“Bi, if you must know. After my mom died, he sort of shut down. Who knew when he finally met someone that it would be a man? And my best friend to boot.” I padded into the kitchen.
“Can you repeat that?” Disbelief laced his tone.
I put water in the kettle, plugged it in, and set about pulling down a mug as well the hot-chocolate powder out of the cupboard. “You heard me. My best friend married my father. They make a cute couple, so it’s not really that weird.”
“Nope. Gotta disagree—that’s all kinds of weird.”
I shrugged. “To each their own. They are the two people I care for most in the world, and I wanted them to be happy. So yeah, it works.” I turned to face him, leaning back against the counter. “If you’re leaving, you'd better go now. As it is, that snow’s falling pretty heavy. Another hour or two, and you’ll be stuck here. Possibly for days.”
“Me? I’m not going anywhere. This ismycabin.”
“Uh, yeah, no. Your dad lent it to me. I have the paperwork to prove it. So you can just mosey on out of here.”
“I’m not moseying on out of anywhere. This is my family’s cabin. I have a right to be here.”
“You do realize there’s only one bed.”
He blinked.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Your father usually comes up here by himself—to get away from the rat race. There’s a couch, which might’ve been where you slept before.”
“I don’t…” He pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose. “I’m remembering a tent. I thought it was so cool that my dad and I each had our own tents. I was sort of worried about bears…” He gazed upward. “It’s fuzzy.”
“Well, bears are hibernating, so you’re good to take off.” I gazed out at the heavy snow and the darkening skies. “Now rather than later.”
The kettle whistled. I flipped the switch off, then poured enough to fill the mug. I added some chocolate powder and started stirring.
A moment later, we were plunged into virtual darkness.
CHAPTER 3
Kellen
“What the fuck?”Panic seized me as the couple of lamps I’d turned on flickered off.
Night had fallen, so no light came from outside. The beautiful view of the snow-capped mountains across the lake had vanished in the snow. Among my very few memories were those mountains. They’d been obscured today by the falling snow. I’d taken comfort they were there—a monument to the test of time.
Now…just nothing.
A light flickered on.
The guy stood holding a battery-powered lamp.
“I suppose you were a Boy Scout.”
“Yep. And you’re damn lucky I am. I have enough batteries to last for several days.”
“You knew this might happen?”
“Uh, let’s see, shall we?” He rolled his eyes, which I was only now noticing were a lovely dark-brown. “Lots of trees. Lots of powerlines. Snow makes branches heavy. Branches break off and take down powerlines. Yeah, I knew this might happen.” Hesnagged his phone from his back pocket. “Why your dad doesn’t have a generator, I’m not certain.”
“He doesn’t come up here much in the winter.”
The guy met my gaze.
I swallowed, panic continuing to rise. “I’m Kellen. Kellen Parsons.”
“You already said that. And I sort of figured—theParsonspart anyway. I’m Marco Moretti. Nice to meet you.” He scrolled on his phone. “Well, BC Hydro is aware of the outage. It’s massive. I hope it’s just one tree and that they’ll be able to restore service. Someone will have to come up here, as they likely won’t have anyone nearby.”
