Snowed In

The Blunder Twins looked at each other like I had sixteen heads. I grinned evilly, even through the pain. “Go on. Ask her.”

All eyes fell on Morgan. Morgan… who everyone suddenly realized was standing there in nothing but her underwear and a T-shirt.

“I—I…”

“There’s a downstairs?” Shane asked.

She went guiltily silent, like the cat that swallowed the canary.

“Are the rest of your clothes down there too?” cracked Jeremy.

“Leave her alone,” I grunted. “You guys left. We explored. It’s that simple.”

“Doesn’t look simple,” said Shane, giving me the side-eye.

“Maybe because you’re too stupid to—”

“ALRIGHT!” Morgan shouted. “ENOUGH!”

She looked pissed. And cute. And sexy, in her underwear, with her legs exposed all the way up to the tops of her thighs and—

“We’re all stuck here together!” Morgan shouted. “We’re hungry, we’re tired, we’re running on empty. We survived an avalanche… and now it turns out we’re sharing this place with a bear. A fucking BEAR!”

Shane and Jeremy looked back at her, wholly impressed. I had to admit, I was too. She was angry! Her blue-green eyes burned with a fire behind them. But she wasn’t done.

“I’ve had enough of this alpha dog bullshit!” Morgan cried. “No one’s in charge here. No one’s better than anyone else! So either you guys all get along, starting right now, or—”

“Or what?” Shane spat bitterly. “Or you’ll sleep with another one of us?”

Morgan went deadly silent. The look she delivered him over the crackle of the fire was enough to make me cringe.

“Come on,” she said, helping me to my feet. “We need to get your wounds cleaned.”

With that I let her pull me from the room, but not before grinning at the guys as I passed by.

“Oh, and the rest of you can come too, if you’d like to clean up.”

Shane snickered. “We just barely made it back. We’re absolutely freezing. You think we’re leaving this fire?”

He tossed a couple of logs into the firebox as if to make his point. Jeremy began pulling off his boots.

“Yeah, well it’s eighty degrees downstairs,” Morgan called nonchalantly over her shoulder. “Just sayin’.”

Thirty-One

MORGAN

They followed us to the staircase anyway, probably because my last comment hit home. Or at least it intrigued them enough. Got them curious.

On the way down we saw exactly where the bear came from.

“Holy shit.”

The door leading to the garage wasn’t just open, it was shattered against its jamb. Beyond that, past a short trail of soil and leaves, a dark mess of twigs and conifer branches made up what could only be the animal’s winter nest.

“It was hibernating down here,” I said, peeking in. Though I probably wasn’t doing much to prop him up, Boone’s arm was still draped over my shoulder. “Damn. We must’ve woken it up.”

“Or the heat woke it up,” Boone agreed. “Remember, I left the garage door open. Heat rises. If it thought it was spring…”