Ready?” Holt asked his daughter, his voice coming out gruff since there was a lump the size of Texas in his throat.

“Ready,” Lizzie assured him gently, squeezing his arm. “I love you, Papa.”

Tears scalded Holt's eyes. “I love you right back, Lizzie-bet,” he replied.

And they started toward the front of the church, where Morgan and Preacher Reynolds waited. The crowd blurred around Holt, and he wondered if Lizzie sensed that they were stepping out of an old world and into a brand-new one. Things would be different after tonight.

 

S
HE WAS SO BEAUTIFUL
, Morgan thought, as he watched Lizzie gliding toward him on her father's arm, a vision in her spectacular home-sewn dress. There was love in every stitch and fold of that gown and in every tiny crystal bead glittering on the bodice. Though he wasn't a fanciful man, Morgan knew in that moment that one day he and Lizzie would have a daughter, and she, too, would wear this dress. He'd know how Holt felt, when that day came. At the moment, he could only guess.

Finally Lizzie stood beside him.

His head felt light, and he braced his knees. Damn, but he was lucky. Luckier than he'd ever dreamed he could be.

“Who giveth this woman in marriage?” the preacher asked, raising his voice to be heard over the blizzard raging outside.

“Lorelei and I do,” Holt answered gravely. He kissed the top of Lizzie's head and went to sit beside Lorelei in the front pew, along with Angus and Concepcion.

Morgan smiled to himself. Earlier in the evening, Angus had informed him, in no uncertain terms, that if he ever did anything to hurt Lizzie, he'd get a hiding for it.

The holy words were said, the vows exchanged.

And then the preacher pronounced Lizzie and Morgan man and wife.

“You may kiss the bride,” Reynolds said.

His hands shaking a little—the hands that were so steady holding a scalpel or binding a wound—Morgan raised Lizzie's veil and gazed down into her upturned face, wonderstruck. She glowed, as though a light were burning inside her.

He kissed her, not hungrily, as he would later that night, when they were alone in the cottage, but reverently. A sacred charge passed between them, as though they had not only been joined on earth, but in heaven, too, and for all of time and eternity.

The organ thundered again, a joyous, triumphant sound, bouncing off the walls of that frontier church, and again a child's voice piped above the joyous chaos.

“It's over!”

Morgan laughed along with everybody else, but he was thinking,
It isn't over. Oh, no. This is only the start.

 

T
HE RECEPTION WAS HELD IN
the lobby of the Arizona Hotel, where a giant Christmas tree loomed over the proceedings, glittering with tinsel and blown-glass balls, presents piled high beneath it. Knowing the family wouldn't be able to get back to the ranch after the wedding, because of the storm, Lizzie's grandfather had had everything loaded onto hay sleds and brought to town. Most of the McKettricks would be staying at the hotel, while the overflow spent the night with the Thaddingses.

Lizzie, dazed with happiness, ate cake and posed for the photographer, with Morgan beside her. There were
piles of wedding gifts: homemade quilts, preserves, embroidered dish towels and pillowcases. She was hugged, kissed, congratulated and teased.

A band played, and she danced with her father first, then her grandfather, then each of her uncles in turn. By the time Morgan claimed
his
dance, Lizzie was winded.

When the time finally came for her and Morgan to take their leave, Lizzie was both relieved and quivery with nervous anticipation. She was Morgan's
wife,
now. And she had a gift for him that couldn't be wrapped in pretty paper and tied with a shimmery ribbon.

How would he respond when she told him?

A horse-drawn sleigh awaited the bride and groom in the snowy street outside. Lizzie left her veil in Lorelei's care, and they hastened toward the sleigh, Morgan bundling Lizzie quickly in thick blankets before huddling in beside her. Looking through the blinding flurries of white, she saw a figure hunched at the reins and wondered which of her uncles was driving.

The sleigh carried them swiftly through the night.

Lamps burned in the cottage windows when they arrived, glowing golden through the storm.

Morgan helped Lizzie down from the sleigh, swept her up into his arms, and carried her up the path to the front door. Looking back over her new husband's shoulder, Lizzie caught the briefest glimpse of the driver as he lifted his hat, and recognized Mr. Christmas. She started to call out to him, but the blizzard intensified and horse, sleigh and driver disappeared in a great, glittering swirl of snow.

And then they were inside, over the threshold.

Someone had decorated a small Christmas tree, and
placed it on a table in front of the window. Lizzie nearly knocked it over, rushing to look outside, hoping to see her unlikely angel again.

The wind had stopped, and the snow fell softly now, slowly, big, fluffy flakes of it, blanketing the street in peace.

“Lizzie, what is it?” Morgan asked, standing behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and drawing her back against him.

“I thought I saw—”

“What?”

She sighed, turned to Morgan, smiled up at him. “I thought I saw an angel,” she said.

Morgan smiled, kissed her forehead. “It's Christmas Eve. There might be an angel or two around.”

Lizzie swallowed, thinking that if she loved this man even a little bit more, she'd burst with the pure, elemental force of it. She paused, smiled. “I have a Christmas gift for you, Morgan,” she told him, very quietly.

He glanced down at the packages under the little tree, raised an eyebrow in question.

She took his hand, pressed it lightly to her lower abdomen. “A baby,” she said. “We're going to have a baby.”

Morgan's face was a study in startled delight. “When, Lizzie?”

“July, I think,” she replied, feeling shy. And much relieved. A part of her hadn't been sure Morgan would be pleased, since they were so newly married and had yet to establish a home together.

Gently, Morgan untied the laces of her cloak, slid it off her shoulders, laid it aside. “July,” he repeated.

“There'll be some gossip,” she warned. “I'm the schoolmarm, after all.”

Morgan chuckled, his eyes alight with love. “You know what they say. The first baby can come anytime, the rest take nine months.”

Lizzie was too happy to worry about gossip. She wasn't the first pregnant bride in Indian Rock, or in the McKettrick family, and she wouldn't be the last. “You're really glad, then?” She had to ask. “You don't wish we'd had more time?”

“I wouldn't change anything, Lizzie. Not anything at all.”

She sniffled. “I love you so much it scares me, Dr. Morgan Shane.”

He kissed her, lightly, the way he'd done in front of the altar earlier that night, when the preacher pronounced them man and wife. “And I love you, Mrs. Shane.”

She laughed, and they drew apart, and Lizzie glanced at the little tree and the packages beneath it. “Did you do this?” she asked.

Morgan shook his head. “I thought you did,” he replied.

“It must have been Lorelei, or the aunts,” Lizzie said, pleasantly puzzled. She picked up one of the packages and recognized her stepmother's handwriting. “To Morgan,” the tag read. “Open it,” she urged.

Morgan's expression showed clearly that he had other things in mind than opening Christmas presents, but he took the parcel and unwrapped it just the same. Inside was an exquisitely made toy locomotive, of shining black metal—a reminder of how he and Lizzie had met.

He smiled, admiring it. “Open yours,” he said.

Lizzie reached for the second parcel, gently tore away the ribbon and brightly colored paper. Lorelei had given her a baby's christening gown, frothy with lace, and a tiny bonnet to match.

“They
knew,
” she marveled.

Morgan's grin was mischievous. “Maybe we were too obvious,” he said.

Lizzie's cheeks warmed.

Morgan laughed and curved a finger under her chin. “Lizzie,” he said, “Holt and Lorelei aren't exactly doddering old folks. They're in love, too, remember?”

She smiled. Nodded. “I'd like to change out of this dress,” she said.

Morgan's eyes smoldered. “You do that,” he replied gruffly. “I'll build up the fire a little.”

Lizzie nodded and headed for the bedroom, stopping on the threshold to gasp. “Morgan!” she called.

He joined her.

A beautiful bed stood in the place that had been so noticeably vacant before, the headboard intricately carved with the image of a great, leafy oak, spreading its branches alongside a flowing creek. Birds soared against a cloud-strewn sky, and both their names had been carved into the trunk of the tree, inside a heart. Lizzie + Morgan.

Lizzie drew in her breath. This was her father's wedding gift, to her and to Morgan. It was more than a piece of furniture, more than an heirloom that would be passed down for generations. It was his
blessing,
on them and on their marriage.

“Lizzie McKettrick Shane,” Morgan said, leaning
to kiss the side of her neck, “you come from quite a family.”

She nodded, moved closer to the bed, stroked the fine woodwork with the tips of her fingers, marveling at the time, thought and love that had gone into such a creation. “And now you're part of it,” she told Morgan. “You and our baby and all the other babies that will come along later.”

Morgan lingered in the doorway, framed there, looking so handsome in his new suit, specially bought for the wedding, that Lizzie etched the moment into her memory, to keep forever.
Her husband.
Even when she was an old, old lady, creaky-boned and wrinkled, she knew she would recall every detail of the way he looked that night.

“I'll see to the fire,” he said, after a long, long time.

Lizzie nodded, shyly now. Waited until Morgan had stepped away from the door before taking a lacy nightgown from the trunk containing her trousseau and changing into it. She folded her wedding gown carefully, placed it in a box set aside for the purpose. She took down her hair and brushed it in front of the vanity mirror until it shone.

Morgan had never seen her with her hair down.

Warmth filled the cottage and, one by one, the lamps in the parlor went out. Lizzie waited, her heart racing a little.

Morgan filled the bedroom doorway again, a man-shaped shadow, rimmed in faint, wintry light. The sweet silence of the snow outside seemed to muffle all sound. They might have been alone in the world that Christmas
Eve, she and Morgan, two wanderers who'd somehow found their way to each other after long and difficult journeys.

Morgan whispered her name, came toward her.

She slipped into his arms.

They'd looked forward to making love on their wedding night, both of them. Now, by tacit agreement, they waited, savoring every nuance of being together.

Morgan threaded his hands through Lizzie's hair.

She felt beautiful.

“To think,” Morgan said quietly, “that I almost didn't get on that train last Christmas.”

“Don't think,” Lizzie teased. He'd said the same thing to her, once, while they were stranded on the mountainside.

He chuckled, and kissed her with restrained passion. Eagerness and wanting sang through Lizzie, but she was willing to wait. There was no hurry: she and Morgan were married now, after all. They would make love countless times in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.