Jean Barrett - Paternity Unknown

The easy part was clambering out of the car, releasing the toboggan from the snowmobile, and positioning it below the open door.

The tough part was placing him on the toboggan. From what she could judge, he had to be all of a solid six feet in length. And a deadweight. But with a combination of tugging, dragging and sheer stubbornness, Lauren managed to wrestle him out of the car and lower him onto the toboggan. What damage she might be inflicting on him in the process she didn’t dare to think about. It couldn’t be helped.

After trussing him up in the blankets and hitching the toboggan to the bumper of the snowmobile again, she went back to the car to switch off its headlights and remove the keys from the ignition.

Pocketing them, she had a last look around the interior. Her flashlight disclosed a small travel bag on the backseat. She took it and placed it on the toboggan with her unconscious passenger.

It was time for her sled to go into action again.

ONCE SHE’D RECOVERED enough wind to do more than wheeze, Lauren addressed her patient.

“A few words of congratulation would be nice.”

He didn’t answer her plea. He remained inert.

“Please.”

No response. Not so much as a flutter of his eyelids.

It really wasn’t his approval she needed, only some form of reassurance from him that he wasn’t going to expire on her. Though, considering what she had undergone to get him here, she was entitled to that congratulation.

The trip itself back to the cabin hadn’t been eventful. It was what Lauren had achieved after the snowmobile delivered them to the cabin that deserved recognition. Since she’d had to get him inside, and since he was clearly far too heavy for her to carry, she’d used the only means she could think of.

Filling the steps and the floor of the porch with snow, huffing and straining, she had hauled the toboggan and its load up onto the porch. Dragged it across the porch, over the threshold of the front door, and somehow arrived with her burden in front of the hearth.

Only then had Lauren permitted herself to collapse on the floor of the living room. It was where she huddled now beside the toboggan. And where, exhausted, she longed to go on huddling. But, whoever he was, the man she had rescued demanded immediate attention.

The fire first. It had shrunk to embers in her absence. Heaving herself to her feet, she placed fresh logs on the grate, made sure they caught and then went off to the bathroom.

When she returned, first aid kit in hand, the fire was blazing again, radiating a welcome warmth. She started to crouch down beside the toboggan and then stopped.

This is no good. You can’t just let him go on lying there on that hard thing.

Yes, but there was no way she could manage to get him up onto one of the beds. Besides, the bedrooms had to be like freezers now.

All right, if she couldn’t take him to a bed, then she’d bring the bed to him. Or the part that mattered, anyway.

Lauren felt like a player in a comic performance as she tussled a mattress off one of the twin beds in the spare bedroom, squeezed it through the doorway, and stumbled over it twice before she was able to deposit it on the floor between the sofa and the toboggan.

Stripping off her boots and snowmobile suit, she knelt beside the sled and unwrapped the blankets from the figure stretched on it. Then, sliding her hands under his back, she heaved him up and over onto the mattress. It took another effort before she was able to roll him over onto his back again.

There. Much better.

Or maybe not. There was still the matter of his head wound. And who knew what other internal injuries he might have sustained. If he had, there was nothing she could do about them.

Leaning over him, she turned his head toward the light of the oil lamp on the table above her. The wound on his temple had stopped bleeding, but it was a nasty-looking gash. She cleaned it with antiseptic from the first aid kit, applied an antibiotic ointment for good measure and decided not to try to dress it with a bandage.

Lauren was no nurse, but his color looked all right, and when she checked his pulse again, it seemed steady enough.

But he never stirred, and that continued to worry her.

His coat. He’d probably be more comfortable if she could get him out of that coat. Lifting his head and shoulders, she set to work peeling away the leather coat. It was another struggle, but she succeeded in removing the garment.

Two items stuck in one of the coat’s pockets landed on the floor. A map and a newspaper clipping. She set them aside with the jacket.

Sinking back on her heels, Lauren considered her patient. She knew he ought to have a doctor, maybe be admitted to a hospital. But there was nothing she could do about that. If he didn’t come around by morning, she would have to think about going to Elkton for help. Providing, that is, she could get that far, even on the snowmobile. With the weather worsening, it was doubtful.

For the moment, though, she had done all she could.

You don’t think you’re finished here, do you? There’s the little matter of his wallet.

Lauren had noticed the bulge in his back pants pocket when she had turned him over on the mattress. A wallet would provide her with identification, and she was entitled to know who he was.

Right.

But she hesitated. Her contact with him until now had been necessary and strictly impersonal. However, groping around that particular area of his body seemed…well, somehow too familiar.

Just get on with it.

She did, squeezing her hand under his backside and working the wallet out of his pocket. There was fabric between her fingers and his firm flesh, but it didn’t matter. The sensation of heat and intimacy had her gulping like a teenager.

The wallet in her hand, she scooted away from him.

Idiot.

Drawing a safe breath, she opened the wallet. She found a driver’s license inside with a Seattle, Washington, address. It was issued in the name of Ethan Brand. She looked down at him.

Well, you have an identity now, Ethan Brand. I know who you are, but I don’t know what you are.

For one thing, he was twenty-seven, according to the birth date on his license. He also didn’t have to worry about his looks, Lauren decided.

Until this moment, she had been far too busy saving him to acquire more than a brief impression of his face and form. But now she had the opportunity to gaze at him in earnest. She liked what she saw.

Long-limbed and lean, he had a body that she supposed could be defined as athletic. It was his face, though, that she found interesting. And definitely appealing with its square jaw, cleft chin and thatch of dark brown hair.

That strong face also had a wide mouth with a boldly sensual quality. It would probably be wise, though, not to dwell on that.

And, anyway, it didn’t seem fair for her to go on gaping at him when he was lying there unconscious and vulnerable.

Getting to her feet, Lauren placed his wallet and jacket, together with the map and clipping, on a chair. Then, covering him again with a blanket, she put on her coat, returned the toboggan to its spot below the porch, made sure her snowmobile was secure and resumed her interrupted job of bringing in a fresh supply of wood.

It was afterward, seated at the table eating the soup and sandwich she’d fixed for her supper, that she thought again about her silent visitor.

Ethan Brand. She knew his name and looks now. What she didn’t know was his character. And to be honest about it, that concerned her. In his present condition, he certainly posed no threat. Nor had she a reason to think he was anything other than the harmless victim of an accident. Still…

Her gaze strayed in the direction of his travel bag she had dumped on the floor below the sofa. Should she? No, unlike her essential investigation of his wallet, digging through the contents of that bag struck her as a blatant invasion of his privacy.