Love Storm

By Jennifer McNare

Taking a week off from her internship at the Denver Art Museum, twenty-two-year-old Brooklyn Foster is headed up to her family's private cabin near Vail, Colorado for a little rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, she isn't aware that her brother-in-law, an all-pro defensive lineman, has already offered the use of the cabin to his friend and former teammate, Ryan Landry, the drop-dead gorgeous NFL superstar she's had a not-so-secret crush on since she was a teenager. As luck would have it, he is also the same man who rebuffed her youthful advances four years earlier, after she ineptly attempted to seduce him in one of the most humiliating moments of her life, and much to her dismay, the same man who can still start her heart racing with only a smile.

 

Temporarily sidelined from his position as one of the most-celebrated wide receivers in the NFL due to a mild concussion, Ryan Landry eagerly accepted his close friend Wade Calloway's offer to rest and recuperate at his cabin in the Rocky Mountains, unaware that he wouldn't be the only one making use of the luxurious retreat. But when Wade's sister-in-law, the lovely Brooklyn Foster arrives unexpectedly, he can't deny that spending the next week with the tempting young beauty holds a great deal more appeal than it should. And all too soon, and despite the warning bells ringing in his head, Ryan realizes that keeping his hands off of his temporary roommate isn't going to be easy, for it is glaringly apparent that Brooklyn in no longer the off-limits, precocious teenager she once was.

 

Locked away from the outside world by a fierce winter blizzard, their passion for one another can no longer be denied and soon eclipses even the furious storm raging outside, leaving them both wondering what the future holds once they leave their perfect mountain hideaway.

Please note: This is a novella (short story).

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer McNare
• Release date: Jan 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781507036815

Book preview

Love Storm

By Jennifer McNare

________

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, businesses, or persons is completely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013

Jennifer McNare

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Epilogue

Chapter 1

It was coming down harder now, and the sweeping wiper blades were struggling with increasing difficulty to keep the heavy crystal flakes from staking a permanent hold on the icy windshield.  Darn, if she had just been able to leave an hour earlier as she’d planned, she might have gotten ahead of the early November snowstorm, but such was life.  It wasn’t as though her best friend Julia had intentionally broken up with her boyfriend, for the third time no less, right before Brooklyn was about to leave for her sister’s mountain cabin near Vail. 

The unanticipated detour to Julia’s apartment and the ensuing hour-long tête-à-tête, had been the cause of the delay, but at least she’d managed to calm Julia down by the time she’d left Denver.  Nonetheless, she’d give her a call once she reached the cabin, if she ever reached the cabin, to make sure she hadn’t reverted back to her prior histrionics.  Julia had always had a penchant for the melodramatic, but Brooklyn didn’t really mind.  In fact, she could not have asked for a better friend.  She and Julia’s personalities had always complimented each other perfectly, and since meeting twelve years earlier in Mrs. Decker’s fifth grade class, they had been nearly inseparable.

Reaching toward the console between the driver and passenger seats, she grabbed her cell phone and checked to see if she had service.  Nope, still nothing.  From past travels up the winding mountain road, she knew that she likely wouldn’t have service again for several more miles.  If she got stranded now, she could be in trouble.  Unfortunately, since she had turned off onto a lesser traveled section of the roadway a few miles back, there wasn’t nearly as much traffic and help could be a long time coming.  Although she had plenty of food, water, blankets and a nearly full tank of gas, she didn’t relish the idea of spending her weeklong vacation stuck in her SUV on the side of the road waiting for someone to pass by.

She briefly considered turning back, but after thinking it through, decided against it.  She probably had a better chance of making it to the cabin than she did of making it back down the mountain.  Visibility was getting worse by the minute and the trip back down the zigzagging, narrow two-lane road would take at least an hour and a half at her current pace, and according to the GPS mounted in the dash she was less than twelve miles from the cabin.  So, keeping her eyes glued to the small stretch of pavement that she could see through the thickly swirling flakes, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands and continued the painstakingly slow drive.

When she finally reached the turnoff to the cabin some thirty minutes later, Brooklyn’s nerves were frayed.  It had been getting harder and harder to see the road for the last several miles and if not for the SUV’s navigational system, she doubted she would have been able to find the turn onto the cabin’s private drive.  Having grown up in Colorado, she was accustomed to driving in bad weather as well as on snowy, icy roads, but that didn’t mean she liked it.  She breathed a huge sigh of relief when at last she pulled to a stop in front of the lavish, two-story cabin that belonged to her sister and brother-in-law.  Snatching up her phone, she was relieved to see that she once again had cell service.  Checking her messages, she saw that she had three missed calls within the past hour, all from her sister Katelyn, and one new voice message.  She immediately dialed her voicemail and hit the speaker button.

Hey Brook, it’s Kate.  Sorry sweetie but I’ve got some bad news.  I sure hope you get this message before you leave, because I just mentioned to Wade that you were going up to the cabin today and he told me that he had already offered to let one of his old teammates from Denver stay there for a few weeks.  You remember Ryan Landry right?  Well, he got a mild concussion in last week’s game against the Jets, so he is currently on the disabled list.  I guess he’s having some work done on his house or something and since he won’t be playing or traveling for the next few weeks Wade told him he should just stay up at the cabin and take it easy for a while.  Wade said he mentioned it to me the other day, but I swear I don’t remember it if he did.  I think this pregnancy is seriously screwing with my memory, as well as my hormones.  Anyway, call me when you get this.  I’m really sorry about the mix up.  Love you.  Bye.

As the message ended Brooklyn leaned her head back against the headrest and groaned aloud.  This cannot be happening she thought, shaking her head from side to side in horrified disbelief.  Ryan Landry, the name hit her like a slap in the face.  The last time she had seen him, just over four years ago, had been the most humiliating moment of her entire life.  It had been the night of Wade’s twenty-fifth birthday party at his and Kate’s house on the outskirts of Denver, just two years before Wade, an all-pro defensive lineman, had been traded to the NFL’s newest expansion team the Virginia Vipers, and a mere three weeks before she’d started her freshman year of college at the University of Colorado.  Ryan Landry, the first guy she had ever loved, or at least thought she’d loved at the time, the guy that she had been desperately trying to get to notice her since she’d first been introduced to him months earlier.

Oh how she wished she could forget that miserable night, but regrettably, it seemed destined to haunt her for the rest of her life.  It was the night she had imprudently skipped dinner and recklessly

Reviews for Love Storm

[JJJRAJ · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cute short story.