Snowbound Heart by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

no,” Clare exclaimed, “all our lovely warmth, and the carpet will be soaked.” In the concern of the moment Clare was able to cover her confusion, to turn back into the house with a creditable attempt at nonchalance. She bent to shake the blown snow from the mat, then stamped her boots to free them of caked chunks.
    Logan removed his gloves, then dragged off his cap and began to swat himself free of the clinging ice particles. When he was reasonably dry, he raked his fingers through his hair and began to remove his jacket. His gaze on Clare, he spoke her name, giving it a deep, clear sound.
    She looked up, her gray eyes dark.
    “I do appreciate the thought,” he said, and smiled, a slow curving of the lips without mockery or guile, though in its warmth there was a suspended, measuring quality. It lasted no more than an instant before he turned away. “Did you ever make snow ice cream?” he asked. “You use milk, sugar, and vanilla flavoring mixed into some of that white stuff falling out there. All at once I have this terrible craving for it. Want to give it a try?”
    Whether from the need to keep warm, or from the sheer lack of anything else to occupy their minds, food began to take on an exaggerated importance. Their appetites grew ravenous. Scarcely an hour after the snow ice cream had been demolished, they were searching in the cabinets for canned soup and beans, looking for aluminum foil to wrap around potatoes to bake in the coals, and trying to rig some way of grilling a steak. In the end, they pan-broiled the meat in butter. It was charred black on the outside and pink on the inside; still, it was the most delectable thing Clare had ever eaten. They laughed at each other as they tried to cut the steak without mangling their paper plates or destroying the surface of the coffee table, and with extreme politeness, and secret hungry longing, each insisted that the other eat the last potato, ending finally by dividing it between them. And then, when the dishes had been washed in some of the water Logan had been heating all afternoon, they stretched out facedown on the cushions before the fire and discussed the possibility of popping corn, using the short-handled pots in the kitchen.
    Taking advantage of the amazing ease between them, Clare mentioned the screenplay. She had finished reading it just before dinner. The feeling of pleasure and uplift that the story had given her was so strong that she had wanted to congratulate him at once. She had refrained only because she had been afraid he would find her compliments suspect. Now, with her enthusiasm tempered by the wait, she could discuss it more objectively.
    The story line concerned two brothers, both hard and strong-willed, who travel west in the middle of the nineteenth century to make a new life for themselves, and eventually come into conflict over the way they perceive people, the land, and its valuable resources. The characters of the two men and their relationship with each other were fascinating, but to Clare the roles of the women who loved them lacked depth. They were too superficial, too concerned with themselves to have generated the emotions directed toward them, or to have withstood the dangers and hardships they had to face.
    Logan, to give him his due, listened to her ideas, though it was plain that he did not agree with them. His attitude was annoying, but Clare did not press the argument. The problem was a minor flaw in what she was inclined to think would be a tremendous motion picture. Certainly it was not worth endangering the tenuous peace that reigned between them. Why should she risk it for something that within a few hours, when the snowstorm had blown itself out, would have nothing whatever to do with her?
    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