the heat of his flesh quickly defeated the purpose. Lizzie, on her knees beside the seat where he lay, turned her head and saw that Zebulon Thaddings had brought in a bucketful of snow. Gratefully, she repeated the process.
“It would be a favor if you’d call me by my given name,” Mr. Brennan told her. His coughing had turned violent, and he seemed almost delirious, alternately shaking with chills and trying to throw off his covers. “I wouldn’t feel so far from home thataways.”
Lizzie blinked back another spate of hot tears. “You’ll get home, John,” she said, fairly choking out the words. “I promise you will.”
A small hand came to rest on her shoulder. She looked around, saw Ellen standing beside her. “I could do that,” the child said gently, referring to the repeated wetting, wringing and applying of the cloth to John’s forehead. “So you could rest a spell. Have some of that tea Mr. Christmas made.”
Lizzie’s first instinct was to refuse—tending the sick was no task for a small child. On the other hand, the offer was a gift and oughtn’t to be spurned. “Mr. Christmas?” she asked, bemused, distracted by worry. “Don’t you mean Mr. Christian?”
Ellen smiled, took the cloth. Edged Lizzie aside. “Here, now, Mr. Brennan,” the little girl said, sounding like a miniature adult. “You just listen, and I’ll talk. Me and my ma and my brother Jack and my little sister, Nellie Anne, we’re on our way to the Triple M Ranch—”
Lizzie got to her feet, turned to find Mr. Christian holding out a mug full of spice-fragrant tea, hot and strong and probably laced with the very expensive colored sugar.
Mr. Christmas. Maybe Ellen had gotten the peddler’s name right after all.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE COLD WAS BRUTAL, the snow blinding. Morgan slogged through it, following the rails as best he could. It was in large part a guessing game, and he had to be careful to stay away from the bank on the left. That presented a challenge, since he couldn’t be entirely certain where it was.
Carson, the damn fool, had left footprints, but they were filling in fast, and the man was clearly no relation to the famous scout with the same last name. Tracking him was more likely to lead Morgan to the bottom of the ravine than the nearest town.
Cursing under his breath—the wind buffeted it away every time he raised his head—Morgan kept going, ever mindful of the passing of time. If he took too long finding Carson and bringing him back, he knew Lizzie would make good on her threat to mount a one-woman search. John Brennan was too sick to stop her, let alone make the trek in her stead, and the peddler, well, he was a curious fellow, now guarding that sample case of his as if it contained the Holy Grail, now serving up goose-liver pâté and other delicacies on fancy china plates. He might keep Lizzie in the caboose, where she belonged, or send her out into the blizzard with his blessings. Morgan, by necessity an astute observer of the human animal, wasn’t sure the man was completely sane.
Lizzie. In spite of his own situation, he smiled. What a hardheaded little firebrand she was—pretty. Smart as hell. Calm in a crisis that would have had many females—and males, too, to be fair—wringing their hand kerchiefs and bewailing a cruel fate. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said she’d make a good nurse.
Now, in the strange privacy of a high-country blizzard, he could admit something else, too—if only to himself. Lizzie McKettrick would make an even better doctor’s wife than she would a nurse.
He felt something grind inside him, both painful and pleasant.
It was sheer idiocy to think of her in such intimate terms. They barely knew each other, after all, and she was set on teaching school, married or single. On top of that, she’d been fond enough of Whitley Carson to bring him home to her family during a sacred season. Her irritation with Carson would most likely fade, once they were all safe again. She’d forget the man’s shortcomings soon enough, when the two of them were sipping punch beside a big Christmas tree in some grand McKettrick parlor.
The realization sobered Morgan. He felt something for Lizzie, though it was far too soon to know just what, but opening his time-hardened heart to her would be foolhardy. Rash. Until this trip, Morgan Shane had never done anything rash in his life. A week ago, even a few days ago, he wouldn’t have considered taking the kind of stupid chance he was in the midst of right now, bumbling into the maw of a storm that might well swallow him whole.
Yes, he was a doctor, and a dedicated one. He was a pragmatist’s pragmatist, in a field where the most competent were bone skeptical. He believed that, upon reaching the age of reason, everyone was responsible for their own actions, and the resultant consequences. Therefore, if Whitley Carson was stupid enough to set off looking for help in the middle of a snowstorm, he had that right. From Morgan’s perspective, his own duty, as a man and as a physician, lay with John Brennan, Mrs. Halifax and her children, the peddler, the Thaddingses, and Lizzie.
Hell, he even felt responsible for the bird.
So why was he out there in the snowstorm, when he knew better, knew the hopelessness of the task he’d undertaken?
The answer made him flinch inside.
Because of Lizzie. He was doing this for Lizzie. Whatever her present mood, she loved Carson. Bringing the man home to the bosom of her fabled clan was proof of that.
Flesh stinging, Morgan kept walking. His feet were numb, and so were his hands. His ears burned as though someone had laid hot pokers to them, and every breath felt like an inhalation of flame. He fumbled for the flask Nicholas Christian had given him earlier, managed to get the lid off, and took a swig, blessing the bracing warmth that surged through him with the first swallow.
He found Carson sprawled in the snow, just around a bend.
Was he dead?
Morgan’s heartbeat quickened, and so did his half-frozen brain. He crouched beside the prone body, searched for and found a pulse.
Carson opened his eyes. “My leg,” he scratched out. “I think I’ve 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
