Page 28 of Stranded with the Billionaire
Sterling was bored. Incessantly bored.
There was no one to talk to. She could see how Waldo had named a chipmunk Larry and talked to it. Her phone was dead. Sterling was afraid to make notes on real paper and carry them around to possibly get discovered by Jake. For some reason, Waldo wasn’t a reader so there were no books in the small cabin. After playing solitaire for the hundredth time with an old deck that was missing the eight of clubs, Sterling was going stir crazy.
It didn’t help that she was constantly getting up, opening the door and listening for any sound that might be a snowmobile passing by. Sterling was starting to annoy herself with how many times her mind had made the sound up.
The snow was piling up. If Jake got lost, he wouldn’t be able to retrace his tracks. Worrying over him was becoming second nature and Sterling didn’t like it. She told herself she was just concerned about getting rescued, not about Jake freezing to death in the snowy wilderness. Not that she would want that to happen to anyone.
Sterling huffed out a sigh as she slid a ten of spades into place. A faint noise of a motor came to her ears, but she ignored it. Sterling had been out in the snow too many times today, chasing phantom machines, ready to shoot off the flare gun at a moment’s notice.
Then again, if she missed the opportunity to escape this little shack all because she refused to track down whether or not there was a snowmobile outside…
Tossing the card in her hand to the side, Sterling pushed herself to her feet, grabbed the flare gun and headed to the door. Pulling it open, she listened as the snow fell rapidly.
There was a motor. She was certain of it. Stepping out into the snow, she forged a path to the logging road. It was snowing so thickly that she could barely see the shack in the waning light, even though she’d left the door open and the stove had a glass window in the little door which would let some light bath the interior when the fire was lit.
Sterling raised the flare gun above her head and hoped that the snowmobiler would see it in the snow. She pulled the trigger and watched as an orange glow appeared over her head. In the gloom it wasn’t as bright as Sterling would like it. She could only hope that the snowmobiler would see it and come this way.
There were still two more flares. She’d probably just wasted the one that she’d fired since it was snowing quite heavily. Sterling sighed and decided she wasn’t going to use another flare tonight. It had been a long shot for anyone to even see the flare in this storm.
She hobbled back to the shack, disappointed and discouraged.
“Hey! Hey!” Jake yelled, waving his hands in the air as the lights from the snowmobiles cut across the road at dusk. He’d gotten as far as Cauld Sideroad and had been steadily marching toward Urts Siding. There had even been a sign pointing toward the destination which had made Jake feel a lot better about his odds of getting to the town versus getting lost. Jake stepped into the way of the headlights, praying that they weren’t going so fast as to run him over. “Over here!”
The two machines slowed to a crawl, pulling up beside him. A man popped open the visor on his helmet.
“Hi. Little far from home?” the snowmobiler asked.
“Jake Ramesly,” Jake held out his hand in greeting. “My plane crashed up further on the mountain. I was walking to Urts Siding to try to get help.”
“Urts Siding?” the snowmobiler laughed as he shook Jake’s hand. “That’s a ghost town. Hasn’t been anyone there for years. Better to go on to Carvers Bend. Nice little town. I’m Larry Walsh.”
“No one lives in Urts Siding?” Jake questioned with a little disappointment. He would have walked there and not found the help they needed.
“Not a living soul,” Larry confirmed. He pointed to the other snowmobiler. “That’s Frank. Hop on and we’ll take you to our truck up on the highway. Then I can drive you to Carvers Bend.”
“Wait,” Jake shook his head at Larry’s offer. “There’s another person stuck at Waldo’s cabin back up on Jerry’s logging road. She has an injured knee and is going to need medical care. We need to go back for her.”
“Waldo’s cabin?” Frank looked at Larry. “Do you know where that is?”
Larry whistled. “That’s a way back. You walked from there?”
“Yes,” Jake replied. He was tired. He was also glad that he’d run into these two men. Unless he was dreaming in the snow right now. Then he was in danger of freezing to death. Jake had heard about how people hallucinated when hypothermia set in. Although, from what he understood, people generally thought they were someplace warm and ended up taking off their coats before curling up on the snow like they were at the beach. Jake was not at the beach. Nor did he think he was dreaming. Still, he pinched his hand just to be sure. It was so numb, it didn’t hurt and that worried Jake a little. “It’s been a long day.”
“No kidding!” Larry looked at him a little closer. “You said there was a plane crash? I think I saw you on television! Hey, Frank, didn’t the news say there was a reward for him?”
“I think you’re right,” Frank commented excitedly.
“That’s nice,” Jake would give them a reward himself if he could just get these two boneheads to rescue him and Sterling. “I need to go back to Waldo’s cabin to get Sara.”
“No can do,” Larry said firmly.
“What?” Jake was incredulous. They couldn’t possibly be serious about leaving a woman in the forest to fend for herself.
“We’re running low on gas,” Larry tapped the fuel gauge. “Got enough to reach the truck but we’ll need to fill up at a gas station. If we go back, we’ll just end up stranded.”
“How close is the nearest gas station?” Jake asked, relieved that they weren’t going to abandon Sara. “We can come back for Sara afterward.”
“Nearest gas is in Carvers Bend,” Frank supplied. “About a two hour drive.”
