Snowbound Heart (4 page)

Logan tossed the last of his peanuts into his mouth and brushed the salt from his hands onto the fire. “It’s time we started thinking about sleeping arrangements,” he said, his words casual and yet tinged with irony. “I think our best bet is to make up beds here in front of the fire.”

“You mean right here, both of us?”

“That’s right, unless you would rather freeze to death, and I mean just that. To my certain knowledge, there are only a half-dozen blankets in the house. That may sound adequate, but of the six, three are lightweight, suitable for the cool nights we get up here in the summer. The other three are electric.”

“I see what you mean,” Clare said slowly. As long as the power was off, the electric controls were useless. If they divided the blankets between them, someone was going to wind up with two light pieces of cover. That would not do, not in temperatures well below freezing. What was needed was not only blankets, but several down comforters, or else a nice heated room. Lacking either, they could share the blankets — or make beds before the fire. She grimaced. “The cushions should make a fairly soft bed. Now, if we only had a nice electric alarm clock, we could set it to wake us every two or three hours so we can keep the fire burning.”

“I doubt either one of us will sleep so soundly we can’t keep up with that chore. We will need more wood, though. Here, you take this.” He handed her the flashlight from his coat pocket. “If you will see to the sleeping arrangements, I will fill the woodbox.”

It was not exactly a fair division of the labor, Clare thought as she watched him button his jacket and plunge out into the cold, blowing snow; still, she was grateful. Whether it was tact or common sense that had made him leave the placing of the bedding to her, she was glad she did not have to do it under his sardonic gaze.

It was not difficult to find the blankets he had mentioned, though she had to strip two of them from the bed in the room where he had been sleeping. It took two trips up the spiral staircase to bring down the cover and linens they would need. On impulse, she ran back up again to fetch a pair of pillows. They did not need them, precisely, but she saw no reason why they should not be as comfortable as possible.

She was just rounding the last turn of the stairs when Logan appeared, his arms piled high with wood, from the direction of the kitchen. She stopped, hugging the pillows with one arm while she held the flashlight in her other hand. Logan stopped also, waiting for her to cross in front of him. For no reason that she could think of, Clare felt the heat of a flush rising to her face as their eyes caught and held. With a fervent hope that he had not noticed her confusion in the dimness, she gave a faint smile and continued toward the fireplace. It was a relief when she heard his footsteps on the kitchen tiles and the door closing behind him once more.

What was the matter with her? Clare took herself to task as she hurriedly pushed cushions into place, spread sheets and blankets over them, and tossed pillows on the ends of the makeshift beds so that their feet would be nearer the flames. She was willing to admit that Logan Longcross was an attractive man, possibly even more than attractive. The situation was not one you ran into every day. Still, there was no reason to be upset. By tomorrow, the weather would be clear again. She could be on her way, and all this would be forgotten. It was the aftereffects of her accident and the strangeness of the snowstorm that had set her nerves on edge. The prospect of spending the night alone with a man, and that man Logan Longcross, did not daunt her, not at all.

For long moments she stood staring down at the makeshift beds; then, stooping swiftly, she pushed them a few inches farther apart.

By the time Logan returned with his last load of firewood, Clare had unzipped her boots and slipped them off, and was kneeling to poke up the fire. She moved to one side as Logan placed an enormous log on the andirons.

Logan glanced at her. “A backlog,” he said in answer to her look of inquiry. “With any luck, it should keep going long enough for us to get a little sleep.”

Clare nodded her comprehension, watching as he put more wood on top of the larger log, placing it with quick competence. She took a deep breath. “I have no night things with me, but I suppose it is just as well. We will probably be better off sleeping in our clothes, anyway.”

Logan made a sound that might have been an assent. Clare thought he flung a glance in her direction, but since she was carefully avoiding looking at him, she could not be certain. Standing the poker in its holder, she turned away, moving to seat herself on the end of one of the beds.

“I’ll take that one,” Logan said.

“Oh, but — “

“It is closer to the woodbox.”

It was also the one with the lightweight blankets on it. “It doesn’t matter,” Clare said. “I’ll take my turn feeding the fire.”

“There’s no need.”

“There is every need. I want to do my share.”

Logan swung to face her, still on one knee, with his forearm resting across the other. “I appreciate the offer,” he said deliberately, “but I would just as soon you made no sacrifices for me. Let me point out again that I am dressed a good deal warmer than you are. On top of that, I am used to the cold, and you are not.”

What he said made sense. Combined with the hint that she was trying to make him feel some obligation with her sacrifice, it was enough to make her transfer without another word to the other bed. Throwing back the blankets, she stretched out, then drew them back up over her shoulder as she deliberately turned on her side, facing away from him. For long moments she lay stiff and straight, watching the dancing fire shadows on the walls, uncomfortably aware of the man behind her.

Her mind churned in futile fury; Logan Longcross was so sure of himself, so certain he was right about her. Arrogant, overbearing man. After this, he could call himself lucky if she troubled to see another one of his movies. How many had she seen? Three? Four? She could well remember the first. He had not been well known then; the actress who was his leading lady was supposed to have been the star. Slowly, quietly, with his appearance, the power and sensitivity of his performance, and the perfection he brought to the character he played, he had dominated the movie. Clare, scarcely more than a teenager at the time, had looked for his name in the credits when the film was over. She was not the only one. The parts offered to him after that became bigger and better, until the name of Logan Longcross had become a household word, the symbol of a man many women called flawless, while others loved him for his flaws. Clare had not been immune to the magnetism she felt when she sat watching the movie screen in the darkened theater. Nor was she unaware of it now that she had met him in person. Not that it mattered. The fact that she had been able to think of little else meant nothing. If she had been forced into such close quarters with any other man, no doubt she should have given him a large share of her attention also.

Discovering she was uncomfortable, Clare turned to her back. She lifted her eyelids a fraction, then let them fall again. Logan still sat before the fire, staring into the flames. Bronzed, burnished, self-contained, he had the aloofness of a man who neither needed nor wanted anyone to share his solitude. Perhaps it was not so strange he had never married. There had been the producer’s wife, however, the woman who had been accorded his protection from unwanted publicity. What was she to him, Clare wondered, that he had gone to such lengths to prevent any intrusion upon their moments together?

It was not the producer’s wife that occupied Clare’s thoughts in the moments before she slept, however. It was the memory of Logan’s lips on hers.

Morning was slow in coming. Gray-white snow clouds still pressed close to the house when Clare slid from her bed. In stocking feet she padded about, searching in the kitchen for a frying pan and a pot that did not look as if setting them in the coals of the fireplace would ruin them. The stainless-steel cookware she found would take the punishment, she knew, but she did not think it would ever look the same again. There was no other choice. They had to eat, and it was not as if Logan could not afford to replace anything damaged in such a good cause.

There was a drip coffeepot in one of the cabinets, but since the power failure seemed to have something to do with the water supply, she would have to go outside for snow to melt before she could make coffee. Clare had picked up the pot and started toward the sliding doors when Logan spoke from the darkened living area.

“Here,” he said, pulling on his heavy, insulated boots. “I’ll do that.”

Clare drew a sharp breath, coming to a halt. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” he said.

That short answer seemed plain enough. They were to be no more friendly this morning than they had been the night before. Without another word Clare put the pot she held down on the end of the dining table and turned back to the kitchen.

Coffee, bacon, eggs, and toast lightly browned on one side, only slightly burned on the other, was their breakfast. Clare cooked it kneeling before the fire with her face growing red from the heat. They ate it from the top of a coffee table that Logan dragged up before the warmth, using their neatly tucked-up beds for seats.

Holding out his cup for a refill, Logan gave a slight smile. “I suppose since I had to be snowed-in with a representative of the press, it is worth something that you can cook.”

“You are too kind,” Clare murmured, her tone dry as she tilted the pot above his cup.

“Probably so,” he agreed. “It wouldn’t do to encourage you.”

“I don’t think there is any danger of that.”

Logan made no answer, but the look he sent her was long and searching.

The snow still fell in a thick curtain that was shaken and lifted, then let fall again by the keening wind. The soft whiteness drifted across the decks of the house in deep piles and lay heaped against the glass door. Dressed once more in, coat and boots, Clare moved from one to the other of the door and window openings, with their curtains flung open for light, watching in fascination. There was nothing to be seen but the falling flakes and the dark outlines of the evergreens. Everything else was lost in the encroaching snow. Still Clare stared out. She had never seen so much snow, had never known it to fall with such endless persistence, as though it meant never to stop, as if it meant to bury them in soft, feathery cold.

Teeth clenched in determination, she had helped Logan bring in a fresh supply of wood. Together they had cleared away the breakfast things, wiping the grease from the skillet with a handful of paper towels, then burning them with the paper cups and plates. Afterward, she had managed to freshen her appearance, using the cosmetics in her tote bag and water heated in a metal bucket from the laundry. With those few tasks out of the way, there was nothing else to do; she might as well watch the snow.

In the room behind her, Logan was reading; a screenplay, she thought, from the way it was bound and the notes he made now and then in the margin. She had not liked to ask. She would give the man no excuse to accuse her of prying. He had offered her a collection of magazines his mother had left behind the summer before, but Clare could not settle down with them. Fashions and recipes had little interest for her at the best of times; just now they had none.

Logan put down his manuscript, got to his feet, and strolled to join her at the window. With his hands in his pockets, he scanned the blowing snow and oppressive, low-hanging clouds. He glanced at her, then looked away again.

“Is it really that much of a marvel, or are you sulking?”

“I enjoy watching it,” Clare answered briefly.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a nature lover.”

“No, but then, you know nothing about me.” She could not get used to that mocking inflection, especially knowing how little she deserved it.

“True.”

Clare slanted him a glance from the corner of her eyes. The fact that he had crossed the room to speak to her could be looked on as a concession, she supposed. Regardless of the provocation he had given her, it was ungracious of her to snap at him. The least she could do was to meet him halfway. “You mentioned last night that you were used to the cold weather. Does that mean that you have spent a lot of time here in the winter, or simply that you have grown used to it in the last few days?”

“This is one of my favorite places, all right, for obvious reasons,” he said, “but I also come here for the skiing. I enjoy cold-weather sports. I guess if I hadn’t been an actor, I would have wound up a ski bum.”

Without meaning to, Clare found herself smiling. “Then all this,” she said, waving toward the flying snow, “should be good news to you.”

“I will admit it has its attractions, but I think the best thing about a fresh snowfall, especially one like this, is that it covers all trace of other human beings. There may be beer cans, candy wrappers, and foil from cigarette packages under the snow, but at least you can’t see them. When the snow stops and you walk out into the woods, everything is clean and quiet. If you are lucky, the only footprints are your own. There is a hush that comes then that is unlike any other time, and the air is so pure and cold, it rings in your lungs. It’s as if you are the only thing alive, the beginning and end of creation, the center of the universe, and yet an unmistakable part of all that is natural around you.”

His voice was quiet, reflective, but it was plain that what he said held special meaning for him. “There are not many places where that is possible anymore,” Clare commented. “Something always spoils it. In the South it is the scary of timber cutting or the smoke from some factory.”

“Here it’s the things I mentioned, or the racket of a snowmobile.”

“The whine of a chain saw … or a hunter’s shot.”

“Or the litter of their shell casings. Things like that are why I support the formation of wilderness areas — unspoiled places without logging roads, or even trails, closed to any kind of mechanized travel, to logging or hunting, areas left to go back to the wild. These places will be so remote, only people who care about meeting nature on its own terms will want to make the effort to hike back into them. But at least for that breed the opportunity will be there. If we go on as we are now, the generations to come will never know what that means, because the few places like that left will be gone.”