“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.”
“Someone who could come and drive your car for you?”
She gave him a sideways glance. “I’m a good driver, you know.”
“Hmm...” He pointed to a mound of white in the road ahead. “Your car, exactly where you left it.”
She stared at the lump of frosty carnage. “Oh, my poor car. But that could have happened to anyone,” she argued. “It was a terrible storm.”
“I don’t drive a tin can, so it didn’t happen to me,” he said smartly. “And aren’t you glad?”
“I was reaching for my inhaler,” she said.
“Why do you have an inhaler? Do you have asthma?”
She didn’t answer but nodded her head slightly.
Oh, great. Another wrinkle to add to his list of nursing duties. Stay on topic, Breen. “Now, about those family members...”
“I have two sisters. Each of them would come here to get me. I have one father who would come also.” Her voice tensed when she mentioned her father. “And I don’t intend to tell any of them about this.”
“Why not?”
“My father has issues about my asthma. I won’t go into that now, but he would somehow turn this broken leg into an example of how I don’t take my asthma seriously. And I don’t want my sisters on the road in these conditions.”
“Okay. What about a husband?”
She shook her head. “Just you, and you’re only temporary.”
“You got that right.” He felt obligated to point out the obvious. “Carrie, you can’t stay with me indefinitely. I live in a Cracker Jack box. You’ve got to go somewhere.”
“I know I do. Why would I want to stay with you? You obviously don’t want me.” She paused as if waiting for him to argue the point. When he didn’t, she said, “I’ll figure it out tomorrow.