Stuck in the Cabin (Exiled Dragons Book 8) Read online

  The front door opening caught her by surprise as a young redhead let herself in and brought several bags of groceries to the kitchen, putting them away wordlessly. Was Mr. Johnston playing footsie with some woman less than half his age? That horny old bastard! She tried to pretend she didn’t notice as the young woman went back out and returned with another load of brown paper bags that seemed packed to the gills. In an attempt to find out about her without seeming nosey and inappropriate, Stephanie asked if she needed some help.

  “Oh, no, thank you. Mr. Johnston would have my hide if he knew that I disrupted your work. He told me that he would be having guests for a few days,” the young woman said.

  “I’m Stephanie Carter,” she said, hoping the introduction would be reciprocated.

  “Samantha Bradshaw. I’m the cook and housekeeper,” the girl offered.

  “Oh, I hadn’t expected there to be help at a vacation cabin,” Stephanie said.

  “Well, between us, Mr. Johnston isn’t exactly the roughing it kind,” Samantha said quietly, bringing a big smile from Stephanie, along with a silent nod of agreement. “I need to get breakfast started. Mr. Johnston is very adamant that his food be ready on time. Would you like coffee?”

  “Oh, that would be fantastic,” Stephanie said, grateful just as much for having someone here to cook for them as she was just to have another woman in the house for a bit.

  “Yes, it would be,” Neil said from somewhere nearby. He introduced himself to Samantha, being much more direct in his extraction of information on who she was, since he had apparently missed her conversation with Stephanie. Damn! She had hoped to be in full gear by the time he came down, but the pseudo bath and interruption by Samantha had only given her time to get set up.

  Fortunately for her, Neil seemed more interested in finding out more about the redhead in the kitchen than getting right to work. He hovered nearby and chatted flirtatiously with her for a few minutes which gave Stephanie time to get her tablet fired up and in full presentation mode so that she could at least show some progress by the time Mr. Johnston emerged from his room at the far end of the cabin.

  Neil was still in the kitchen watching Samantha finish up breakfast and sipping coffee when Mr. Johnston made an appearance in the kitchen. He was fully dressed in an Italian suit and Gucci loafers. Stephanie wondered if anything could possibly look more out of place than a man in full business attire standing in the middle of a mountain cabin, no matter how upscale the cabin might be.

  “Neil, I’m not paying you to hit on the cook, and I’m not paying her to be bothered while trying to make my breakfast,” Mr. Johnston said sternly, sending Neil into recovery mode. Stephanie did her best not to smile as she continued to work silently at her computer.

  “Oh, no…I was up, getting some more coffee,” Neil told him.

  Mr. Johnston looked at the lack of a cup anywhere near his hands and then at the dark screen of his tablet still lying dormant on the table. Neil didn’t miss the unspoken assessment of the situation. He grabbed one of the cups Samantha had laid out and poured himself some coffee before walking over to his tablet and sitting down to boot it up.

  “All right, let’s have a quick bite to eat and get this thing sewn up. I want to have it done by eleven. I have an appointment with the clients at noon for lunch and a presentation. It has to be flawless,” he told them. Samantha was already bringing over hot plates of bacon, eggs, and English muffins. She sat some fresh sliced fruit and small plates in the center of the table for anyone who wanted it with their meal. Topping off Stephanie’s coffee, she stepped over to pour Mr. Johnston a cup and then asked if anyone needed anything else.

  “No, we’re all good,” Mr. Johnston said on behalf of everyone. “Make sure you take care of the upper rooms today since I have visitors.”

  No ‘please.’ No ‘thank you.’ The man just really had no business manners at all. It was easy to tell that he was used to people doing as he said without question or requirement of praise. Stephanie could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up a little as he hovered over her shoulder, looking on as she worked for a moment before having a seat.

  After a rushed breakfast, they all became engrossed on the separate pieces of the ad campaign they had hashed out the night before. By then, they were all finished and ready to piece the components together into a solid presentation. As the clock ran down, Stephanie was feeling the pressure of the looming deadline, but Neil appeared very calm, cool, and collected. Damn him. How did he do that? She was always spastic when she felt rushed, and he acted as if it was just a cakewalk for him.

  They finished everything with twenty minutes to spare, giving Mr. Johnston time to do a trial run on the presentation with the two of them. Stephanie had to admit that for all of his rough treatment of his employees, he came off as quite the charming salesman when he was dealing with clients. He would have them eating out of this hands by the time the presentation ended. Neil glowered at her as she pointed out a mistake in one of his charts and quickly corrected it for him after Mr. Johnston finished. Once again, she found herself having a hard time containing the satisfaction she felt. He deserved to look just a little bad after the way he had usurped her ideas last night.

  With the presentation sewn up, Mr. Johnston slipped his tablet into his laptop and headed out to meet the clients. It was a beautiful, but cold day outside, and Stephanie badly wanted to go for a walk around the property, but she was so tired that thoughts of a nap quickly overcame her need for the great outdoors. It was a real shame, too, because once Mr. Johnston returned, she would either be buried in work again or packing to return home.

  “I’ll be gone for three or four hours, so make yourselves at home in the cabin. I’m running a little low on wood, but they are supposed to deliver a fresh truckload tomorrow morning, so we’ll save what there is for a fire tonight. Just let what is still burning in there die down until then, and we’ll stoke it up,” he told them.

  She and Neil saw him to the door. Once he was clear of it, she returned to the table and picked up her things, heading upstairs for a nap. Samantha met her on the stairwell as she returned from cleaning the upstairs. A weary look passed between the two women that conveyed everything they could have possibly said about how each of them felt in that moment.

  No sooner had Samantha hit the bottom of the steps than Neil was already all over her again. Stephanie had to wonder where he even found the strength to flirt. Dismissing it, she made her way to her room and lay down to get a couple hours of sleep, setting her alarm so that she wasn’t still out cold when Mr. Johnston returned. She was sure that Neil would love that.

  Chapter Four

  Stephanie still felt exhausted as the alarm sounded. She reached over and shut it off before padding down the hallway toward the bathroom and into the shower. Perhaps the hot water would help wake her up a bit so that she would be ready for whatever fresh hell Mr. Johnston would create for them when he returned.

  “Shit,” she mumbled, stepping out of the shower to realize she had forgotten to bring in the clean clothes she had laid out in her room. Wrapping up in her towel, she opened the bathroom door and peered out. She didn’t see or hear anyone, so maybe Neil had also decided to take a nap or go out for a while. Stepping into the hallway, she hurried toward her bedroom, arriving at the door just as the door down the hallway opened and closed behind her.

  “Well, there’s an interesting sight,” Neil said from behind her.

  “Fuck off, Neil,” she said flatly, stepping into her room and shutting the door.

  She heard him chuckle before his footsteps sounded on the stairs leading down to the large den below. It was doubtful that Neil Montgomery found anything at all interesting about her, even if he had caught her in nothing but a towel. From what she had seen of his dates to office parties and events, he preferred the rail-thin, blonde bimbo type. That was certainly not her. While she was far from overweight, she was a bit curvier than the women he dated. It was something that
she tried to hide beneath compression garments and business suits so that she was taken more seriously by the men with whom she worked, but it was harder to disguise under just a towel.

  She shrugged off any further thoughts about what he might think of her in her towel and began to get dressed. Once she had herself back together, she made her way downstairs and into the den to find Neil standing at the window. Walking over to the window, she joined him in watching as the snow flurried madly around the windows outside. It had really begun coming down hard.

  “Wow, that’s pretty heavy, isn’t it?” Stephanie said as she stood there beside him, mesmerized by it.

  “Yeah, it is. I wonder how much it is supposed to snow and how far Mr. Johnston is from here?” he commented, a little concerned. Stephanie shrugged and continued to watch out the window as Neil went to find a local news station on the TV nearby.

  “We’re in for a pretty nasty storm, folks. It looks like old man winter is going to be blowing snow all over the place for at least the next two days. You’re going to want to stay indoors and beware of standing drifts if you must be outside,” the weatherman said. “We’re looking at a blizzard that will carry enough snow to immobilize the area very quickly. Some roads are already being closed off due to dangerous, icy conditions.”

  Stephanie turned toward him with a look of concern on her face that told him she was thinking the same thing he was. This cabin was up here all by itself with no close neighbors that they had seen on the way in. Much of the road leading to it was curvy and steep, with sharp embankments. Unless Mr. Johnston was almost here, there was a good chance he could be stranded in town or, even worse, out in the middle of all of this. As if in answer to their thoughts, her cell phone rang.

  “Stephanie? It’s Johnston. This freak blizzard caught everyone completely off guard. They’ve already closed off the road back up to the cabin, so I’m going to have to stay in town until I can get back up there. I’m not the only one, and the rooms are going fast, so I’m going to find whatever I can and get settled in.”

  “Oh, that’s good. We were concerned that you were stuck out in this mess,” she replied, waving Neil away as he tried to ask what he was saying while she was still mid-conversation.

  “We’ll Skype and get this presentation sewn up to send back to the clients for review. You’ll both be happy to know that they liked most of it. We’ll just need to tweak a few points for them. I have some headers and logos they want incorporated and some data to fill into some of the holes we left,” Mr. Johnston told her, but he was cut off as the phone started breaking up and then cut off.

  Stephanie lay the phone aside, figuring he had said what he needed to say to her and would contact them once he was settled into a room. She relayed the conversation to Neil, noting how his brow furrowed up as she spoke.

  “So, if he’s stuck down there, then we’re stuck up here, too,” he said, his voice sounding a little uncertain about such a predicament.

  “Seems so…at least for now,” she replied.

  “Well, I hope it clears up soon. No offense, but spending Christmas in a cabin with you wasn’t really what I had in mind for the holidays,” he said.

  “No offense taken,” she said with a little laugh, walking over toward where he stood looking out the windows as they each marveled at the amount of snow being dumped on the ground outside.

  Her phone rang again and she answered it, saying “Hello” into the receiver several times without a response. She heard a tone and realized the call had dropped right before it began ringing again. All she got from the other end was static and a few garbled words. It was Mr. Johnston, but she couldn’t make out anything he was saying. When the phone rang from a number she didn’t recognize, she figured it was the landline from whatever hotel he had managed to find, but she only got more static when she answered.

  “Neil, can you try calling Mr. Johnston from your cell? I think my signal is going out. Maybe yours will work,” she asked.

  Neil pulled his phone from his pocket and tried to call, only to find that he had no signal at all. With the heavy downpour of snow and their remote location, there must be too much interference between them and the towers. They began looking for a landline in the cabin, but found it to be completely dead, along with the internet and cable. It was beginning to look like they were not only stranded, but out of communication, as well.

  Stephanie’s phone beeped and she realized that she had a message, so at least something was getting through. It was Mr. Johnston telling her that everything was down and he hardly even had any phone signal. He told her that they should just hunker down for the night and maybe this mess would clear up for them to communicate in the morning. It was a relief to know that at least they weren’t going to have to spend all night dealing with the frustration of trying to make contact with him.

  “You want the good news or the bad news?” she asked Neil.

  “Surprise me,” he said in almost a sigh.

  “We are off the hook as far as any work is concerned tonight,” she said with a smile.

  “And the bad news?” he replied.

  “All the lines are down around us, so you are stuck here with nothing but the pleasure of my company,” she told him.

  “Joyous,” he said blandly, but she noted that there was a hint of a smile, so she thought he might be kidding. Then again, she could be misreading it. It could have been a grimace.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, since we are officially off work, I think we should go somewhere and have a couple of drinks,” Stephanie offered.

  “Sounds like a great idea. I know just the place. I’ll even buy,” Neil responded.

  They walked over to the large liquor cabinet by the kitchen and found it locked. After fishing around a little, Neil found the key inside a small jar sitting on the kitchen counter. He walked back to where Stephanie continued to search, holding it up high in the air with a grin. She unlocked the door and reached into the cabinet, turning bottles to see the labels.

  “What’s your poison?” she asked.

  “I’m a simple guy, and I don’t want to get fired for taking anything too expensive. Is there some whiskey in there?” he asked.

  “Crown Royal work for you?” she asked, pulling out the bottle and holding it up toward him.

  “Beautiful,” he responded as she pulled out a bottle of Absolut Vodka and they wandered back to the kitchen. She threw together some vodka and OJ while Neil opted to drink his straight on the rocks. With drinks in hand, they settled into the oversized chairs in the den and looked around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do.

  “Let’s play twenty questions,” Neil suggested. “Except, each answer has to be something about yourself that can be guessed by asking the right questions.”

  “Really?” she said, already wondering how she was going to stand being stuck with him for the rest of the night, much less any longer than that.

  “Sure, why not? You have something better to do?” he asked.

  “I have books and music on my tablet,” she told him.

  “Do you really dislike me that much, Stephanie? You’d rather bury your nose in a book than play a lighthearted game that might let us get to know one another a little better?” he asked.

  “Pretty much,” she said flatly.

  “Ouch. And here I thought we were being civil to one another for a change,” he told her.

  “Civil went out the door a long time ago. I’d say the gloves came off about the time you stole the Ballymoney account out from under me,” she told him in an even tone.

  “The Ballymoney account? You’re still holding that against me? I can’t help it if they wanted to do business with me instead of you,” he said.

  “They were fine to do business with me until you convinced Nelson that they would be best served by the ‘downhome country boy’ system you like to employ in lieu of talent,” she said.

  “So, you don’t think I have any talent? It seems to me that we
have brought in about the same number of accounts in the time that we’ve been with the firm. I’d say I have at least as much talent as you do, sweetheart,” he said snidely.

  “No, you have the ability to smooth talk the clients into accepting the half-ass work you get all the doe-eyed assistants in the office to do for you,” she said.

  “Now, don’t be jealous of my girls, Stephanie. You should work some of your charms on the male interns. It would make your life a lot easier and you could get past these petty jealousies of yours,” he told her.

  “You are just so damned cocky,” she said, picking up her drink and moving to the kitchen to retrieve her tablet. She brought it back to her chair and sat down to read. Neil sat studying his drink for a few moments, finishing it off and pouring himself another before speaking again.

  “I didn’t take the Ballymoney account from you to be an ass. I took it because that Ballymoney jerkoff wanted something more from you than just your idea for his ad campaign. He basically told Nelson that any deals he made with the company would have to include a little extra effort on your part, if you get my drift.”

  “What?” she exclaimed, as he continued his story.

  “Nelson told him you were a lesbian and hooked him up with a friend of mine who was in the market for a sugar daddy, instead. I took over the account so that he didn’t try to cross any lines with you, blowing the deal and harming you in any way in the process,” he said.

  Stephanie laid down her tablet and starred at him in disbelief. How dare anyone think that they could cross such a line and, instead of calling them out on it, the men she worked with just diverted them so they could keep their precious business deal intact.

  “Are you freaking kidding me right now with this?” she asked incredulously.