Snowbound with the Bear Sneak Peek

Convergence Quickies #3

Chapter 1

Midge

My situation had been perfection itself all day. I was living my best life cuddled up in a cabin, with fine wool socks pulled up to my knees, flannel pajamas soft as a prayer, and that ridiculous cashmere throw my sister had given me for Christmas wrapped around my shoulders like armor against the world. The fire crackled in a steady rhythm, and I managed to read three chapters without once checking my phone. This was it. This was what I had paid for when I rented this luxury cabin sight unseen: pure, unadulterated peace.

Then, my body betrayed me.

It started as a tickle of warmth in the center of my being, innocent enough that I almost ignored it. But within seconds, it spread like wildfire down my spine, across my chest, radiating out through my limbs until every inch of my skin felt like it was wrapped in heating pads from the inside and set to volcanic.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I gasped, throwing off the cashmere throw as if it had personally offended my ancestors.

The flannel pajamas followed, then the wool socks, then the tank top underneath, because apparently my body had decided that now, on the most peaceful evening of my forty-seven years, was the perfect time for a hormonal meltdown of epic proportions.

I stood there in nothing but my underwear, panting like I had just run a marathon, staring at the wall of glass that separated me from the snow-covered deck. The frozen lake beyond sparkled under the moonlight, serene and mocking in its winter stillness.

Another wave hit me, this one so intense I actually whimpered.

“Screw it.”

The sliding door protested as I yanked it open, the frigid mountain air rushing in like salvation itself. I didn’t pause, didn’t think, didn’t consider what the neighbors might think, if there were any neighbors within fifty miles of this godforsaken paradise.

I launched myself off the deck.

The snow was deeper than I had expected, softer, and as my overheated body hit the pristine white powder, I let out a sound that was part relief, part ecstasy, part primal scream that had been building in my chest for months. I spread my arms wide, legs akimbo, and made the most enthusiastic snow angel of my adult life while moaning as if I were either experiencing divine intervention or a life-changing orgasm.

Possibly both.

The cold bit at my skin, steam literally rising from my body where hot met frozen, and for the first time in what felt like twenty minutes, I could breathe again. I lay there, arms still spread wide, staring up at stars so bright they looked like someone had scattered diamonds across black velvet, and started laughing.

Because this ridiculous, half-naked, steaming-in-the-snow moment was probably the most honest I had been with myself in years.

Until the cold started seeping in.

It happened gradually at first, a subtle shift from blessed relief to the dawning awareness that snow, while excellent for emergency hot flash management, was decidedly less excellent for prolonged human contact. My fingertips began to tingle, not in the good way, and my teeth started their preliminary chattering.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered, rolling over and pushing myself up from the Midge-shaped depression in the snow. “Back to civilization.”

I padded across the deck, snow clinging to my underwear and hair, leaving wet footprints on the wooden planks. The warmth radiating from the cabin windows called to me like a beacon, promising flannel and cashmere and maybe some of that overpriced hot chocolate I had splurged on at the werewolf themed market.

I reached for the sliding-door handle.

It didn’t budge.

I tried again, pressing my full weight against the glass, rattling the frame like some kind of desperate, half-naked burglar. Nothing. The door had locked automatically when I had slammed it open in my hormone-induced frenzy.

“No,” I said to the universe. “No, no, no, this is not happening.”

But there, less than ten feet away, sitting smug and unreachable on the coffee table, was my phone. My lifeline. My connection to the outside world and, more importantly, to anyone who might be able to help me figure out how to break into my own temporary sanctuary.

Next to it, draped across the couch like they were posing for a magazine spread titled “Things You Should Have Kept On,” were my clothes. The flannel pajamas looked particularly accusatory, while that infernal cashmere throw seemed to mock me with its promise of warmth.

The fire crackled merrily in the background, completely oblivious to my plight.

“Well,” I said aloud, my breath forming little clouds in the frigid air, “this is just perfect.”

But I hadn’t survived forty-seven years, a divorce, two teenagers, and a mid-life career change by giving up at the first sign of adversity. Or even the second. I was nothing if not tenacious, a trait that had served me well in boardrooms and PTA meetings alike.

I stepped off the deck, immediately regretting the decision as my bare feet hit snow that was somehow even colder than the air. But I pressed on, making my way around the side of the cabin with the determined gait of someone who refused to freeze to death within sight of my own phone.

The first window I reached was locked tight, naturally. So was the second. And the third. Each one I tried with increasingly creative combinations of pushing, pulling, and what could generously be called percussive maintenance, but the cabin was sealed up tighter than this valley’s secrets, up until a year ago.

By the time I made it around to the front of the house, my feet were completely numb and I was pretty sure I had lost feeling in places I preferred not to catalog. But there, sitting by the front steps like a gift from the winter gods themselves, was a pair of rain boots.

They were enormous, intended for someone with feet the size of small canoes, but they were rubber, they were dry, and they were definitely better than the alternative of becoming a cautionary tale about the dangers of solo vacations.

I shoved my feet into them. The boots swallowed my legs up to my knees, but my toes immediately began their grateful journey back toward actual sensation.

Looking up at the cabin’s front façade, I noticed something promising: the porch roof was low enough that I might be able to climb up and check the upstairs windows. It was either that or spend the rest of the evening explaining to search and rescue why I was found frozen solid in my underwear outside a perfectly warm cabin.

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