Rescued by Mr. Wrong

by Cynthia Thomason

  His brow furrowed. “Of course. He’s my kid, but he lives three thousand miles away. I’m pretty sure his mother chose Seattle because it was on the other side of the country from me.”

  “That’s rough.” She wanted to ask him why his ex-wife resented him so much. Had he been a poor provider? Carrie didn’t think so. Had he cheated on her? None of the standard reasons for divorce seemed to fit Keegan’s MO of basically being antisocial but not mean or vindictive.

  He shrugged, returned to the sink and ran the hot water. “You get used to it. A person can get used to almost anything if enough time passes. And I stay in touch with the phone.”

  She sighed heavily, drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

  He whirled around to face her. “Look, don’t waste any sympathy on me. I was a horrible father. Never around, always off to corners of the world where I couldn’t be reached. As far as parenting goes, you know the old saying, ‘You reap what you sow.’”

  “You abandoned them?”

  “Not the way you’re thinking.” He began scrubbing the dishes as if they had a week’s worth of grime on them. “I had a job that kept me on the road. I supported them, called nearly every day when I stayed put long enough. But as far as being a good husband and father, truthfully, I lacked a few merit points in my record book. Luckily Taylor had a great mom.”

  “You were in the corporate world?”

  He seemed amused. “Not exactly. And anyway, we’re done talking about this, okay?”

  “Okay.” Why wouldn’t he tell her what he’d done for a living? Carrie stood, supporting herself on the edge of the table. “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Good enough. Warmer. Snow melted a bit.”

  “I’d like to go outside then.”

  “I guess that would be okay, though you can see pretty much all of what’s here by just looking out the window.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “In every natural environment, what’s important lies beyond what the eye can see—in the dirt and roots of growing things. Same can be said for people, too.”

  He paused, considering her words. “But sometimes people don’t want you examining their roots.”

  She understood that no further questions would be allowed at this point.

  “I’ll get you a chair and set you up.”

  “And some paper and pencils, too, if you don’t mind. I want to sketch.”

  “You’ve got a cell phone. Why don’t you take a picture?”

  She smiled at him. “I might do that, too.”

  Keegan took a folding chair from a closet. “If you don’t mind my asking, what do you expect you’ll find to sketch out there? It’s winter. Most of the plants, at least what’s left of them, are hibernating. There are no leaves on the trees.”

  “There aren’t even many trees,” she added.

  “That’s true. This lot used to be shady and nice. A couple of years ago, Dutch elm disease got a bunch of the trees. My grandfather was upset.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Anyway, my point is that for a naturalist like yourself, it must be pretty boring.”

  She stared at him as he slipped his jacket on. “I wonder if you even know what’s outside your door,” she said.

  “I know what isn’t. We’ve just discussed it.”

  She smiled at him, but it was a smile of indulgence, not pleasure. “I believe that every living thing has potential,” she said. “As long as cells keep multiplying, there is always a chance of renewal for everything in nature.”

  “I suppose you believe that about people, too?”

  “Well, I did.” She shrugged and gave him a genuine grin this time. “Now, maybe I’m not so sure.”

  He held up one finger. “Now you’re learning. Those spindly old plants out there, and maybe even other breathing entities on this property, are just lost causes.”

  She stood, grabbed her crutches. “You never know.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  KEEGAN LEFT HER sitting in the lawn chair. She was bundled up in her designer jacket, a pair of leather gloves and a stocking cap. For extra measure, he’d draped an old quilt over her shoulders. The temperature had crept up to the thirties, so he figured she wouldn’t freeze to death.

  After an hour, he went to check on her. He’d opened the back door just a crack when he heard her cell phone ring. He considered latching the door and giving her some privacy, but that kind of considerate behavior hadn’t gotten him where he was today. Not that his position at the moment was anything to brag about. But not too long ago, he’d been a fairly well-respected journalist, and you didn’t get that kind of notoriety without being nosy, or curious, as he liked to call it, if not outright dogged in his pursuit of the facts.

  Besides, he still knew very little about his houseguest, and not knowing things pretty much drove Keegan up a wall. He needed to know all the facts, the good, the bad and especially the ones about Carrie Foster. Who was this delicate creature with the cheerful attitude, the sweet face and the urge to live like a Keebler elf in a hollow tree?

  So as he’d done many times from behind rocky outcroppings, through dusty ventilation systems and with his ear pressed up against crumbling tunnel walls, he tuned in and listened.

  “Jude, hi! How’s my favorite big sister?”

  She sounded positively chipper. Whoever Jude was, she’d never know her sister had a busted up car and leg.

  Carrie laughed. “You’re right. I’d have said the same thing to Alex if she had called. Someone’s got to keep peace in this family. So tell me about you and Liam. Is he out of the hospital yet?”

  This pause went on for several minutes. Carrie uttered a few aahs and wows to let her sister know she was engaged and involved. She finally ended with, “I don’t want to say I told you so, but...” She sighed. “And I couldn’t be happier if I was getting a ring on New Year’s Eve. You deserve this, Jude. Liam sounds like a wonderful guy.”

  Carrie went on to ask about other family members, he supposed, including several of the four-legged variety, horses, goats and a dog or two, which he was certain Carrie’s asthma kept her from enjoying. Wherever these Fosters lived, Keegan bet they never enjoyed a peaceful moment. He could relate to that, with the exception of the last year.

  “I’m fine,” Carrie said. “Michigan is beautiful. I’m working on plans to reforest some of the neighborhoods north of Ann Arbor. Every day is busy, busy, busy!”

  Keegan shook his head at the series of lies. If Carrie truly was talking to her favorite big sister, why didn’t she tell her that she’d had an accident and was living with a hermit in a godforsaken campground?

  “Tell Daddy everything is great, couldn’t be better. And, Jude, tell him I love him. Kiss Mama and Wesley for me.”

  The conversation obviously over, Carrie slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. She stared long and hard at some nondescript spot along the tree line behind Delores’s camper. Then she picked up her pencil and began to sketch. And Keegan went back to work at his computer, his head still filled with more questions than answers. But he was soon firmly embedded with the 104th armored brigade in the Middle East.

  The Humvee just ahead of us was hit hard. The explosion battered the undercarriage, and somehow smoke and flames found their way into the heavily armored vehicle. The doors flew off and skidded along the ground into the nearby desert. Two soldiers crawled out of the smoky plumes. There had been a total of six passengers inside the Hummer when we left the base camp. Our driver swerved to avoid a piece of windshield jettisoning toward us. I covered my head and ducked onto the floor of the backseat. Our vehicle shuddered to a halt, and we all poured out—soldiers and reporters alike. We had four men to find, and we hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Keegan took a gulp of bitter, lukewarm coffee and w
ished he had laced it with whiskey. But, no, those days were over. He no longer deadened the pain with alcohol. Now he tried to do it with a computer keyboard...tried being the operative word. He told himself every day, as he recounted the experiences of his career, that getting the words on a screen would alleviate some of the ache. Some days it actually worked.

  * * *

  CARRIE’S SKETCHING HAND seemed to have a mind of its own, and she let it, along with her keen bespectacled eyes, determine her strokes. Never before had she enjoyed such a blank canvas as provided by Keegan’s potential paradise. In two hours she had designed six distinct areas of the campground—a pond for fishing, a playground, renovated showers and lavatories, a pool, a picnic area and a small, rustic amphitheater where campers could learn about native foliage and the history of Lake Erie. If this project were hers to build, she would utilize native trees and plants to add shade, variety and nesting places for nature’s tiniest creatures.

  She left the old trailers belonging to Duke and Delores in her sketches with thoughts of repainting and repairing them. The streamlined campers would add a touch of vintage charm to the reforested landscape. She would paint one yellow with aqua trim and the other green with tan trim.

  She had just started her seventh sketch when Keegan came outside. “How are you doing?” he asked. “You ready to come in?”

  “Not just yet. Come here. I want to show you something.” Did she think he would be interested in her sketches? No, but a girl could hope.

  He pulled up an old crockery pot, turned it over and sat. “I hope the dog hasn’t been around.”

  “No, I’ve seen his face in Duke’s window, so I guess they are both inside until it warms up a bit more.”

  Keegan leaned close to her. “What do you want me to see?”

  She flipped the pages in her pad until she could show him the first sketch. “Do you know what this is?”

  “Nope. Haven’t the faintest idea. But if you drew this, I’d say you have some talent at natural scenes.”

  “Well, yes, I do, but I didn’t ask you to look at this so I would get compliments on my artistic ability. I was hoping you’d recognize the space I’ve drawn.”

  He studied the drawing a moment before pointing to a particular area. “Wait a minute...is that the tree line that marks the end of my property?”

  “Exactly. It’s the area just to the left of Duke’s trailer, and it could look like this. All these plants and landscaped patches are my ideas for beautifying this whole campground. And the trees, too, of course. We’d need lots of trees, and I could get some that already have a few year’s growth on them.”

  He frowned. “We? What does that mean?”

  She hadn’t intended to use that word. Of course she knew that the campground was Keegan’s, and there was no “we.”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just an expression.”

  “Interesting. Like I said, you have a talent for drawing, and I suppose all this imagination would matter to someone who wanted to keep this sorry lot as a campground.”

  She stared into his eyes, hoping he would see what she envisioned. “Hasn’t the idea even occurred to you?”

  “Of course it has, and since this is the second winter I’ve spent here, I’ve finally learned my lesson. And what I learned is to get out while I can. Besides, I’m not much of a manager type. If I tried to run this campground by applying my limited skills at maintenance, I’d watch it go belly-up in a matter of months.”

  “But you already own the property. Couldn’t you hire a manager? A groundskeeper?”

  “Carrie...” His voice held the hint of a warning.

  She quickly turned another page, showing several concrete pads for campers and Delores’s unit in the background. “There is so much potential for this property,” she said. “The pads are already in, along with the electrical and sewer hookups. It’s practically begging for someone to take an interest in it.”

  “Yeah, and it would cost a fortune to bring it all up to code.” He started to stand up. “Nice work, Carrie, but even if I wanted to do something with this property again, I don’t have the cash to turn this seven acres of scrub into a place people would pay me to visit. It could be tens of thousands of dollars to accomplish even some of what you visualize.”

  She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged, hoping to persuade him to sit on the crock again. His eyes narrowed on the two inches of skin under her palm.

  “Yes, that’s true,” she admitted when he’d taken his seat. “But you’re not aware of the help you can get from the government in the form of grants and loans.”

  “Right. The government is going to pay me to plant some hedges and trees on the same property that, just two days ago, you said was neglected.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “When I said that, I wasn’t fully aware of the true potential of this land. And don’t forget, I work for that branch of the government. My recommendation would make a big difference in a decision to allocate the money. You do know, don’t you, that the Lake Erie cleanup campaign has been ongoing for years now?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I know that.”

  “The Forest Service is quite pleased about the improvements. They are hoping to turn this part of Ohio into a major recreation area. And this campground, situated right across the road from the reclaimed beach, is perfect.”

  “Which is why I’ve already made a decision about it,” he said.

  “You have?” Could she allow herself to be hopeful? “What are you going to do with this land?”

  He stood. “You probably won’t like the answer, you being a card-carrying tree hugger and all, but I plan to sell this land to a hotel chain, pocket the cash and be on my way.”

  Her jaw dropped. “No! You can’t.”

  A hard scowl settled over his features. “I believe I can. I have the deed.”

  “But another hotel? We don’t need another hotel! We need grass and trees and places for families to play and squirrels to gather nuts and birds to build nests.” She grabbed his hand. “I can help you. This is what I do. Won’t you at least consider...”

  “Look, Carrie, you want this to be a recreation area. What’s more recreational than a hotel with all the amenities?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Nobody’s keeping you from doing what you do, Carrie. There are lots of defunct campgrounds in this area. I’m sure you can find another one you can retrofit to your liking.” He disengaged his hand. “But it won’t be this one.”

  He went into the house and closed the door. Carrie studied all her sketches again but had lost the incentive to produce another drawing. It was all such a shame. But then she looked at the horizon and smiled. Perhaps Keegan’s decision wasn’t irreversible. Her car wasn’t fixed yet. She had nowhere else to go. In the time she had left, if he didn’t kick her out, who knew what she could accomplish in the way of persuading one stubborn man to value the land his grandfather left him. Her mother once said, “Carrie could talk a rattlesnake into tying her shoes.” All at once Carrie believed it might be true.

  She came inside for lunch, and after eating the sandwich Keegan had prepared for her, she chose a book from his small library and settled on the sofa. A few snow flurries drifted by the windows. A fire in the old stone fireplace made the cabin feel warm and cozy, and since the house was well ventilated, she wasn’t bothered by the wood smoke. Keegan worked at his computer, went outside once to throw a stick for Flo and eventually related the choices he had in the fridge for dinner.

  “I’m going to the market tomorrow,” he said. “So if there’s anything you want, let me know.”

  Carrie’s mood brightened considerably. “Do you think I could go with you? I could ride in one of the motorized chairs that all supermarkets have.”

  “I’m not going all
the way to the supermarket, and the local grocer doesn’t have those chairs. But you can ride along with me if you want to.”

  “I definitely do.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “And Keegan? I really want you to sleep in your bed tonight. I will be fine on the couch.”

  “I know you say that, but I’ve discovered a few lumps in that sofa I didn’t know were there. I’ve made them fit to the crannies of my body so I’m used to them.”

  “One more night, if I’m still here, and then we make the switch.” She stated her ultimatum more as a test to find out if Keegan planned on her being with him for the foreseeable future.

  He nodded. “Since we didn’t hear from Grady, and since you can’t drive anyway, I’m thinking you’ll still be here. But, okay. Tomorrow night we’ll switch. If you change your mind, it’s not a problem.”

  Carrie smiled to herself. So far, she was staying. And liking it. Not the part where he was waiting on her. Carrie really hated that. But just the comfort of being around someone she could trust. Keegan allowed her to be herself. If he didn’t particularly care for the person she was, at least he didn’t show it.

  * * *

  DURING THE DRIVE to the local grocery mart the next day, Carrie made out her list of items she’d like Keegan to purchase. She gave him a twenty-dollar bill to cover the cost. He slipped the bill and the list into his pocket. “I included a couple of items that no man wants to buy,” she said with a grin. “I hope you won’t mind picking them up. Otherwise I’ll have to go in with my crutches.”

  He smiled. “I think I’m secure enough in my manhood to handle it, Carrie.”

  He left the motor running in the SUV, and Carrie settled back, closed her eyes and listened to the radio. Soon her thoughts wandered to this new roommate situation and her own strange behavior with regard to Keegan Breen. What was it about him? On one hand, he complained about his bothersome neighbors. Yet he allowed them to stay on his property for free. Was he truly a grouch who disliked being around people, or deep down, was he a caring man?

  At first he’d been less than enthusiastic about having a houseguest, but he’d shown remarkable gentleness and care when he changed her bandage or fixed her meals. His words came back to her now. “You can’t stay here. You need to call someone to come get you.”