Dare Me Again by Karin Tabke Read Free Book Online

she threw in the towel.
    “Okay, Mother Nature, you won that round.” Kat grabbed the envelope with the instructions and key and shoved it down her sweater, then grabbed her coat and shrugged it on, then her overnight bag and one of the two bags of groceries. She’d have to hoof it. And the Uggs she was wearing weren’t the snow-covered-steep-driveway-traction kind.
    When she stepped out of the Jeep, and sank knee-deep into a snowdrift, she realized it didn’t matter if she had on treaded snow boots or not. The drifts were too deep for it to matter. The only way she was going to get to that cabin was one slow step at a time.
    Cautiously, slowly, arduously, with the headlights to guide her, she trudged up the driveway with only a few slips. It was a good thing she wasn’t too far along in her pregnancy, she was a runner and a gym rat, because she was seriously sweaty and out of breath as she made it up the last few steps to the wide front porch. Dropping everything to the porch, she leaned against a support pole and collected herself.
    The snow was coming down so hard and so fast her footprints were already filling up. Digging for the key in the envelope, she prayed it worked. Otherwise, she and the baby were going to become human popsicles.
    Thankfully, the door opened. Letting out a huge sigh of relief, Kat grabbed her bags from the porch and walked inside. In the dim light, she saw a spacious great room with a large stone fireplace on the far wall. Fishing for a light switch, she found it on the right side of the door, and of course when she flipped it, the lights didn’t work.
    “Argh!” She shivered and felt utterly alone. There was no way Stevie was going to join her, nor was Simon. Kat was alone. And she felt more than a little afraid, but grateful Simon was taking care of Evan. There was that one small consolation.
    Pushing the bags farther inside the cabin, Kat used the meager light from the high beams of the Jeep to look for something,
anything,
to light. Then she remembered Simon’s reminder about the emergency roadside kit in the Jeep. She trudged back down the steep snowy driveway and hauled the kit out from the back of the car.
    “Yes!” she cried as she pulled out a flashlight and fired it up. She grabbed the kit, the other bag of groceries, turned off the headlights, and locked up the Jeep. As she was heading back up the driveway, she could have sworn she caught the flash of headlights down the road, through the thick copse of evergreens. Was there another house up here? She waited for another flash, hoping there was a neighbor with a phone she could make a call from, but was disappointed when there wasn’t one. Maybe she had imagined it.
    Once she was inside the cabin, she locked the front door. Using the flashlight, she found an oil lamp sitting on top of the hewn wood mantel. Breathing heavily from the exertion and feeling more than a little nervous being alone in a remote cabin in a blizzard, she watched as her frozen breath curled around her head. It was as freezing inside as it was outside.
    There was a decent stack of firewood piled in a neat pyramid to the left of the fire screen, but that wouldn’t keep her warm for long. Still, it was enough to get her started. She placed a few logs onto the grate in the fireplace, positioning them carefully, then took some tinder from the open copper box next to the logs and tucked it in. After checking to make sure the flue was open, she used the long-nosed lighter, got the tinder lit quickly, and before she knew it, Kat had a nice robust fire going. She stuck her hands out toward the warmth, feeling pretty happy with her survival skills.
    Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Maybe the snow would stop soon and before the snowplows got busy
Simon the Invincible
would be here. She had food, water, and fire. Once she had the cabin in order, she’d change out of her wet clothes and put the groceries away and make herself at home.
    First she