Page 5 of Snowed

“This whole thing was orchestrated for you and me—so we can work out our issues.”

“Or kill each other,” she seethed.

“Now, now, I’m not like your book characters,” I teased.

“Seriously, Cade? This isn’t a joke?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not.”

“What’s the weather say? Is there any chance we can make it back?”

I pulled up the forecast on my phone. It looked like the heaviest bands of snow were coming straight at us in the next hour. “No, this says we’re pretty much fucked.” I pointed out the window. “You can see it’s really coming down now, too.”

She looked around and sighed. “Well, we’re stuck here, I guess.” She walked over to the kitchen. “Let’s see what there is to eat.”

Daria opened the fridge. There was a tray of cold cuts and other prepared foods.

“At least they didn’t leave us to starve,” I said. “We wouldn’t have had much time to buy food ourselves before it started getting bad.”

We unwrapped the tray, pulled out the other food, and ate in silence for a while, noshing until we’d made enough of a dent in it for one meal. And thank God they hadn’t forgotten the alcohol. I had a nice buzz going, which made everything more tolerable. Made Daria look pretty damn hot, too. Okay, who was I kidding? She was hot. But again, I’d never give her the satisfaction of knowing I felt that way.

“We should play one of these team-building games while we’re nice and buzzed so it’s not so miserable,” I suggested.

“What did she send…puzzles?” Daria asked.

“Let’s open the box and find out.”

I located scissors and sliced open the top of the box Billie had given me to take with us. When I looked inside, I didn’t even know what to say. These were not the kind of games I was expecting.

I scratched my chin. “Okay…well, um…”

“What?” Daria asked as she poured wine from across the room.

“So…Billie’s a freak.”

CHAPTER 3

Daria

“Let me see that.” I grabbed the cardboard box from Cade’s hands and lifted out the game on top. “Sex Stack? What the hell is this?” The front had a picture of a normal Jenga-type, wooden-puzzle game. But there were numbers on the pieces, and arrows pointed to a stack of cards pictured off to the side. I read what was printed. “Oh my God. When you remove a piece, you pull out the card with the corresponding number on it, and you have to perform the act listed.”

I placed the game on the table and pulled out another. Oral Fun. The slogan underneath read The Game of Eating Out While Staying In. I dropped that one like a hot potato, without even reading it to Cade, and reached for the next.

“Talk, Flirt, Dare,” I read. This one didn’t have too much information on the box, but it sounded similar to Truth or Dare. Get to know your partner better was the slogan. That seemed innocent enough, but the last thing I wanted was to get to know Cade any better, so I added that to the discard pile and dusted off my hands. “Maybe there’s a deck of cards around here.”

Cade stood. “Why don’t you take a look, and I’ll make a trip to that shed outside to see if there’s any firewood?”

“Okay.”

Our overnight bags were still by the front door. Cade unzipped his and pulled out a pair of bright blue ski pants and a matching sweater. The weirdo piled them on top of what he was already wearing, and then added a coat and boots. He looked ready to trek across Antarctica, not just fifty feet in the snow.

I arched a brow. “You sure you’re going to be warm enough?”

He started to answer but then saw the look on my face. His eyes narrowed. “Pipe down, Red.”

While Cade braved the frozen tundra, I searched the cabin for cards. Unfortunately, while the kitchen was nicely stocked, there wasn’t any entertainment to be found. And I mean none. Not even a TV or stereo. But that turned out to be the least of our problems. Upstairs, I’d expected to find a few bedrooms, but there was only one. One bedroom. One bed.

When I came back down, Cade was shaking snow off at the front door, and there was a large pile of wood at his feet.