“What are you hiding, Lauren?”

“Nothing. Please, just go.”

She was protecting something inside that bedroom. Or someone. He was certain of it. She was no longer living here alone. Another man? He was gripped by a sudden spasm of jealousy.

When he strode purposefully toward the bedroom door, Lauren tried to cut him off. “You have no right!” she cried in panic.

He opened the door, walked into the room. There was no other man. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for a crib located near the window.

Ethan was only dimly aware of Lauren behind him, plucking at his sleeve in a futile effort to stop him. He reached the crib, the breath sticking in his throat as he looked down into its shallow depth.

A pair of blue-green eyes—his eyes—gazed back at him innocently.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

This month you’ll want to have all six of our books to keep you company as you brave those April showers!

 Debra Webb kicks off THE ENFORCERS, her exciting new trilogy, with John Doe on Her Doorstep. And for all of you who have been waiting with bated breath for the newest installment in Kelsey Roberts’s THE LANDRY BROTHERS series, we have Chasing Secrets.

 Rebecca York, Ann Voss Peterson and Patricia Rosemoor join together in Desert Sons. You won’t want to miss this unique three-in-one collection!

 Two of your favorite promotions are back. You won’t be able to resist Leona Karr’s ECLIPSE title, Shadows on the Lake. And you’ll be on the edge of your seat while reading Jean Barrett’s Paternity Unknown, the latest installment in TOP SECRET BABIES.

 Meet another of THE PRECINCT’s rugged lawmen in Julie Miller’s Police Business.

Every month you can depend on Harlequin Intrigue to deliver an array of thrilling romantic suspense and mystery. Be sure you read each one!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Paternity Unknown
Jean Barrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To my readers

I never forget that you make it all possible

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If setting has anything to do with it, Jean Barrett claims she has no reason not to be inspired. She and her husband live on Wisconsin’s scenic Door Peninsula in an antique-filled country cottage overlooking Lake Michigan. A teacher for many years, she left the classroom to write full-time. She is the author of a number of romance novels.

Write to Jean at P.O. Box 623, Sister Bay, WI 54234. SASE appreciated.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lauren McCrea—The frantic mother has no choice but to join forces with the one man she is unable to trust.

Ethan Brand—He has sworn to find his little Sara…and prove his innocence to the woman he never forgot.

Sara—The innocent baby is a pawn in a desperate game.

Hilary Johnson—What terrible secret is the housekeeper concealing?

Sheriff Howell—He resents any interference in his cases.

Marjorie Landry—The FBI agent ends up being a disappointment.

Anthony Johnson—He is the key to everything.

Buddy Foley—The Seattle cop is a friend from the past.

Charlie Heath—The pompous lawyer isn’t all that he seems.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Prologue

He was in the wilderness, he was lost, and it was snowing.

Okay, so there was still some question about the first two, but there was no mistaking the snow. The skies had been a clear, brittle blue when he’d left the airport near Kalispell. Somewhere along his route, though, a cloud cover had sneaked in over the mountains, obscuring the sun.

He hadn’t been worried when the first white flakes swirled through the air. Hell, it was November, and this was Montana. It was supposed to snow, wasn’t it? The car rental agency hadn’t mentioned anything about the possibility of a storm on the way.

But the snow had thickened and for the better part of an hour now, the stuff had been falling at a serious rate. No weather report on the radio. All he could seem to find was music.

The wilderness part was a matter of definition. He knew there were rugged mountains out there—the Flathead Range, according to the map he’d found in the glove compartment. He just couldn’t see them through this curtain of white.

For that matter, he could barely make out the ranks of evergreens pressing in on him. They crowded both sides of the winding road, a forest unbroken by any clearing or a sign of a building. For a man who had spent most of his life in a large city, that translated into his version of a wilderness.

As for being lost…yeah, it felt like it.

He couldn’t remember when he had last met another vehicle. There was just him and this narrow ribbon climbing through the hills. It seemed more like a back road than a highway. Had he missed a sign, taken a wrong turn? The map was of no use; it wasn’t specific enough.

Nor could his cell phone help him. He’d tried to raise the state highway department to learn about the weather conditions and to ask directions, only he was unable to get a signal. The weather was probably to blame—maybe a tower was down.

As if all that weren’t bad enough, the light was rapidly fading. No surprise at this time of the year when the days were so short, but it made his situation all the more treacherous.

Any fool would have turned back long ago, but he didn’t consider it. He couldn’t. Whatever the risk, the urgency of his mission forced him to go on. He had to reach the woman whose knowledge meant his survival.

No time to lose, either. They must be searching for you by now, and if you don’t get to her before they find you…

Forget about that. Take it one step at a time.

At this moment, that meant concentrating on the road. It wasn’t good. The snow was piling up. How much longer would the route remain passable?

Whether it was the instinct that had served him so well in the past or merely blind luck that enabled him to glimpse the sign at the side of the road a moment later, he couldn’t say. The point was, he saw it, and he could have easily missed it in the driving snow.

Easing the car to a halt, he peered through the windshield where the wipers swished across the glass. The beams of his headlights penetrated the snow and gathering darkness just enough for him to make out the old, faded sign.

It wasn’t a directional sign. It was a small billboard. Straining, he could see that it advertised vacation cabins for rent. The cabins were of no interest to him. Their location was. Elkton, Five Miles Ahead, the sign read. His destination. He was on the right road.

Relieved, he moved on. The conditions worsened with each bend in the road as the snowfall accelerated to a furious blizzard. It was full night now. He could barely see the route. Feeling his way, he crested a rise and almost missed a sharp curve. He swung the wheel in time and rounded the turn.

Though alert for trouble, he wasn’t prepared for the cow that loomed directly in front of him. Or maybe it was a moose. It didn’t matter. Whatever the animal was, it was a large threat frozen in the glare of his headlights that sliced through the screen of snow.

He cursed as he hit the brake to avoid a collision. Mistake. There was ice under the snow. The vehicle went into a skid, its nose spinning to the right. Before he could correct it, the car leaped the shoulder and plunged down a long, steep embankment.

Pine boughs slashed the sides of the rental sedan, failing to slow its descent. In the end, the car slammed against the trunk of a tree. Bouncing off, it lurched over onto its side.

He felt a sharp jolt as his head struck the doorframe. A second later, his pain was obliterated by the blackness that swallowed him.

Chapter One

Somebody had gone and changed the rules, Lauren thought. Either the power could be out or the phone could be out, but never both at the same time. That the two of them were just that on this occasion was an indication of how major the storm was.

Has to be the ice, she decided, replacing the receiver in its cradle after testing her phone and finding it dead. There had been a lot of it in the area in the form of frozen rain before it turned to snow. It must have brought down lines everywhere, which meant it was anyone’s guess when her services would be restored.

Lauren wasn’t worried. This wouldn’t be the first time she had been without either a phone or electricity. Hey, you had to expect such inconveniences when you lived in a place this remote.

Anyway, she knew the drill and had already fired up the gas-powered generator out back. Although it was small, it would keep the water pump and the refrigerator going. Nothing else that depended on electricity was essential.

She had also lit the oil lamps and placed them in strategic positions around the combination living room–kitchen that overlooked the frozen lake. The doors to the two bedrooms were closed to conserve heat. Without the electric furnace, she would have to rely on the fireplace at this end of the living room and the old cookstove on the kitchen side. Both were cheerfully blazing.

Needing to make sure there was plenty of firewood inside, Lauren eyed the split logs heaped beside the hearth. They seemed to be a generous supply. They weren’t. She knew how fast the pile could sink when you had to feed both the fireplace and the stove.

Snagging her coat from a peg beside the door, she bundled into it, seized the log carrier, and left the cabin.

The wind was howling off the lake, the snow was flying and it was brutally cold. Definitely a night to stay indoors. But since the covered porch that stretched across the front of the cabin was as far as she had to go, she didn’t complain. Firewood was stacked along its entire length against the log wall.

Lauren was filling the carrier when she noticed it. A strange glow off the far end of the porch.

What in the world—

Leaving the carrier, she moved toward the light. When she reached the corner of the building, she leaned out over the rail for a better look. Whatever its source, the glow was some distance off. It came from the direction of the road up along the ridge above her cabin.

Puzzled, Lauren went on gazing into the night, trying to figure it out. The obstruction of the trees and the falling snow made it impossible to identify. It wasn’t until there was a brief lull in the snowfall that she realized what she was seeing.

Not one light. Two lights. She was seeing the twin beams of a car’s headlights. Only there was something wrong with them. They weren’t horizontal. They were turned upward, like a pair of fixed lamps searching the night sky through the tall spires of the trees.

And that’s when Lauren realized what must have happened. A car had run off the road and landed at such an angle that—

Dear God, an accident! Maybe a serious one, with people injured. There would be no help from a passing vehicle, either. With the new highway to Elkton, this was no longer the main route. The road up there was rarely traveled now, and in weather like this it could be forever before someone came along. Probably not until after the plow came through, and who knew when that would be.

That leaves you as the only available help.

As much as she disliked the thought of going out into the storm, Lauren didn’t hesitate. She was already forming her plan as she left the railing and sped back into the cabin.

Blankets. She would need blankets. She pulled three of them off the shelf of the closet next to the bathroom. Throwing them down on the floor beside the front door, she traded her coat for her snowmobile suit, boots and helmet.

She would have to take the snowmobile. Her car would be useless in this stuff, her driveway already blocked. And she would need the toboggan. She used it when the snow was deep to haul supplies from her car to the cabin or to replenish the wood on the porch from the shed out back.

The toboggan was leaning against the porch. When she came away from the cabin, she lowered it and piled the blankets on it. Then she drew the load around the corner of the building to where her snowmobile was parked. Removing the protective cover from the machine, she roped the toboggan to its rear bumper.

The engine kicked in with a roar on her first try with the pull start. Straddling the saddle, she wove a trail up through the snow-laden firs and pines. The headlights of the helpless car guided her like a beacon.

Their glow seemed to grow weaker the closer she got, which had to mean the car’s engine wasn’t running and that the headlights were operating on a battery whose power was dwindling.

Topping the last rise, she arrived at the scene of the accident. A silver sedan lay half on its side, with its back end buried down in a drift and its hood pointed upward.

Braking her snowmobile and leaving the engine idling, Lauren trudged through the snow, fearing what she would find as she approached the vehicle.

She had a flashlight with her, and when she reached the car, she directed its beam through one of the windows. The driver was still inside, sprawled behind the wheel. He was either unconscious or—

But Lauren refused to consider the worst.

She played the flashlight around the interior. No other occupants. That meant she had only the one victim to rescue. And, providing it wasn’t already too late, she could lose him if she didn’t hurry.

With the car’s motor stalled, he couldn’t have had the heater to keep him warm. There was no telling how long he had been out here in the cold. Certainly he would never have survived the night if, by pure chance, she hadn’t spotted his headlights.

Lauren didn’t stop to question the risk. Stranger or not, she had to transport him to the warmth of her cabin. There was no other option.

It was a decision easier made than executed. Just getting at him was a challenge in itself. The driver’s side was jammed down into the snow, which left that door inaccessible. The passenger door was her only entry, and a difficult one when it was at an angle and several feet off the ground. Lauren somehow fought it open and lifted herself inside, noticing the air bag hadn’t deployed. Well, technology wasn’t infallible.

The driver never stirred. Removing her glove, she groped inside the collar of his expensive-looking leather coat. Her fingers pressed against his strongly corded throat, feeling for a pulse. She got one, slow though it was. He was still alive.

But her relief was dampened when she encountered a trickle of blood. The flashlight revealed its source as a wound on the side of his head. Just how serious it was she would need to try to determine when she moved him into the cabin.

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.

Then she remembered the clipping and the map. They were there on the chair, out in the open, with no guilt involved and enticing her with the offer of possible clues.

Unable to resist the temptation, Lauren left the table and went to look at them. The clipping was no more than a ragged scrap hastily torn from a newspaper whose identity was missing. Most of the story wasn’t there, either.

There was only one intact, small paragraph. It named a witness who had returned from Seattle to her home in Montana. Hilary Johnson. Lauren didn’t recognize the name. Nor did this portion of the story include just what Hilary Johnson might have witnessed.

Lauren turned to the map. It was a road map of Montana, folded so that only one area was visible. This area. The town of Elkton was circled. Heavily circled, as if there had been a fierce determination in the action.

The clipping and the map smacked of—

Well, Lauren didn’t know what they suggested. Something desperate? A mystery certainly.

And, when you get right down to it, none of your business.

She put the clipping and the map back on the chair. Wishing she hadn’t looked at them, she tried not to let them make her uneasy. In all likelihood, there was an innocent explanation.

She returned to the table and her supper. Afterward, while cleaning up, she turned on the portable radio. Wanting to conserve its batteries, she listened only to the weather report.

It wasn’t encouraging. The storm was expected to last through tomorrow and perhaps on into the next day. But then, she didn’t need the radio to tell her just how bad the conditions were. She could hear the snow hissing at the windows, the wind snarling around the corners of the cabin.

Fortunately, the thick logs of its walls made the cabin snug and warm. As long as she kept the fires going, that is. She added fuel to both of them before deciding to call it an early night. She had earned a long rest after this evening’s ordeal.

Long maybe, but not without interruptions, Lauren reminded herself. She would have to get up periodically to tend to the fires. Otherwise, in these temperatures the water lines would freeze.

Also, she needed to check regularly through the night on her patient. She went now to look at him. There was no change. He continued to lie there without any sign that he was either worse or better. As she crouched beside the mattress looking down at that still face, she was troubled by something that hadn’t occurred to her before.

There are probably people somewhere worried about you, Ethan Brand. Maybe a family waiting for you, wondering where you are and why they haven’t heard from you. If so, they must be frantic.

As disturbing as that possibility was, there was nothing Lauren could do about it. Not until the roads were cleared and she had a working telephone again.

Accepting the inevitability of their plight, Lauren rose to her feet. She fetched a pair of blankets and a pillow for herself, set the alarm clock to wake her in an hour, lowered the wicks on the lamps and stretched out on the sofa where she intended to spend the night.

Her last act before she drifted off was to lean over and murmur in the direction of the mattress, “Lauren McCrea wishes you a good night, Ethan Brand.”

It would have been nice to hear a response, but of course there was none.

THE COLD, GRAY LIGHT of early morning was stealing through the windows of the cabin when Lauren was roused again by the buzz of the alarm clock. Stretching out a hand, she silenced the blasted thing.

She lay there for a moment, reluctant to stir. Then, remembering her patient, she lifted her head from the pillow to look down over the side of the sofa. And was startled out of her lingering drowsiness by a pair of riveting, blue-green eyes gazing back at her from the mattress.

Chapter Two

The only sound in the taut silence was the rustle of the embers in the fireplace as they sifted through the bars of the grate.

Swallowing nervously, she finally managed to find her voice. “You’re awake.”

It was hardly a necessary observation since he continued to regard her with those mesmerizing, blue-green eyes. Whether he was lucidly awake was another matter.

Concerned about that, she watched him lift his head from the mattress. The remarkable eyes narrowed in puzzlement as he cast his gaze around the room.

Then, looking at her again, his voice deep and raspy, he responded with a slow, “You mind telling me something?”

“What?”

“Just who the hell are you, and how did I get here? Wherever here is.”

It wasn’t a very friendly beginning—pretty brusque, in fact. But, considering how confused he must be, she was prepared to understand.

“The name is Lauren McCrea. The cabin is my home. And you don’t need to tell me who you are. I checked on your identity in your wallet.”

He considered her confession, maybe was briefly troubled by it—she couldn’t tell—and then nodded his acceptance. “Fair enough.”

“You had an accident. Do you remember it?”

“Oh, yeah. Skidded off the road while avoiding a collision with a—I don’t know, either a cow or a moose. Something like that.”

“It wouldn’t have been a cow. There are no farms around here. Might have been a moose, but more likely an elk.” The injury to his head hadn’t left him disoriented, anyway. That much was a relief. But she was still concerned about other possible injuries. “How are you feeling?”

“Like that elk went and walked all over me after I smacked into the tree.”

Lauren was alarmed when he shoved himself into a sitting position on the mattress. Throwing back the blanket that covered her, she swung her legs to the floor and sat up on the sofa.

“You shouldn’t be moving! Not with that cut on the side of your head!”

“A cut, huh?” Only then did he seem to be aware of his wound. He fingered it carefully. “Yeah, it’s kind of tender.”

“Maybe more than just that. You’ve been unconscious since the accident.”

He frowned, and as he glanced in the direction of a window, she could see him realize something else. That it was daylight.

“You telling me I slept around the clock?” He looked worried by that.

“You must have needed it.”

“It was probably a result of exhaustion as much as the accident. It all caught up with me.”

She waited for him to tell her what had caught up with him. But instead of explaining, his frown deepened, as though he regretted a careless admission.

“Whatever it was,” he continued, trying to sort it out, “I’m missing something. I still don’t know just how I ended up here and who I have to thank for—”

He broke off, looking around again, as if searching for his rescuer.

“No, there is no one else,” she said.

He swung his attention back to her. “Are you telling me—”

“That it was me who brought you here, yes.” She went on to inform him how she had spotted his headlights, traveled to the scene on her snowmobile and transported him back to the cabin.

“I’ll be damned.” He stared at her in wonder. “Nothing ordinary about you, is there, Lauren McCrea?”

She could see admiration in his gaze. It was silly of her to experience a sudden rush of warm pleasure. She tried to deny it with a shrug. “There’s nothing extraordinary about doing what you have to do.”

“Yeah,” he said soberly. He stroked the stubble on his jaw and looked thoughtful. “You report the accident?”

Lauren shook her head, not liking to admit it but knowing he had to be told. “The telephone is out. The power, too.”

“And the roads?”

“There’s no way to get through, and no knowing when everything will get back to normal.”

“You telling me we’re stuck here?”

“Until the plows are able to open the roads, and as bad as this storm is… Look, I’m sorry. You must be anxious to let family or friends know what happened and where you are, but I’m afraid that isn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.”

Odd. She would have thought it mattered a great deal. Before she could pursue his lack of concern in that direction, he pushed aside the blankets and got to his feet.

“What are you doing? You should be resting.”

“Right now, I need something…uh, more.”

“Oh,” she said, understanding.

“Uh-huh, a bathroom.”

“Through there.” She pointed in the direction of the hall that connected with the bedrooms and the bath. “But I don’t know how smart this is.”

He looked down at her from his six-foot height, a grin on his wide mouth. “You offering to go along and help, Lauren?”

The grin was slow, unexpected and decidedly sexy. It also left her flustered. He took pity on her.

“Relax. This body of mine may be suffering a few aches, but not enough to keep it down.” He eyed his travel bag where she had left it on the floor. “It could do with a cleanup, though. But I don’t suppose without power…”

“There’s running water,” she assured him. “I have a generator for the pump, but it’s too small to operate the water heater.”

“I’ve had cold showers before.”

There was no note of humor in his tone, as if the subject of cold showers raised some grim memory. Scooping up his travel bag, he headed for the bathroom, leaving her mystified.

But not for long. The temperature in the room had dropped, reminding her that the fires needed her attention. She could hear the shower going in the bathroom as she busied herself fueling the stove and the fireplace. She thought about him, hoping he was all right in there.

There was something else she thought about, as well. Ethan Brand seemed to be a man with secrets. He had been vague about several things, reluctant to—what? Trust her?

And had she imagined it, or had he been relieved to learn she’d been unable to report his accident? If that were true, it didn’t make sense. Unless—

Will you just listen to yourself?

She was getting all worked up without cause. All right, so she was trapped here with a stranger. But that didn’t mean he was in any way dangerous just because he chose to keep his affairs private.

Except there was one little thing that genuinely bothered her. Ethan Brand was far too potent for comfort with those breath-robbing eyes and that provocative grin. And with this intimacy that had been forced on them….

SHE HAD COFFEE finished on the stove and eggs ready to go into the frying pan when he emerged from the bathroom. The stubble was gone from his jaw, which meant he had managed to shave. He had also changed into a fresh shirt, its cuffs rolled back on his forearms.

“What’s the weather doing?” he asked, placing his travel bag on the floor again. “The bathroom window was too frosted for me to tell.”

“Still coming down hard, I’m afraid. How do you like your eggs?”

He didn’t answer her. In the act of reaching for his wallet on the table, he had discovered the clipping and the map where she had left them next to the lamp. He picked them up and gazed at her questioningly.

“They fell out of your coat pocket,” she said, explaining why they were there.

Except for the snapping of a log in the fireplace, there was a long silence in the room. He moved toward her where she stood by the stove, the map and the clipping still in his hand.

“Did you read it?” he asked, referring to the clipping.

There was no accusation in his tone, nothing menacing in his eyes. No reason for her to feel uneasy, but she did, as if he had caught her prying.

“I glanced at it,” she admitted.

“And?”

“Nothing. It’s none of my business.” He was so close now that she could detect the clean scent of him after his shower. It was unsettling.

“But it must have left you wondering just who you’ve taken into your home. Whether you could be at risk having me here.”

“Am I?”

She thought he might explain then about Hilary Johnson, about what exactly the woman had witnessed and why he needed to reach Elkton. Maybe even tell her he was a kind of investigator on a sensitive mission. Something like that. But he had no explanation for her.

“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 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 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.

It was Zach, of course, who had been on the reconnaissance mission with him. Who had been captured along with Ethan by the North Koreans. Why had they brought Zach to Seattle?

“Don’t tell them, Ethan,” Zach pleaded with him. “Whatever they do to you, don’t tell them anything.”

“Oh, but he will,” Koh insisted. “When he watches what we are going to do to you, he will talk. Won’t you, Ethan?”

Ethan had withstood it all, every punishment they’d inflicted. Was prepared to go on resisting them whatever they made him suffer. But to torture Zach while they forced him to watch—

“Bastards!”

Surging up from the hard stool, he struck out at them, fists swinging in an explosive rage…

“IT’S ALL RIGHT. Ethan, it’s all right.”

A pair of hands. He felt a pair of hands on his tight fists, striving to restrain him. They weren’t cruel hands. They were gentle.

“You were having a nightmare.”

The voice was gentle, too. And deeply concerned. He went still, his fists uncurling as a blessed reality replaced the nightmare. The darkness of another night had wrapped itself around the cabin where he was sitting up on the mattress. Lauren had slipped off the sofa and was kneeling in front of him.

They had left one of the lamps burning on the table above them, its wick turned low. In the feeble glow, he could see her troubled face.

“It’s okay,” she assured him, “you don’t have to tell me about it, but it must have been some awful nightmare. You were shouting in your sleep.”

Awful? Yeah, just about as bad as it could get. His imprisonment in North Korea over a year ago had somehow gotten mixed up in his dream with what happened just days ago in Seattle. Only he was no longer in the service. There would be no one this time to negotiate his release.

Another cell. He couldn’t be locked away in another cell. After what he had endured in North Korea, it would destroy him. But it could happen. It would happen if—

“Your hands are shaking,” she said.

She must have sensed how desperately he needed her comfort in that moment. That’s why she did a wonderful, impulsive thing. Still clinging to his hands, head bent over them, she covered their backs with slow, soothing kisses.

He shuddered over the heat of her mouth on his flesh. She felt so good, so right. A lifeline of sanity in a world that had become demented for him. He didn’t know how he was going to bear leaving her when the time came for him to go.

“Lauren,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion.

She lifted her head and met his gaze. He looked into her eyes and read understanding there. She knew what he wanted, what was tearing him up inside: her. He needed her as he had never needed any other woman.

It was wrong of him to take advantage of her just because she was receptive to that need. He realized that. But, in her generosity to offer him what would bring him relief from his anguish, however temporary, he was unable to resist her.

With a groan of submission, snatching his hands away from hers in order to gather her into his arms, he reached for her. Hauled her softness tightly against his hardness, crushed his mouth over hers.

Alternately fierce and tender. That’s how Ethan kissed her, and how she responded with her own kisses.

They must have shed their clothes between those fevered kisses. He didn’t remember. He only knew that at some point they were both naked, that he was swollen with desire, his senses inflamed by the taste and feel of her.

He should have been beyond all hesitation by then, but some shred of conscience did make him pause. “It’s not too late,” he rasped. “We don’t have to—”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, we do.”

Her own urgency robbed him of all reason then, leaving him with only one scrap of responsibility. At least he had that much, he thought, his hand groping for his wallet on the table beside them.

Fumbling for the condom inside, slitting it open and removing it, he sheathed himself. There was no self-control after that. All the rest was a mindless, rapturous joining. Their two bodies consuming each other, straining for release and finding it in a roaring fulfillment.

Afterwards, holding her securely against his side as she slept, Ethan knew he should regret what had just happened. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

COLD WATER pelted his body, reviving him. He was able to think clearly as he soaped himself and turned under the shower spray.

The first light of morning had revealed that the storm had ended. That meant the plows would soon be out clearing the roads, maybe already were.

Ethan didn’t think there was much chance of one of them spotting his rental car down among the trees. It must be snow-covered by now. But there was always that risk.

And if it were sighted and its presence reported, it would be investigated and identified as a rental car. Its license would be easily traced to the agency in Kalispell. The police would be told who had rented the vehicle. They would run a check on him, learn he was wanted in Seattle. And since the sedan had been abandoned, and the cabin the only nearby shelter in the storm, it was only logical…

It can’t happen that fast. You still have time.

Okay, that was probably true, but he couldn’t waste that time. He was defenseless here. He had to get away just as quickly as possible. How? The rental was useless.

Lauren’s car, he thought. She had told him over dinner last night that she’d left it parked up at the mouth of her driveway where it joined the road, just as she always did whenever there was the threat of a heavy snow that made her lane impassable. He didn’t want to involve Lauren, but there was no other way. He’d have to ask to borrow her car, dig it out of the snow, and drive into Elkton.

Things would be all right if he could just reach Hilary Johnson. He would make them all right.

And then what? What was he going to do about Lauren? Running out on her after last night was unthinkable. But with what he was facing, how could he do otherwise? Anything else would be unfair to both of them.

And just how fair is it to go without a word of explanation, to leave her hurt and wondering? You can’t do that. She deserves to know.

Ethan made up his mind. He would tell her everything over breakfast. She might react very badly to the truth, order him out of the cabin and her life. He wouldn’t blame her if she did, even though it would kill him if she turned away from him now. No other choice, though. He would have to take his chances with her.

It was when he turned off the shower that he was able to hear a kind of reverberating noise somewhere outside the cabin. Sounded like machinery.

A snowmobile? he wondered. Had Lauren fired up her snowmobile?

Puzzled, he flung back the shower door and grabbed a towel. It wasn’t until he emerged from the stall and was swiftly drying himself that he realized what he was hearing was a heavy-duty vehicle of some sort.

The thing suddenly went silent, as if it had arrived at its destination. Seized by a grim understanding, his stomach lurched.

Ethan dragged on a pair of jeans. He didn’t bother with any other clothes. He could hear voices out in the living room. He knew there was no point in trying to make a break for it. He wouldn’t get ten yards.

His chest and feet bare, he left the bathroom, walked into the living room. He had been wrong in his judgment. Time had already run out on him.

There were two of them, both of them with faces like stone. Maybe they were state troopers, or maybe they were from the local sheriff’s department. He didn’t know, didn’t care. All that mattered was Lauren. She stood there staring at him with an expression on her face that chewed him up inside.

One of the uniforms held a gun on him while his younger partner approached him and began to cautiously check his jeans for any weapon he might be carrying.

The officer with the gun addressed him, solemnly intoning, “Ethan Brand, you’re under arrest as a suspect in the murder of Jonathan Mortimer Brand. You have the right to…”

Ethan didn’t listen to the rest, didn’t even look at their faces as he stood there without moving. The only face that mattered was Lauren’s. She still wore that stricken expression.

He tried to meet her gaze, tried to send her a silent message of appeal, imploring her forgiveness. But she turned away from him. He had never felt such a miserable sense of abandonment.

Eleven months later

IT WAS ANOTHER Montana. The mountains and the forests were still there, just as he remembered them. But they weren’t wrapped in deep snow. The gaudy colors of early October tinted them now, the hardwoods ablaze with crimson and gold against the drab green of the pines. The air was kinder, too, almost balmy and wearing a faint autumn haze.

Yeah, it was different, although Ethan was able to recognize the road he traveled, this time in a rental sedan that almost matched the clear blue of the sky. There were familiar landmarks, like the sign that advertised vacation cottages for rent in Elkton.

Elkton. That was why he’d come back to this place. He had unfinished business with Hilary Johnson, who now lived permanently in her hometown.

His grandfather’s former housekeeper had lied on the stand when they’d brought her back to Seattle as the chief witness in Ethan’s trials. Both juries had believed her, but her testimony hadn’t been enough to convict him. Insufficient evidence. He’d been acquitted in the end.

Ethan should have let it go at that, gotten on with his life. He couldn’t. Whatever the final verdict, he knew that the police and the public continued to doubt his innocence. He had to know why Hilary Johnson had lied. Had to do whatever he could to clear himself, or this cloud of guilt would shadow him for the rest of his days.

Hell, why was he playing games with himself? He had realized the moment he’d boarded the plane, even before then, that it was not just Hilary Johnson who was bringing him back to Montana. Lauren. He had to try to make it right with Lauren.

The road climbed the ridge and swept around a bend. Ethan slowed the car. Another landmark. This was the spot where he had skidded and gone over the embankment.

Recollections. And the worst of them was the gut-wrenching memory of Lauren’s face when those two cops had hauled him away from her cabin in cuffs. The look of betrayal on her face had haunted him all those long months they had kept him in jail.

He had to try to make it right with her. If she would let him.

He was seething with that hope when he reached the turn into her driveway and descended the long, winding lane. Maybe she wouldn’t be here. He hadn’t considered that.

Swooping around a curve, he emerged from the trees. Another vehicle, a green compact, was parked at the edge of the clearing. He figured it had to be hers. He pulled in behind it and climbed from the rental.

The ground here had been white when he’d last seen it, the lake frozen. Now the clearing was a golden brown with drifting leaves and the open waters of the lake a deep blue. No wind, either. The morning was tranquil.

Ethan was aware of the stillness as he crossed the clearing to the cabin, mounted the steps of the porch and arrived at the front door. The door was slightly ajar. When he rapped on it, it spread inward.

“Lauren,” he called softly. “You here?”

No answer. The open door was an invitation. He probably had no right to look at it that way, but he did.

Ethan walked into the living room and was immediately assaulted by memories. Some of them were raw and painful. Most of them were good memories. He tried to hang on to those, just as he had clung to them all those months in jail.

The cabin was silent. There was no sign of Lauren. But sacks of groceries stood on the bar that divided the kitchen from the living room, as if she had recently arrived home from the store and hadn’t had time to unpack them.

A movement through one of the windows at the side of the cabin captured his attention. Ethan went to the glass and looked out. Lauren was there in the yard putting seed in a bird feeder. The sight of her slim figure had emotions welling up inside him. They threatened to spill over when she left the feeder and trotted back around the corner of the cabin.

She hadn’t heard his car, didn’t know he was here. He turned away from the window, waiting for her. When she came through the door and discovered his presence, she stopped, a look of naked shock on her face.

Swiftly recovering herself, she challenged him with a sharp, “How did you get in?”

It was not the greeting Ethan wanted to hear, even if he did deserve it. “The door was ajar. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

She set the container of sunflower seeds on a small table just inside the door and then moved away toward the far end of the living room, as if she didn’t trust him to be anywhere near her.

“How long have you been here?” she demanded.

“I just got—” He broke off. He could see she was trembling. She was afraid. Afraid of him. Stung by her fear, he tried to reassure her, saying solemnly, “I told you once, Lauren, that I wouldn’t hurt you. I meant it. I mean it now.”

“You turn up like this out of nowhere just to tell me that?”

She was right. He should have phoned her first, asked if he could see her. Why hadn’t he? Maybe because he’d feared she would hang up on him.

She raked her fingers through her auburn hair. That’s when he noticed she had cut it and that this shorter length suited her. Her action was evidence that she was still apprehensive. He tried again to ease her.

“I wouldn’t hurt anyone, Lauren, and I didn’t. What I was accused of when they arrested me last year…well, I stood trial for that and was—”

“I know. It was all over the news.”

Yeah, given his grandfather’s wealth and prominence, he supposed the whole thing was sensational enough to have been covered even here in Montana.

“Then you know I’m no longer a wanted man.”

“What I don’t know is what you’re doing here.”

This was all going badly. They were stiff and awkward with each other, not what he’d planned. “We’re unfinished business, Lauren. Whatever happened, I cared about us. I still care.”

“You had a strange way of showing that. Eleven months of silence.”

She was angry now. Unable to forgive him. He couldn’t blame her. No, he hadn’t tried to call her or write her. How could he, with a prison sentence looming over him every day of those eleven months?

Almost a year. A whole year locked away in a Seattle jail. Held without bail because not only was the charge murder, he’d been a suspect who had fled the state of Washington with the intention of badgering a witness. Hilary Johnson, who, after her deposition, had come home to Montana until her testimony was needed.

She had testified, but only after lengthy delays that had preceded the first trial, which had ended in a hung jury. Then more delays followed until the second trial, when the jury this time had brought in a reluctant verdict of innocence. The prosecution had failed to prove Ethan’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt.

And throughout those eleven months, he had made no effort to contact Lauren. He’d been convinced it wouldn’t be fair to her, that with the threat of prison he’d only be hurting her more than he already had. She hadn’t needed him messing up her life again.

This was what Ethan had thought, and he realized now how wrong he had been.

“You’re right,” he said. “I owe you an explanation.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need it. I just want you to go.”

Hoping an appeal would work, Ethan started toward her. She backed away from him. That’s when he realized she was more than just hurt or scared. She was worried about something. Her gaze nervously, briefly slewed in the direction of the door to the master bedroom. Ethan could see that door now. It was closed.

“What is it, Lauren? What are you hiding?”

“Nothing. Please, just go.”

She was protecting something inside that bedroom. Or someone. He was certain of it. She was no longer living here alone.

Who? Another man? Was the guy from Helena back in her life?

He was gripped by a sudden spasm of jealousy. Stupid. He wasn’t entitled to such an emotion. Lauren was a young, vibrant woman. Why shouldn’t she have someone in her life?

But as unreasonable as he knew his jealousy to be, it persisted, resulting in an equally irrational action.

When he changed direction and strode purposefully toward the bedroom door, Lauren tried to cut him off. He was too quick for her, arriving at the door before she could prevent his intention.

“You have no right!” she cried in a panic.

No, he didn’t. No right at all to confront some concealed lover like an outraged husband. He could end up making a thorough fool of himself. Probably would. He didn’t care. He opened the door, walked into the room.

There was no other man. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except for a crib located near the window.

Ethan was only dimly aware of Lauren behind him, plucking at the sleeve of his sweater in a futile effort to stop him. Shrugging her off, he moved numbly across the room.

He reached the crib, the breath sticking in his throat as he looked down into its shallow depth. A pair of blue-green eyes, his eyes, gazed back at him innocently.

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