Coming Home for Christmas Read Free Page A

when it was finished. “Davey there and I are finished, sir, and you know it,” had been Gooding’s most recent argument. There was no denying Thomas was tempted. Davey Ewing, the foretopman, traveled in and out of consciousness and the carpenter was right about his own prognosis.
    â€œYou know I cannot leave you,” Thomas had said, hoping his resolution sounded firm and reassuring.
    Bless him, Gooding tried again, this fourth day of November, as the purple hues of late afternoon began to spread across his coverlet. “Davey Ewing is a no-hoper and Father Hilario can close my eyes as well as you can, Surgeon,” was Gooding’s latest attempt. “Why should you remain?”
    Thomas propped his stockinged feet on the carpenter’s bed. “Ralph, you’re a trial and a blasphemer, but the answer is still no!”
    Gooding smiled and Thomas knew he understood.“Did some learned professor feed you a cock-and-bull story while you were in medical school?”
    â€œIndeed he did! Happens I believed it and still do,” Thomas concluded gently. He ran his hand down the carpenter’s skinny arm. “And there is this—in order to get a ship and permission to leave, Mr. Ludlow promised the fort’s captain that I would remain here to treat his own sick.” Thomas smiled. “See there, Ralph—it isn’t just about you!”
    Gooding laughed appreciatively, as Thomas had hoped he would, but the laugh turned into a racking cough that ended with a handkerchief to his lips.
    Thomas calmly wiped away the blood. “I know my duty,” he said simply.
    Gooding nodded. When he spoke, it was just a whisper. “Then you’ll hear no more about it from me.” His good humor had not deserted him, though. “I suspect you prefer the fleshpots of San Diego to any of his Majesty’s frigates.”
    â€œYou’ve found me out,” Thomas teased back, slapping his forehead dramatically. “Seriously, it is San Diego’s beaches I would miss.”
    Now that was a lie. Thomas sat with his patient until the man drifted to sleep, trying to think of the last time he had visited the harbor for any purpose other than to wish himself aboard the coastal vessel the Splendid crew was reinforcing for the trip north. Finally, it had become too painful, so now he stayed away.
    When Gooding slept, Thomas strolled outside the fort’s adobe walls to admire Alta California’s bewitching twilight. He would have enjoyed it more if Laura Ortiz hadn’t stumbled into him as she came into the presidio, her limpid eyes too full of tears to see him.
    He had tried to sidestep her, but ended up grasping her shoulders to keep her from running right into him. When she looked up, he couldn’t help sucking in his breath at all the misery in her eyes; it easily had his own misery trumped in spades. He was a man of some experience—life in the Royal Navy made that imperative—but he was not prepared for such raw sorrow.
    So much so that he lightened his grip, but did not release her, blurting out, “Señorita Ortiz, is there something I can do for you?”
    Him? Him? A former prisoner, a Protestant, a man who soiled his hands with actual work? If she had hauled herself back and slapped him, Thomas would not have been surprised.
    She did seem to rear back in disbelief at his impertinent invasion of her privacy. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it into a firm line. Resigned, he waited for the cutting reply he fully expected, but it never came. Instead, she shook her head slowly and passed him.
    He was almost too embarrassed to look at her, except he did. For one tiny moment, she looked like a woman who desperately needed a friend. The moment was as ephemeral as the smoke starting to rise from little shacks outside the fort on the way to the pueblo.
    Thomas Wilkie stored it up for the moment. He knew he had a good instinct for other