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Mr. Grisly leaned on the roof of her car. “Do you live around here?” he asked.
She could honestly answer that she didn’t. She was still at least two hours from home and four hours from her Michigan address. But maybe she should lie. What good would that do? Even if her car wasn’t wrecked, she didn’t know if she’d be able to drive anywhere. Why couldn’t it have been her left leg that was injured?
“No,” she said. “I live in Michigan.”
“No one you know in this area?”
She shook her head, knowing if she gave her father’s name, he would never let her forget her foolish decision.
“Then I guess you’re stuck with me.” He reached his arms into her car, pushing back the remains of the air bag. With a skillful and surprisingly gentle touch, he probed her arms and legs. “I don’t think anything else is broken. So come on. We’re going to the hospital.”
Did she want to add stupidity to her list of problems? She didn’t know this guy. Think, Carrie. Drawing in a sharp breath of pain, she said, “I don’t even know your name.”
He exhaled a frosty breath. “Keegan Breen.”
“I don’t know if I trust you.”
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you. Truthfully, I’m not that crazy about helping you. I was on my way home and looking forward to a fireplace and roasting some hot dogs.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “It is Christmas, you know.”
“How far is the hospital?” she asked.
“Twenty minutes, maybe more in this weather.” He looked out her windshield. “I think it’s let up a little in the time we’ve been talking.” Wiggling his fingers, he added, “Let’s go, buttercup. Grab hold.”
There was something calm about his voice, almost soothing. And anyway, what other choice did she have but to trust him? She couldn’t stay in an automobile that didn’t even have a working heater anymore. She wrapped her hands around each of his forearms and let him do the heavy lifting. He pushed his hand under her rump and had her out of the car and safely tucked against his chest in a matter of moments. The change in position made the pain in her leg worse. She bit her lip to keep from screaming out.
He started walking toward a monster car of some type. “Wait,” she said. “My purse. My inhaler. My glasses. They probably fell off the dashboard when I hit the pole.”
He trudged back, leaned her against the car and reached for her purse on the passenger seat. She took it, scrambled to find the inhaler where she’d dropped it in the bag. He found her pair of dark-framed reading glasses on the floor of her car and handed them to her. Then she allowed him to lift her again. This time she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her hands in the fleece underside of his collar. Ah, warmth...and something else, too. The scent of hickory, like kindling from a fire. Nice. Maybe he wasn’t kidding about the fireplace or the hot dogs.
Just before they reached his vehicle, he glanced down at Carrie’s face, probably his first good look since he’d found her. His jaw dropped a bit. “You’re just a kid,” he said. “Why did your parents let you out on a day like this?”
Once again the baby of the family gets treated like a baby. All her life people had been telling her she didn’t look old enough to be out of grade school or middle school. Just recently she been aged to the high school level. “I swear, Carrie Foster, you don’t look old enough to even have a full-time job...”
Well, she did have a job, a very responsible one as an agent with the US Forest Service. And she had a master’s degree in natural sciences. And she was an adult! “I’m not a kid,” she said. “I’m quite old enough to know better than to drive in this weather, thank you!”
“Knowing and doing are obviously two very different things to you.” He deposited her in the roomy passenger seat of what she now recognized as a Chevy Tahoe, similar to the vehicles her coworkers drove in the Service. After this experience, she’d have to seriously consider trading in her cute French car and getting a four-wheel drive of her own.
“I’d put you in the backseat, but it’s full of fire logs,” he said. “I can help you elevate your leg onto the dashboard.”
“No. I’m okay. Just drive.”
He went around to the driver’s side, got in and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ve got to make a phone call before we go.”
“Okay.”
“Duke? It’s Keegan. I’ve got your meds, but I won’t be back at the camp for a while. How soon do you need them?”
The camp? Was this guy a survivalist of some kind?
He paused while Duke answered. “No problem. I should be home by then.” Another pause. “I’m fine. Just came across a stranded motorist who needs some medical attention. I’m dropping her at the hospital.”
Carrie relaxed her shoulders into the seat back. Once she was at the hospital she’d be safe, and the twenty-minute drive with Keegan Breen was better than alerting her father to her problem and enduring his criticism. Besides, there was something comforting about the conversation she’d just heard, and she realized that she was beginning to trust him. Keegan was apparently doing something for a friend. And right now he was her only hope of getting out of a snowbank and getting her leg looked after. It was nice to know he was accustomed to helping people. Although she couldn’t get the image of his idea of a “camp” out of her mind.
And getting to the hospital was only the beginning of her problems. What would she do after he dropped her off? She didn’t want to call her sisters. Even if she swore them to secrecy about this event, they would ignore her and immediately tell their father, claiming it was for her own good. Everyone just assumed that Carrie needed help, and rules of independence didn’t apply to her. Her best bet was to see what the damages were and what the hospital suggested. Then she’d make a decision.
“So, what were you doing driving on a day like this?” His voice brought her back to the present and the throbbing pain in her leg.
“I was hoping to surprise some people today.”
He stole a quick glance at her before focusing on the road. “They should be surprised all right. A call from the hospital should knock their socks off.”
So true. If the hospital called her family, someone would definitely hop in a car to come get her, which could easily end in another vehicle disaster. And if they even made it safely in this blizzard, she’d never hear the end of it.
“I’m not going to tell them,” she said, deciding at that moment that she would handle this situation on her own—somehow.
He stared at her a bit longer, his face serious. “That’s your decision, I guess. But you are in somewhat of a mess here.”
She shifted on the seat, trying to relieve some pain. There didn’t seem to be a comfortable position. “How much longer?”
“About ten minutes I’d say.” He stared up at the gray sky. “As long as another flurry doesn’t start.”
She appraised his face, which seemed perpetually set in a stern profile. Despite his growth of beard, she could tell his features were strong and weathered, as if he’d spent time in the sun and wind. Maybe he was a farmer or a construction worker, something like that—or, there was the image again, a survivalist. She’d heard stories about these rugged, gruff men who lived in compounds. Anyway, she figured he wasn’t a businessman driving an old monster vehicle. The gray in his beard indicated that whatever he did, he’d been at it awhile.
His hair was a different story. Once he’d removed his cap, she saw just a sprinkling of gray at his temples where the strands flowed back to a shoulder-length mass of thick, dark brown waves. Good, healthy hair. She brushed her fingers through her fine, baby blond hair with its professionally colored darker tips and realized she envied him for his apparent lucky-from-birth gift.
“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
Jolted back into awareness, she said, “Carrie. Carrie Foster.”
He stuck out his hand, and she briefly grasped it. “I’ve never heard the name Keegan,” she said. “It’s Irish, isn’t it?”
“Through and through. Mom and Pop and all the grandfolks.”
Keegan swung into the parking lot of a building Carrie identified as Trumbly County Medical Center. The lot was nearly empty with snow packed up against car bumpers. He didn’t bother with finding a space, instead, stopping at the emergency entrance. He came around to her side and lifted her out of the vehicle.
“I can walk,” she said.
“Sure you can, but humor me. I like to flex my muscles once in a while.”
Inside, he called for a wheelchair. A nurse brought one immediately, and Keegan gently lowered Carrie into it.
“What have we got?” the nurse asked, tenderly probing the wound on Carrie’s head.
“Car accident. Besides the obvious, I suspect a broken leg.”
The nurse wheeled Carrie into a smaller room where a staff member asked her a number of questions about medications, the level of her pain. She took Carrie’s blood pressure and pulse before someone with a clipboard came in and asked for Carrie’s insurance card. Thank goodness she had her purse, and thank goodness the card didn’t show her Ohio address. If there was any way to avoid alerting her father about this trouble, she wanted to do it. She and Dr. Martin Foster had had so many arguments over Carrie’s health, her asthma, her stubborn resistance to listen to reason about being out in nature for her job, she figured this incident might make her dad chain her to Dancing Falls forever. But seeing her family at Christmas had prompted her to set out in this weather despite facing a certain argument with her dad. She’d thought he’d mellow once he realized she had arrived safely. But now...
“Your vitals are good,” the nurse said. “But we’re going to do a CT scan of the head and take an X-ray of the leg. Both tests will just take a few minutes.” Turning to Keegan, whose presence had become surprisingly comforting to Carrie’s peace of mind, she said, “You can wait in the lobby.”
For the first time since Carrie had met him, he seemed indecisive. Stay or go? What would he do? He had no obligation to stay, but for some reason, Carrie wanted him to. “It’s just a quick X-ray,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d wait.”
He shrugged. “Sure. I can wait as long as it doesn’t take too long.”
A half hour later, Carrie was wheeled into an emergency cubicle. A nurse went to get Keegan, and they were told the doctor would be in shortly with the test results.
When the doctor arrived, he stood next to Carrie. “Well, young lady, you were lucky this time. This could have been much worse. As long as I’ve lived in the snowbelt, I’ve seen foolish people try to drive in our crazy weather and come in here with all sorts of...”
“Doctor, I know I shouldn’t have been driving,” Carrie said, trying not to resent the doctor’s parental tone. “What did the X-ray of my leg show?”
“You have a simple fracture. We’re going to put a soft cast and a boot on it. Should be okay in a month or so.”
“A month? I can drive, can’t I?” Carrie asked.
“Drive? Heavens, no. You fractured your right leg. You won’t be driving until you can do it without a cast or boot. Unless you want to get in another accident and maybe take someone else out with you this time.”
She was going to be stuck here for a month? Where would she stay? Would she have to call her father after all? Could she expect someone from her crew in Michigan to come after her? They were operating on limited man power through the holidays.
“You can come into my office in a week, and I’ll x-ray your leg again,” the doctor said, handing her a business card. “Right now a nurse will bandage your head and apply the cast. You do have a slight concussion, which means someone will have to watch you through the night.” He focused on Keegan. “You can do that?”
His eyes widened. “Me? I don’t know...”
“Yes, he can,” Carrie said. “I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t leave the hospital without a responsible party to drive you home and take care of you.” He stared at Keegan. “You’re a relative?”
Keegan started to speak, but Carrie interrupted. “Yes, yes, he is. This man is my husband.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u861a2cb0-c641-5159-86c9-5966aca6771c)
“WHY IN THE name of everything that makes any sense at all did you tell that doctor I am your husband?”
Thank goodness Keegan had kept quiet while the nurse bandaged Carrie’s head and provided her with pain meds to get her through the next few days. Now, as they were leaving the hospital parking lot, Keegan’s patience had obviously reached its limits.
“I certainly couldn’t monitor my concussion symptoms by myself, now could I? I needed a husband at that moment, and you were the only candidate.” She waited for him to say something. He merely continued seething. “I could have said you are my father. Would that have made you happier?”
“What you could have said is that I’m nobody to you, that I don’t even know you. You could have avoided a blatant lie somehow.”
“And what would that have done for me? They weren’t going to let me leave the hospital. And even if they did, I would have been on my own in a town I don’t know, in a snowstorm, without a car, with a broken leg and again...a concussion...”
“You’re darn lucky the doctor didn’t ask my name. He’d have noticed that our last names are not the same.”
“I thought of that,” she said. “I had an answer ready.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure you did. I’m starting to feel like you rammed your car into a pole, and I’m the one dealing with the consequences.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic? Besides, you can hardly say that you don’t know me. We’ve been together for—” she glanced at her watch “—almost four hours now. I feel like I know you as well as I know most...” She couldn’t come up with a word.
“Strangers?”
“We’re not strangers. You saved my life.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. And anyway, if I had it to do over again...”
“You’re saying you wouldn’t help me again? For heaven’s sake, Keegan, I could have frozen to death.”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe he was thinking that was a very real possibility.
“If it makes you feel any better, I would do the same for you.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “You’d pull me from a wrecked car, take me to a hospital in a blinding snowstorm and sit with me for three hours?”
“Of course. I don’t know about getting you out of the car, but the rest I would do.” She leaned forward, grateful that the pain injection had started working, and it no longer hurt to move. She could clearly see into Keegan’s face. “I hate to suggest this and give you any ideas, but unless you come up with a place to dump me, I’d say you’re more or less stuck with me for tonight at least.”
“I’d say you put it just about right.”
“I could go to a motel, but I need someone to watch me. Do you have family, a wife, perhaps? She could check on me.”
“I don’t have a wife. I live alone, which makes this whole situation even worse.”
She might have preferred hearing that a motherly Mrs. Breen would be present, but she’d make this work. For some reason she was no longer afraid of this man. She didn’t suspect an ulterior motive in his begrudging acceptance of her overnight stay. If anything, she figured he’d just continue to brood and finally ignore her. “It’s one night, Keegan,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll call a tow truck and have my car brought to your house, and I’ll be on my way back to Michigan.”
He gaped at her. “Are you so drugged up you can’t remember what the doctor said? You can’t drive for a month.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true. He was being overly cautious. I can manage.”
“Carrie...” This was the first time she could recall him using her name. “You weren’t able to manage an automobile with both your legs working!”
“Look, just let me stay with you tonight. Tomorrow we’ll work something out.” His silence was deafening, so she took a different approach, one she didn’t really believe. “I’m taking more of a chance than you are,” she added. “I’m a defenseless female. You could obviously do whatever...”
He held up his hand. “Stop right there. Do you actually think I’d touch a girl that doesn’t look more than about seventeen years of age...?”
“I’m thirty! I’ll show you my driver’s license.”
He took a moment to let her pronouncement sink in. “Okay, maybe you are, but what if you suddenly go all wonky on me and call the police? How will it look, you, incapacitated, and me in a cabin alone together?”
“First of all, don’t give me any reason to call the police, and second, you’ll look like what you are, a Good Samaritan whose only crime is helping a needy traveler.” She grinned, hoping he saw it that way. “Why, it’s practically biblical in moral righteousness.”
He didn’t seem convinced, but at least he kept driving toward whatever mysterious place he lived.
* * *
HOW DID I end up in a mess like this? Keegan kept going toward the campground where he inhabited a cabin that seemed to grow smaller by the mile. What choice did he have? Carrie was right. She couldn’t stay alone with a concussion. He’d seen enough battle injuries of that type to know that concussions could be serious. But she’d flat out lied telling the doctor he was her husband. Recalling his shock, he almost smiled now. If she only knew. Keegan Breen was not husband material. He’d tried it once. He’d failed. Right now he wasn’t even confident that he should be lifesaver material.
But he could get through one night. He’d let her bunk in his bed with her leg elevated and the pain pills taking her to Neverland. He’d sit up in a chair and watch her, and then this would all be over. Tomorrow they could get her car towed, and then maybe she’d call someone to come drive it for her.
Yes, the perfect solution. He would only be inconvenienced for a few hours. Feeling confident with a plan, he looked over at her. “So, you have family?”
“Of course.”
