With an exasperated sigh, Korbie pushed off the love seat, crossed to Mason, and snapped her fingers in his face. "It's called English. Use it."
Shaun came back into the room at that moment. "It's Ace's cabin,” he said. "His parents recently passed and they gave it to him in their will. This is our first time up here since the funeral.”
”oh." I swallowed. "It must be really hard-the memories, I mean,” I stammered diplomatically. Mason didn't appear to hear me, or chose not to. His eyes were fastened on Shaun, his eyebrows drawn, his gaze inflamed.
"Ace doesn't like to talk about it,” Shaun explained easily, with an almost humorous twitch of his lips. "He's an atheist. Death always makes him shifty. Doesn't believe in the afterlife. Right, buddy?"
None of us said anything. I cleared my throat, finding Shaun's insensitivity a bit much, even if I was so over caring about Mason's feelings.
Shaun broke the tension with a disarming laugh. "You girls are too gullible for your own good. You should see your faces right now. The cabin is mine, not Ace's. And before you ask, his parents are perfectly healthy retirees living in Scottsdale, Arizona."
"You're worse than my brother,” Korbie groaned, tossing a sofa pillow at Shaun.
Shaun's grin split his face. "This is the price you're gonna have to pay for sleeping here tonight-putting up with my twisted sense of humor."He rubbed his hands together. "So, tell me. What are you girls doing up here in the mountains alone?"
"Starving,” Korbie announced bluntly. "It's dinnertime. Can we eat and then talk? I swear I lost ten pounds hiking here."
Shaun looked at me and Mason, then shrugged. "Fair enough. I'm gonna make you girls the best damn-good chili of your lives, wait and see."
"Go work your magic,” Korbie encouraged him, with a shoo of her wrist. "But you're on your own. I don't do manual labor, cooking included. And don't bother asking Britt for help either. She's even worse at cooking than I am,” she said, eyeing me in a way that warned, Don't you dare help him-he's mine.
I knew Korbie's reasons for not wanting me alone in the kitchen with Shaun. But I was surprised to see Mason stand alert suddenly, as if he intended to jump in and intervene should I decide to leave the room with his friend. He stared me down, and it looked a lot like a warning. I found the whole thing bizarrely comical. He didn't want me here. Or there. Or anywhere. He especially didn't want me alone with Shaun. Well, too bad. If that's what it took to goad him back, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.
"Korbie's right, I am an awful cook,” I confessed to Shaun. "But just because I'm bad at something doesn't mean I'll refuse to do it,” I added, a subtle dig at Korbie. "I'd love to help you cook dinner."
Before anyone could stop me, I strolled into the kitchen.
CHAPTER FIVE
The cabin's kitchen was fully furnished, with a knotty pine table, a Navajo rug, and framed pictures of the Teton Range in various seasons. Aluminum pots and pans dangled from a hanging rack above the island. A layer of dust dimmed the pots' luster, and cobwebs hung like silvery streamers from the rack. Obviously Shaun didn't make it up here often.
A fire blazed in the double-sided fireplace that shared a wall with the den. The room smelled pleasantly of smoke and wood. I was in awe that Shaun could afford such a place. It wasn't anywhere as nice as the Versteegs' cabin, but Korbie's mom had been a successful divorce attorney for years.
"What do you do for a living?" I had to know. Had he graduated from college already? Was he a cutthroat investment banker, some kind of financial genius?
He flashed me an easy but self-deprecating smile. "I'm a ski bum. I'm putting college on hold until I know what I want to do with my life. Technically, this place belongs to my parents. But they don't ski anymore, so they handed it off to me. I'm up here all the time."
He must order out a lot, I thought. The pots hadn't been used in ages. "You're pretty far from the resort, though, right?"
"I don't mind the drive."
I washed my hands in the sink, but since there wasn't a dish towel, I dried them on my jeans. "Where should I start? I have mean can-opening skills." Before Shaun could stop me, I went to the pantry and opened the door. To my surprise, except for two cans of chili and a faded canister of Swiss Miss hot chocolate mix, the shelves were completely bare.
Shaun came up behind me. "We forgot to go shopping before we came up,” he explained.
"There's no food,” I said, dazed.
"The snow will stop by morning and we'll hit the store then." The closest general store was miles away. We'd passed it on our way up. "You didn't buy any food on your way into the mountains?" "We were in a hurry,” Shaun said almost sharply.
I didn't push the issue, because his tone made it clear he didn't want to discuss it. But his lack of preparation struck me as alarming. Shaun said he came to the cabin often to ski, but it almost seemed like no one had been living here for a long time. There was something else bothering me. Something about Shaun was a little off. He was charming and friendly, but not necessarily warm or genuine.
Or maybe I was just being paranoid because I was stuck in a cabin with two guys I didn't know. My dad would flip if he knew. The truth was, Shaun had invited us in. He was cooking us dinner. I needed to relax and accept his hospitality.
I opened the cans of chili slowly, feeling the urge to preserve them, knowing they were the only food we had to outlast the storm, and if it grew into something much worse, this might be all we had to stay alive for days. I had granola bars in the Jeep, and wished I'd grabbed them. Almost hesitantly, I passed the cans to Shaun, who'd turned up the heat under a large pot on the stove.
Out of habit, I checked my cell phone for new texts. Maybe Calvin had tried to call. He knew we were supposed to arrive at Idlewilde around six, and it was almost nine now.
"Until you get down to lower elevation and out of the trees, your cell phone is nothing but dead weight in your pocket."
I groaned lightly. Shaun was right. "I swear I can't go five minutes without checking it. A bad habit. I feel so useless without it."
"What about you?" he asked. "You come up here often?"
I waved my phone high over my head, but no signal bars magically appeared. "Sure,” I said absently.
"Do you know the area pretty good?"
"Better than Korbie." I laughed. "And yes, that was a note of pride you detected, since she's the one with the family cabin. I always had the better sense of direction." Except that mine hadn't been very reliable on the drive up, in the rain. But I kept that to myself.