Page 27 of Cabin Fever Baby
After shuffling upstairs, I ducked into one of the rooms on the left and found muted gray walls and a huge bed with a yellow and blue plaid quilt that beckoned me to crawl in and sleep the snowy day away.
The scent of bacon wafting up the stairs changed my mind.
I took a hot shower and might have lingered for an extra few minutes to let the water pummel my shoulders. I winced at the big bruise on my forehead and the raised mark. The butterfly-shaped bandage didn’t make it through the steam, unfortunately.
Hopefully, Nurse Angel would help me out once more since it was bleeding again. Not gushing, but more than would work for the dab of tissue trick I used for a shaving nick.
I felt like I’d just had a bout of the flu with how slow I dressed, but hey, I did it all on my own, so that had to count for something. I opened the bedroom door to find her standing there with that bright smile on her face.
“Oh, you look much better.” She frowned. “Except you need that bandage back on. C’mon, I have the kit downstairs. Hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Good. French toast, bacon, and real syrup is waiting.”
My stomach immediately growled.
She laughed. “I’m just going to change my socks. They got wet when I peeked out the back door.”
“Okay.” That would give me time to get down the stairs slowly with a bit of dignity. I gripped the banister between the spiky garland and lights that wrapped the wood as I carefully made my way down to the lower level.
The room only spun twice—progress.
The massive windows showed off mounds and mounds of snow on the back porch and along the tree line of the lake. Even the water seemed to have iced over in spots. The snow was coming down in the thick, wet flakes that would make removal even harder.
I didn’t even hear the snowplows outside.
I found my phone on the coffee table plugged into some sort of travel charger. It was a few minutes before noon and there seemed to be no end in sight to the storm.
The weather app didn’t give me any additional hope on that front. The two feet Ocean had mentioned last night had been increased to nearly three in the forecast, followed by a swift temperature plummet.
Evidently, I wasn’t going anywhere.
I glanced up at the stairs to see Ocean on the landing. She’d swapped out her corduroy pants for soft red pants and fuzzy socks.
“Ready to eat?”
I nodded and waggled my phone. “Think we’re in for more snow.”
“Alotmore snow. Afraid you’re stuck with me.”
Couldn’t say I was upset about that.
EIGHT
5 days til Christmas
The cabin feltmassive until I had another person in the space with me. An incredibly attractive someone.
The kind of attractive that makes you a little weak in the knees and too tongue-tied to toss in a second cliché.
I managed to put another butterfly bandage on his cut without getting tongue- tied.
Yay, me.
However, the kitchen had seemed endlessly spacious until he’d come to check on me. Even more impressively, he wanted to help.
His woodsy scent layered with the smells of butter, cinnamon, and syrup was far too intriguing. The intimacy of cooking overlaid by the fact that we were strangers made for a tension I didn’t know what to do with.