Paternity Unknown. Jean Barrett

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 computer 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 just 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