Sweetly Contemporary Collection - Part 2 (Sweetly Contemporary Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  Sighing a little, Clare raised herself to a sitting position and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, rubbing at her wrists.

  “You have been doing that all evening,” Logan observed. “Is something the matter?”

  “I suppose it’s just that I’m not used to the dry air, or wearing wool for any length of time. The ribbing on this sweater is irritating my skin.”

  “It can’t be very comfortable.”

  She had to agree. As if her words confirmed something he had suspected, Logan pushed to his feet and left the room. He returned shortly, carrying one of his shirts.

  “Here,” he said, tossing it down beside her. “Maybe this will be better.”

  It felt better, there could be no doubt about that; what it looked like was another thing entirely. Clare, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror by the glow of the flashlight standing on its end, let a grin twitch across her lips. The shirt of soft cotton flannel had all the flattering fit of a hospital gown. The shoulder seams hung halfway down her arms, the cuffs of the sleeves flapped below her hands, and the tail of it struck her not far above the knees. In addition, the color of the plaid was a brilliant blue, red, and black, a terrible clash with the soft green of her skirt.

  And then, as she stared at herself, a peculiar feeling moved over her. It lasted for no more than a flicker of time before she gave a hard shake of her head and began to roll up the sleeves with a quick carelessness. So she was wearing Logan Longcross’s shirt? That was no excuse for going into an adolescent daze. He was just an actor, a man — one, she must admit, who was turning out to be more reasonable about her presence than she had expected. She would spend one more night here with him. By tomorrow the snow would have stopped and she would carry on with her plans. By this time the next day, she and Beverly would be laughing over the whole episode, and that would be the end of it. It was strange that the prospect did not make her feel like smiling now.

  Clare woke to silence. She lay staring up at the beams of the cathedral ceiling for long moments before she recognized what was wrong. The wind had dropped, and the strange brightness that filled the room meant that beyond the draperies drawn over the windows the blizzard was over and the sun was shining. Instinctively Clare turned toward the other bed. It was empty. Logan had gone out already. His jacket, gloves, and cap were gone from where he had left them the evening before.

  Throwing back the cover, Clare sat up and pulled on her boots. When she had gained her feet, she unfastened her skirt and tucked the excess material of Logan’s shirt into the waistband before buttoning it up again. She felt crumpled, and more than a little weary of the clothes she was wearing. She could do nothing about that, but she could bring some sort of order to the wild tangle of her hair.

  With the hairbrush from her tote in one hand and a tortoiseshell hair clip in the other, Clare moved from one window to the other, staring out, entranced. The snow covered everything like a thick layer of spun-sugar icing. Upon its diamond-like surface, the sun sparkled with dazzling brilliance. The pine, spruce, and fir trees near the house stood with their branches weighted with snow, like flocked Christmas trees, their lower limbs half-buried in the smothering whiteness. In the front of the house, toward the road, Clare saw the deep tracks Logan had made as he left from the side door and tramped away over the virgin snowfall. Where he could have gone, she had no idea, though the trail he had left seemed to lead down the snow-covered roadway.

  The rear of the chalet, with its glass doors, its expanse of windows reaching up to the roofline and down to the outside deck, held the greatest surprise. It overlooked a steep, walled canyon with evergreens clinging to its sides and blue shadows at the bottom. On the far side, the trees were silvered with their burden of snow, and beyond them lay a range of blue mountains frosted white against the cerulean of the sky. It was a stunning view. Clare stood looking out over it for a long time, her gray eyes thoughtful. Then, with an abrupt movement she turned away, fastened the clip over her smooth hair at the nape of her neck, and went briskly about the business of cooking breakfast.

  She was cracking eggs into the pan where she had fried bacon when Logan came through the door from the laundry. He threw down the burden he carried and took a deep breath. “I could smell the bacon and coffee a hundred yards away,” he said.

  Her attention on what she was doing, Clare said over her shoulder, “I suppose you are hungry again?”

  “Starving.”

  “It will only be a minute.” She turned to smile, then let her glance drop to the bundle at his feet. It was an instant before recognition came. “My suitcase!”

  “You said so little about having to wear the same clothes for two days that I thought you deserved a reward.”

  “Oh, Logan. You shouldn’t have done it, but I’m so glad you did. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Slip another egg into the pan there, that’s a good girl,” he answered, and picked up the bag to carry it up the spiral stairs to one of the bedrooms for her.

  It was after breakfast before Clare could turn her attention to a change of clothing. Shutting herself up in the frigid bedroom, she replaced what she was wearing from the skin out, mourning only that she could not take a long hot bath before donning the fresh clothing. She could have done so, if she had only waited a little while, she discovered. The first thing she noticed when she emerged from the bedroom in jeans, a knit shirt, and a chunky pullover sweater was the Tiffany light burning brightly over the table.

  “The power is back on!” she said as she carried Logan’s shirt through to the laundry.

  “It came on about five minutes ago. That means the snowplows are out on the main roads. They should get here by this afternoon.”

  “That’s good. Beverly, the friend I was going to stay with, will be standing on her head. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out she had called in the police to locate me.”

  “I suspect most of the roads into this area have been closed since dark day before yesterday. People up here make allowances for this sort of thing. Your friend probably has a good idea that something like this happened. I doubt she will do anything drastic unless you don’t show up a few hours after the roads are cleared.”

  Clare nodded. “You may be right.”

  “Since there is nothing we can do until the roads are open, and as long as you are warmly dressed, what do you say to a walk?”

  “I would love it,” Clare said, brightening; then her expression grew doubtful. “But you have already been out this morning. Are you sure you want to go again?”

  “I’m sure. Besides, I have something to show you.”

  They set out immediately, both of them well wrapped up, including caps and gloves, with the addition, for Clare, of a brilliant red muffler over her camel’s hair coat. It was not difficult to decide where they were going. They turned in the same direction Logan had taken that morning, following the path he had made in the snow. It could lead only one place, to her car on the side of the embankment.

  Rather than beat a trail of her own, Clare followed along in Logan’s footsteps, her view blocked by his broad shoulders. It was not until they reached the place where she had gone over the edge that she could look down and see where her car had come to stop.

  The sight brought her to an abrupt halt. With her hands clenched and her face pale, she stared downward. Here the road paralleled the same canyon that Logan’s house overlooked. It had the same evergreens, the same perpendicular walls. Only the great trunk of the huge ponderosa pine had kept Clare’s car from plunging, rolling over and over, bounding off snow-covered rocks to the blue-shadowed bottom a thousand feet below.

  Slowly Clare lifted her gray eyes to stare at Logan.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “It was quite a chance you took, wasn’t it?”

  “I didn’t know it was like that,” she whispered.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “No, but you still think I drove off the road deliberately. You must be crazy if you think
I would risk so much just for an interview, no matter who it was with.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Where was the risk, if you didn’t know what this drop-off was like? If it had been no more than a steep shoulder there would have been no danger, just a lady in distress with her car out of commission. As it turned out, the excuse was even better, a perfect alibi, because who could possibly believe anybody would do such a stupid thing as drive over the side of that on purpose?”

  Without a word, Clare swung away from him. There was fury in every line of her body as she marched back the way she had come. She neither hesitated nor turned back when he called her name.

  Now that she was out, Clare had no intention of returning to the confinement of the house. The air was still crisp and cold, but it was also invigoratingly fresh. Past the house, the going was harder, since she had to make her own trail. She was soon panting for breath in the rarefied atmosphere, but she no longer felt the cold. As she penetrated deeper into the woods, a soft quiet descended. She was alone. Around her lay the thick mantle of snow, disturbed only by her footsteps. The clean sharp smell of the evergreens hung in the air. As she brushed against their branches, the fine snow sifted down, falling without a sound. On impulse, she scooped a handful from a spruce bough and touched it to her tongue. It tasted like the air, fresh and cold and faintly resinous.

  Moving more slowly now, she wandered on. The only sound was the crunch of snow beneath her boots. Nothing moved. There was no wind, no animals, no birds, nothing to mar the perfect stillness. And then, at the foot of a great granite boulder capped with snow, she found where movement had been frozen. It was a small deep spring. Its slow-running waters had turned to ice, sheathing its rock channel in sculptured turns and molding icicles where it poured over the rocks, building them in layers, so that they hung like stalactites in an underground cavern. The sun striking through the trees glittered on the hoarfrost that sheeted it with the shimmer of finest crystal.

  Clare felt the constriction around her heart ease. Taking a deep breath, she let it out in slow pleasure, aware with a sense of wonder that this, this instant of timeless beauty, was what Logan had been trying to describe to her. If the great destroyer, man, came to claim this spot, he would cut down the trees, capture the spring water in nice, useful concrete fittings, fill the air with the smell of gasoline exhaust, and shatter the quiet with the noise of machines. So much of the earth had been subjected to that kind of civilization. Why couldn’t a few such places as this be left?

  Behind her came the sound of a cold-stiffened limb brushing against cloth. She turned, to see Logan standing a short distance away.

  “Sorry,” he said, the single word carrying easily in the intense quiet.

  His apology was not for what he had said, but for following her, for disturbing her reverie.

  “It doesn’t matter.” she answered.

  As if released by her words, he came closer. She watched him from the corners of her eyes, determination growing with every step he took. He had not been overly concerned with her feelings. Why should she trouble herself with his?

  “There is something I have been wanting to ask you,” she said, her voice reflective. “Since this is all off the record, I may as well. Does Janine Hobbs have anything to do with the hitch in having her husband produce your screenplay?”

  “What do you know about Janine Hobbs?”

  “Only what I read in the papers,” she quipped. “I am a fair hand at putting two and two together.”

  “I can imagine,” he answered, his voice hard.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “Why not? The more you know, the more frustrating it will be that you can’t use it.” He sent her a mocking smile, one that she mimicked perfectly in return.

  Clare thought real amusement quirked his mouth before he looked quickly away, but she could not be sure. “Well?” she inquired.

  “I am trying to decide how to tell you this without having you accuse me of conceit again,” he answered. “Mrs. Marvin Hobbs has more time on her hands than she can fill. At a guess, I would say she is about my age, give or take a year, one of your California women who was once an actress before she decided marriage to a producer was a more lucrative career. She was never a particularly great talent, but she likes to think that if it had not been for Marvin, she could have been. She makes it a point to polish her image now, to keep herself in shape so she can compare favorably with all the attractive young females that show up at parties in L.A. She swims, she jogs, she plays golf, she skis, spends five hours a week in the beauty salon, five with her masseuse, and two weeks out of every year on a beauty farm. She is susceptible to flattery, and it is not exactly unknown for young actors on the way up to try to get her attention first in order to bring themselves to the notice of her husband.”

  “Good grief,” Clare said, as much in wonder for Logan’s analysis of the woman’s failings as for the picture of her he had drawn.

  He gave a small nod. “Janine has become so used to that kind of notice that she expects it. If it isn’t forthcoming, she is apt to take it as a personal insult. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t feel a thing for any of the men; the main thing is the feeling they give her that she is desirable and important. The worst of it is, she is important. Because of her experience in the business and a certain knack for recognizing star quality, or popular properties, Marvin listens to her. Janine knows it and uses it to her advantage.”

  When he did not go on, Clare said, “That is a harsh judgment.”

  “Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate.”

  “It doesn’t say much for the men who use her, either.”

  He glanced at her, a hard light in his blue eyes. “You think I’m one of those men? Forget it. I have never been so desperate for a job that I would go after one that way. That is part of the problem, I think. I am only guessing, but I would say that the fact I never seek her out, seldom speak to her except out of courtesy, has had something to do with her overwhelming interest in me lately.”

  “Aha,” Clare said, “I begin to see. She is infatuated with you. Is that it?”

  “I don’t know that I would put it just that way, but that’s basically right.”

  “Then I fail to see your problem.”

  “Is that so?” Logan said grimly. “Then let me explain it to you. The woman thinks she is in love with me. That being so, she is a little irritated at my lack of response. The last few weeks before I left California, she came out to the house where I was staying a half-dozen times, crying and complaining about the way Marvin neglects her. She showed up on the set of the movie I just finished shooting so often the director threatened to quit. Any other time, I could have handled it; even women like Janine Hobbs understand plain language. As it was, I had already approached her husband about my screenplay. He was interested, but not ready to commit himself. Janine was present when the discussion first came up. She knew how committed I was to the project, how much I wanted Marvin in on it. She let me understand, very carefully, of course, that if I didn’t play up to her, she would be so disappointed she could not be responsible for what she might say to her husband about the feasibility of doing my script.”

  “I suppose you pointed out to her that it just might make her husband a teeny bit angry if he should discover the two of you were more friendly than you should be?”

  “I did. She told me that Marvin had been hearing such things for years, and that he knew exactly how much faith to put in gossip circulating around the movie capital.”

  “Dear me,” Clare said cheerfully. “You were in a bind! The lady to ruin your chances if you didn’t do as she said, the husband just as likely to ruin them if you did.”

  “That’s about the size of it. If I hadn’t thought support of the wilderness areas in this country was worth the cost, I would have said to the devil with the whole thing.”

  “So you did the next best thing,” Clare suggested. “You got out of town.”


  “The reason for that goes just a bit further, though what you say is more or less true. We had completed the movie I was working on, a Hobbs production. There was a party for the cast and crew. Marvin came by for a time, then went on back to his office. Janine stayed on. Not long after her husband left, Janine complained of feeling sick and asked me to take her home. Before we had gone a half-dozen blocks, she miraculously recovered. A drink, she said, was all that she needed.”

  “And you believed her,” Clare said, shaking her head in a pretense of sorrow for such credulity.

  He sent her a quelling look. “We went into the club Janine pointed out, a quiet-enough place. And then along came a photographer. A simple picture would have been fine; it would have shown nothing more than two friends having a drink. But Janine’s timing was bad. She chose that moment to throw herself into my arms. When the flash went off, she started crying hysterically.” He shrugged. “I am afraid I lost my temper.”

  “Yes, I know. You slugged the poor man, just a working photographer out trying to turn an honest dollar.”

  “If you think so, you are more innocent than you have any right to be,” he said, a glint in his blue eyes. “But that wasn’t the end of it. When Janine stopped crying, she said she no longer cared whether her husband knew about our ‘affair’ or not; she wanted him to know about it. It’s a miracle I didn’t strangle her right there. Instead, I tried to talk to her. She jumped to the conclusion that the reason I wasn’t interested was that there was another woman. There wasn’t, but it seemed as good an explanation as any, so long as Janine was willing to accept it without being insulted. It was better than telling her to her face that she just didn’t appeal to me. I should have known better. She began to hound me for details. I stood it for three days; then it was either get away from her or say something I would regret. I came up here.”