Page 13 of Their Steamy Cabin
I give her a kiss goodbye and pet the top of her head. She coos up at me, peaceful and content. She gets comfortable on the sofa again, and I think maybe this girl of mine, who has been working every day of her life, can finally rest a bit.
As I step outside the door, I’m hit with that longing too. I just want to have her in my arms. Forever and ever.
But I’m too damn practical minded. I gotta get up and actually get some stuff done.
Life can really suck sometimes.
SIX
savannah
Usually I’m a one-shower-a-day kind of gal, but with everything I’d done in the past twelve hours? A second one would be nice. All the exertion from our walks, the cooking, and the... let’s just call it strenuous, cooperative exercise with Hunter... they all made me work up quite the sweat.
Besides, I think I want to be clean when Hunter comes back. Fresh and ready for more strenuous, cooperative exercise.
Never mind that it’s my third shower in twenty-four hours. I’m not a neat freak; I just want to look my best for him always.
I find myself enjoying the scent of his shampoo too. It isn’t anything special; Hunter isn’t the type to make his hair smell like peaches—just some generic “fresh scent.” But it smells like him, and I can feel myself becoming more and more attached to everything about him as time goes on.
Freshly clean, I slide into his robe, and take a whiff of that too. I can’t really even pretend that I’m not head over heels in love with him, anymore. I told myself if he went and popped the question at that old tree, I’d be rational and say I wasn’t ready, and it’s a tad too forward. But now, simply hours later?
Damn. I never expected it to happen so fast. I always thought it was simply a dramatic effect when I saw it in movies and TV.
I wander around the cabin. If he is getting pizza, I can’t make dinner for him, so I just get the dishes done and poke around his cabinets to see if there is anything fancy I could make.
He has a liquor cabinet. Some gin, some tonic, and I remembered how I already knew how to make one of those. It was more than just combining them, it was about getting the right balance. Sure, legally I’m not allowed to go buy alcohol on my own, but my dad never cared about that. I turned fourteen, and he taught me how to make his favorite drink, which wasn’t all that hard, considering it was scotch, neat.
I had no idea what was Hunter’s favorite, but given he had the ingredients here, I decide to prepare a gin and tonic, to have it ready for when he gets back. He also had some bottled orange screwdrivers, which made me smile. One: It was my preferred choice when I committed the horrible sin of underage drinking. Two: It reminds me of the kind of man Hunter is. He isn’t so ruled by his vision of masculinity that he’d refuse what was seen as a girly drink. He likes what he likes, and he doesn’t give a heck who judges him.
That’s a man worth keeping.
And as I return to the couch, the doorknob turns. I smile, realizing I’d, just by chance, timed everything perfectly. I hold my two drinks with anticipation as the door swings open.
It’s not Hunter.
No.
“Savannah Lynn Summers, you’re coming with me right this fucking minute.”
“Dad? Dad, what the hell are you doing here?”
Without hesitation, he moves to me and grabs me by the arm, my screwdriver falling out of my hand.
“I’m taking you home. You can’t run off from me like that. Not with my car. Not with what you owe me.”
“What the hell do I owe you?”
“Eighteen years of support. All the times I paid for your food and shelter, and this is how you repay me?”
I’m trembling. Fear and anger fester in me in equal amounts. “How did you even find me?”
“There’s a tracking app on your phone.”
“What? How? Dad, I’m nineteen; you can’t be stalking me like that.”
“I’m your father. I own you,” he says, twisting my arm. “And it took way too long to find you up here. What kind of backward place has service this weak?”
Out of desperation, I go to throw the gin and tonic in his face, but he catches my arm, and wrestles it out of my hand.