Page 8 of Bitter Heat

His attention went back to the road. “Says the woman who ran through a hospital to avoid me.”

“You’re the last person I wanted to see.”

“I realized that when you ran to your father instead of talking to me.”

She opened her mouth to defend herself.

“We made it.”

She could barely make out the cabin through the snow, which was now coming down in heavy sheets.

“Thank God,” she said.

“Be careful. The snow’s deep.”

He wasn’t wrong. When she swung out of the cab, her boots disappeared into the white powder. She braced herself against the icy wind and followed the path Roth made to the porch. She gave her feet a cursory stomp to get off as much snow as possible before she dashed inside. Her hand smacked the light switch. Nothing happened.

“Power’s out,” he said.

This was a straight-up nightmare. “W-what are we going to d-d-do?”

“I’ll turn on the generator.”

He pulled up the collar of his stylish overcoat, which was definitely not made to brave these brutal elements, and slammed the door on his way out. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight. The cabin felt like a freezer. Her thick jacket and thermal underwear were no help against the arctic temperature. Why had she thought coming to the mountains was a good idea? She staggered to the fireplace, breath materializing in a small cloud as she began to build a fire the way she had observed Kaia doing it. She knocked pinecones into the fireplace and made an effort to crumple up newspapers, but her hands weren’t working right. She grabbed the lighter and clicked it a few times before the paper took the flame. By the time Roth returned, she was adding wood. Her shaking hands hovered over the meager flames, so close she was in danger of being singed.

Roth shook off a considerable amount of snow and flipped on the lights, which made the cabin feel more like a home and less like a drafty cave.

“She doesn’t have much fuel for the generator,” he said. “We have enough to run the heat, but not much else. We’ll have to pick up more when we drive into town tomorrow.”

Instead of warming himself by the fire, he disappeared into his mother’s room, but she was too cold to care what he was doing. When the ice melted on her front, she stood and turned her back to the blaze. Kaia’s home was a one-bedroom A frame with a loft. The cabin was old, but Kaia was quite the handywoman and did a good job of keeping it up. A wall of glass let in the maximum amount of light, and it had amazing views of the mountain range, which she had seen on her first day here. There hadn’t been a speck of snow when she arrived two days ago, but how quickly all of that had changed. It felt like the dead of winter instead of October. Snow pelted the glass in angry swirls while the wind howled around the house. She was in a straight-up horror movie. Remote cabin? Check. No electricity? Check. Roads blocked? Check. Scary male with sketchy intentions? Fucking double check. She should have taken her chances at the hospital.

Roth emerged from his mother’s bedroom with a duffel over one shoulder. He tossed it on the ground before he opened a door under the stairs, revealing a storage closet. He emerged with an armful of supplies, which included a rifle, candles, flashlights, and blankets. He threw everything on the couch before he approached the fire. She scooched to the side so she wouldn’t brush shoulders with him and stomped her feet because her legs were numb.

“You should change,” he said.

Even though she loathed being away from the fire, she understood changing out of her damp clothes was imperative. “Any chance of hot water?” she asked and was pleased her teeth were no longer chattering.

“Yes.”

She was so relieved, she would have hugged him if he wasn’t such a bastard. She went up to the loft, which had a bed and tiny sitting area, grabbed fresh clothes, and locked herself in the tiny bathroom. She ran the water until it was hot and moaned in relief when she stepped under the sizzling spray. A hot bath after this hectic day was just what she needed, though as soon as she turned off the water and the steam dispersed, the cold began to set in again. Before she finished slathering her arms with lotion, she was already back to shivering. Kaia’s old heating system would take hours to warm the cabin. She whimpered as she dressed in three layers of clothing and left the bathroom.

Roth sat in front of the fire with his phone. From his disgusted expression, it was obvious he didn’t have service. Not good news. She went up to the loft and pulled on her beanie cap and gloves before she dived under the covers. They were damp from the cold. She buried her face in her frosty pillowcase as a door closed downstairs. Roth probably needed a shower more than she did after being out in the snow.

She curled into a ball and willed the sheets to accept her body heat, but it wasn’t happening. She would chance hypothermia rather than sit around a fire with her ex-husband. As the minutes passed, she realized her thermal underwear wasn’t doing shit. If anything, any warmth she regained from changing into dry clothes was evaporating. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, her teeth were clacking together.

“Jasmine, get down here!”

“I-I’m—” She tried to get out ‘fine’, but that was beyond her. She was miserable. The sound of the whistling wind only added to her belief that was going to freeze to death.

There was no door to the loft, just a railing that overlooked the first floor, so she didn’t get a warning. One minute, she was trembling beneath the covers, and the next, she was being lifted into the air. She shrieked and kicked before her stomach landed on his shoulder.

“P-put me d-down!”

“I spent winters sleeping in front of the fire,” he said as he carried her downstairs and plopped her on the couch he had moved in front of the fireplace. “You’ll freeze up there.”

“I-I was okay the other n-nights,” she stammered even as she held her hands out to the flames.

“On the other nights, the cabin was already warm, and the temperature wasn’t in the single digits.”

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