Snowed In at Holly Hill Cabin

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Snowflakes hurtle at warp speed towards the windshield, and I quickly dip the headlights again. Fuck.

We landed in New York this afternoon, and though we’ve only been on the road a few hours, driving through this snow makes it feel like days. If we’d travelled this far in a straight line from our home in England, we’d either be in a different country by now or way out to sea.

My arms ache from gripping the steering wheel, but this is not the time for casual one-handed driving. I groan. Haven’t we been through enough?

Another huge truck roars past us on the inside lane, and my breath hitches as the windows are completely obscured.

Ethan smirks. “Of all the cars you could’ve hired, why did you choose the dinkiest one for driving through the snow?”

“Hey, I already have to get my head around driving on the wrong side of the bloody road,” I snap, though I don’t mean to. “You can’t expect me to also go from our little Dacia to a … a … massive pick-up truck?!”

He bites down on a smile then shrugs, his broad shoulders covering the breadth of his seat. This man drives me absolutely barmy, but my God he looks good in flannel. “A massive pick-up truck?” he teases.

Ethan’s thick, tousled hair peeks out from under a woollen hat, and his close-cropped beard is a little rough and rugged from the journey. Right now, a big American pick-up truck would suit him to a tee.

“I don’t know.” I release the tiniest of smiles. “It was the first thing that came to mind.” I pout. “Plus, Americans love pick-up trucks.” At least, I think they do.

Ethan sighs.

“What?” I pout harder.

“You’re adorable.”

I scowl.

“It’s true!”

I return my gaze to the road and bite my lip to stop from smiling. “Next time, how about you drive, then you can pick whatever car, truck, or bloody tank you like!”

“Okay. Fair.” Ethan raises his hands in surrender.

“And since I booked the holiday, and the hire car, and everything else—”

He drops his gaze to his lap, and I stop myself mid-rant. Shit. There I go again, taking things too far.

I offered to take the reins on this one. In fact, I barely asked for his input at all. I always do this. “Sorry.”

Ethan shrugs. “You know I don’t like driving,” he says quietly.

I take a breath to re-centre myself. “Well it’s a good thing I do.”

I’ve always been the designated driver. Ethan can drive, sure, he just hates doing it.

He’s so damn confident in every other aspect of his life, but when it comes to driving—unless it’s going to and from the college where he works, or to Tesco down the road for a food shop—he basically avoids it at all costs.

I smile dimly. He would have driven today had I asked him to. Had I needed him to. He drove his dad to hospital practically every day this summer when he was going through his radiotherapy. Ethan would do pretty much anything, for anyone. All anyone has to do is ask.

But right now, I need to do this, for us.

I’m sure, given half a chance, he could’ve booked something just as lovely for us too. He’s perfectly capable of making plans. Of following through. He’s done it before …

We both peer out at the swirling mist of snow, then Ethan squeezes my thigh, his touch warm against the chill in the car. “Thank you. For doing all this.”

I sigh. “It’s okay. It’ll all be worth it.”

I swallow my panic, rising to the occasion. We’ve weathered way worse than this these last few months. At this point, this whole shitstorm, or snowstorm rather, is just the fucking cherry on top.

We fall into a comfortable silence as I concentrate on what little I can see of the winding mountain road ahead. We must be close by now. Surely, it can’t be much further.

I keep driving. I keep going. We’ve been waiting so long for this, I refuse to fall at the last hurdle, no matter how bloody snowy the track is.

Ethan gives my thigh another reassuring squeeze—just letting me know he’s there.

He’s been so patient with me these last few months.

In February, when my mum had her stroke, it shook me to my core, and I couldn’t handle it.

I didn’t handle it. Every emotion I felt, every stab of despair I had, I took out on him.

I weaponised my grief. I lashed out, blaming the world for altering our lives yet again.

And Ethan, the person I love most in the world, bore the brunt of it.

I guess he was the one person I could allow myself to fall apart around.

We were always a team, Mum and me; growing up, it was us against the world.

Though sometimes, I admit, it was me against my sister Ginny, with poor Mum as the referee.

But for the most part, we were best friends, and we still are.

We still are. At the same time, the stroke changed her so much, and I can’t even explain how.

Things are just different now. She’s different.

And I guess I’ll have to accept that one of these days.

Still, sometimes, even now, I hate the whole world for permanently altering my second favourite human on this planet.

In June, when Ethan’s dad got diagnosed with cancer, I barely had the energy to spare for him and his side of the family.

I wanted to be there for him as much as he needed me to be, but I know I wasn’t.

I’ve barely kept my head above the water this whole time, and it’s only right now, when things have settled down again back home, that we’ve been able to get away from it all, away from them.

And get back to us.

I test my full-beams for a second and we’re blinded by a mass of whirling white. Yikes. I drop back down to my headlights again. “This weather is nuts!”

Ethan chuckles, but a hint of worry lingers in his expression. “At least it’s an adventure, right?”

“Yeah, an adventure.” I huff a laugh. “Exactly what I need while trying not to skid off the road.”

“Hey,” he says, using his soothing yet sexy ‘audiobook’ voice, “you’re doing great.”

“Thanks,” I grumble.

“We’ll get there. Promise.”

I know. I know we will. We’ll be fine in the end. We always are, it’s just—

“Oh, and Mia?”

I side-eye him. “Ethan?”

He grins. “You’re cute when you get all frowny like that.”

I shake my head at him, returning my gaze to the road. “I’m not frowny.”

He scoffs. “Yeah you are.”

Mum used to call it my face of thunder, though she often wore the same expression—and more frequently too.

We still look alike, even as we grow apart in other ways.

I have her hazel eyes and the same light brown hair, though mine falls down past my shoulders while she keeps hers short now as it’s less hassle.

Everything is a hassle for her now. Even me.

Ginny and I were white-blonde as kids, like Mum in her old photos. We all lighten up in the summer, but those natural highlights fade by December. I can’t help worrying that soon any resemblance will be gone for good.

I glance at my phone.

Shit. The GPS has dropped again.

When the next road sign comes into view, I squint to read it, but the snow is coming down so heavy now I can barely make out the letters. Is that a capital ‘H’? I lean towards the windscreen, really trying to focus my gaze, but it’s no use.

We are so lost.

“Did you get it?” I ask, but Ethan shakes his head as we pass the sign.

Dammit. I have no idea where I’m going. I’m on the wrong side of the road in this, quite frankly, ridiculous little car—okay, Ethan might be right about that—and now, to top it all off, despite downloading the maps before we left, my GPS is fucked.

I take a breath then count to five in my head before releasing it.

Okay. Gotta calm down. Gotta calm the fuck down.

I grab my phone from the holder. “Can you check Willow’s last email for me, please?” I hand it over. “I’m sure she had some directions on there for the last few miles at least.”

Ethan scrolls through my phone, the blue light thrown across his features in the gloom. He’s got such a fierce look of concentration on his gorgeous face, I yearn to press pause on this whole nightmare of a journey and stare at him a while. He is, after all, my safe place.

His thick brows knit together, and he rubs a hand over his beard, looking every bit the rugged adventurer. Gosh, I swear right now, if I wasn’t so rattled I’d be totally aroused. I cannot wait to get to that cabin and finally have the time and space to have Ethan all to myself.

I cannot wait to switch off, and just—

“I can’t find it,” he whines, and the no-nonsense, sexy lumberjack thing he’s got going on fades a little.

I huff. “It should be the top message.” He has to find it. It’s not like I can pull over and find it myself.

The roads are gritted, but the lay-bys—which are few and far between—have been left completely to the elements. If I ventured off-road now, especially in this little thing, I doubt I’d ever get back on.

“It’s not … there’s no directions in there. The top message is all about this Juniper person. I dunno—”

“What?” He must be in my spam folder or something. “Babe, open the top message from Willow. Wil-low,” I repeat, more deliberately.

He swallows. “This is the top message from Willow. It doesn’t say anything about where to turn, or what to look out for. It just says she’s sorry and—”

“Sorry?” I stiffen. “Sorry for what?” If she’s cancelled on us—

Ethan blunders on, “Um … Yeah, she says sorry she can’t be there … duuduuduu—” He scans the message. “Yeah. Her sister Juniper will greet us at the—” He looks up and lurches forwards in his seat to point ahead of us. “There!”

“Huh?” Frantic, I scan the road, worried a deer is about to leap in front of us or something. “What?!”

“There!” he says again excitedly.

This time, my gaze follows the direction of his outstretched finger. “What is it?” I pad the brakes, completely mystified.

I blink helplessly into the swirling snowflakes, then—

“Oh my god!” I see it. “That’s their sign!” I slow us to a crawl and just about manage to turn in time, nearly knocking over their postbox—mailbox?—as I do so.

We made it. I beam. We bloody made it.

I sit back, my grip on the steering wheel loosening a touch for the first time in hours. I sniff back happy tears as we trundle down the snow-covered drive, wheels crunching on the frozen ground.

I gasp as it comes into view. All our dreams come true.

We pull up outside then stop to gaze up at the absolutely gorgeous, and fabulously festive, Holly Hill Cabin.

Ethan lets out a long, low whistle, and for a moment we both sit there with matching grins as strong as the December wind.

We made it.

The breathtaking, fairytale A-frame wooden lodge is adorned with crystal white lights and surrounded by fir trees laden with snow.

Perched atop a cluster of stilts, a dozen or so steps lead up to the balcony, where a potted Christmas tree twinkles with its own set of blinking lights.

A star as bright as if it had been plucked straight from the sky crowns the tree, illuminating the deck with an ethereal glow.

I can already picture us standing out there, leaning against that balustrade, mugs of steaming coffee cupped in our gloved hands as we take in the view.

The cabin windows reach up and up until they meet at the A’s peak and are lit with a homely orange glow, though we’re too low to see their base and what or who is behind them. Even through the snarling storm, the cabin is picture perfect like a postcard from Santa himself.

I can’t wait to get up there. To get inside. I bite my lip. I can’t wait to get started on our sexy couples getaway. I didn’t shave my legs for nothing.

I rake my gaze over Ethan’s fine self. Looks like Christmas is coming early, and I am definitely looking to get us both on the naughty list.

“You ready?” I ask him.

Ethan nods, taking my hand in his. “Let’s go.”

I light up. Bring on the festivities …