Free A McKettrick Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Page B

beans is sure bony,” Brennan said. “I guess they ain’t had time to cook through.”
    Lizzie gave a rueful little chuckle of agreement.
    And Morgan watched, struck by some stray and nameless emotion.
    It was a simple sight, a woman spooning soup into an invalid’s mouth, but it stirred Morgan just the same. He wondered if Lizzie would fall apart when this was all over, or if she’d carry on. He was betting on the latter.
    Of course, they’d have to be rescued first, and the worse the weather got, the more unlikely that seemed.
    The thin soup soothed Brennan’s cough. He accepted as much as he could and finally sank into a shallow rest.
    Creeping shadows of twilight filled the car; another day was ending.
    The peddler had engaged the children in a new game of cards. Carson, like Brennan, slept. Mrs. Halifax and the baby lay on the bench seat, bundled in the quilt, the woman staring trancelike into an uncertain future, the infant gnawing on one grubby little fist.
    Madonna and Child, Morgan thought glumly.
    He made his way to the far end of the car, sat down on the bench and tipped his head back against the window. Tons of snow pressed cold against it, seeped through flesh and bone to chill his marrow; he might have been sitting in the lap of the mountain itself. He closed his eyes; did not open them when he felt Lizzie take a seat beside him.
    “Rest,” he told her. “You must be worn-out.”
    “I can’t,” she said. He heard the slightest tremor in her voice. “I thought—I thought they’d be here by now.”
    Morgan opened his eyes, met Lizzie’s gaze.
    “Do you suppose something’s happened to them? My papa and the others?”
    He wanted to comfort her, even though he shared her concern for the delayed rescue party. If they’d set out at all, they probably hadn’t made much progress. He took her hand, squeezed it, at a loss for something to say.
    She smiled sadly, staring into some bright distance he couldn’t see. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” she said, very quietly. “My brothers, Gabriel and Doss, always want to sleep in the barn on Christmas Eve, because our grandfather says the animals talk at midnight. Every year they carry blankets out there and make beds in the straw, determined to hear the milk cows and the horses chatting with each other. Every year they fall asleep hours before the clock strikes twelve, and Papa carries them back into the house, one by one, and Lorelei tucks them in. And every year, I think this will be the time they manage to stay awake, the year they stop believing.”
    Morgan longed to put an arm around Lizzie’s shoulders and draw her close, but he didn’t. Such gestures were Whitley Carson’s prerogative, not his. “What about you?” he asked. “Did you sleep in the barn on Christmas Eve when you were little? Hoping to hear the animals talk?”
    She started slightly, coming out of her reverie, turning to meet his eyes. Shook her head. “I was twelve when I came to live on the Triple M,” she said.
    She offered nothing more, and Morgan didn’t pry, even though he wanted to know everything about her, things she didn’t even know about herself.
    “You’ve been a help, Lizzie,” he told her. “With John Brennan and with Carson, too.”
    “I keep thinking about the conductor and the engineer—their families….”
    “Don’t,” Morgan advised.
    She studied him. “I heard what you told John Brennan—that he ought to think about fishing with his son, instead of…instead of dying—”
    Morgan nodded, realized he was still holding Lizzie’s hand, improper as that was. Drew some satisfaction from the fact that she hadn’t pulled away.
    “Do you believe it really makes a difference?” she went on, when she’d gathered her composure. “Thinking about good things, I mean?”
    “Regardless of how things turn out,” he replied, “thinking about good things feels better than worrying, wouldn’t you say? So in that respect, yes, I’d say it makes a