Page 18 of First Bride to Fall
“Eeep. My bad.” She slunk down in her seat, and her eyebrows arched. “Sorry?”
“No worries.” He began backing up his SUV to turn them around. “I’ve got some place we can go to wait this out.”
She stared at him in surprise. “What? You do?”
“I keep a cabin up here. Fishing cabin. It will do just fine for tonight.”
“Overnight?” She swallowed hard. “You mean, there’s no hope of us getting back down the mountain today?”
“Might have been earlier,” he teased lightly. “If someone hadn’t created a huge fuss about coming down off the summit.”
“I didn’t create a fuss!” she said. Her face warmed. Okay, maybe she had. “Not ahugeone anyway,” she amended with some humility.
“No, you’re right.” His eyes danced. “Your tantrum was teeny tiny.”
“Tantrum?” She huffed. “I came down. Eventually.”
He smirked and shook his head. “Yeah. Very hard.”
“Oh no.” She gasped, wondering if she’d hurt him more than he’d let on. “You’re not…? I mean, not hurt anywhere?”
He read her worried look, and his expression softened. “Honestly, I’m fine. I’ll probably have bruises, but those will heal.” Next, he shot a look at her ankle. “So will your ankle. But we need to get some ice on it pronto.”
Ice. That sounded good. Maybe his cabin wasn’t as rustic as she feared. When he first mentioned it, she worried it was a real backwoods affair with an outhouse or something. If he had ice, he at least had electricity. Maybe his cabin was even posh? With a jacuzzi! Ooh, a nice soak in a hot tub would be great about now. “So, how far away is this cabin?”
“Not very. We’ll be there in about ten more minutes.”
That was handy and maybe for the best. The weather didn’t seem to be improving, so getting off the road seemed wise. “How long have you had it?”
“About five years.”
“Five? Nice.”
“Yeah, and I love it.” He gave her a cockeyed grin, and her heart pitter-pattered. “I hope you’ll like it, too.”
If Grant would be there with her, she was certain she would. When it came to Operation First Bride, this could actually work out fantastically. She and he would have more time to get to know each other, just the two of them alone—without any outside distractions around. Her stomach rumbled. With all the excitement, she’d gotten really hungry.
“Is there food at the cabin?”
“Yeah, some. In the pantry and the freezer.”
She considered his profile, heartened to be playing house with him. “Do you cook?”
“Just a bit.” He turned to her. “You?”
“Yeah. Some.”
“Well, no worries about that,” he said. “Today, the meal prep is all on me.”
Nell sank back in her seat, feeling happy despite her injury. This wasn’t so bad. In fact, other than her ankle and embarrassing herself in front of a group of strangers, things were going great. While the turn in the weather had caught them off guard, she’d get to make lemonade out of lemons by spending time alone with Grant. They’d have the whole rest of the day and evening to get to know each other better.
They drove down a long gravel road and pulled up to a ramshackle house with a tin roof. It didn’t look posh at all. Instead, it was ultra-basic, with a pair of old wooden rockers on its front porch that looked like they’d seen better days. In a way, she was shocked the building had withstood these winds.
“That’s it?”
“Home sweet home.” He grinned at her. “Or, my home away from home. This is where I go to get away from it all.”
“That sounds nice.” Nell pasted a smile on her face. It was pretty far away, all right. Basically in the middle of nowhere. But that was okay. That was good. She glanced down at her phone in her purse, hoping she could still get a cell signal. She needed to text her sisters and let them know where she was so they wouldn’t worry when she didn’t show up at work in the morning. And hinting that she was sleeping over at Grant’s ought to keep their pesky doubts about where she stood with the bet at bay.
