Free A McKettrick Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

someone thawing out after a bad case of frostbite. “Best get Mr. Carson ready for the splints,” he said. “The more I can do before he wakes up, the better.”
    She nodded her understanding, but dipped a clean mug into the brew anyway, and brought the soup to Morgan. He took a sip, set the mug aside, shrugged out of his coat. Using scissors from his bag, he cut Carson’s snow-soaked pant leg from hem to knee and ripped the fabric open to the man’s midthigh. Lizzie neither flinched nor looked away.
    Morgan had the brief and disturbing thought that Lizzie might not be unfamiliar with the sight of Carson’s bare flesh. He shoved the idea aside—Lizzie McKettrick’s private life was patently none of his business. He certainly had no claim on her.
    “I’ve got a petticoat,” she said.
    The announcement startled Morgan. Meanwhile, Carson had begun to stir, writhing a little, tossing his head from side to side as, with consciousness, the pain returned. Morgan paused to glance at Lizzie.
    She went pink. “To bind the splints,” she explained.
    Morgan nodded, trying not to smile at her embarrassment.
    Lizzie stepped back, out of his sight. There followed a poignantly feminine rustle of fabric, and then she returned to present him with a garment of delicate ivory silk, frothing with lace. For one self-indulgent moment, Morgan held the petticoat in a tight fist, savoring the feel of it, the faint scent of lavender caught in its folds, then proceeded to rip the costly fabric into wide strips. In the interim, Lizzie fetched his bag without being asked.
    Carson opened his eyes, gazed imploringly up at her. “I meant…” he whispered awkwardly, the words scratching like sandpaper on splintery wood. “I meant to find help, Lizzie…. I’m so sorry…the way I acted before…”
    “Shh,” she said. She sat down on the bench, carefully placed Carson’s head on her lap, stroked his hair. Morgan felt another flash of envy, a deep gouge of emotion, raw and bitter.
    Christian returned with the requested tree branches, trimmed them handily with an ivory-handled pocket knife. The scent of pine sap lent the caboose an ironically festive air.
    “This is going to hurt,” Morgan warned Carson bluntly, gripping the man’s ankle in both hands.
    Carson bit his lower lip and nodded, preparing himself.
    “Can’t you give him something for the pain?” Lizzie interceded, looking up into Morgan’s face with anxious eyes.
    “Afterward,” Morgan said. He didn’t begrudge Carson a dose of morphine, but it was potent stuff, and the patient was in shock. If he happened to be sensitive to the drug, as many people were, the results could be disastrous. Better to administer a swallow of laudanum later. “It’ll be over quickly.”
    “Do it,” Carson said, and went up a little in Morgan’s estimation. Perhaps he had some character after all.
    Morgan closed his eyes; he had a sixth sense about bones and internal organs, something he’d never mentioned to a living soul, including his father, because there was no scientific explanation for it. He saw the break in his mind, as clearly as if he’d laid Carson’s hide and muscle open with a scalpel. When he felt ready, he gave the leg a swift, practiced wrench.
    Carson yelled.
    But the fractured femur was back in alignment.
    Quickly, deftly, and with all the gentleness he could manage—again, this was more for Lizzie’s sake than Carson’s—Morgan set the splints in place and bound them firmly with the long strips of petticoat.
    Taking a bottle of laudanum from his kit, Morgan pulled the cork and held it to Carson’s mouth. “One sip,” he said.
    Sweating and pale, Carson raised himself up a little from Lizzie’s lap and gulped down a mouthful of the bitter compound. The drug began taking effect almost immediately—Carson sighed, settled back, closed his eyes. Lizzie murmured sweet, senseless words to him, still smoothing his hair.
    Morgan had set many broken limbs in his