Free The Claiming by Jordan Silver

 
    Why did I wait until the last possible
minute to leave school for the holiday? I knew something like this
would happen but I just had to put myself in this
predicament.
    I had a last minute paper to turn in,
something that I had finished days earlier but thought I could do
better on and so instead of leaving like the other ninety nine
point nine percent of the student body and faculty, I stayed behind
to tweak the paper, putting me two hours behind
schedule.
    Now I'm caught in a
snowstorm, my car is about to die and I'm caught half way between
home and the Cade ranch. Yeah me.
    It wouldn't be so bad if
Denise was home but my best friend was in Europe for a semester and
her parents were off visiting with her, which left only her crabby
older brother, who for some unknown reason couldn't stand
me.
    I felt a slight pang in my heart at the
thought.
    I have no idea what it was about me
that he found so revolting, but every time I was around he would
get this sour look on his face and leave the room.
    If I laughed too loud with one of the
others he would sneer at me, once I think he even growled before
storming off.
    I'd only met him the year before when
he'd come back home to help out on the ranch, he'd moved away a
long time ago after school to make his way in the business
world.
    According to Denise and
Maryann he was some hotshot tycoon who had taken his maternal
grandfathers shipping company and turned it from a dying dinosaur
into one of the premier companies in the country.
    Could've fooled me, all I saw was a
grouchy opinionated tyrant, though with everyone else he seemed to
be human, he saved all his acerbic remarks for me, that's when he
deigned to acknowledge my presence that is.
    I was so lost in thought I didn't see
the snow drift until I was on top of it.
    "Shit, no no no, not now, don't do this
to me please." I pounded the steering wheel in frustration before
screaming out loud.
     
     
    All around me was a blanket of snow as
far as the eye could see, there was a sliver of light a ways up
across the field, if I got out now and started walking I just might
make it about halfway before hypothermia kicked in, then the high
and mighty Braxton Cade could find my carcass when the snow thawed.
Wouldn't that be a feather in his cap?
    I would only be proving him
right since I'd once overheard him telling his sister what a clutz
I was.
    Who cares?
    I checked my cell for the off chance
that my life wasn't doomed from birth and there was a signal, no
luck, my reign as the unluckiest person in the universe was yet
unchallenged.
    The knock at my driver's side window
almost gave me a heart attack. I looked out the window, heart
racing in fear and could barely make out who or what was out
there.
    I did recognize the big bay
that the rider was on though and my heart sunk even
lower.
    I looked up to the roof of my car
facetiously.
    "Really, him, you couldn't let me
freeze to death in peace?"
    He knocked again until I rolled down
the window.
    "You can talk to the Almighty another
time, it's freezing out here let's get a move on."
    "Wha....."
    "You're stuck aren't you? And there's
no way you're getting to your father's place tonight so you might
as well come on home with me."
    I grumbled under my breath because I
knew the pain in the ass was right, what I didn't understand was
why these things always happened to me, it's like I had a dark
cloud hanging over my head or something.
     
     
    I grabbed my bag and made to get
out.
    "Leave it."
    "But..."
    "Duke can barely make it through the
snow with the two of us on his back and you want him to carry your
luggage as well?"
    "Oh alright."
    I threw the bag back in the back seat
and got out of the car.
    He was kind enough to give
me a hand up in front of him.
    My body was frozen in two
minutes flat; my teeth started chattering, my limbs
trembling.
    "Geez what the hell are you wearing,
you idiot, don't you have any sense?"
    I ground my teeth and bit my tongue, he
was doing me a service after