The Christmas Brides by Linda Lael Miller

caught on someone, and Morgan realized Lizzie was standing just behind him. She held a mug of steaming ham and bean soup and one of the peddler’s fancy spoons.
    Morgan straightened, glanced back at Carson, who seemed to be sleeping now, though fitfully. Sweat beaded the man’s forehead and upper lip, and Morgan knew the pain was biting deep, despite the laudanum.
    â€œI thought Mr. Brennan might require some sustenance,” she said, her eyes big and troubled. She’d paled, and her luscious hair drooped as if it would throw off its pins at any moment and tumble down around her shoulders, falling to her waist.
    Morgan nodded, stepped back out of the way.
    Lizzie moved past him, her arm brushing his as she went by, and knelt alongside Brennan. “It would be better with onions,” she said gamely, holding a spoonful of the brew to the patient’s lips. “And salt, too.” When he opened his mouth, she fed him.
    â€œThem 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.
    â€œRest,” he told her. “You must be worn-out.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œDo 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