Snowed (8 page)

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

You smell like lilies of the valley. 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.

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.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled.

She bit back a scathing retort. “Where are you hurt, James?”

“Ankle.” He winced and touched his right leg, stretched out in the snow. “Slipped on the ice when a rabbit ran in front of me.” She reached for him, but he brushed off her efforts. “I can do it.”

“James, you’ve been out here over half an hour. Let me help.” She grabbed his arm and he shoved her away.

“I can do it, damn it. Get back in the house.” Using the scrap of wood as leverage, he attempted to rise. He made it halfway to his feet, using his powerful arms to raise himself, but the instant he put weight on the bad right ankle, his face contorted in a rictus of agony and he slumped to the ground. He groaned and closed his eyes.

Now Leah wanted to curse. “And they say
I’m
muleheaded! You might’ve broken that ankle, you stubborn fool. What are you trying to prove?” She must have inherited her obstinacy from the Bradburn side.

“Not broken,” he said. “I don’t think.”

“Why not?”

“Broke it before. It’s different.”

“You broke that ankle before?”

He nodded, his features rigid. “Two years ago. Thrown from a horse.”

Leah groaned inwardly. His fall must have aggravated the old injury. This wasn’t a simple sprain as she’d hoped. No wonder he couldn’t put his weight on it.

A full moon glowed in the eastern sky. She looked toward the estate’s apple orchard several hundred yards to the south. She could just make out the bare branches of the trees against the gunmetal sky. She had to act fast. James might be the most exasperating man she’d ever met, but even he didn’t deserve to succumb to exposure this close to his own home. She patted his shoulder. “Hang on a second, James.”

She scouted the woodpile until she found a collection of odd scraps, one of which looked long enough to serve as a walking stick for a man of his height. She tossed away the piece of wood he’d been using and placed the longer one in his gloved hand.

“Just help me get on my feet,” he rasped. “Then I can
—
”

“Shut up.” She’d reached the limit of her patience. “Save your king-of-the-jungle act for a more appreciative audience.”

She crouched next to him and looped his right arm around her shoulder. Clutching his right hand, she braced her other arm behind his back and said a quick prayer to the patron saint of arrogant macho jerks. Slowly she straightened her legs, struggling to keep her balance on the ice. Helping him stand took every last ounce of her strength—he had to outweigh her by seventy pounds or more. Finally he was upright, leaning on her and the stick.

His strong fingers clamped her hand as his face contorted in pain. She gave him a moment to catch his breath, then slowly began guiding him back along the ice-slick path. His body still shivered violently.

“James, stop putting weight on that foot. You can lean on me. I’m stronger than I look.”

She heard something like a growl in response. But he did as he was told, allowing her to take a little more of his weight. She felt the muscles of his back shift and bunch under her arm as he limped along the path.

It seemed to take forever to reach the mansion’s side entrance, and by then she felt as if her back were breaking. Balancing him with one arm, she fumbled in her coat pocket for the key she’d taken off a hook in the mudroom, unlocked the door, and slipped the key back into her pocket.

“Don’t sit yet,” she commanded, leading him through the mudroom and kitchen and down a corridor. “Didn’t I see a bedroom around here?”