Page 4 of Braving the Storm

My feet carry me on cautious tiptoes, drawing closer to the location where I can hear my uncle crashing around. He sounds like a wild beast who has been set loose indoors. A fearsome creature escaped from his enclosure.

Wrapping my arms around me, I clutch my wafer-thin robe asif I’m at risk of revealing every exposed inch of my flesh to him all over again.

The lighting in here is soft, warm, forgiving on my heartsore, weary eyes. A couple of bare bulbs are illuminated. One hangs over the tiny kitchen space and basin set beneath a narrow window. The other dangles on a wire above the weathered L-shaped sectional positioned in front of a fire.

In LA, they’d call this look rustic-chic.

Here, I suspect it’s less intentional and just the interior of an old, uncared-for cabin.

Uncle Stôrmand crouches in front of the now crackling flames, methodically feeding small pieces of wood in one after another. He doesn’t look my way.

Does he come here often?

I still don’t understand why he’s here.

This week has been a mess, and I’m too tired after a full day of traveling, with that floaty neither-here-nor-there sensation clinging to my limbs. My eyes are scratchy. My head fucking aches.

When I eventually located this address, found the hide-a-key, and let myself in, I’d taken one look at that lifeless, charred fireplace and nearly cried.

I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know fires or snow or how to get by without cell phone reception.

This escape plan sounded really cute and perfect, until I arrived, shivering in the dark, and figured out pretty quickly that I was so far out of my depth it wasn’t funny.

Am I a little relieved he’s here to prevent me from drowning in my own inadequacy, or more specifically, freezing to death?

Maybe.

Do I need to stop staring at my uncle’s ass in those jeans?

Absolutely.

I swallow hard and avert my eyes. This is so fucked up.

The man practically forced himself on me without consent ten minutes ago.

He’s my father’sbrother.

Adopted,is all my stupid, scrambled brain seems to want to gleefully fixate on.

God. I need a drink. There had better be something to drink in this place.

“Cupboard to the right of the sink. Glasses live beside the stove.” Rich, gritty words drift up from the man intently focused on the fire. It’s the kind of voice I’m so unaccustomed to.Weathered and gruff.

He rests on one knee, with jeans stretched tight over his backside and thighs—a place where my eyes keep wandering back to because I am so much more fucked in the head than I ever realized—while he continues to load kindling into the growing flames.

I turn in place, taking in my surroundings. There’s barely four feet to this entire quaint kitchenette, laughable in comparison to the ostentatious expanse of shiny white marble I ran out of two days ago.

Hooking open the slightly crooked cupboard reveals a few different bottles of liquor with time-worn labels. Whiskey? Yes. Whiskey is the choice my fingers settle on because I am in cowboy country, after all, and I follow that with plucking a glass off the shelf beside the stove.

Do I pour one for him, too?

I’m fucking freezing. I need to dig more clothes out of my suitcase. I need to charge my phone. I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing with my life.

My uncle doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t try to start a conversation or apologize or anything remotely normal for whatever just happened back there. And I don’t exactly know what to say either.

It’s nice of him to light the fire for me, I guess, but I also am entirely confused as to why he’s here in the first place.

This is—was—my dad’s cabin. He left it to me. Before Dad’s death, he hadn’t spoken to his brother in ten years, not sinceherfuneral.