Page 2

“Hello?” No answer. I take another step inside, dripping snow all over the floor. “Is anybody here?”

I let the door swing closed behind me. The sound echoes in the cabin. It’s warmer in here and it has a rustic sort of charm. There’s a woodsy scent, vaguely nostalgic and Christmassy, that permeates the air. Still shivering and in danger of hypothermia in my snow-caked dress, I toss my suitcase on the floor in front of me and kneel down to unzip it.

A bikini, a few colorful skirts, a bunch of tank tops… there isn’t much here that will help me right now. I was supposed to use this suitcase on a sun-bleached beach, not in a snowy mountain cabin. Layers, I need layers… ah ha! There’s a pair of leggings and a pair of bedroom slippers. That’s a start. A tank top and a summery cardigan will have to do for a shirt. At the very least, it’ll be warmer than what I’m wearing now.

Getting out of this dress is going to be a problem. Twisting this way and that, I finally find the ends of the laces that do up the back of the bodice and struggle to pull them free. Not only are they silk, they’re also soaking wet, and I’m trembling so much it’s hard to get a grip on them. I finally manage to loosen my top enough to wriggle free, and the massive, snow-caked, cursed pile of tulle falls to the ground. Next, I step out of my shoes, trying to avoid the rapidly-spreading puddle of ice water with my bare feet. I turn around to reach for my clothes, and⁠—

There’s a man. A large man. A large, tattooed man, standing in the doorway, looking at me.

My hands fly to cover my breasts as I gasp, my heart stuttering in my chest.

2

BEAU

There is a beautiful, mostly-naked woman in my living room.

You know, five minutes ago, I was happy minding my own business getting ready for this whopper of a storm. Now I’m standing in my front door looking at a scene I can’t wrap my head around. She’s a tiny little woman with done-up blonde hair, standing in the middle of a mess she’s made in my living room. She’s gasped and covered her breasts. Good. Great. Cover up, crazy.

What do I do? She looks terrified. I look terrifying. My arms are full of the wood I’ve been chopping, I can’t cover my eyes. I could close my eyes, but that probably wouldn’t help the situation much. I should say something. I can’t speak, my breath seems to be occupied elsewhere. I should have said something as soon as I walked in and saw her, but I couldn’t. Same as now. I’ve never encountered a situation like this before, how the hell am I supposed to play this?

Her brown eyes lock on mine. She’s breathing hard, like a deer frozen in fear. Say something, damn it.

“You know… people usually wear more clothes when they’re breaking and entering.”

That seems to unlock her. She yelps, covers herself more as if she’s just remembered that she’s practically naked, and leaps. I’m startled by the suddenness of it, and she reminds me even more of a deer as she lunges for her clo—not her clothes. One of her shoes? She turns, one arm covering her breasts, the other cocked and loaded, and she chucks the shoe at my head.

I block it instinctively, dropping the wood all over my feet and the floor. A growl of annoyance escapes my throat before I can think to stop it. I step over the pile of wood and she scrambles backward, reaching for something else to throw. This time, she seems to have settled on one of the wooden ducks that sit on the table next to the big couch.

“St-stay back! Stay away or I’ll—I’ll scream!”

I roll my eyes. What a stupid, city-slicker thing to say. “Do you know where you are? There’s no one around for miles. Who’s going to hear you?”

Her eyes fly wide. Hell, that sounded like a threat, didn’t it? She throws the stupid duck at me.

“Damn it, woman, will you cut that out?”

She’s not listening. She reaches for something else to throw. A book, this time. She’s going to wreck something important if she doesn’t stop.

“Hey, hey! Knock it off, will you? This is my goddamn cabin, you’re the one trespassing!”

She runs around the back of the couch, putting it between us. “You stay away from me!”

“Me, stay away from you? You’re in my house!”

She chucks another book at me then bolts for the door. Where the hell does she think she’s going to go dressed like that? Ah, I see. She steals one of Emmett’s coats off the hook and shoves her feet into a pair of boots that have to be four sizes too big for her. In a single move, she closes the coat and scoops one of her bags off the floor, then she scoots out the door.

I don’t know where she thinks she’s going. There’s nothing around for miles. She’s running through the snow clumsily, and it’s only coming down thicker.

Sighing, I look down at the pile of wood scattered on the floor. I’ll need to clean that up later. Hell, I’ll have to clean up a lot of shit later. She managed to make a huge mess in the short time she was in here. A massive puddle, an open suitcase with half the clothes tossed out, books and ducks and shoes thrown everywhere and… what is that, a wedding dress?

I want to clean it all up now and be done with it. After all, crazy naked ladies in the woods aren’t actually my problem. People in general aren’t my problem. Me and the guys chose this place specifically to get away from problem people. We hardly ever see anybody we don’t want to see out here, and we like it that way. I shouldn’t have to deal with this.

I give a closer look at the things she left behind. The clothes strewn all over the floor aren’t suitable for the weather; they look more like something she’d wear on an island or a hot yoga class or something. And the dress… I pick it up gingerly. It’s definitely a wedding dress. It’s sopping wet and the bottom three feet of the skirt are filthy. How’d she get three feet of skirt on her five foot something frame? Must have been one hell of a wedding.

And if it was one hell of a wedding, where the hell is her groom? Groaning, I let the dress fall to the floor. I’m about to make this my problem, aren’t I?

I don’t have to. I could chuck all this stuff in the trash, shut the door, and be done with it. I glance outside to see the snow coming down thicker and faster. All she’s got on is a coat and a pair of boots. That’s not going to be enough to keep her alive in this weather. The coat’s warm, but it isn’t warm enough. Or big enough. Or pants enough. The woman really went out into a blizzard with no goddamn pants. She clearly has the wilderness survival skills of a guinea pig.