Free Coming Home for Christmas by Carla Kelly Page B

completed his haute couture, plus sandals. His medical bag was always in the same place. He slung it around his shoulder and reached for the cloth bag full of bandages.
    â€œYou’re my pharmacist’s mate,” he told his wife, handing the bag to her. “Just follow me. We’ll check the garrison first.”
    She nodded, clutching for his arm when the floor started to sway again with an aftershock. “Dios mio,” she muttered, holding tight to his arm. “Why do people live in San Diego?”
    â€œMust be the beaches,” he said, trying to make a joke, as the floor heaved and then stopped. “This never happens in Dumfries.”
    It pleased him that Laura could still tease in turn. “From what you have told me, nothing else ever happens there, either, including Christmas,” she whispered in his ear. “We may have to do something drastic about Dumfries.”

Chapter Nine
    I mpulsively Thomas kissed her cheek, then started for the small barrack on the opposite side of the courtyard. Few soldiers lived there permanently. The captain had explained to them several years back that soldados in Spanish forts generally lived outside the walls with their families, or even in bachelor houses.
    He held out his hand for Laura and she took it, hanging back for a small moment. He turned around and noticed the tears in her eyes.
    â€œI’m afraid,” she whispered.
    â€œI am, too,” he told her honestly, “but I know what to do, and you know far more than you think you do.”
    She must have believed him because she nodded and squeezed his hand. His reassurance grew when she corrected his Spanish.
    They found the captain nursing nothing worse than a bump on his head, caused when the bookcase with government regulations had collapsed against his desk, spilling out more than a century of parchment documents bound with red ties. While Thomas felt his forehead the captain remained serene, contemplating the piles of regulations. “I doubt any of us paid much attention to them anyway,” was his philosophical comment. “Spain is so far away.”
    Their visit to the mess hall took longer. The cook and his minions still crouched under tables, one Kumeyaay boy clutching his foot, cut when he’d run across broken china to slide to safety with the others. After Thomas coaxed them out, Laura bound the lad’s foot and gave him a handful of sweets from a box that had burst open. The cook glared at her for wasting delicacies on a mission Indian, but Laura just glared back, winning that staring contest handily. Thomas could have told the man to save his glares; his wife never suffered fools gladly and was not inclined to start now.
    They finished up quickly in the presidio, hurried along by soldiers from outside the walls, begging for help with their families. Laura hung back for only a moment, looking to Thomas for reassurance. She had not left the comparative safety of the fort since her father had been led in chains from the presidio.
    â€œI need you, Laura,” was all he said. He gave her hand a tug and she followed.
    The presidio was well built, courtesy of Spanish engineers decades ago; the pueblo itself was another matter. Thomas saw the injuries he expected he would see: broken limbs caused by falling beams, lacerations and burns from overturned cooking pots. These were the worst, but Laura waded right in with him, her eyes fierce in their concentration. Only once did she throw up. As he wiped her mouth, Thomas assured her there wouldn’t be anything worse than burns.
    â€œHow do you do this?” she asked, from the safe nest she had made of his shoulder’s hollow, as he held her tight.
    â€œHow? I know how,” he said simply. “So do you, my dear.”
    With a quick squeeze of her shoulder and a pat on her hip—he had taken that liberty without a qualm—he sent her back to applying salve to the less-horrific burns as he did