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
