And there it was, the shit sandwich of a situation. She was trapped with Ian Petrov in a cabin without power while the snow picked up speed outside and the wind howled. Yeah, when this was all over, she was most definitely going to come back as a ghost and haunt Lucy for getting her into this mess.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Why was it that the thing a person was looking for was always in the last spot they checked? Ian grabbed the cast-iron skillet from the weird half-size cabinets above the built-in microwave and brought it over to the fireplace. The sun had dipped below the mountains and he’d augmented the light from the fire with about a dozen candles he’d found in the hall closet. No one was going to mistake it for high noon, but there was definitely enough light to cook dinner without worry of slicing a finger open instead of the fat steak he’d taken from the fridge.

“What’s all this?” Shelby asked as she walked down the stairs, looking like an extra from a postapocalyptic movie about badass women surviving in a new Ice Age.

She wore a long-sleeve black thermal shirt with buttons all the way down the front that weren’t tempting at all, a snug pair of black thermal pants that made leggings seem like religious wear, and had the thick comforter covered in silhouettes of grizzly bears from her bed wrapped around her shoulders and flowing behind her like a cape. She clutched a pillow and a duffel bag that looked to be about the size of a small car compared to her twiggy frame and obviously was throwing her off-balance. Weighed down like she was, when she moved from one step to the next, she bobbled a bit before regaining her balance, twisting her mouth in determination and descending to the next level. The same process repeated with each step, the tension increasing and making his gut twist with dread.

He stomped over to the stairs. his gaze trained on her foot as it came within a skate’s blade of missing the step. “Don’t move.”

Her eyes went wide with shock but she stayed in one place. “Why?”

“Because you’re gonna kill yourself, and the cops will never believe that you insisted on coming down the stairs loaded down like an overwhelmed pack mule.”

She grinned down at him, showing off a prominent gap between her two front teeth. “Two trips is for losers.”

“And people who aren’t into concussions or breaking their own damn neck,” he grumbled as he hustled up the stairs, getting to her level before she managed to lose the battle with gravity and balance.