Free The Christmas Brides by Linda Lael Miller

broken my leg…slipped on the tracks… almost went over the side—”
    Morgan confirmed the diagnosis with a few practiced motions of his hands, even though his wind-stung eyes had already offered the proof. He opened the flask again, with less difficulty this time, and held it to Carson’s lips. “I’ll get you back to the train,” he said, leaning in close to be heard over the howl of the wind, “but it’s going to hurt.”
    Carson swallowed, nodded. “I know,” he rasped. He groaned when Morgan hoisted him to his one good foot, cried out when he tried to take a step.
    Morgan sighed inwardly, crouched a little, and slung Carson over his right shoulder like a sack of grain. He remembered little of the walk back to the train—it was a matter of staying upright and putting one foot in front of the other. At some point, Carson must have passed out from the pain—he was limp, a dead weight, and several times Morgan had to fight to keep from going down.
    When the train came in sight, Morgan offered a silent prayer of thanks, though it had been a long time since he’d been on speaking terms with God. The peddler, Mr. Christian, met him at the base of the steps leading up to the caboose. Stronger than Morgan would have guessed, the older man helped him get the patient inside.
    Lizzie had concocted something on the stove—a soup or broth of some sort, from the savory aroma, but when she saw her unconscious beau, alarm flared in her eyes and she turned from the coffee can serving as an improvised kettle. “Is he…he’s not—”
    Morgan shook his head to put her mind at ease, butdidn’t answer verbally until he and the peddler had laid their burden down on the bench seat opposite the place where John Brennan rested.
    â€œHis leg is broken,” Morgan said grimly, rubbing his hands together in a mostly vain attempt to restore some circulation. He had a small supply of morphine in his bag, along with tincture of laudanum—he’d sent his other supplies ahead to Indian Rock after agreeing to set up a practice there. He could ease Carson’s pain, but he dared not give him too much medicine, mainly because the damned fool had been tossing back copious amounts of whiskey since the avalanche. “I have to set the fracture,” he added. “For that, I’ll need some straight branches and strips of cloth to bind them to the leg.”
    Lizzie drew nearer, peering between Morgan and the peddler to stare, white-faced, at Carson. “Is he in pain?” she asked, her voice small.
    No one answered.
    â€œI’ll see what I can find for splints,” the peddler said.
    Morgan replied with a grateful nod. He’d nearly frozen, hunting down and retrieving Carson. If he went out again too soon, he’d be of no use to anybody. “Stay near the train if you can,” he told Christian. “And take care not to slip over the side.”
    The peddler promised to look out for himself and left. Mrs. Halifax and the children were sleeping, all of them wrapped up together in the quilt. Mr. and Mrs. Thaddings were snoozing, too, the sides of their heads touching, though Woodrow was wide-awake and very interested in the proceedings.
    â€œWhen your friend regains consciousness, he’ll bein considerable pain,” Morgan said, in belated answer to Lizzie’s question. Her concern was only natural— anyone with a shred of compassion in their soul would be sympathetic to Carson’s plight. Still, the intensity of her reaction, unspoken as it was, reconfirmed his previous insight—Lizzie might think she no longer loved Whitley Carson, but she was probably fooling herself.
    She did something unexpected then—took Morgan’s hands into her own, removed the gloves he’d borrowed from Christian earlier, chafed his bare, cold skin between warm palms. The act was simple, patently ordinary and yet sensual in