Page 6 of That Stranded Feeling

Now I have to figure out how to make small talk with the woman in the weird socks and oversized sweater who seems a bit bonkers.

Bonkers, but crazy cute. She stands by the log fire, her freckled cheeks turning pink as they warm up after standing in the doorway. And there’s something hot about the way she keeps pushing those two blonde ringlets off her face. Not my type, though. Way too granola. Anyway, I only need to call Elliot back, wait for my phone to charge a bit, and be on my way.

I yank off my damp sneakers and step into the tiny open-plan living-kitchen area.

“So, where can I plug in?”

A shaggy, brown face with black ears pops up over the back of the sofa and stares at me. That head is huge.

“Meet Elsa,” Summer says. “She must have smelled you.”

The beast jumps off the sofa and rushes up to me, ears back, tail swishing like a single windshield wiper.

I automatically lift my arms in the air and step back to brace myself against the wall. “I smell?”

“She’s deaf,” Summer says. “She wouldn’t have heard you come in. She must have smelled you.”

Christ, I need to get out of here. I wave my phone in the air. “So, where’s best?”

Elsa’s nose is at perfect crotch-sniffing height.

“There.” Summer points at the kitchen area on the other side of the room and makes no effort to dissuade the dog from intimately acquainting herself with my genitals.

I sidestep Elsa and walk toward the outlet where the breakfast bar meets the wall. I’ve never been this happy to see a charging cable dangling from an electrical socket in my life.

There’s a nose up my butt the whole way.

“She likes you,” Summer says with what might be a hint of a giggle.

“Yeah, that’s great.”

As I connect my phone to the charger, Summer appears at my side. A flutter of surprise rushes through me. There’s a spark of fire in her bright blue eyes. I guess she wants me out of here as much as I want to be gone.

“If Elsa worries you, this will get her away.” She snaps a banana from the bunch in the fruit bowl on the counter, waggles it at me then splits it open.

The dog snaps her attention to Summer and follows her back to the living area.

“Her favorite treat.” She breaks off a piece as Elsa obediently sits and stares at her.

“It’s not that she worries me…Oh, thank God.” I blow out a big breath as my phone screen springs to life.

But a signal doesn’t appear.

Nothing.

Then more nothing.

Still nothing.

This is what happens when you’re in the middle of nowhere. This is why I’m never in the middle of nowhere.

“Is there no cell service way out here?”

“You’re notway outanywhere. You’re in New Hampshire, not on the moon.” Summer sighs as she feeds the dog another piece of banana. “Of course there’s service.”

I hold my phone in the air and wave it back and forth as much as the cable will allow. Nothing. My heart quickens. Elliot must wonder why the hell I haven’t called him back or shown up at his parents’ house yet.

“Well, I don’t have a signal.” I give it a shake.