I put a clean piece into the word processor, just as I’d seen Mom do before stepping away from her Brother WP-80 to eat lunch. Then I took all the linens off the bed and brought them outside to shake off all the dust.

The generator was going by the time I got back, so the old Dometic refrigerator was humming, and the cabin was warm-adjacent, if not exactly cozy. It could maybe get there after I closed the windows and lit a fire underneath the wood-burning stove Mom used to warm the place. However, there were only two little logs in the wood bin. Probably left over from the last time Mom was here—sometime during the aughts.

I’d spotted a couple of fallen trees in the cabin’s backyard, and I could probably source some firewood from them. But how exactly did one go about chopping wood again? Should I, like, find an ax and go at them like a lumberjack?

I fretted my still cold hands. Maybe this whole writing cabin idea hadn’t been so great after all.

But I’d spent months embedded with Eva and her family, interviewing them all for this book, and the “prove you can do this” proposal chapters were due to her by Christmas night. If I didn’t meet the deadline, Eva might decide she’d wasted her time on me and go with someone else to write her seminal biography.

A gust of cold wind blew through the cabin, chilling me to the bone even worse than the thought of letting my favorite speech client down. I closed all the windows again—then frowned at the snow swirling outside in a way that wasn’t so romantic now.

Weird, the weather report had assured me the days before Christmas would be mild with no snow in the forecast. But I’d been visiting the Northeast long enough to recognize the signs of an incoming storm.

Maybe I should row back across the lake just to be safe.

However, when I looked out the back window, I found the formerly placid river raging past the house. My arms were still tired from the first trip, and I doubted I could tackle a second, much rougher one.

But that was okay. I had enough wood to power the stove for at least one meal—I hoped. Either way, I had brought plenty of cold food. I could survive out here. All I had to do was wait for the river to calm. Then I could row back across the river to get my rental car, which had things like complimentary Wi-Fi and a dependable source of heat.

With that hopeful thought, I focused on making a fire to warm up the cabin. And that’s when I realized I’d forgotten any kind of lighter.

Just as my heart sank, a knock sounded on my door.

Sharon!