by Dani April
“This is our vacation spot,” Ethan explained to the girl as he threw more logs into the fireplace and made ready to light the fire. “My brothers and I have all taken a week of vacation from our jobs. Well, Scott over there doesn’t have a job, but Brad and I both have this coming week off.”
The girl was looking all around the front room of the cabin. She had set her dogs down on the floor, and they had gone over to sniff Skipper some more. The girl looked like she was giving the place a thorough inspection.
“This is cute,” she said. “It’s pretty small, but I like it. This place is awesome.”
“Actually, Chrissie, this is one of the larger cabins of this type you’ll find up here in this neck of the woods,” Ethan told her. Somehow this girl seemed to have a superior attitude that annoyed him. “The three of us guys haven’t all been up here together in a couple of years. So it was going to kind of be a special week for us. Guess we picked a bad time.”
“So you mean you don’t like…live here all the time…you just come here to get away from your jobs?”
“Yes. That’s about the size of it.” Ethan looked over his shoulder at her. What kind of girl was this? Where had she been living all her life? She seemed like she would probably be smart enough, but she also seemed not to know anything basic to life.
Scott still hadn’t said a word. Ethan lit the fire and held his hands over it as it provided the first small burst of warmth. From outside, Brad came in loaded down with their luggage, a cold gust of wind chasing in after him.
“Scott, bro!” Brad yelled at him. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and do something?”
“Yeah, okay.” Scott still had not pulled himself out of his mysterious reverie. He went over to the couch, took a seat, pulled out his phone, and began fiddling with it as if searching for something. Skipper came over and tried to lick him, but he was paying no attention to his dog.
“I’ll be back,” Brad said, showing his exasperation with Scott as he bravely went back outside to fetch the rest of their luggage.
“So, Chrissie…” Ethan cleared his throat and rose up from the now nicely burning fire. “This might be a good time for you to see if you can raise the highway patrol.”
She had gone over and taken a seat on one of the big overstuffed chairs by the fire. She looked as lost as Scott. Her dogs padded back up to her, and she took them on her lap, still wearing the long fur coat.
“You okay, Chrissie?” Ethan raised his voice just slightly.
“I don’t want to call anyone,” she told him, looking up with her adorable blue eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“Can I just please stay here until it stops snowing?” she asked him, so much hope in those big eyes. “I really like it here, and I promise I won’t be in the way or anything.”
“Well, Chrissie, my brothers and I are probably going to be snowed in here all week,” Ethan tried to explain to her and almost felt like he was talking to a child. Although from what he could see of her body under that coat, she certainly was not a child. “Don’t you have some place to go?”
“Right now I don’t have any place to go. I’m running away.”
“Who are you running away from?”
She didn’t answer. She just lowered her face into her hands to hide the tears falling down her face. Brad picked that moment to walk back in through the front door with the last of their luggage. He paused in horror as he saw the crying girl and silently set the luggage down on the floor.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Chrissie doesn’t want to leave,” Ethan told him. “She’s running away from someone.”
“I’m not running away from a ‘someone,’” Chrissie explained, sniffing back her tears. “I’m basically running away from my whole life.”
Brad went to her and knelt beside her chair. He reached over her lap and petted her dogs, giving her a smile. “You really want to stay here with us, honey?”
“Just until the snow melts and I can get my car out of that snowbank.”
“That will be days.”
“I won’t get in your way. I promise. I like it here, and I like you guys.” She wiped her wet face with the back of her hand. “You are the first real people I think I’ve ever met. Anyway, my babies want to get to know your dog better.”
Ethan watched Brad as he looked back at him for guidance. Ethan could only shrug. This situation was so far out of his league he didn’t even know where to begin. He was very leery of this mysterious girl, but he knew his brother well enough to know he had a different take on things.
“Thanks for trusting us, Chrissie,” Brad told her. “You can stay here if that’s what you really want.”
“Yes, it is.” She wiped away some more tears.
“I hope you’ll let us help you.”
“You’ll help me if you just let me stay here until the storm ends.”
“You’ve got that,” Brad told her, putting a smile on his face. Ethan had to hand it to him, he could be real smooth sometimes. “Luckily we’ve got enough food up here to feed an army, and once that fire gets going, this whole place is going to not only be warm, but it’ll get hot.”
“The fire feels great.” Chrissie had a smile back on her face, her tears already gone.
“My brothers and I are probably not the most terrific hosts in the world,” Brad told her and looked back at Ethan and laughed. “But while you’re here, just consider everything we’ve got as your own.”
“Thanks, Brad,” Chrissie said. Then she amazed Ethan and almost knocked Brad over. She bent over and kissed Brad, briefly placing her hand on his shoulder.
“We each have a phone, Chrissie,” Ethan told her from his corner of the room, rescuing Brad who was blushing too deeply to speak. “So if there’s anyone you want us to call for you, just let us know. Okay?”
“Thanks for not asking me any questions, guys.” Chrissie gave another beautiful smile and curled up cross-legged under her fur coat, fanning her hands out toward the now well-developed fire. Ethan couldn’t help but notice she was wearing a very short dress under that fur as her long, shapely legs crossed elegantly in front of her on the chair.
* * * *
There was only one bedroom in the cabin. Ethan normally took it when he was up here with his brothers. Sometimes they played poker to see who would get it. Ethan felt he was the only one that foresaw the potential for problems in that arrangement. He didn’t say anything of course, and Brad quickly offered it to Chrissie.
She took it as she had taken all their hospitality. Like she was used to having people give her things that she wanted. Telling them that she wanted to get her babies settled in bed, she left them alone with the crackling of the fire in the front room, and they had their first few minutes to talk privately since she had entered their lives less than an hour before.
“What do you make of her?” Brad asked Ethan quietly, although Chrissie had shut the door to the bedroom and the thick wooden doors of the cabin were enough to keep out unwanted conversation.
“I don’t like it, man,” Ethan told him honestly.
“You don’t like her? What do you mean you don’t like her?”
“She seems okay, but I don’t like this situation. Something’s not right here, and we definitely don’t know enough to be getting ourselves involved with this chick.”
“You mean Canyon Creek’s biggest ladies’ man hasn’t noticed the woman we’ve got in our cabin?”
“Yeah,” Ethan admitted. “She’s really nice in that way. But what’s her deal anyway?”
“I’m sure she’ll open up to us,” Brad said. He had walked into the big country kitchen and was opening up some cans for their supper. “I just didn’t want to press the poor kid. She’s obviously had a bad time of it, or she wouldn’t have been out on that road tonight.”
“I’m wondering who she is.”
“I have no idea.” Brad started the can opener, readying a can of beef stew to put in
the microwave.
“You know the way she’s dressed and she’s kind of ditzy.” Ethan walked around the bar counter outside the kitchen. “I’m wondering if she’s some kind of high-priced call girl. Maybe she was on her way to meet a client.”
“No!” Brad laughed at him. “You’ve got too big of an imagination, bro! Now shush or she’s going to hear you talking.”
“Well, look at her, man,” Ethan stuck to his point, lazily spinning around one of the barstools. Outside, the wind was crying loudly and had loosened a shutter on the back of the cabin, which was now knocking against the siding. “She’s gorgeous and she’s hot and she’s got a major rack on her. She’s also pretty young. A young girl like her from around here doesn’t have the money for that expensive fur unless she has a sugar daddy…Hell, I don’t know, maybe she’s a stripper from up in the city.”
“I don’t believe any of it, bro,” Brad whispered so the girl in the next room would not hear.
“And why didn’t she want to call the highway patrol?” Ethan posed another sane question. “Maybe it’s because she’s in trouble with the law. We just don’t know who she is…”
“I know who she is.” Scott spoke for the first time in an hour. Both Ethan and Brad turned to him. “I know who Chrissie is,” he told them again and got up from his seat on the couch holding his phone and walked over to them.
“Who is she?” Brad asked him.
“When you first saw her in the truck, it was almost like you had seen her before. Like you already knew her,” Ethan said.
“I have seen her before, and so have you.” He handed over his phone to them. “I knew her when I first saw her tonight, but I wanted to do some research before I was sure. Now I am sure.”
Ethan took the device in his palm and looked down. Scott had brought up a web site of entertainment personalities. Neither Ethan nor Brad knew what this was all about.
“I don’t get it,” Ethan said. “This is just some people in Hollywood. What does that have to do with us, or the girl in our bedroom?”
“Those pictures aren’t in Hollywood. They’re in Aspen, and that’s less than a hundred miles from here.”
“These are just some celebrities going to a dinner or something.” Brad shook his head.
“Touch that link there,” Scott told Ethan. “Look who was supposed to be at that dinner tonight.”
Ethan did as Scott told him. A picture of Chrissie Murphy, the pop singer and movie star, came up on the screen. In the photo, the two little poodles, Peaches and Cream, were being held by her and she was giving a friendly wave to the cameras. She was on the arm of some hunk rock star. Ethan’s mouth fell open and his heart came up in his throat.
“Oh my God…”
“We have Chrissie Murphy in the bedroom, guys,” Scott whispered to them.
“It is her.” Brad’s voice had gone quiet as well. A moment of disbelieving silence hung over them where none of them spoke.
“This explains a lot.” Ethan gave Scott a pat on the back, proud of his kid brother. “It explains everything except…what the hell is she doing here in our cabin?”
“Now you see why I hit you when you made that lame remark about the song on the radio,” Scott told him. “That was her song, man.”
“You’re okay, baby brother.” Ethan laughed and went behind the bar to find him something stronger than beer to drink. “Just keep hitting me when I put my foot in my mouth, will you?”
“She said she’s running away from something.” Brad went around the bar counter to have Ethan pour him a stiff one, too. “But what could Chrissie Murphy be running away from? She’s like the hottest young celebrity in the world right now.”
Ethan poured them all three a shot of rum from a half-empty bottle behind the counter. “Funny thing is I never liked her music.” Ethan laughed to himself as he downed his shot.
“There’s something we need to do here,” Brad said, raking his fingers through his thick hair. “But I don’t know what it is we should be doing.”
“Guys, this doesn’t change anything,” Scott told them. “We said we’d help her, and we’ve got to do exactly that.”
“Could be, but it isn’t everyday something like this happens.” Ethan thought about pouring himself another, but then decided against it, knowing he would need a clear head for what ever happened next. So much for just a carefree week on vacation in the mountains with three wild brothers.
“She’s a human being, guys,” Scott said. “And be honest with yourselves, she’s really nice. I mean she seems just like one of us already, and we haven’t even known her for two hours yet. I don’t know what problem she has in her life that caused her to run away, but I for one am going to do everything I can to help her.”
“At least we know she isn’t going to ask for any money,” Ethan tried joking. No one laughed this time.
“All she asked for so far is just to stay here with us and then go on her way later on,” Brad reasoned. “That really doesn’t seem like all that much to be asking. Scott’s right. She is a nice person. I still like having her around, even though now that I know who she is, I probably won’t be making anymore moves on her.”
“A little out of your league there?” Ethan teased him.
“Out of your league, too, ladies’ man.”
“She’s better than Gena anyway,” Scott kidded him.
“I’ll admit to that.” Brad forced himself to smile.
Ethan had made up his mind. He walked back to the front room and sat down on the couch in front of their giant-screen TV, turning it on with the remote. “This doesn’t change a thing,” he told his brothers. “So she’s a rich and famous celebrity. Who cares? I don’t personally. I’m going on with my week of vacation as if nothing had happened. If she wants to hang out here with us, I’m cool with that. Hell, I’ve already given up my bedroom to her.”
Scott pumped his fist in the air. “This is going to be so awesome, guys. I love her. I have always loved her. Remember when she used to be on the Chrissie Murphy show on TV? I thought she was the greatest thing in the world back then. I think that even more now that I’ve met her in person.”
“Well, maybe at least we’ll be able to get her autograph before she leaves,” Brad joked.
“Take it easy, guys,” Ethan called into them. “Baby brother said it best. She’s just a person like we are.”
“Fess up, Ethan,” Scott chided him. “You like her as much as we do.”
“Sure. What’s not to like? She’s one hot chick but not exactly in our league, bro.”
“Hey, guys! What’s going on?” Chrissie exited from the bedroom and came back out to join them. Her brilliant smile returned after her earlier bout with sadness. She was still clutching her fur around her.
When Chrissie came out to join them, Ethan was proud of them for pretending like nothing was out of the ordinary. They played dumb with their knowledge of who she was. But Ethan knew they had just opened up an impossible situation for themselves that couldn’t really have a good ending for any of them.
Chapter Four
Chrissie awakened to a new day feeling strangely refreshed and alive like she hadn’t felt in years. Bright white light was shining inside the bedroom through the large, single window toward the foot of the bed. The bed was really small, but the sheets and mattress had been soft and comfortable, allowing for a good night’s rest.
Chrissie stretched out on the bed, raising her arms above her head. At her feet, already awake for the new day, were Peaches and Cream, curled up and looking warm and cute against the quilt of the bed. Her mind was as clear as the white of the snow outside the window, but surprisingly she couldn’t remember at first much of what happened the day before.
For a brief second she didn’t even know where she was waking up this morning. Then it came back to her, and she shuddered. Yesterday had been the worst day of her life.
She pulled her legs out from under the covers and hopped off the side of the bed. She had w
orn her fur coat to sleep in because last night it had still been chilly inside the cabin. This morning the fire out in the hearth had done its job, and everything was toasty warm and the coat was no longer comfortable.
When she took off the coat, she realized she was still wearing the little black party dress from the night before, her silk panties, and nothing else. Perhaps the guys had a place to go shopping around here. They seemed like such nice men. She felt they would take care of everything.
“How are my babies this morning?” she cooed down at Peaches and Cream, who gave her fingers a good morning lick in return. “Come on…Mommy’s going to get you two some breakfast…”
She took a quick look at the window. There was nothing but white to see outside, and the window was mostly frosted over. The wind was still howling as if the storm was still hanging around outside, and against the white clouds overhead, she could see more flakes falling to the ground.
In bare feet, she walked across the wood floor, opened the door to her bedroom, and stepped out to the front room of the tiny cabin. At first she thought she was alone and couldn’t see any of her guys around. For a moment she wrinkled her nose with worry. Then when she stepped out farther, she caught sight of Scott out in the big country kitchen and smelled something really good coming from the same direction.
“Good morning,” Scott said. He was the shy one, but Chrissie thought he was real cute.
“Hi, Scott. Good morning,” She gave him a pretty smile and walked out to be with him. “I hope that’s breakfast I smell because I’m starving.”
“Yeah…” Scott hesitated. Chrissie smiled inwardly, realizing that whenever she was around, this handsome young man lost the ability to speak. “I didn’t know what you liked. We have a pretty well-stocked kitchen. So I made you a little bit of everything. Just eat whatever you like.”
