Snowed

by Pamela Burford

  “You know, I thought you were different,” he said, his tone regretful. “But you were just inept. That’s what threw me off. You’ll have to polish your act—learn how to look a man in the eye when you lie to him.” He reached out and stroked her cheek, but there was no warmth in the caress. “Keep that air of guileless southern charm, though. It’s very effective.”

  “It’s not like that, James,” she whispered.

  “Then tell me you haven’t deceived me.”

  She tried to hold his gaze and failed. Her silence told him all he needed to know. He yanked his hand away as if he couldn’t bear to touch her.

  “You’re right. I did seek you out,” she said, knowing she should have told him the truth that morning and gotten it all out in the open then. She’d wanted to spare him the hurtful knowledge of what kind of man his father had been, but her good intentions had backfired. “I kind of tricked Mike into bringing me here. I was after something—something I can no longer hope to attain.”

  “You’ve got that right,” James said, and held up his palm when she started to elaborate. “Whatever it is, keep it to yourself. All I want is for you to stay away from me till we get dug out. Understand?”

  “James, please—”

  “I mean it, Leah. I don’t even want to know you’re in the same house.”

  In the next instant she was alone.

  No, not alone. Not in this house, she reminded herself. There was a girl named Annie. Just a memory perhaps, but she may as well have been there in flesh and blood.

  Leah hugged herself against the chill that seemed to pervade the room. If he thinks I want something from him now, what’s he going to think when I tell him about our father?

  Chapter Four

  Annie!

  I run as hard as I can, but my legs barely move. Annie’s so close. Her face is white. Her eyes are wide and frightened. She’s so young. Heartbreakingly young.

  “Leah?”

  Why can’t I reach her? If I could reach her, I could help her. I could save her.

  “Leah, wake up.”

  I can almost touch her—she’s so close now. Don’t die, Annie. Please don’t die.

  “Leah, open your eyes. Wake up.”

  Annie!

  “Open your eyes. It’s a dream.”

  Leah bucked and twisted, trying to reach Annie, but arms like iron bands imprisoned her, pressing her tight against a warm bare chest.

  “It’s a dream, just a dream. It can’t hurt you.”

  Leah knew that deep voice. A dream. It can’t hurt you. Her eyes opened. She blinked. Nothing looked familiar. She stopped fighting and let herself be held. Her chest heaved. She shook violently, her body bathed in sweat.

  “Leah, look at me,” James commanded. He tilted her chin. His troubled eyes glowed a luminous blue in the semidark. “You had a nightmare. It’s just a dream. Do you understand?”

  She managed to nod. He held her close again, stroking damp tendrils of hair off her face, until the tremors gradually subsided.

  “Leah, who is Annie?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He said, “You cried out her name.”

  “My...sister,” she whispered, her mouth dry.

  My mother.

  He was silent a moment. “The sister you never knew.”

  Leah nodded. I never knew her, but you did, James. Tell me about her. If only I could ask you to tell me about her.

  She didn’t realize she was biting her lip, her chin trembling, until he said softly, “It’s okay to cry.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s not okay.” No more tears for Annie. Tears can do nothing for Annie.

  James let out a long sigh. He seemed at a loss, as if prey to conflicting emotions. She was shivering now, chilled by her cold sweat. He rose and crossed to the fireplace, where log and kindling were already laid, with crumpled newspaper beneath. He opened the flue and lit a match, using a burning scrap of paper to create an updraft. The fire blazed to life and he stood silhouetted, his broad back to her. The room was bathed in a golden glow that helped to chase away the terrors of the night.

  He wore lightweight gray track pants that rode low on his trim hips. The firelight shone through the thin material, leaving little of his powerful form to her imagination. He opened an armoire and took out a blanket. “Lie down.”

  She obeyed, still shivering. He pulled up the comforter and tucked it around her. Then he shook out the extra blanket and laid it on top.

  “Better?” he asked, sitting on the bed.

  It wasn’t, but she nodded shakily.

  “If you want to talk about it...”

  She knew he was just going through the motions, saying the right thing. He’d made it more than clear how he felt about her. She shook her head and looked away, pulling the comforter to her chin. She didn’t think she’d ever get warm. He sat next to her for a few minutes, watching her, listening to her teeth chatter.

  Finally he slipped his hands under her back and pulled her up against his chest, cradling her like a child. At length the shivering stopped as his warmth suffused her body. His chest hairs brushed her eyelashes. She savored the scent of him, like a drug, lulling her to sleep.

  “James?”

  “Hm?”

  “I don’t want anything from you. I swear to God I don’t.”

  She didn’t expect him to respond. It was enough that he was there, that she wasn’t alone. The specters of the night fled before the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest, the exhalations that stirred her hair.

  At last he whispered, “Go to sleep, Leah.”

  Even after her breathing had settled into the slow, regular cadence of sleep, James continued to sit and hold her. He’d been lying awake in his bed, trying to ignore the lingering scent of her perfume on his pillow, when he heard her cry out in terror.

  He’d raced into her room without a second thought. Watching her writhe in the cold clutches of her nightmare had brought out protective instincts he hadn’t known he possessed. His only thought had been to make it better.

  He rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair, inhaled the scent of her deep into his lungs. Never had he been so baffled by a woman. His first glimpse of her at the party had jolted him with a flash of recognition. She’d reminded him of something—or someone. A sensation too elusive to grasp, pulling distantly at memories long buried.

  Somehow, even though he’d known all along that she was hiding something, she’d managed to override his internal alarm system, disable the self-protective mechanism warning him to keep his distance from her. He meant what he’d told her tonight. He didn’t want to hear the reason she’d sought him out—or whatever variation of the truth she planned to feed him.

  Finally James lowered Leah to the bed, carefully so as not to wake her. He slid his hands from under her and she stirred, curling closer to him, as if seeking his warmth even in sleep.

  Reluctantly he rose and watched her for a few moments more. She lay on her side, her angel hair in disarray. Her restless movements had caused the neckline of her shirt to pull aside, revealing the creamy fullness of a breast. Or most of it. His fingers itched to give the neckline a gentle tug. Dismayed with the direction of his thoughts, James cursed himself.

  As he turned to leave, he scanned the room, bathed in moonglow and firelight. Leah’s dress and borrowed clothes occupied a chairback and the dresser top. Her shoulder bag slouched on a small round table near the hearth, its clasp open, its contents strewn.

  Firelight winked on an object spilling from the bag, piquing his curiosity. He cast a quick glance at Leah, sound asleep, and crossed to the table. It was a small pocket mirror. “Hair to Stay” was printed on its pink plastic frame, along with an address. Great. Now he knew where to go for a cut and curl in Little Rock. He saw a hairbrush and a cosmetic bag.

  And a small perfume bottle. The word Muguet was printed on it in flowing script. He smiled.

  You smell like lilies of the va
lley. And something else. Ah yes. Eau de Maker’s Mark.

  His smile turned to a scowl as he remembered their bitter exchange in the Gold Room. The woman bewildered him, and he wasn’t used to being bewildered. He should be satisfied at having quickly found out she was some sort of conniver and leave it at that. He intended to send her sweet Dixie butt packing as soon as the roads got plowed.

  Yet here he was, questioning his resolve, sniffing around for clues, anything that would tell him one way or the other why this enigmatic female had come into his life. He was equivocating, trying to candy-coat the situation. And why? Because he had a raging case of the hots for Leah Harmony.

  So much for learning from bitter experience.

  Her red leather wallet lay open on the table, bulging with credit cards, cash, and assorted papers. Lifting it, he plucked out her Arkansas driver’s license and car registration—she drove a Mazda Miata.

  He knew how outraged he’d be if someone violated his privacy this way. He’d never tolerate for a moment anyone snooping through his things, prying into his life, threatening to expose his own carefully protected secret.

  This wasn’t the same thing, he reminded himself. She’d lied to him. She was trying to use him. She’d admitted it.

  One small object had been removed from the wallet, as if she’d been looking at it before she went to bed. A photograph. He lifted the tiny black-and-white snapshot and squatted by the fire to examine it. It was old—a couple of decades at least—faded and scratched, the edges worn, the corners cracked. He turned it over: nothing written on the back.

  Leah made a little noise and James looked over his shoulder, saw her reach out in her sleep to where he’d sat. Something tightened inside his chest and he firmly squelched the feeling, returning his attention to the picture.

  A young girl sat on a bench of some sort. He squinted in the inadequate firelight—she was surrounded by foliage, and there was some kind of fence. The age and condition of the snapshot made it hard to tell, but the girl seemed to be about thirteen or fourteen, light-haired, and dressed in a short-sleeve shirt, shorts, and sneakers. The face was fuzzy, indistinct.

  Something bothered him about the picture. He wondered if he’d seen it before. That almost made him laugh out loud. He must have seen hundreds of thousands of photographs in his lifetime, of every possible composition and setting. How could any picture not look familiar?

  Could this be Leah’s sister, the girl of her nightmare? He doubted it. The age difference made it improbable.

  Carefully he replaced the photo on the table and returned to his own room, feeling no less ignorant and a lot less noble.

  *

  Leah woke up alone, thoroughly drained. She let her eyes drift closed once more, savoring the memory of James holding her and warming her and making her feel safe. She didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d done so out of pity or, more likely, a simple selfish desire to quiet her down so he could get some sleep himself.

  After her bath she dressed in loose jeans and a bulky off-white cable-knit sweater belonging to her host. Her nightmare teased at the edges of her consciousness, demanding attention. Even as she commanded herself not to think about it, she found herself crossing to the little table by the hearth and lifting the snapshot she’d left out the night before, the only picture she had of Annie. She lowered herself onto a silk-covered wing chair near the window and stared at the image of her mother.

  How could it be that this innocent young girl gave Leah life just a year or two after this picture was taken? She’d never forget the day she’d found out, the day Mama and Daddy had sat her down in the kitchen and related the whole dreadful story. The day she’d made the decision to confront James Bradburn, Sr.

  She slipped Annie’s picture back into her wallet and headed downstairs to the kitchen. James was nowhere to be seen. She lifted the receiver of the wall phone. Still dead. Miguel could handle the office and warehouse, Leah was certain, but not being able to check in with him made her jumpy all the same. She flicked on the radio.

  “...temperatures in the teens to low twenties. Major highways are clear into and out of the city, but snow removal in outlying areas has been frustrated by the cold and the sheer volume—”

  Leah switched off the radio. She didn’t need that droning voice to tell her she was still snowed in. All she had to do was look out the window. She watched Stieglitz doze in his basket by the stove and wondered where James was. It was for the best, of course, that he hadn’t been there when she came down for breakfast—a bowl of cold cereal and a banana. Just as she knew it would be for the best if she could manage to avoid him for the duration of her stay as he’d so imperiously commanded.

  A movement out the window caught her attention. It was James skiing back to the house from the direction of the road. He displayed surprising grace and speed as his long arms and legs propelled him over the drifts. Only now did she realize how much raw sinew he’d held back the day before when they had skied together. He’d obviously slackened his pace considerably to allow her to keep up.

  This morning he hadn’t bothered with a jacket for the short expedition, and she knew his heavy gray sweater was no match for the biting cold. Not to worry, she grimly told herself. He had his hatred for her to keep him warm.

  I have too much experience with lying females who are after something and think there’s one tried-and-true way to get it.

  Even if he relented and allowed her to explain her presence in his home, even if she were to convince him that she was his half sister, he would still assume she was after something—a share of the estate, a cash settlement, something—to ensure her silence and protect the memory of their father. He was as cynical as they came.

  One thing Leah knew for certain: If she were ever offered anything by a Bradburn, she’d throw it right back in his face.

  She wasted no time draining her coffee mug and washing her breakfast dishes, knowing she mustn’t be there when he came through from the mudroom. The side door slammed as she was drying her hands and she quickly left the kitchen, with no more ambitious goal in mind than to find a corner in some out-of-the-way spot and curl up with a book.

  “Come on, Stieglitz.” The cat jumped up and followed her.

  Rationally she knew her host’s animosity was probably for the best. The sexual attraction between them horrified her. Leah had embarrassingly little experience with sin, but she didn’t need anyone to tell her that incest was a whopper in anyone’s book.

  Chapter Five

  Leah’s eyes kept drifting to the window of the sewing room on the mansion’s third floor, where she’d retreated with some magazines to pass the afternoon. The tiny room was the most remote spot she could find, and she couldn’t help wondering if Annie had spent much time there–trying to avoid the master of the house.

  She’d managed to keep out of James’s way all day, skulking around like a thief to avoid being seen. Such constant vigilance had frayed her nerves, and all she wanted to do now was relax, throw together a light supper, and turn in early. And—God willing—go home tomorrow.

  But she couldn’t ignore a sense of unease. Ten minutes earlier she’d seen James, again jacketless, trudging down the path he’d shoveled the day before, toting a canvas log holder. He’d disappeared behind the carriage barn. She knew from their skiing excursion that behind the barn were two cords of wood, neatly stacked under a snow-covered tarp.

  She wondered how long it could possibly take to collect a few logs. When ten minutes became twenty and the early evening sky began to darken, her unease turned to anxiety. It wasn’t possible that something had happened to him...was it? She tried to concentrate on the latest issue of Newsweek, but it was a losing battle. Finally she rose from the rocking chair and went to stand by the window, waiting for her half brother to appear.

  She stared at the carriage barn for several minutes, chewing her lip. It must be close to a half hour now since he’d left the house. If it had been anyone else, she would have
gone out to check twenty minutes earlier. But he’d made it excruciatingly clear that he didn’t even want to know she was around.

  She smirked. The fool is probably restacking firewood or something. She forced herself to turn her back on the window and park her bottom in the rocker once more. She opened the magazine to the article she’d been reading.

  “...investment flows and other forces will draw the two economies closer...”

  In sixteen-degree weather.

  “...consumes more than it produces, triggering a flood of imports...”

  At dusk.

  “...excess capital to be invested overseas...”

  With no jacket.

  With a disgusted sigh, she tossed the magazine to the floor. The hell with His Highness’s royal edict. Something was wrong, and she wasn’t about to sit around like some gutless, obedient little girl and let the arrogant man succumb to exposure. No matter how much he deserved it.

  Within two minutes she’d donned her navy wool coat and her gloves and was shuffling along the shoveled path toward the carriage barn, cursing James the whole way. At any moment she expected to see his long form loping toward her, an indignant scowl on his handsome face.

  As the sky had darkened, the temperature had plummeted into the single digits. The biting wind made her eyes tear. It penetrated her coat to chill her to the bone. She clutched her collar around her throat, a futile gesture, and wished with all her heart that she’d thought to grab a hat on the way out. The woodpile came into view.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  James—his face pale and tensed in pain—was sitting propped against the stacked wood, one long leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out before him. His eyes were closed, his mouth half-open. His breath smoked in the frosty air.

  Never would Leah have imagined that fearsome James Bradburn could look so vulnerable. She shook herself out of immobility and hurried to him. Logs were scattered about. One gloved hand held a scrap of wood about a yard long. She touched his shoulder and he jerked, startled.