Chapter Six
Axton
“What the fuck is wrong with this thing?” I yelled down at the stove, throwing a fist into the kitchen countertop. For the last ten minutes I had been trying to turn the burners on, and not a single one would catch and light fire. It had been five days since we’d arrived to the cabin, but not a one of us had tried to cook anything on the stove yet. We had been surviving on cold sandwiches and beer, mostly because we weren’t used to cooking our own meals. Back at home in New York City we either ordered our food or had private chefs to do the cooking for us.
But I was craving something hot. Anything. Next to the stove I had a log of hamburger meat, and the fixings for a good burger. I was starving for something cooked, something good. But I couldn’t get the damn stove to turn on, and I hadn’t the slightest clue of how to fix it.
Benji and Wyatt had both gone into the town to stop at the convenience store and sight see. From what I understood, there was only the Quick-E Mart, a post office, and a few basic houses in the town. Not anything I wanted to take time out to explore.
I spun the knob on the stove one more time, but the only thing that happened was a few dry clicks. No fire.
“Shit,” I groaned and ran a hand through my hair. Frustration was making me angry, and it didn’t help that my desperate hunger was turning me into a monster.
Needing a breather, a moment to calm down before I burned down the damn cabin, I stepped out the kitchen door and onto the back deck. It was still early, the sun still rising in the sky. The lake was a crystal blue, and the air was unnervingly silent. It made me uncomfortable. I was starting to miss the buzz of the city, the noise of honking cars and the shuffle of thousands of feet moving down the sidewalks. I had never experienced anything like Colorado before. Not even on the other vacations I had taken.
Glancing across the lake, my gaze wandered to the other dock. Wren’s cabin. Since apologizing to her, I hadn’t seen her once. She was probably doing everything she could to avoid me. It had seemed crystal clear that she hadn’t accepted my apology. She thought I was a jerk, and she wasn’t wrong. But what did it matter? Why did I give a shit about what some random girl living in the middle of nowhere thought about me?
I squinted. She was on her dock, letting her feet dangle into the water. She was wearing the bikini again. My hands clenched into tight balls. Her body was spectacular, even if she was the complete opposite of the type of woman I usually went after. Even from the distance I was at from her, my eyes were focusing in on the curve of her spine, the sheen of her skin glistening under the shine from the sun.
“Hey!” I called out, ungracefully, waving an arm in the air.
She jumped. Shit. All I had done was scare her since moving into the cabin. Her face turned to me, and she stared for a few seconds before offering a hesitant wave back at me.
I hopped down the side of my deck and spanned the distance between us quickly. “You busy?” I asked, trying to act casual. Like I hadn’t been about to blow up the world a few minutes beforehand.
“Why?” She was skeptical as she stared at me through thick black sunglasses. Her pink lips were scowling, and she didn’t make any motion to stand up. Just stared at me like I was some diseased, contagious monster that had shown up to ruin her day.
I pursed my lips and let out a low breath. I wasn’t usually one to ask for help. “I can’t get my stove to light.” I avoided actually forming a question.
“Have you checked the pilot light?” Wren shrugged and glanced back out at the lake, her smooth legs glistening from the droplets of water that splashed up as she kicked her legs gently in the lake water.
“The what?” I was getting even more angry. I didn’t like to look stupid.
“The pilot light,” she repeated herself. She glanced back at me again with disbelief stretching a frown into her perfect mouth. I wanted to slap the look off her face. She was enjoying this.
Heated, I folded my arms across my chest. “I didn’t.”
“Well maybe you should,” she snapped back quickly.
She was doing her best to stretch this moment out. She wanted me to look foolish. My only options were to tell her I had no idea how to check a pilot light, or to go back home hungry and still without a working stove. Hunger won over. “I don’t know how.”
A bitter laugh rolled off her lips. “Would you like some help?”
Shit, she was really milking the moment. “Yes I would.”
“Okay, then.” She hopped up onto her feet in one fluid motion, and I couldn’t help but to glance at the perfect curve of her ass. The tiny curve that sat just beneath the black fabric of her bikini bottom. I grunted and shifted away from her, trying not to stare.
She jumped off her deck into the grass next to me without a second thought.
“No shoes?” I questioned.
“No shoes,” she affirmed with a casual shrug.
I snorted. Had I ever seen a grown woman walk outside barefoot? Besides on a tropical beach?
Doing my best to ignore the fact that she was without shoes and without most of her clothing, I trudged back into my cabin. I pointed out the stove as if it had just committed a serious crime. “Quite sure it’s broken.”
“I doubt that,” Wren shook her head and pushed past me to the stove. She swiftly pulled open a drawer, withdrew a long lighter, and then bent in front of the stove, testing out the burners for herself. Just empty clicks.
“As I said,” I began smugly.
“As I said,” she quickly interrupted, shooting me a glance over her shoulder. “It’s not broken.”
I rolled my eyes and propped myself against the kitchen wall. Fine. Let the master do her work. I couldn’t wait to find out she was wrong so I could rub her face in it. And I was terrified she would get the damn thing working, only to make me look like an incapable idiot.
Within a minute Wren had lifted the top of the stove and set it on the counter, pulled away at some knobs, and with the use of her lighter declared with dramatic pride, “VOILA!”
I squinted. I couldn’t see what she had done. “That it?”
She jutted her hip out and threw a hand on it, glaring at me. “Like you would have figured that out?”
The accusation stung. Mostly because I knew she was right.
“Here,” she tossed the lighter at me so she could reassemble the stove top. With a flick of her wrist she had the flame on the front burner roaring to life.
A grin stretched across my face. “Holy shit.” Not only I was impressed with Wren, I was ecstatic to finally be able to eat a good burger. And becoming uncomfortably aware of how turned on I was by the brunette fixing my oven while wearing a bikini.
Her lips were pinched into a smirk. “You’re welcome.”
I stepped forward to put my hand over the flame, making sure the heat was real. “Thank you.” I hated saying those words, but she deserved to hear them.
“Did you do something to piss George off?” Wren was grinning wickedly up at me.
A fire ignited in the base of my stomach. A flicker of anger. What was she getting at? “I don’t think so.” I was vague. I probably had.
She laughed. My eyes shot to the gentle slope of her throat as she threw her head back. I didn’t even care that she was laughing at me. The noise her laughter made was beautiful.
“I think he might have played a practical joke on you,” she pointed at the stove and eyed me up and down.
“How funny.”
“I think so,” she was still grinning as she shrugged. “We don’t exactly enjoy city folk.” She sounded like a country hillbilly the way she said it, and I clenched my fist in anger.
“And what would you know about them?” I hated being judged for my lifestyle. I had been born into it, and I wasn’t going to let some random woman living in the middle of nowhere make me feel bad because I enjoyed my life, or because I preferred the city.
Wren’s pale green eyes squinted up at me and she frowned. “I know plenty,” she threw back at me stubbornly. “I was one.”
I scoffed. “And you didn’t like it?”
“Not at all,” she shook her head. “I prefer the peace and quiet.”
“Well I prefer having conversations with human beings instead of trees,” I retorted.
Her mouth dropped. “This is the problem with people like you,” she spat. “You think people who aren’t in the city are inbred freaks. Just because we’d rather live peacefully.”
I shook my head and stepped towards the front door. “And you aren’t judging me for choosing to live in the city?” She was being hypocritical, and I could feel the rage pulsing through my body. I wanted desperately to teach her a lesson. I wanted to show her how she could, and could not, talk to me. “Thanks for fixing the stove,” I added forcefully as I took another step to the front door. I wanted her the hell out of my cabin. It had been a mistake asking for her help, and it was something I wouldn’t do again.
Wren got the hint, and pushed passed me to the door.
She pulled open the front door on her own and turned to make one final dig. “Hopefully he didn’t play any more jokes on you.” Her voice was threatening, and there was a dangerous glint flashing through her eyes that made me pinch my fingernails against the palms of my hands.
She didn’t wait for me to respond before going out the front door. But she wasn’t getting away as easily as she wanted. Benji and Wyatt had just showed up at that exact moment, and as I stepped onto the porch I watched them give each other a knowing glance before Wyatt flourished a quick bow directed at Wren.
“Why hello,” Benji grinned devilishly as Wyatt grinned at her. She had propped both of her hands on her hips, staring incredulously at my idiot friends.
“Please,” she muttered with a groan before ignoring them both and stomping off to her own cabin.
We all turned to watch the sway of her hips. Wyatt’s mouth dropped and he pretended to drool while Benji came and clapped me on the back. “Already moving in on the neighbor lady, huh?”
“Not even close.” I pushed his hand away from me.
“So is she free game?” Wyatt chimed in.
I shrugged. “Sure. Good luck with it. She’s impossible.”
Benji and Wyatt both glanced at each other knowingly before going into the cabin. I gave more glance back towards Wren’s cabin before following after them.
The thought of either one of them trying to hit on Wren was enough to make me sick to my stomach. I wanted to be the one to tame her.
It was going to be a long summer.