A McKettrick Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Page A

I’d come to my senses. When I came home and took up medicine in earnest, she disinherited me.”
    Lizzie’s marvelous eyes widened again. “She did? But surely your father—”
    “She showed him the door, too. She was furious with him for encouraging me to become a doctor instead of overseeing the family fortune. Minerva opened a boarding house, and Dad and I moved in as her first tenants. We found a storefront, hung out a shingle and practiced together until Dad died of a heart attack.”
    Sorrow moved in Lizzie’s face at the mention of his father’s death. She swallowed. “What became of your mother?” she asked, sounding meek now, in the face of such drama.
    “She sold the mansion and moved to Europe, to escape the shame.”
    “What shame?”
    God bless her, Morgan thought, she was actually confused. “In Mother’s circles,” he said, “the practice of medicine—especially when most of the patients can’t pay—is not a noble pursuit. She could have forgiven herself for marrying a doctor—youthful passions, lapses of judgment, all that—but when I decided to become a physician instead of taking over my grandfather’s several banks, it was too much for her to bear.”
    “I’m sorry, Morgan,” Lizzie said.
    “It isn’t as if we were close,” Morgan said, touched by the sadness in Lizzie McKettrick’s eyes as he had never been by Eliza Stanton Shane’s indifference. “Mother and I, I mean.”
    “But, still—”
    “I had my father. And Minerva.”
    Lizzie nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. “My mother died when I was young. And even though I’m close to Lorelei—that’s my stepmother—I still miss her a lot.”
    He couldn’t help asking the question. It was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Is money important to you, Lizzie?” He’d told her he was poor, and suddenly he needed to know if that mattered.
    She glanced in Carson’s direction, then looked straight into Morgan’s eyes. “No,” she said, with such alacrity that he believed her instantly. There was no guile in Lizzie McKettrick—only courage and sweetness, intelligence and, unless he missed his guess, a fiery temper.
    He wanted to ask if Whitley Carson would be able to support her in the manner to which she was clearly accustomed, considering the fineness of her clothes and her recently acquired education, but he’d recovered his manners by then.
    “Miss McKettrick?”
    Both Lizzie and Morgan turned to see Ellen standing nearby, looking shy.
    “Yes, Ellen?” Lizzie responded, smiling.
    “I can’t find a spittoon,” Ellen said.
    Lizzie chuckled at that. “We’ll go outside,” she replied.
    “A spittoon?” Morgan echoed, puzzled.
    “Never mind,” Lizzie told him.
    “I believe I’ll go, too,” Mrs. Halifax put in, rising awkwardly from her bed on the bench because of her injured arm, wrapping her shawl more closely around her shoulders.
    Lizzie bundled Ellen up in the peddler’s coat, readily volunteered, and the trio of females braved the snow and the freezing wind. The baby girl stayed behind, kicking her feet, waving small fists in the air, and cooing with sudden happiness. She’d spotted the cockatiel with the ridiculous name. What was it?
    Oh, yes. Woodrow.
    “I reckon we ought to be sparing with the kerosene,” the peddler told Morgan, nodding toward the single lantern bravely pushing back the darkness. “Far as I could see when we checked the freight car, there isn’t a whole lot left.”
    Morgan nodded, finding the prospect of the coming night a grim one. When the limited supply of firewood was gone, they could use coal from the bin in the locomotive, but even that wouldn’t last more than a day or two.
    The little boy, Jack, like Brennan and Carson, had fallen asleep.
    The peddler spoke in a low voice, after making sure he wouldn’t be overheard. “You think they’ll find us in time?”
    Morgan shoved a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.
    “You