A McKettrick Christmas (14 page)

Lizzie laughed. “No,” she said. “I don’t think it would.”

Lorelei smiled, her eyes glistening with happy tears. “It’s love, all right. When I met your father, I figured we were all wrong for each other, and I wanted to be with him so badly that I couldn’t think straight.”

“Something else happened,” Lizzie went on, because there was very little she didn’t share with her stepmother. Quietly, carefully, she told Lorelei about her encounter with Mr. Christian, at the schoolyard, leaving nothing out.

“Good heavens,” Lorelei said, when the tale was told. Then she reached out and tested Lizzie’s forehead for fever. Finding her flesh cool, she frowned and managed to look relieved at one and the same time.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Lizzie asked shyly.

“If you say you saw this Mr. Christian,” Lorelei said, without hesitation, “then you saw him. You are no flibbertigibbet, Lizzie McKettrick.”

“But how could he have just—just
disappeared
that way?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea,” Lorelei answered. Then she rose from her chair. “Finish your stew. I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll have tea.”

Lizzie nodded and her stepmother hurried out of the kitchen, only to be replaced by Angus. He helped himself to a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and stood watching Lizzie curiously, as though she’d changed in some fundamental way.

And perhaps she had.

“You did a fine job after that avalanche,” he told her. “Looking after folks. Trying to keep their spirits up.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie said. Hers was an independent spirit, but she valued her grandfather’s opinion of her, along with those of Lorelei and, of course, her papa.

He sipped his coffee. “You’re all right, aren’t you, Lizzie-girl? You seem—well—different.”

“It’s possible I’m in love,” she said.

Angus smiled, lifted his coffee cup as if in a toast. “I’ll drink to that,” he replied, just as Lorelei returned to the kitchen, carrying a Bible.

Lizzie set aside her bowl of stew, and Lorelei practically shoved the Good Book under her nose.

“Read this,” she ordered, pointing to a passage in Hebrews, thirteenth chapter, second verse:

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

“M
r. Christian makes an unlikely angel,” Lizzie told Morgan, standing in his examining room, several hours after Lorelei had shown her the Bible verse in the hotel kitchen. “Don’t you think?”

Morgan pulled his stethoscope from around his neck and set it aside. “Not having made the acquaintance of all that many angels,” he replied, “I couldn’t say.”

“He played cards with the children,” Lizzie said, groping for reasons why Mr. Christian could not be a part of the heavenly host. “He pulled a gun on Whitley once, and he gave you
whiskey
when you went out into the blizzard—”

“Positively demonic,” Morgan teased. “I guess I missed the part where he drew a gun.”

“You were outside,” Lizzie answered.

“Why would a peddler feel compelled to threaten Carson with a gun, annoying though he is?”

Lizzie shook off the question. “I’m
trying
to make some sense of what happened, Morgan,” Lizzie protested, “and you are not helping.”

He grinned. “Some things just don’t make sense, Lizzie McKettrick,” he said. “Like why every unmarried woman in Indian Rock seems to have developed some fetching and very melodramatic malady.”

Lizzie laughed, though she wasn’t amused. “No mystery to that,” she answered. “You’re an eligible bachelor, after all.”

He moved closer to her, rested his hands on her shoulders. “Oh, but I’m
not
eligible,” he said, his low voice setting things aquiver inside Lizzie. “I’m definitely taken.”

He was about to kiss her again, but the office door crashed open with a terrible bang, and both of them turned to see Doss, Lizzie’s seven-year-old brother, standing on the threshold.

“Pa’s back!” he shouted exuberantly. “The roads are clear, and after church, we can go home and have Christmas!” He paused, his small face screwed into a puzzled frown. “Were you
smooching?
” he demanded, looking suspicious.

Lizzie laughed, and so did Morgan.

“No,” Lizzie said.

“Yes,” Morgan replied, at the same moment.

“You’d better get married, then,” Doss decided. “You’re not supposed to kiss people if you’re not married to them.”

“Is that right?” Morgan asked, approaching Doss and ruffling his thick blond hair.

“I bet it says so in the Bible,” Doss insisted solemnly.

“Do we have a budding preacher in our midst?” Morgan asked Lizzie, his eyes full of warm laughter.

Lizzie giggled. “Doss? Perish the thought. He’s more imp than angel.”

At the word
angel,
a little silence fell. Lizzie thought of Mr. Christian, of course, and the insoluble mystery he represented.

“We had to wait to have Christmas,” Doss complained. “There are a whole
bunch
of packages under our tree at home, and some of them are mine. And now we have to sit through
church,
too.”

Lizzie’s attention was on Morgan. “Will you come with us?” she asked. “To celebrate a McKettrick Christmas, I mean?”

Morgan looked reluctant. “I’d be intruding,” he said.

“That man with the broken leg is going,” Doss put in, relentlessly helpful.

Morgan merely spread his hands to Lizzie, as if to say
I told you so.

“You belong with us,” Lizzie said, not to be put off. It would be awkward, celebrating their delayed Christmas with both Whitley and Morgan present, but that was unavoidable. To leave Whitley alone at the hotel while everyone else enjoyed roast goose and eggnog was simply not the McKettrick way.

In the end Morgan relented.

Pastor Reynolds held a Christmas Eve service at sunset, and the whole town attended. Candles were lit, carols were sung, a gentle sermon was preached. After the closing prayer, gifts were given out to all the children, and Lizzie recognized her father’s handiwork, made in his woodshop, and the cloth dolls and animals Lorelei and the aunts had sewn. Every child received a present.

Mr. and Mrs. Thaddings watched fondly, and somewhat wistfully, Lizzie thought, as Ellen Halifax showed off the doll she’d wanted so much. Jack received a stick horse with a yarn mane, and galloped up and down the aisle, despite his mother’s protests. John and Alice Brennan were there, too, with Alice’s parents and little Tad, who seemed fascinated with his toy buckboard.

Lizzie approached the Thaddingses. She knew Pastor Reynolds had wired Clarinda Adams on their behalf, hoping she’d allow them to stay on until she either returned or sold the house, but there hadn’t been time for an answer.

Mrs. Thaddings embraced her. “You look well, Lizzie,” she said.

“I’m happy to be home,” Lizzie replied. Whitley, standing nearby, letting his crutches support his weight, looked despondent. She wondered if he’d ever considered staying on in Indian Rock, or if he’d always intended to insist they live in San Francisco, after they were married.

She would probably never know, she decided. And it didn’t matter.

“We’d better get back and see to Woodrow, dear,” Mr. Thaddings told his wife, taking a gentle hold on her elbow. “Before this snow gets too deep.”

Lizzie wasn’t about to let the Thaddingses walk home, and quickly conscripted her goodnatured uncle Jeb to drive them in his buggy.

Later, when the McKettrick clan left Indian Rock for the Triple M, Morgan was with them, seated next to Lizzie in the back of her father’s wagon. Whitley, alternately scowling and looking bleak, rode in the other. The snow, so threatening on the mountain, fell like a blessed benediction all around them, soothing and soft, almost magical.

The first sight of the main ranch house brought tears to Lizzie’s eyes. She’d thought, before the rescue, that she might never see the home place again, never warm herself before one of the fires, dream in a rocking chair while a summer rain pattered at the roof. But there it was, sturdy and dearly familiar, its roof laced with snow, its windows alight with a golden glow.

Dogs barked a merry greeting, and small cousins, as well as aunts and uncles, poured from wagons and buckboards, their voices a happy buzz in the wintry darkness.

Lizzie stood still, after Morgan helped her down from the wagon, taking it all in. Hiding things in her heart.

Inside her grandfather’s house, a giant tree winked with tinsel. Piles of packages stood beneath it, some simply wrapped in brown paper or newsprint, others bedecked in pretty cloth and tied with shimmering ribbons.

Concepcion, her grandfather’s wife, must have been cooking for days. The house was redolent with the aromas Lizzie had yearned for on the stranded train—freshly baked bread, savory roast goose, spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Lizzie breathed deeply of the love and happiness surrounding her on all sides.

The children were excited, of course, all the more so because, for them, Christmas was just plain late. At Holt’s suggestion, they were allowed to empty their bulging St. Nicholas stockings and open their packages.

Chaos reigned while dolls and games and brightly colored shirts and dresses were unwrapped. Lizzie watched the whole scene in a daze of gratitude and love for her large, boisterous family. Morgan stood nearby, enjoying the melee, while Whitley slumped in a leather chair next to the fireplace, wearing an expression that said, “Bah, humbug.”

If she hadn’t known it before, Lizzie would have known then that Whitley simply didn’t belong with this rowdy crew. Morgan, on the other hand, had soon taken off his coat, pushed up his sleeves and knelt on the floor to help Doss assemble a miniature ranch house from a toy set of interlocking logs.

A nudge from her father distracted Lizzie, and she started when she saw what he was holding in his hands—Mr. Christian’s music box, the one he’d given her on Christmas Eve, aboard the train.

She blinked. Surely they’d left it behind, along with most of their other possessions, to be collected later.

“The tag says it’s for you,” Holt said, looking puzzled. Clearly, he didn’t recall seeing the music box before.

Lizzie’s hands trembled as she accepted the box. A strain of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” tinkled from its depths, so ethereal that she was sure, in the moment after, that she’d imagined it.

She found a chair—not easy since the house was bulging with McKettricks—and sank into it, stricken speechless.

Whitley, as it happened, already occupied the chair next to hers. He frowned, eyeing the music box resting in Lizzie’s lap like some sacred object to be guarded at all costs.

“That’s pretty,” he said, with a grudging note to his voice. “Did Shane give it to you?”

Lizzie shook her head, made herself meet Whitley’s gaze. “Don’t you remember, Whitley?” she asked, referring to Christmas Eve on the train, when they’d
all
seen the music box, listened with sad delight to its chiming tunes.

“Remember what?” Whitley asked. He wasn’t pretending, Lizzie knew. He honestly didn’t recall either the music box
or
Mr. Christian.

“Never mind,” Lizzie said.

Dinner was announced, and Whitley got up, reaching for his crutches, and stumped off toward the dining room. Most of the children had fallen asleep on piles of crumpled wrapping paper, and the adults had all gone to eat.

All except Morgan, and Lizzie herself, that is.

“Hungry?” Morgan asked, extending a hand to Lizzie.

She set the music box aside, on the sturdy table next to her chair, and took Morgan’s hand. “Starved,” she said.

Instead of escorting her into the dining room, where everyone else had gathered—their voices were like a muted symphony of laughter and happy conversation, sweet to Lizzie’s ears—Morgan drew her close. Held her as though they were about to swirl into the flow of a waltz.

“If what I’m feeling right now isn’t love,” Morgan said, his lips nearly touching Lizzie’s, “then there’s something even
better
than love.”

Lizzie’s throat constricted. She whispered his name, and he would have kissed her, she supposed, if a third party hadn’t made his presence known with a clearing of the throat.

“Time for that later,” Angus said, grinning. “Supper’s on the table.”

By New Year’s, the tracks had been cleared and the trains were running again. Lizzie waited on the platform, alongside Whitley, the sole traveler leaving Indian Rock that day.

A cold, dry wind blew, stinging Lizzie’s ears, and she felt as miserable as Whitley looked.

You’ll meet someone else.

That was what she wanted to say, but it seemed presumptuous, under the circumstances. Whitley’s feelings were private ones, and she had no real way of knowing what they were.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked quietly, as the train rounded the bend in the near distance, whistle blowing, white steam chuffing from the smokestack against a brittle blue sky. “We could have a good life together, Lizzie.”

Lizzie blinked back tears. Yes, she supposed they
could
have a good life together, she and Whitley, good enough, anyway. But she wanted more than “good enough,” for herself and Morgan—and for Whitley. “You belong in San Francisco,” she told him gently. “And I belong right here, in Indian Rock.”

Whitley surprised her with a sad, tender smile. “I hate to admit it,” he said, “but you’re probably right. Be happy, Lizzie.”

The train was nearly at the platform now, and so loud that Lizzie would have had to shout to be heard over the din. So she stood on tiptoe and planted a brief, chaste kiss on Whitley’s mouth.

Metal brakes squealed as the train came to a full stop.

Whitley stared into Lizzie’s eyes for a long moment, saying a silent fare-thee-well, then he turned, deft on his crutches, to leave. She watched until he’d boarded the train, then turned and walked slowly away.

In the morning, her first day of teaching would commence. She headed for the schoolhouse, where her father and her uncle Jeb were unloading some of her things from the back of a buckboard.

Jeb nodded to her and smiled before lugging her rocking chair inside, but Holt came to Lizzie and slipped an arm around her shoulders. Kissed her lightly on the forehead.

“Goodbyes can be hard,” he said, knowing she’d just come from the train depot, “even when it’s for the best.”

Lizzie nodded, choked up. “I was so sure—”

Holt chuckled. “Of course you were sure,” he said. “You’re a McKettrick, and McKettricks are sure of everything.”

“What if I’m wrong about Morgan?” she asked, looking up into her father’s face. “I don’t think I could stand to say goodbye to him.”

“Don’t borrow trouble, Lizzie-bet,” Holt smiled. “You’ve got a year of courting ahead of you. And my guess is, at the end of that time, you’ll know for sure, one way or the other.”

She nodded, swallowed, and rested her forehead against Holt’s shoulder.

Later, when she’d explored her classroom, with its blackboard and potbellied stove and long, low-slung tables, for what must have been the hundredth time, she went into her living quarters.