Cabin Fever Read online

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  Alinar Publishing

  www.alinarpublishing.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Felicity Heaton

  First published in 2007, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cabin Fever

  Felicity Heaton

  Copyright © 2007 Felicity Heaton

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First Published November 2007

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Felicity Heaton

  Cover by Felicity Heaton

  ISBN

  1-906023-38-7

  978-1-906023-38-6

  Chapter 1

  Kate's eyes wandered to the world outside her window and she couldn't help smiling when she thought about how peaceful it looked. The snow-laden trees and distant mountains were like something on a Christmas card. The high peaks were almost as blue as the pale sky above them, and she wondered if anyone would be brave enough to ski on them this year. In previous years, there had been attempts to ski down to the valley from the peaks, but usually it ended in disaster and the ranger rescue helicopter had to be called out. She'd never attempt such an insane feat as skiing from that height; the local slopes were enough to satisfy the need for excitement that had been building inside of her these past few years that she'd been stuck in Los Angeles.

  She sighed and stared at the mountains. She'd forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful Colorado could be. When they'd moved away to California, she'd pined for the Rockies and this cabin where she'd spent so many vacations, knowing in her heart that it would be a long time before she saw them again.

  She had promised herself that these two weeks were going to be fun, and if they continued this way, it looked as though they might be. It had been so long since her and her friends had been together without anyone else around, without any men, and she'd forgotten how much fun it was just to hang out.

  Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred and thirty-six hours of sun, ski and her friends.

  Two weeks of just them and no one else.

  These two weeks were going to be fun.

  When the kettle switched off, she dragged her eyes away from the scenery and filled her mug up to the brim. She was about to carry it into the living room and get the fire started when she heard a door open. Figuring that it was probably one of the girls going to get the rest of the stuff from the car, she walked into the living room with a good morning on her lips.

  It disappeared the instant she saw him.

  Stood in the doorway were her stepbrother, Nick, and two other guys. They were kicking the snow off their shoes as they dumped their bags and she noticed the boards and skis that they were carrying.

  "What the hell are you doing here!” She stared hard at him, letting him know that, as usual, his presence wasn't welcome.

  "Could ask you the same thing,” he replied with a similar frown to hers.

  Her jaw tensed when she heard the sarcastic British voice that she'd tried so hard to erase from her memory and she took another step towards him.

  "I arranged this with dad. He said no one else was going to be here. Did you check with dad?” She knew that shouting at him wasn't going to do any good, it never did, but she couldn't stop herself.

  Everything was supposed to be perfect. Two weeks of girl time and skiing. No guys involved in any way.

  Now she had three of them staring at her as though she was a pin up model on a calendar.

  Hastily putting her cup of coffee down on the dining table, she wrapped her plum satin robe tight around her and tied the belt so they couldn't see her nightdress any more. She flicked her long dark hair out of her face and gave Nick a look that could kill.

  "Nope,” he replied with a wide grin.

  She stomped her foot and growled. It was so typical of him to flout the rules her father had put in place. “I thought that we had an agreement? We all have to arrange with dad when we want to use the cabin."

  "Not my problem. There's plenty of room for all of us."

  "No ... no ... no!” She stormed towards him and started pushing him out of the door, ignoring the way his friends laughed at her when she didn't make any progress. Realising that she wasn't getting anywhere with forcing him to leave, she tried a different tactic and smiled up at him sweetly. “Nick ... please?"

  He looked as though he was considering it for a moment and then just grinned.

  "Plenty of room.” He patted her on the shoulder.

  "You bastard!” she called after him when he pushed past her and settled down on the couch. “This is my first vacation in years, Nick ... don't be an asshole all of your life."

  "Maybe we should go, mate.” One of the other men spoke up and she noted that he was British too.

  Nick just stared at him. “It's as much my cabin as it is hers."

  She mused that even if he'd pouted, he still wouldn't have sounded more like a five year old with that statement.

  "What's going on?” Her sister, Connie, sleepily pushed her shoulder length brown hair out of her face when she appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Her dark eyes widened and Kate knew she'd seen Nick. “The hell you doing here?"

  "Same question I asked.” Kate folded her arms across her chest and resisted the temptation to throw a complete childish fit like she wanted to. She wasn't going to stoop to his level and let him win. She was above this. It wouldn't be the first time that Nick had tried to ruin something for her, and it wouldn't be the last, but this would be the one time that he didn't win.

  "There are guys in the doorway,” Jayne noted aloud when she appeared behind Connie and then raised her brows, hurriedly straightened out her long blonde hair and fixed a pretty smile on her face, “and they're kinda cute."

  "Jayne ... no ... they're not staying.” Kate scowled at her friend and then at her stepbrother. “Are you?"

  "Think we are, aren't we lads?” He put his hands behind his head and smirked at her.

  The two men gave her apologetic looks and she sighed out in frustration.

  "Who ordered the guys?” Helen said.

  She looked at Helen as she poked her head around the bend in the stairs, fixing her glasses into place so she could see the men in question.

  "You remember my stepbrother Nick?” She turned to her friends and then smiled when she saw it dawn on them who one of the men was.

  "Weren't you in jail for something?” Jayne asked and eyed him suspiciously, no longer smiling at him or his friends. “What did you do, break out?"

  "No ... I wasn't in prison. Is that what she told you? I did a little community service. That's all.” Nick scowled at Kate and she gave him an innocent look.

  "My bad.” She smiled wide at him and then went rigid when he leapt over the back of the couch and stood over her. Staring into h
is rich brown eyes, she found it difficult to keep from looking away as the hardness of them hit her.

  "Come on, sis.” He smiled winsomely at her as he backed off and leant against the couch.

  "Don't call me that,” she warned him, willing herself not to give in when he shot her a puppy dog look.

  "It'll just be a few days. We'll be out of here by Tuesday latest. I have business in the area, thought I'd show the guys the cabin while I was here. How often am I in the country?"

  "I don't know ... how often will they let you in?” she answered with a smirk, her arms still firmly folded across her chest. She could almost feel the girls behind her caving and their resolve fading away as they continued to look at the guys.

  "There's plenty of room,” Jayne said to her.

  Kate frowned. It was just like Jayne to put cute guys above everything else.

  "See ... your friends don't mind. Come on, Kate.” Nick furrowed his brows and then smiled when she caved.

  "Fine,” she sighed the word out and slumped. She silently berated herself for giving in to him, “but only until Tuesday. You're history after that!"

  Nick grinned at her and then jumped to his feet, his smile remaining firmly in place as he looked at his friends. “How rude of me ... should introduce you to my mates."

  She just gave them both an unimpressed look and pretended to be put out when he placed his arm around her and led her towards them.

  "Kate, this is Jonathon Sullivan. He's a ski pro and he loves all these mountains and crap. He could teach you a thing or two.” Nick smiled at her and his friend held his hand out.

  She stared at it for a moment before taking hold of it and musing that he looked like a professional skier. His hair was a typical Scandinavian blond and his eyes were a rich blue. She frowned when he ran his fingers over her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a kiss to it and winking at her.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed.

  Extricating her hand from Jonathon's, she looked at her stepbrother and waited for introduction number two.

  "Ryan Bellamy.” The man stepped forwards before Nick had a chance to introduce them and took hold of her hand, shaking it firmly as he smiled broadly at her.

  She swallowed hard as he tightly gripped her hand. He seemed so different to the first guy. His thin build made her think that he was probably a skier too but he was shorter, and his hair was more of a mousy brown than blond.

  "You ski, too?” She found herself asking as she stared into his chocolate brown eyes.

  He laughed.

  "Hell, no, I run. This skiing stuff all sounds a little too dangerous for my liking."

  She focused on his accent as he spoke and tried to pin down where he was from. He sounded much like her stepmother did. She'd asked her once what sort of accent she had and all she had told her was that it was more country house than country bumpkin.

  "It isn't really. I'm not amazing or anything, but I don't think it's that dangerous. It's fun, really.” She smiled at him and scowled at Nick as he nudged her and suggestively raised his eyebrows as he nodded towards Ryan, intimating that she liked him.

  "You'll have to share. There aren't enough bedrooms for all of us and since you guys came last, one of you gets the smallest room downstairs.” She looked down at the puddle of melted snow around their feet and sighed. “And try to leave the snow outside."

  "I'll bunk downstairs.” Nick grabbed his kit bag and walked over to the door on the other side of the room, threw his stuff in and closed it again.

  She frowned as he disappeared into the kitchen and she realised he was going to leave her to deal with the rest of the sleeping arrangements.

  "Connie, Helen, do you mind sharing?” She looked at her younger sister and her friend.

  "Not at all,” Helen replied and led Connie upstairs.

  "Jayne, you'll have to move into the smaller room. Ryan and Jonathon, you'll have to share. The larger of the rooms has a folding camp bed if you don't want to sleep top to tail.” Kate smiled as they gave each other a look that said the camp bed was the only viable option and then led them up the stairs to their room.

  Having done her duty and showed everyone to their new room, occasionally checking that they were settling in, she went into her room and finally got dressed. This was crazy and precisely the last thing she wanted. She would've taken a storm over Nick showing up. Tuesday seemed so far away. Four whole days of Nick. Walking back down to the living room, she frowned at Nick where he was stretched out on the couch.

  "This isn't fair, you know?” She stood over him and folded her arms again as she glared.

  "I know. It kills me, it really does,” Nick said without taking his eyes off a magazine.

  Shaking her head, she picked up her cold cup of coffee and sighed as she carried it into the kitchen and poured it down the sink. Putting the kettle on again, she leant against the counter and stared out of the window at the mountains, but it seemed as though the magic of them had been lost.

  All she could think about now was sleeping arrangements and having another three mouths to feed. Something told her that Nick hadn't brought food with him and the likelihood of him actually going out to get some now that he could freeload off her was slim to none.

  She closed her eyes and heaved another sigh as she tried to expel all the negative feelings inside her and all the stress. It didn't shift. Glancing at the door, she thought about how good it had felt last night when she'd been splitting logs for the fire. It had made the stress of work and her office life drift away, and it had been freeing when she'd pictured the logs as her bosses and cut them down to size with the axe.

  Maybe it would work with Nick and his friends, too.

  Heading out onto the porch, she unlocked the store box, grabbed the axe from it and walked over to the pile of logs where they sat on the porch protected by a sheet of tarpaulin that was spotted with snow. Pulling the dark blue sheet back, her eyes followed the miniature avalanche she caused. She picked up one of the logs and took it to the tree stump they had always used as a chopping block.

  Placing the log on it, she angled it perfectly as though it was a work of art, and then brought the axe down hard.

  A sharp thud reverberated up the length of the axe handle and along her arms to her spine.

  She took a deep breath and let the corners of her mouth crease into a smile as the two halves of wood toppled to the ground.

  There was something incredibly freeing about splitting the log in two with one stroke. As she did another one, she found herself thinking about Nick, imagining that he was the log that she was splitting in half. Before she knew it, she was lost in how good it felt to take out all her frustration on the innocent logs, becoming absorbed in it.

  She remembered what had happened last night when they'd arrived and she'd come out here to get some firewood. Jayne had appeared on the porch and announced that she had too much tension and needed a good man. A good man?

  She sighed as she thought about it.

  All she'd been able to do was glare at Jayne. It wasn't like she hadn't tried to get herself a good man. It was just that every man she met didn't seem right in some way. None of them were right for some reason. Every date that she went on left her feeling bored to the extent that she just wished the evening were over so she could go home and watch television for a few hours before bed.

  She'd concluded that all men in California were seriously lacking in whatever it was that she had subconsciously set herself the task of finding.

  She wished that she knew what it was.

  It was driving her insane.

  Of course, her friends had all decided to offer her their sage advice, trying to get to the root of her problem over a few bottles of wine by the fire. She'd told them that there wasn't a problem; she just hadn't found it yet.

  It.

  That one word had made everything so much worse.

  She stared at the pile of chopped logs in front of her and thought about it. She'd told th
em that she hadn't found ‘it', so it must be something particular that she was looking for. She hadn't said that she just hadn't found the right man. She had made out that she hadn't found the right quality, or the right spark, or something. What was she looking for? All her life she'd found her dates wanting in some way, usually the same way, and she could never put her finger on why. There was just something that none of the men she'd been out with had had. Was anyone going to have what she was searching for? How was she supposed to find it if she didn't know what it was?

  Helen had told her that the elusive ‘it’ she was looking for was love.

  Was it love she was looking for?

  Connie walked into the kitchen to find Jayne and Helen looking out of the back door. She looked there too and watched her sister split another log. There was a look of grim determination on her face as she set it down on the block and tightly gripped the axe.

  "She really needs to work out some of that tension,” Jayne remarked as she turned away from the door and poured herself a cup of tea.

  "She hates Nick,” Connie said as way of an explanation. “They hated each other the moment they met years ago. I think it's dad she hates really and that makes her hate his new family, too. I can't blame her. I hate him as well."

  "It's understandable.” Helen patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

  "He hurt mom so badly. I think that's what has Kate so jumpy about guys. If she sees the tiniest hint of dad in them, she runs away."

  "I think Kate's chasing a dream man that doesn't exist.” Jayne shrugged as she gave her an incredulous look. “I'm just saying. She wants Mr. Perfect, when most of us will settle for plain old Mr. Almost-Right. You heard her last night."

  "I still say that it's love that she's looking for.” Helen's eyes moved back to the window in the door.

  Connie watched her sister chop another log into quarters, her movements swift and determined, and the frown not shifting from her face.

  "She said she was in love once.” She stared blankly at her sister and then went wide-eyed as she realised that she'd said it out loud and the two girls were looking at her expectantly. “At least she thought it was love. He was the ski instructor."