The Cabin

By C. Tyler

Charlie didn’t get along with her father, but she’s the only one left to deal with his estate since he’s passed. Unfortunately, the cabin she grew up in isn’t empty like the lawyers said it would be. Wild-man Declan has taken up residence.

While their initial meeting is rocky, the attraction is instant and powerful. When a storm hits and the pair are snowed in, how will they ever pass the time? And can they ever be more than a passing good time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Publishing
• Release date: Apr 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781773399317

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Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2019 C. Tyler

ISBN: 978-1-77339-931-7

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Karyn White

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

This is for everyone who makes life a little more interesting.

THE CABIN

Romance on the Go ®

C. Tyler

Copyright © 2019

Chapter One

Charlie

It must be a rule that your childhood home isn’t supposed to change. I haven’t been back to Anchorage since I was sixteen, but little changes on the outskirts of town. I’m thirty now, and I feel like I could navigate these streets with my eyes closed, still.

My old man’s cabin is nestled in the woods, hidden back in the trees on the side of a mountain. He’s owned it for as long as I can remember, but not anymore. Three weeks ago, my dad died. Lung cancer. It finally caught up with him, I guess.

Since I’m an only child, I’m evidently the one who’s responsible for taking care of his estate. No one on his side of the family’s going to do it. I don’t think he’s talked to anyone over there in years. Hell, the two of us haven’t spoken in a while, either, but that didn’t stop him from making me his only beneficiary.

The whole flight from Tennessee where I live, and the subsequent drive in my bright red rental car, I’ve been stuck in my own head. I know I should feel worse than I do, but I don’t. People who lose a parent are usually inconsolable, or cry, but I haven’t. At least not yet.

My dad and I didn’t really get along later in life. We were too similar in a lot of ways, and I’m pretty sure he never quite got over the fact that I’m a girl and he wanted a son. He wanted a junior, and even named me accordingly.

We’re both stubborn and outspoken when we think we’re right. We’re both loud when we argue, and we hold grudges like champs, not to mention we’re both fluent in sarcasm. One small remark from the other and it generally set us off. A fight would ensue, and it’d be days before we spoke to each other again, despite sharing the same roof.

Fortunately, our exposure to one another was relegated to summers and Christmas vacation. I’d fly out, we’d spend the allotted time together in a cabin no bigger than a shoe box, and then I’d go home.

I did enjoy my trips out to Anchorage, though. It felt like an adventure. We’d always go camping, start bonfires, and have a good time, but things got tricky when I became a teenager. That’s true of every father/daughter relationship, I think. I don’t even remember what the hell the fight was about anymore, it’s been so long, but it was apparently enough for me to stop talking to him for five years.

Our relationship was always a tricky one. When it was good, it was great. But when it was bad? Shit … the world wars had nothing on us. So yeah, I’m conflicted. I loved my dad a lot, still do, but the closeness that brings on the tears after someone’s death hasn’t been there in a long time. It makes me feel guilty that I haven’t cried yet.

The cabin finally comes into view after ten minutes of making my way up the drive. He’s so far back, the driveway can get mistaken for a country road. It has before, a thousand times, but the signs that he hung up to tell people they’re on private property are either too faded to read, or missing. I guess I’ll have to do something about that before I sell it.

The ground finally levels out, and I swing my ridiculous little Honda into a parking spot. I don’t know why the rental place at the airport even has one of these dumb things to rent this late in the year. It’s November. Snow comes like a thief in the night. Something this small can get trapped anywhere. The only good thing is the ungodly bright color would make me easy to find when I inevitably drive off into a ditch somewhere because Hondas can’t have snow tires.

Dad’s cabin is a small A-frame house with a sharp slope to the roof. A giant porch stretches out in front of huge, wall-length windows that span the entire front of the building, and let in every single speck of light. The porch is probably twenty square feet. Hell, it’s almost as big as the floor plan of the actual cabin.

Every piece of patio furniture is off to the side and flipped upside down to help protect it from the elements as much as possible. The fabric’s torn and