Stuck in the Cabin (Exiled Dragons Book 8)

by Sarah J. Stone

  “Are you here to stay?” he asked tentatively, seemingly afraid of what the answer might be. He must be realizing now that perhaps they had just gotten caught up in the moment and that wasn’t her intent when she came here.

  “Only on one condition,” she told him, turning to face him and reaching up to wipe away his tears. There was nothing worse than watching a grown man cry and especially Neil, who she had never seen so weak and vulnerable before.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “You have to promise me that we can do this every day,” she told him with a smile.

  “Do you think this will fix what is broken in our lives?” he asked.

  “Not at all, but I can guarantee you that we will forget about it for a while and remember the one thing that is important,” she said.

  “What is that?” he asked, though surely he knew the answer.

  “That we are in love and we are in this together. They can’t take that away from us, even if we wind up in a box near Central Park,” she said.

  “I hope we can find a thick one. It is getting cold out there,” he told her, bending over to kiss her softly and brush her hair away from her face.

  “Oh, I already did,” she said mischievously.

  “Are we still talking about boxes?” he asked, smiling broadly.

  “Probably not,” she replied, pulling him back toward her and getting lost in his kiss once more. They made love again, this time so softly that she was now the one that wanted to weep tears of joy. After lying in bed just holding one another for a while, they finally emerged to forage for food. The apartment was devoid of everything but milk and some knockoff brand of shredded wheat cereal.

  “Put on something pretty. I’m going to take you out to eat,” she told him.

  “I don’t think I own anything pretty,” he replied.

  “Oh, I beg to differ, sir. I think whatever you are wearing is very pretty,” she told him, garnering another laugh from him. It was good to see at least some glimmer of happiness in him.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Where all the hungry, poor people go,” she responded, “That all you can eat pizza buffet a few blocks down.”

  “Sweet! I love Italian food,” he told her, kissing her on the cheek as he headed off to get dressed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With Neil making a conscious effort to remain present, things seemed to smooth out between them. It was, by no means, a cakewalk. There was still plenty of tension between them and many arguments, sometimes about the silliest things. However, they managed to grow closer somehow, even as the litigation against them dragged out over months, draining their bank account and keeping them in the poverty-stricken conditions they had become used to by now.

  Halloween turned into Thanksgiving, and before they knew it, Christmas was growing near. It brought back memories of their first Christmas together, stranded in a cabin in Tennessee. For all the grief Johnston was now causing them, he was also the one who had inadvertently brought them together. Had he not forced them to take that trip to help him with a quick-turn project, they might still be working in his office, contemplating new ways to get the better of one another and win over more clients.

  They decided to spend Christmas with Stephanie’s family this year since she had missed it with them last holiday season. It wasn’t much of a choice, considering that they couldn’t afford the trip to South Carolina without accepting money from Neil’s parents, and they had already done too much of that prior to downsizing so they could get by without additional loans and credit cards.

  Refusing to let the holidays drag them back down into the funk they had been in, Stephanie scoured thrift stores and sidewalk peddlers for decorations for the apartment. Neither she nor Neil had ever decorated their apartments for Christmas since they always had gone home for the holidays and saw no use and so they had nothing. Her mother gave her a small, artificial tree that she had purchased years ago and never used, always opting to buy a real one instead. With that and the ornaments Stephanie either made by hand or purchased on the cheap, she and Neil were able to put together a pretty decent tree. It didn’t have any presents under it, but at least it was somewhat festive.

  Their lawyer had begun really putting the screws back to Johnston and the firm, filing a countersuit against him for defamation of character on behalf of each of them and adding a claim for loss of livelihood based on recent discoveries that the firm had been maligning them to members of the advertising community. It was a long shot, but at least it put them on the defensive. If nothing else, it gave them hope that this might come out some way other than them being destitute and unemployable.

  With only a few weeks to go until Christmas, Stephanie and Neil were surprised by a visit to their apartment one evening. Two men in dark suits showed up to question them about their trip to Johnston’s cabin last year. At first, they had refused to speak with them, thinking it was some ploy on his part to add damages to his cabin to the money he was trying to take out of their pockets. Then, the men told them that they were with the FBI and were only asking for their cooperation in an ongoing investigation into insurance fraud and tax evasion on the part of Johnston.

  There were many questions about what happened at the cabin last year. Neil and Stephanie told them everything that had occurred, concluding with how they had left after the man on the snowplow had come to their rescue.

  “So, you were burning Mr. Johnston’s possessions for warmth while you were there?” one of the men asked.

  “Well, yeah. We had no choice. It was below freezing outside, and there was no wood,” Neil said, sounding more than a bit defensive.

  “These are just routine questions, Mr. Pierce. You aren’t under scrutiny here. We just need to confirm some things,” the other man told him.

  “Tell me about the wine cellar,” the man continued.

  “What about it?” Stephanie asked, not understanding what it was he wanted to know.

  “You said that you drank some of the wine. Do you remember which bottles? Can you tell us how many bottles of wine were left when you departed?” he asked.

  “Yes, we made a list on my tablet. We thought that Mr. Johnston might make us pay for it, so we stuck with the less expensive bottles with the exception of one that Neil opened without realizing how much it was worth,” she said, a slight smile on her face as she remembered the expensive bottle of Shiraz they had shared. “We kept a list of everything we destroyed, just in case. I would say there were maybe twenty or thirty bottles at most when we left.”

  “Do you still have that list?” one of the men asked, seeming very interested in it.

  “I’m sure I probably do. It should be somewhere on my tablet. Mr. Johnston told us not to worry about any of it, but I don’t believe I ever deleted the list,” she said, getting up to retrieve her tablet from her bag and powering it up while they continued to speak.

  “Okay, we will need a copy of that if you can find it. If not, we’re going to need to come up with one based on what you can remember,” one of the men said before continuing to his next question. “And the cabin was intact – other than the possessions you either consumed or burned for warmth – when you left?” he asked.

  “Yes, there was no damage to the cabin itself,” Neil told him.

  Stephanie found the list on her tablet and pulled it up on the screen, handing it over to the FBI agents to view. The two of them studied it for a moment and then one pointed to something, and the other nodded and smiled. Pulling a small USB drive from his pocket, he stuck it in the side of the tablet and presumably saved the file for their use.

  “I assume you have no issues with us utilizing this list for our purposes without the requirement of a warrant?” he asked.

  Stephanie shrugged, finding it odd that he asked after he had already saved the file, but it was of no consequence to her or Neil.

  “Sure. You can have it,” she told him.

  “Thank you. Once las
t thing, did you leave the fire burning when you departed the cabin?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not. The fire had died out long before we left because we ran out of things that would burn. We had the stove on to keep what warmth we could in the house after discovering that the SUV was dead. If the snowplow hadn’t come to get us out of there, I don’t know what we would have done that night with it being so cold and not having any heat. We turned the stove off and left after he jumped off our vehicle and told us to follow him out,” he told them.

  “The stove was turned off when you left, and the fire was completely extinguished. You’re sure about both of these things?” the other agent asked.

  “Yes,” they both replied.

  “We cleaned out the debris from the fireplace after it had cooled so we didn’t leave behind such a mess in there. Neil dumped the ashes out behind the shed and tamped them down with snow to make sure none were still smoldering, though it had been long enough that that was unlikely,” Stephanie told them. “And I double checked behind him to make sure the stove was completely off.” Another brief look was exchanged between the agents that left them both smiling a little.

  “What is all this about, anyway?” Neil asked, feeling uneasy about the continued questions.

  “We can’t really tell you that sir, but you’ve been a great deal of help,” one of them said, handing Stephanie back her tablet.

  The two men stood and thanked them for all of their help and asked if it would be okay if one of them or another agent returned or called if they had more questions. Neil and Stephanie agreed and the two men left, leaving the couple to wonder what exactly was going on.

  “I don’t know what that was all about, but I think we need to call Mr. Higgins and let him know about it. Perhaps it is something he can use to our advantage if the FBI is investigating Johnston for something he did,” Neil told her.

  “We will call him first thing in the morning, but you and I have some other business to attend to right now,” she told him, grabbing him by the tie and pulling him toward the bedroom.

  “What kind of man do you think I am, madam?” he said, feigning shock.

  “A very bad, bad man,” she said with a wink as he lunged toward her and she let go of his tie, running toward the bedroom with him in hot pursuit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What are you doing?” Neil asked as he walked out of the bedroom early Christmas Eve morning and found Stephanie holding up pieces of fabric to the stools that flanked the bar along one side of the small kitchen.

  “The landlord said I could recover these stools if I didn’t like them. My friend owns a fabric store and loaned me some swatches of the remnants they have. She’s going to give me enough material to recover these with something a little less bland and not as…stained,” she told him, wrinkling her nose a little. She tossed one of the ring binders with attached swatches onto the counter and walked over to give him a little kiss on the cheek.

  “I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” he remarked, pulling her close to him and running his fingers down one side of her face.

  “I’m full of surprises,” she told him, flashing him her best wicked smile.

  “Yes, you certainly are, and I’m lucky to constantly be amazed by you,” he told her.

  Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he leaned across the other side of the counter as she returned to looking at the samples that were scattered all over. He picked up one of the rings and slid it open, letting all of the swatches slide free onto the counter and turning it over and about in his hand.

  Here they were, broke and happy just being alive. Things could be a hell of a lot better, but they could also be much worse. It was never far from either of their minds that if they lost this case, they stood to lose absolutely everything they had worked for, but it was something that had to be pushed out of their minds in order to get through each day. They were coping, and that is all they could hope for right now.

  “I’ll make us an omelet while you handle this whole swatch dilemma,” Neil told her, returning to the fridge to see what they had that could be tossed together.

  “I will let you,” she told him with a grin. He was busy slicing up various leftovers while she contemplated what she liked best when his phone rang.

  “Will you get that, babe? It’s probably my family, and I’ve got messy hands. Just stick it on speaker and put it near me,” he told her. Stephanie fished the phone out of his pocket while he made perverse faces. Pulling it free, she hit the answer button, then pushed speaker and laid it near him on the counter.

  “Hello? Mr. Montgomery?” came the voice of Mr. Higgins on the other end.

  “Yes. What’s up, Mr. Higgins? Are you calling to tell us you are giving us all our money back for Christmas?” Neil said lightly.

  There was a little laughter from the other end. Neil and Stephanie both looked at one another and rolled their eyes.

  “Well, Mr. Pierce, in a manner of speaking, you are close to right. I was going to wait until after the holiday, but I thought it might make your Christmas a little better if I went ahead and gave you the news,” he said. “Is Miss Montgomery there? Are the two of you sitting down?” he asked.

  “Hey, Mr. Higgins, merry Christmas!” Stephanie chimed in.

  “Yes, it is my dear,” he told her. “I took the information the two of you gave me about your FBI visit and did some digging. I haven’t already told you this because I needed to see how it would all pan out and didn’t want to get your hopes up, but your old friend, Mr. Johnston, was taken into federal custody a couple of weeks ago and charged with tax evasion and insurance fraud. It would appear that he burned down his cabin in Tennessee and blamed the two of you for his substantial loss of both the cabin and the enormous wine collection in the cellar,” he told them.

  “What? We didn’t burn down anything, and there wasn’t that much wine in the cellar,” Neil told him.

  “Yes, and what you told the FBI helped tremendously in nailing him for having it burned to the ground and making false claims about his losses. The tax matter is a case of continued hiding of assets in an effort to get out of tax payments,” he said. “They allowed him out of jail on a hefty bond, and he took the opportunity to flee the country.”

  “What? What happens now?” Neil asked nervously.

  “Well, fortunately for you, you paid top dollar for a ruthless attorney whose sole job was to protect you from pieces of garbage like Johnston. I have negotiated with the remaining partners at the firm what I believe is a settlement that you will appreciate. In exchange for you not filing your own fraud charges against him and dropping the countersuit, they have agreed to drop the lawsuit he instigated and pay the attorney’s fees you have had to shell out to yours truly,” he told them. “They have no hope of winning without his sworn testimony, and even if he turned up tomorrow, his word is crap now.”

  “Are you pranking us?” Neil said excitedly.

  “Absolutely not, but calm down. I’m not quite done yet. In order to keep this whole fiasco as far under wraps as possible, they also offered a one-million-dollar settlement in exchange for you signing a gag order that would prevent either of you from discussing anything regarding the case with anyone,” he told them.

  “A million dollars?” Stephanie squealed.

  “Yes, but I said no,” Mr. Higgins continued.

  “What do you mean you said no? Shouldn’t you have asked us first?” Neil said, feeling outraged suddenly.

  “Settle down, Mr. Pierce. It was just their first offer. I think you will like the five-million-dollar figure I negotiated much better,” he said, falling silent.

  “Oh, my God! They are going to reimburse our attorney’s fees and give us five million dollars?” Neil exclaimed loudly.

  “Merry Christmas, kiddos,” Mr. Higgins responded. “I will have my staff draw up all of the paperwork after the holiday, and you’ll need to come in to sign it. It will take a couple weeks for everything to process out
, but you should have the money in hand no later than the second week of January,” he told them.

  “Merry Christmas to you,” Neil told him. “Thank you so much, Mr. Higgins. Thank you so much!”

  “You’re welcome, now have a great holiday, guys. I’ll give you a call in a few days to get you into the office to finish things up,” he told them before saying goodbye and hanging up.

  The two of them just stood looking at one another for the longest time, speechless. Five million dollars sounded like a lot of money, but they knew that after Uncle Sam took his share and they re-invested a good portion into their business, it wasn’t as much as it seemed. Still, it was more than enough for them not to have to sweat the small stuff and take their firm to the next level without worries of where the money was going to come from. This was the best Christmas present ever.

  Neil finished making their breakfast, and they sat and ate together at the bar, feeling more at ease than they had for months on end. They spent the rest of the day looking at houses, daydreaming about getting a nicer place once they were back on their feet.

  “We’re going to need a raise if we are going to afford any of these houses,” Neil remarked.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to discuss that with our boss when we go back to work,” Stephanie replied, chuckling a little.

  “I suppose we will,” he responded.

  After a simple evening at home together, they rose early and got ready to go to Stephanie’s family home for Christmas Day. While they couldn’t tell them the details, they were able to at least tell them it was over and that they were going to be okay once it settled. That alone was reason to celebrate. They took a moment to call Neil’s parents and tell them the good news as well. Once they got the settlement, they would be able to pay them back and fly down to visit them for a belated family gathering.