The Christmas Brides Read Online Free PDF Page A

keeping her voice down, “and food. Do you suppose there might be food in the freight car?”
    He grinned at her. “I watched you in the restaurant at the depot today,” he said. “You barely touched your meat loaf special.”
    â€œYou were watching me?” She found the idea at once disturbing and titillating.
    â€œHard not to,” Morgan said. “You’re a very good-looking woman, Lizzie. I did wonder, I confess, about your taste in traveling companions.”
    Lizzie felt color warm her cheeks, and for once, she welcomed it. Every other part of her was cold. “You seem to have formed a very immediate, and very poor, impression of Mr. Carson.”
    â€œI’m a good judge of character,” he replied. “Mr. Carson doesn’t seem to have one, as far as I’ve been able to discern.”
    â€œHow could you possibly have reached such a conclusion merely by looking at him in a busy train depot?”
    â€œHe didn’t pull back your chair for you when you sat down,” Morgan went on, his tone just shy of smug. “And you paid the bill. It only took a glance to see those things—I saved the active looking for you.”
    â€œMr. Carson,” Lizzie said, mildly mortified, “is making this journey as my guest. That’s why I paid for his meal. He is, I assure you, quite solvent.”
    â€œPlanning to parade him past the McKettricks?” Morgan teased, after a capitulating grin. “I’ve only met one of them—Kade—a few weeks ago, in Tucson. He told me Indian Rock needed a doctor and offered me an office in the Arizona Hotel and plenty of patients if I’d come and set up a practice. Didn’t strike me as the sort to be impressed by the likes of Mr. Carson.”
    All kinds of protests were brewing in Lizzie’s bosom, but the mention of her uncle’s name stopped her as surely as the avalanche had stopped the train. Though she wasn’t about to admit it, Morgan’s guess was probablycorrect. Kade, like all the other McKettrick men, judged people by their actions rather than their words. Whitley could talk fit to charm a mockingbird out of its tree, but he plainly wasn’t much for pushing up his sleeves and doing something about a situation. There was no denying that.
    â€œI’m afraid you’re right,” Lizzie conceded, bereft.
    Morgan squeezed her hand again.
    The wind lashed at the train from the side that wasn’t snowbound, rocked it ominously back and forth. Lizzie spoke again, needing to fill the silence.
    â€œDid you practice medicine in Tucson?” she asked.
    Morgan shook his head. “Chicago,” he said, and then went quiet again.
    â€œAre you going to make me do all the talking?” Lizzie demanded after an interval, feeling fretful.
    That smile tilted the corner of his mouth again. “I’m no orator, Lizzie.”
    â€œJust tell me something about yourself. Anything. I’m pretty scared right now, and if you don’t hold up your end of the conversation, I’ll probably prattle until your ears fall off.”
    He chuckled. It was a richly masculine sound. “All right,” he said. “My name, as you already know, is Morgan Shane. I’m twenty-eight years old. I was born and raised in Chicago—no brothers or sisters. My father was a doctor, and that’s why I became one. He studied in Berlin after graduating from Harvard, since, in his opinion, American medical schools were deplorable. So I went to Germany, too. I’ve never been married, though I came close once—her name was Rosalee. I practiced with my father until he died—probably wouldhave stayed put, except for a falling-out with my mother. I decided to move west, and wound up in Tucson.”
    It was more information than Lizzie had dared hope for, and she felt her eyes widen. “What happened to Rosalee?” she asked, a little breathless, for she had a