Free Take Me in Tahoe by Shelli Stevens

Chapter One
    Romance was completely and utterly overrated.
    Nikki scowled, tossing her orange polyester suitcase on the backseat before climbing in the driver’s seat of the ancient Volvo.
    She glanced at the house one last time—a townhouse she and her best friend had been renting since summer—and then shifted the car into reverse and exited the driveway.
    Men sucked. Love sucked. Roommates who wanted the house to themselves so they could have a romantic weekend sucked.
    As she waited at a light, she glanced down at the map on the seat next to her.
    Where the hell was she going anyway? A cabin in the middle of freaking nowhere? Well, technically the outskirts of Lake Tahoe wasn’t nowhere, but it was pretty damn close to it for a girl from San Francisco.
    So now she was going to be stuck in a secluded cabin in the forest. All alone with a fire and her endless stash of marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers.
    Well, maybe it might not be so bad after all.
    When Shaylee had informed her Nikki was being booted out of the house for the weekend, she’d given her the key to Justin’s cabin. Justin being Shaylee’s boyfriend of the season.
    Though Nikki didn’t understand why they didn’t just use it themselves. A cabin in the woods sounded a lot more romantic than a townhouse smack dab in the city.
    Because Justin has tickets to the theater to celebrate our four-month anniversary, so we need to stay in the city. Shaylee had pleaded, begged and guilted Nikki into finally agreeing to leave.
    Checking the time again, Nikki hit the gas. There were only a couple more hours before the sun went down and getting lost in the dark, in the woods, was not her idea of a good time.
    So much for that plan .
    Three hours and two cappuccinos later, she was squinting through her windshield at a dark, tree-lined road. Good gravy it was cold. She really needed to get the heater fixed.
    Shit. She slowed to a stop and held the map up toward the light again and shook her head. Where the hell was she? Twisting the map, she looked at it from a different angle. Hell, was she even reading it right?
    “Screw it.” She tossed the map onto the passenger seat and hit the gas again. It had to be nearby—she’d passed all the landmarks that were there.
    She looked for the unmarked turn-off that was supposed to appear after an old wooden fence.
    Twenty minutes passed, and her eyes were starting to drift shut. She was sleepy, and there was virtually no light except for her headlights. She hadn’t passed another car in God knew how long.
    She hit the brakes as a squirrel darted across the road.
    “Damn, stupid—” her eyes widened. “Oh. The fence.”
    It was so thin and rundown she’d almost missed it. Spotting the narrow dirt road beyond it, she turned in. That was fate for you—the squirrel had been her sign.
    The crunching of her tires seemed obscenely loud in the quiet of the night. Her lights bounced down the road, locking on a small cabin at the end.
    Finally! And it was exactly as Shaylee had described it. Quaint, surrounded by trees, with a creek she spotted flowing in the back.
    Nikki pulled the car forward and parked it in front of the cabin. She climbed out, grabbed her suitcase from the back, and stomped up the wooden steps to the door. Shit, it was freezing out here.
    Fumbling in her purse, she tried to find the key Shaylee had given her. Damn. It sure was dark. Didn’t people in the boondocks believe in porch lights?
    Her fingers closed around the cold metal key just as a yawn popped her jaw. Bed. That was the only thing on her mind. Screw the s’mores. Those could wait until breakfast.
    She unlocked the door and swung it inward, reaching inside to find a light switch. Nothing.
    Swearing under her breath, she stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind her. There had to be at least one light in this cabin.
    Stretching her arms out and squinting—as if narrowed eyes would give her a better chance of seeing anything in the