Buch lesen: «The Daughters of Dancing Falls»

CHAPTER ONE

LATELY, KEEGAN BREEN was the last person anyone should count on to run an errand of mercy. And he was just fine with that. He didn’t ask anyone to do anything for him, and he appreciated the return consideration. However, this Christmas Day was something of an emergency. His neighbor Duke struggling to cope with memory loss associated with his eighty-six years, had forgotten to order his heart medication, and he needed to take it every day, or... Well, even Keegan didn’t want to be responsible for that.

So Keegan had called Duke’s doctor and discovered that the MD had some samples of Duke’s meds in his home. Keegan then ventured out in the snow to pick up a couple of pills. What had started out as a short twelve-mile journey to town in light snowfall had now become an hour’s pain-in-the-neck trek in blizzard conditions.

“Lake-effect snow,” Keegan muttered to himself. A person never knew when it would do its worst, but that was the chance he took living on the shore of Lake Erie. Thank goodness his seven-year-old Chevy Tahoe—with its 350 horses, V-8 engine and two tons of steel on a truck chassis—could barrel through almost anything.

He slowed for the curve about a mile from the abandoned Cedar Woods Campground where Keegan lived in the old camp store and Duke lived in a small trailer. Through the whiteout conditions, Keegan managed to see a pair of red taillights glowing faintly from a mound of snow left by an earlier plow. He braked to a crawl and stopped behind the motorist who’d obviously lost his mind to be out in this weather on a holiday. Especially without a “blizzard beast” like the Tahoe.

Getting out of his vehicle, Keegan walked around to the driver’s side of the compact car. A few more minutes and the ridiculous little two-seater might have been buried in a mini avalanche, leaving the driver to become a human popsicle.

Pulling his jacket collar around his ears where his ball cap stopped short of providing protection, Keegan approached the driver’s window. Snow had accumulated, but it was light and dusty, not the kind that sticks the moment it lands. He brushed off the snow with his heavily gloved hand and peered inside.

Besides a mound of wrapped packages, only one person was in the automobile—a woman, slumped over the limp remains of an air bag, and one who apparently didn’t have the sense to listen to a weather forecast before venturing out on a day like this. Even more astounding, the gal had left her window partially opened and snow was settling on her shoulders and head.

“Lady!” Keegan called. “Lady, are you okay?”

She wasn’t. Keegan saw a faint stream of red coming from her forehead. He’d seen enough head injuries in his day to know the possibility of serious complications. He tried the door. Locked. With about four inches of opening to work with, he slipped off his glove and stuck his hand in the window, wiggling his arm downward to the door lock. Thank goodness he was able to reach the button and pull it up.

He opened the car door. The woman didn’t move. Her breathing seemed labored. “Darned air bag must have knocked the wind out of her,” Keegan said aloud. He’d never thought they were a good idea. He wasn’t crazy about seat belts either, especially now when he had to work his fingers through deflated nylon to free the woman.

The seat belt latch clicked, and the woman moaned and tried to sit upright. She managed to turn her head and stared with partially closed eyes at Keegan. Those eyes popped wide open instantly. Visibility was poor, but he figured she’d seen enough to be freaked out by his appearance, so he backed up a step. Meticulous grooming wasn’t at the top of his list of priorities these days.

She stuck out her hand and pounded his chest with a weak fist. “Leave me alone,” she said.

Keegan leaned in the car door. “If I do, you’ll freeze to death out here. And you have a head injury.”

She struggled to take a breath. “I do?”

“Yes, and who knows what else is wrong. You’ve driven your car into a snowbank and hit one of our scenic telephone poles.”

She continued staring at him as if he were her worst nightmare. “Call an ambulance,” she said.

“You don’t want me to do that. If I call for an ambulance, it would take forever in this weather for it to reach us. Plus, we’d be putting the drivers at risk. Your best bet is to go with me.”

“Go with you? I don’t even know you.”

“I don’t know you either, but I’m willing to take the risk,” the man said. “Now, let’s get you out of that car, so we can get you medical help. You could have serious injuries.”

“I do,” she said through gritted teeth. “I think I broke my leg.”

* * *

CARRIE FELT LIKE a knife had sliced into her calf. She touched her head and stared at the sticky red mess on her fingers. Definitely bleeding, but the cold was slowing it down some. What was she going to do now? Miles from nowhere, a broken leg, a damaged head, an asthma attack, and no one but this large, grisly-looking man to help her. His hair reached his shoulders, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month.

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.”