The Claiming

Why did I wait until the last possible minute to leave school for the holiday? I knew something like this would happen but I just had to put myself in this predicament.

I had a last minute paper to turn in, something that I had finished days earlier but thought I could do better on and so instead of leaving like the other ninety nine point nine percent of the student body and faculty, I stayed behind to tweak the paper, putting me two hours behind schedule.

Now I’m caught in a snowstorm, my car is about to die and I’m caught half way between home and the Cade ranch. Yeah me.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Denise was home but my best friend was in Europe for a semester and her parents were off visiting with her, which left only her crabby older brother, who for some unknown reason couldn’t stand me.

I felt a slight pang in my heart at the thought.

I have no idea what it was about me that he found so revolting, but every time I was around he would get this sour look on his face and leave the room.

If I laughed too loud with one of the others he would sneer at me, once I think he even growled before storming off.

I’d only met him the year before when he’d come back home to help out on the ranch, he’d moved away a long time ago after school to make his way in the business world.

According to Denise and Maryann he was some hotshot tycoon who had taken his maternal grandfathers shipping company and turned it from a dying dinosaur into one of the premier companies in the country.

Could’ve fooled me, all I saw was a grouchy opinionated tyrant, though with everyone else he seemed to be human, he saved all his acerbic remarks for me, that’s when he deigned to acknowledge my presence that is.

I was so lost in thought I didn’t see the snow drift until I was on top of it.

“Shit, no no no, not now, don’t do this to me please.” I pounded the steering wheel in frustration before screaming out loud.

All around me was a blanket of snow as far as the eye could see, there was a sliver of light a ways up across the field, if I got out now and started walking I just might make it about halfway before hypothermia kicked in, then the high and mighty Braxton Cade could find my carcass when the snow thawed. Wouldn’t that be a feather in his cap?

I would only be proving him right since I’d once overheard him telling his sister what a clutz I was.

Who cares?

I checked my cell for the off chance that my life wasn’t doomed from birth and there was a signal, no luck, my reign as the unluckiest person in the universe was yet unchallenged.

The knock at my driver’s side window almost gave me a heart attack. I looked out the window, heart racing in fear and could barely make out who or what was out there.

I did recognize the big bay that the rider was on though and my heart sunk even lower.

I looked up to the roof of my car facetiously.

“Really, him, you couldn’t let me freeze to death in peace?”

He knocked again until I rolled down the window.

“You can talk to the Almighty another time, it’s freezing out here let’s get a move on.”

“Wha…..”

“You’re stuck aren’t you? And there’s no way you’re getting to your father’s place tonight so you might as well come on home with me.”

I grumbled under my breath because I knew the pain in the ass was right, what I didn’t understand was why these things always happened to me, it’s like I had a dark cloud hanging over my head or something.

I grabbed my bag and made to get out.

“Leave it.”

“But…”

“Duke can barely make it through the snow with the two of us on his back and you want him to carry your luggage as well?”

“Oh alright.”

I threw the bag back in the back seat and got out of the car.

He was kind enough to give me a hand up in front of him.

My body was frozen in two minutes flat; my teeth started chattering, my limbs trembling.

“Geez what the hell are you wearing, you idiot, don’t you have any sense?”

I ground my teeth and bit my tongue, he was doing me a service after all, it wouldn’t be polite to tell him to go fuck himself, and besides, I only thought those things but never said them out loud, if I did I would’ve given him a piece of my mind a long time ago…like the first time we met, when we’d been introduced and he’d acted like he smelt something rotten.

He opened his huge parka and wrapped it around me, pulling me back closer to his body heat. His body was like a furnace. Don’t think I didn’t suck up all that nice warm goodness.