Paternity Unknown

by Barrett, Jean

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “But if you want to throw me out in the snow, I’ll understand. Would you like me to leave?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Where do you think you could possibly go in this storm?”

  “All right, but I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I promise you, Lauren, that I’m not dangerous.”

  She looked into those pure, blue-green eyes, and she believed him. Maybe she was a fool, but whatever trouble shadowed him, she sensed an innate decency in this man. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  “So, how do you like your eggs?”

  “Surprise me. I’m not fussy. What can I do to help?”

  “You can sit down at the table. If you won’t stay in bed, then at least get off your feet.”

  Her concern apparently amused him. He wore that treacherous grin again. But he obeyed her, swinging around one of the captain’s chairs and placing himself on it.

  “How is the head wound doing?” she wanted to know as she went to work scrambling eggs.

  “A little sore, that’s all.”

  She poured coffee into a mug and brought it to him. “I’m not sure I shouldn’t have covered it with a bandage. For all I know, it ought to have had stitches. Do you have a headache? Any dizziness?”

  “Lauren?”

  “What? Do you need milk? Sugar?”

  “No, I need you to stop worrying about me. And you don’t have to wait on me. I can help myself.”

  Cradling the coffee mug in his big hands, with long, jeans-clad legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, he gazed down the length of the room, as if noticing it for the first time.

  “Nice place,” he said. “But, uh…”

  “What?” she asked, taking several slices of bread from the loaf to toast on the rack inside the cookstove’s oven.

  “I guess I’m just wondering what a woman is doing here all on her own in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Oh. Well, my grandfather left the cabin to me. When I was growing up, I would spend my summer vacations here with him.”

  He raised the mug to his mouth, sipped from it. “And the rest of the year?”

  “My father’s company moved us all over the map. He and my mother loved it. He’s retired now, a condo in Florida, but the two of them still prefer traveling around the globe.”

  “And you didn’t love it,” Ethan guessed.

  She glanced at him. He was perceptive. Maybe he was an investigator.

  “I hated it,” she admitted. “It was so impermanent, I never had time to put down any roots. I suppose that makes me disgustingly traditional, no taste for adventure.”

  “So that’s what the cabin means for you? Roots?”

  “It’s home now. The only real home I felt I ever knew.”

  She had come home to Montana, yes, but that wasn’t the whole story. Lauren knew she didn’t have to tell him the rest. There was no reason for him to hear it. No sense in sharing something private and painful with a man she had known less than a day.

  On the other hand, she thought, dishing up the eggs, removing the toast from the oven and joining him at the table with their plates, telling him might encourage him to be open with her. Face it, she was still curious to know what he was withholding from her. She decided to risk it.

  “Being here, though, is a little more complicated than that,” she confessed. “Before the cabin, I was working in Helena. Not a very satisfying job, but there was this guy…well, let’s just say I thought it was the real thing. He didn’t. The real thing for him turned out to be his ex-wife he ended up going back to.”

  “Are we talking about a broken heart?”

  Lauren laughed. It wasn’t funny, but she was long past the stage of tears and laughter did seem like a better remedy. “Absolutely. One that required mending. That being the case…”

  “You came home to heal. Has it worked?”

  “Can’t even remember his name.”

  Not quite true, but she was no longer hurting. Which just went to prove that Kenneth had never been right for her in the first place.

  There was a long moment of silence while they concentrated on their eggs and toast. Lauren was conscious of how he kept eyeing her over his coffee mug. His bold curiosity made her squirm. But she had no right to complain. Not when she kept sneaking her own looks at him in return.

  Her interest wasn’t very smart when the man was just passing through her life. Once the storm was over and the road cleared, he would be out of here and they would forget all about each other.

  But until then, the two of them were caught here. Snowbound and aware of each other. Well, she was intensely aware of him, anyway. Little things, like the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, how his wide shoulders hunched forward, and a look in his eyes that was…what? Haunted somehow?

  “So, tell me,” he said, breaking the silence, “what do you do with yourself all alone here in the wilderness? When you’re not rescuing accident victims, that is.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Why, I work, of course.”

  “You mean you commute to a job?”

  “I don’t have to. My work is right here.”

  He twisted around when she nodded in the direction of the book-lined alcove at the far end of the living room. Her com puter sat there on a table beneath a window that overlooked the lake.

  “See the row of books on the middle shelf over to the left? Those are mine.”

  “Are you telling me you’re an author?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  She laughed. “Don’t be impressed. My name doesn’t appear on the spines. I’m a ghostwriter. Autobiographies mostly, and sometimes how-to books, all for professionals who haven’t the time or the skill to write their own. They communicate by e-mail, and I put it together for them.”

  “And they get all the credit on the title pages? That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I’m not complaining. It pays the bills until someday when I hope to have my own name on the covers. How about you?”

  “Nothing so interesting.”

  He helped himself to more coffee. She waited for him to tell her about his work. To tell her anything at all about himself, but he changed the subject.

  “Still blowing out there,” he said, glancing toward the window.

  Talking about herself hadn’t worked. He wasn’t going to share his own secrets. She had to accept that.

  “And drifting badly on the roads, I’m afraid.” She checked her watch. “It should be time for a local weather forecast. Let’s see.”

  Did she imagine it, or did Ethan suddenly stiffen when she rose from the table and moved toward the counter where her portable radio was tucked between the toaster and the microwave?

  They listened to the weather portion of the broadcast that reported downed lines, closed roads and the likelihood that the storm would not end before tomorrow. Mindful of the batteries, Lauren switched off the radio without waiting for the news.

  Her imagination again, or did he look relieved this time? Should she be worried that he was hiding something from her?

  ETHAN WAS FRANTIC as the day wore on, the snow outside building to a depth that made him wonder just when he would be able to leave. When he could do what he had come here to do before it was too late for him.

  Lauren heated water for herself on the wood-fueled cookstove and carried it into the bathroom to bathe and change. Afterwards, installed on the sofa with pad and pencil, she worked on notes for her latest project.

  Ethan kept the fires going for them and paced. Though she didn’t complain, he was probably driving her wild with the tension that kept him moving restlessly from one end of the long room to the other like a caged animal.

  He couldn’t help it. Everything counted on his reaching Hilary Johnson, getting her to commit to the truth.

  That was part of his need to get out of here, a big part, but there was something else. There was Lauren McCrea. In ju
st the few hours he’d known her, she had brought him dangerously close to losing his head.

  He wondered even now, gazing at her curled up in a corner of the sofa with her feet tucked under her, if she had any idea how alluring she was with her long, auburn hair, that slim, woman’s body with its surprising strength, and those warm brown eyes. He doubted it. She struck him as much too modest to realize her worth.

  There was her smile, too. The kind of smile that made a man feel good about himself.

  What a fool that guy in Helena had been to let her get away. Even if he hadn’t appreciated her looks, he should have cherished all her other qualities. Things like the courage that had sent her out into a howling blizzard to rescue a stranger, and then to care for him with a generosity that no man should have failed to value.

  What are you doing?

  This was crazy. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time to be so strongly attracted like this to a woman, particularly someone as special as Lauren. She deserved the interest of a man who could be open and honest with her.

  And Ethan had been neither. Because if he had told her the truth, he would have risked involving her in his mess. He didn’t want that. Didn’t want her to learn she had a fugitive on her hands. She was already vulnerable enough just having him here.

  But Lauren must have already realized that. She couldn’t have missed his concern about the radio, and must have wondered about it, even if there had been no way for her to guess he feared a newscast naming him as a wanted man. Probably not much chance of such a report, though, when Seattle and what had happened there were a long way off. Still, there was always the possibility.

  No, he didn’t want to hurt her. So he had withheld an explanation, even though she was entitled to one. But she hadn’t demanded answers from him. She had accepted his evasive silence, even respected it. Amazing woman.

  She’s not for you, Brand. Just stop looking at her, will you?

  Fine. He’d look elsewhere. Admire instead the cabin her grandfather had left her. They must have been very close, Lauren and her grandfather. Shared a lot of good times together that left her with sweet memories. Thinking of his own grandfather, and how vastly different their relationship had been and how it had ended, Ethan envied her that.

  Yeah, he liked the cabin with its stone fireplace and rough log walls. It was solid and honest. But not austere. Probably because Lauren had added her own personal touches, such as the colorful rugs on the polished plank floor, the cheerful curtains at the windows, the watercolors on the walls, the wealth of books on the shelves. Things that made the place safe and inviting. Like its owner.

  Here he was back to thinking about her again. This was no good. No good at all.

  Damn it, why couldn’t it stop snowing? He needed it to stop snowing. He needed to get away before it was too late, before he wound up losing his sanity along with his self-control. He needed to leave her while she was still untouched by the trouble he had brought with him to this place.

  “THE LAMPS ARE getting low on oil,” Lauren said.

  They had been burning the lamps all day against the gloom of the storm. It was late afternoon now, and the light outside was beginning to fail.

  “There’s kerosene in the shed. I’d better bring in a fresh supply.”

  “I’ll go,” Ethan volunteered. “It’s about time I started to earn my keep.”

  She looked down pointedly at his shoes. “In those? I don’t think so.”

  Yeah, he thought, following her gaze, he’d been in too much of a hurry to leave Seattle to think of taking a pair of boots with him. “So I’ll get wet feet.”

  “Just when I’ve got you on the road to recovery, you want to go and risk a relapse.”

  “What? You think you’ll have to nurse me through something like pneumonia just because I get wet feet?”

  “We’re not going to argue about it.” She headed for her coat and boots located beside the front door. “Besides, I know how to deal with that shed door and just where to lay my hands on the kerosene when I get inside.”

  She was a stubborn woman. And, in her determination, also a damn appealing one. He was reluctant to let her go.

  “You be careful out there,” he cautioned her.

  “You forget,” she said, tugging on her boots, bundling into her coat, “I’m used to wading through drifts. Be back before you can miss me.”

  She was gone then, out the door and clomping across the porch. And he already missed her.

  Ethan was starting for the fireplace to lay another log on the blaze when he heard it. A slow rumble overhead that escalated to a rapid roar.

  What in the name of—

  His gut tightened on him as, beginning to understand what had just happened, he raced to a window that overlooked the side of the cabin. It was true! The snow that had been accumulating on the roof all day had surrendered under its own weight, sliding from the steep slope like an avalanche off the side of a mountain.

  Worse than that, Lauren had been passing under it when it collapsed. He could see one of her arms sticking out of the mound. Nothing else. The rest of her had been buried.

  He didn’t stop to snatch up his coat. Didn’t care how exposed he was to the unforgiving cold. All that mattered was digging Lauren out of that pile before she suffocated.

  He never felt the wind that blasted at him as he tore out of the cabin and around the corner. Never felt anything but an urgency to reach her. Dropping to his knees when he got to the mound, he clawed at the snow, pulling it away in great handfuls.

  The top of her head appeared. Then her face. And finally her shoulders. When he could get his hands under both of her arms, he heaved, dragging her up out of the mass that had imprisoned her.

  Ethan staggered to his feet with his precious load, fought his way back to the front of the cabin, up the steps, across the porch and inside. Kicking the door shut behind him, he strode across the room and placed her on the floor close to the hearth.

  And all the while, as he hunkered down in front of her, lifted her up and struggled to free her of her coat and boots, he was sick with fear.

  God, she looked so white and frail, felt so cold and wet! He stripped off her mittens, seized both her hands and began rubbing her limp fingers. Her eyes were closed. Was she unconscious?

  “Lauren, can you hear me?”

  “Okay,” she muttered, her eyes drifting open. “I’m okay.”

  His relief was immense.

  He didn’t know when it happened. When his hands were no longer holding hers. When, instead, they were on either side of her head, his fingers in her silky hair. The two of them were face-to-face now, mere inches apart.

  There was a long silence, her eyes searching his, questioning. It wasn’t a total silence. He was dimly aware of the crackling blaze in the fireplace behind her, the muffled hum of the generator somewhere out back.

  “Ethan?” she whispered.

  It wasn’t a question as much as it was a plea. That’s how he chose to read it anyway. And he answered it, surrendered to the thing that had been thrumming between them all day.

  Head angled, he brought his mouth down to hers. Kissed her, at first gently and then with abandon. Tasted her sweetness, savored her flavor with his tongue.

  He was aware of her scent, something as subtle as wild-flowers. Aware, too, as he deepened their kiss, that her lush body pressed to his was no longer cold. It radiated a heat that ignited his senses.

  Was Lauren the first to recover her sanity? Him? Or both of them at the same time? It didn’t matter. Either way, he felt the loss when they drew apart.

  She stared at him, clearly shaken.

  “It’s what happened,” she said, eager to explain the madness that had seized them. “Not just now with your digging me out of the snow and carrying me back inside. It’s the whole thing. Our being caught here like this together in the storm. It isn’t reality, so it’s done things to our emotions, made them reckless. You see?”

  Ethan nodded. Agreed
that their kiss had been the result of an irrational, temporary behavior, because that’s what she seemed to need. But he didn’t believe it. For him, it had been very real. In just a few hours, Lauren McCrea had become vital to him. And, with time running out on him, he could do nothing about it.

  Chapter Three

  “Why don’t you confess, Ethan? Think of how much better you’ll feel after you tell me all about it.”

  The voice that taunted him was as soft as silk. And as deadly as a cobra. It was also familiar. He knew that voice, didn’t he? But how could he match it to a face he couldn’t see? A face that was hidden in the blackness behind the glaring, white-hot lights that blinded him.

  If only he could sleep. But they wouldn’t let him sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, they would rouse him. Sometimes by slapping or kicking him awake. At other times by subjecting him to those frigid showers.

  The interrogation was endless. But he hadn’t broken. He had been trained not to tell them what they wanted to know.

  “We already know the truth anyway, Ethan. Your hands told us the truth. Look at your hands.”

  He looked down at his hands. Horrified, he saw that they were covered with blood.

  “His blood, Ethan. You have his blood on your hands.”

  This time, his tormentor thrust his face down into the light. Ethan recoiled from the sight of it. Koh!

  So he had been right about the voice. But what was that monster doing here in Seattle? He had left Koh back in the bleak, North Korean cell where they had held him all those weeks of pure hell.

  “Tell me you did it, Ethan. Tell me you killed him, and then you can sleep.”

  Lack of sleep. It had him confused. Koh couldn’t be here. Not in Seattle. Whatever the explanation, he held on to his determination. He refused to talk.

  His interrogator sighed with a regret that belied his brutality. “You leave us no choice, Ethan.”

  He heard the sound of a door opening in the blackness. Then someone stumbling as he was pushed forward into the light. Ethan recognized the figure and was shocked. Hands bound behind him, the man’s face was a mess of bruises and raw cuts. They had beaten him.