Snowbound Heart Read online

  Chapter 1

  The snow swirled in the thin mountain air, sweeping soundlessly toward the windshield of the car. It had become much thicker in the past half-hour. With a frown between her wide-spaced gray eyes, Clare Thornton glanced at the wind-driven flakes. She could not claim to know a great deal about snow, since there was little of it to contend with during the winter in the Louisiana lowlands, but the conditions building up around her were beginning to take on an appearance suspiciously like what she had always thought a blizzard must look like.

  Earlier in the day, the sun had been bright; there had been spectacular views of majestic peaks topped with snow and bottomless valleys aromatic with the smells of pine, spruce, and fir. Now the heavy white clouds had closed in around her. She could barely make out the dark green branches of the trees along the winding road she was following, and despite the fact that she was driving with her headlights on, she was growing increasingly uncertain of where the edge was on this narrow, unpaved track. There was no such thing as a shoulder along it; only a curbing of scraped earth, covered now with snow, marked the verge as a warning to travelers that their wheels were about to spin in open air. When she had first turned onto it a half-hour before, she had thought the steep precipices falling down to frozen streams breathtaking in their magnificence. Now, when she could no longer see them for the thick press of snow, the mere idea made her blood freeze in her veins.

  Clare sat forward on her seat to scrub at the windshield. It did no good. The fogging snow obscuring her vision was on the outside; it could not be swept away entirely, even by the clacking windshield wipers. The road was climbing again. She could feel her small car strain to take the grade. How much longer she could keep going without slipping back, she did not know. It would have been nice if the snow chains that resided in the trunk of her vehicle had been on its wheels. Unfortunately, they were not. It only went to show what a greenhorn she was. Beverly had told her to bring them and have them put on at the first sign of bad weather. The only thing was, the weather had been beautiful up until a couple of hours ago, and by that time Clare had been on this labyrinth of back roads. She had thought the darkening of the sky was the onset of dusk, until it was too late.

  No doubt Beverly, outspoken and uncompromisingly honest, would have a few words to say about her lack of forethought. Clare would have a choice word or two to say herself, however, on the subject of her friend’s ability to draw a map. The squiggling lines hastily scrawled on the back of Beverly’s last letter, which had seemed so simple when she left Louisiana two days before, had proven woefully inadequate.

  Why on earth had she ever let herself be talked into coming at this time of year? Clare asked herself, not for the first time. The answer was simple, really. Beverly could make anything sound like exciting fun. From the moment the other girl had married her ski instructor after a trip to Aspen and Snowmass the year before, Clare had heard nothing except how marvelous the mountain life was, and how determined Beverly was for Clare to come and experience it firsthand. It didn’t matter that Clare had never buckled on a pair of skis; Beverly’s husband would teach her all she needed to know. Clare could stay with the two of them in their quaintly rustic log cabin away from the tourist-crowded resort towns. They would enjoy the snow, roaring fires, spiced wine, healthy outdoor exercise, and a large amount of Clare’s favorite pastime, people-watching. It was also possible that they would find Clare a man, a nice outdoor type like Beverly’s John, who would marry her and keep her there in Colorado, close to Beverly.

  By the time her friend had finally made the invitation definite, Clare had run out of excuses. More than that, she had been ready to get away for a few days. She needed to think. It really didn’t matter whether she learned to ski or not, nor did it make any difference that Beverly’s quaint cabin might turn out to be a bit more primitive than Beverly had made it out to be. She would enjoy seeing Bev and listening to her rattle on in her headlong fashion. She would like meeting John and getting to know the man Bev had married. And it was just possible that in that famous mountain winter quiet she could find time to decide what she was going to do with her future.

  The problem was, the job she had now, as a secretary in a real-estate office, had too much promise. In another year or so she would know enough about the business to take the state examination and get her own license. The policy toward women in the office was progressive; she knew she would be treated fairly. In five years’ time she could be making as much on sales commissions as any man in the office. On the other hand, there was her writing. For the past seven months she had been doing articles, warm human-interest stories, for the largest newspaper in town. She had not made a lot of money, but she had enjoyed doing them, and they had given her the right to call herself a freelance writer.

  A few days before Clare had received Beverly’s letter, she had been offered a position in the Life-style section of the newspaper. It seemed like a great opportunity to make a living doing something that gave her pleasure, and earn more money than she could expect in her present job for some time. The only drawback was, she was not certain she would be allowed to write the kind of in-depth pieces she preferred. She was afraid “Life-style” was no more than a euphemism for the women’s section. There was nothing wrong with that, of course, if she were willing to settle for paraphrasing endless descriptions of society weddings, cotillions, and charity bazaars. She was not sure she was willing.

  She knew well enough that she had a certain facility with words, but did her ability to write amount to no more than that? She did not know. Beverly, despite her enthusiasms and impulsive ways, was well above average intelligence. Moreover, she was not chary with the truth. Her opinion on anything was worth having. For that reason, just before she had left home Clare had thrust the tear sheets of the articles that had appeared in the paper into the side pocket of the canvas tote that served her as a handbag. She would let Bev read them. Who could tell? It was always possible she was every bit as good a writer as she thought, in which case a whole new career might present itself!

  Abruptly the grin flitting across Clare’s finely molded mouth faded. She braked to a halt. The road she was following had come to a dead end before the dark bulk of a house. Set back from the highway right-of-way, it rose among the evergreens, a steep-roofed chalet with a balcony wrapped around it at treetop level and a wide lower deck. It was visible for no more than an instant; then it was gone, hidden in the blowing snow.

  Clare leaned back, running her fingers through the long strands of her sun-streaked blond hair with a defeated sigh. She had been so sure this was the right road, that it must eventually bring her to Beverly’s and John’s cabin. She had been wrong. The mountain home before her could not by any stretch of the imagination be their simple cabin with the bark still on the logs. The truth was, she was lost. She would have to make her way back to Aspen, call Bev, and ask her to lead her to the cabin. It was what she should have done in the first place.

  It was getting late. Already the light was fading. If she didn’t turn up before dark, Bev would be worried. She was expecting Clare for dinner. The trip should not take more than two days, Bev had assured her blithely, even if Clare stopped to read every historical marker along the way, as she was almost certain to do. Bev had not taken a blizzard into account. She had not even mentioned the possibility of bad weather when Clare had called her the night before she left.

  Could she make her way back the way she had come? She would have to try. So far as she had been able to see, the house before her was deserted, empty. No doubt it was a summer place, closed now for the winter. There had been no sign of a light in the windows, no cars or other vehicles before it. Beverly had spoken often of such houses, open during the summer for vacationing families, then shut up at the first snowfall and all telephone and electric service disconnected. Sometimes they were opened for a week or so of skiing around the Christmas holidays, but it did not appear that was the case here. She could expect no help from that quarter.

  The snow was beginning to pile in drifts in the clearing of the drive before the house. Backing and turning was no easy matter. As she felt her tires slip in the compacted ruts of her own making, Clare clenched her teeth. She was in trouble and she knew it. The only thing she did not know was the best thing to do about it. She could stop the car and sit where she was until help came, but how long would that be on this little-traveled back road? The gas to keep the motor running to warm the car would last only so long. She had a heavy coat and a suitcase full of warm clothes with her, but she was far from certain they would be sufficient against the bitter cold she felt hovering outside the warm interior of the car. Moreover, she had no food, not even a bar of candy. No doubt it was foolish of her to be so unprepared, and yet when she had left her motel room in Texas early that morning, the sun had been shining and the temperature in the high forties. It was unbelievable the change a few hundred miles could make.

  A few minutes could make a change also. In the time it had taken her to turn and start back down the road, her car’s tracks had been obliterated, covered by a soft blanket of white. The deepening snow had leveled the roadbed, hiding the banked ridge that marked the edge, making it blend with the flying fog of snow that whipped around the car, enveloping it.

  Clare’s nerves jerked as she strained to see. In the smothering quiet, the whispering sigh of the wind seemed louder than the hum of her car’s motor as it crept along. Then she felt the slant of a downhill grade. The road would be curving to the left, she knew; still, ahea
d of her was nothing but a white-walled tunnel without end. Instinctively she put her foot on the brake. For an instant the car checked; then it began to slide, and Clare felt the banked ridge at the far side as her front tire struck it. She wrenched the steering wheel to the left. The back of the car slewed around, and the right-rear tire dropped over the edge. Clare was flung hard to the side against her shoulder harness. The steering wheel was jerked from her grasp, and then it was as though she were being dragged backward down the side of the mountain. The car tilted, beginning to roll. Suddenly it came to a thudding, teeth-jarring stop. Wood cracked with an icy explosion like a gunshot, and hard on the sound came a cold tinkle of broken glass. The breath left Clare’s lungs as she was thrown back against the seat.

  By the time she could breathe again, everything was quiet once more. Her car was sitting half-buried in snow with the hood pointed into the air and the side doors bent around a giant ponderosa pine. The sharp smell of resin filled the air where branches had been broken away, and through the smashed window came clean, cold air laden with powdery eddies of snow.

  Automatically Clare reached and turned the key, cutting off the motor. With trembling fingers she unfastened her seat belt, slipped from the harness, and reached for her canvas tote and camel’s hair coat on the seat beside her. The cream sweater, green corduroy skirt, and calf-length leather boots she wore had not been meant for weather conditions like these. It could not be helped. She could not stay in the car. At any moment the gas tank might explode. Freezing was preferable to a fiery death.

  For an instant she thought the door on the driver’s side of the car would not open. Holding the handle with both hands, she heaved herself against it once, twice. It flew wide, and she tumbled out, sinking in snow above her ankles. Pushing away from the car, she shoved the door shut and retreated a few feet, slipping on the steep grade. Gaining her balance, she struggled into her coat and tied the belt around her waist A shudder ran over her as she swayed in the chill wind. There did not appear to be any immediate danger of fire; still, she did not dare approach the car to retrieve her suitcase. Nor could she stay where she was. Slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she turned away and began to scramble back up the mountainside to the road above her. She had to hurry. The tracks left by the tires of her car would be filling once more, and she needed them to guide her back to the house at the end of the road.

  By the time the dark shape of the chalet appeared before her, the ends of her fingers and her toes were numb, and her face was whipped red and raw by the wind. The hem of her long coat was matted with snow, and flakes of it were caught like tiny frozen stars in the long blond strands of her hair. She stumbled a little in the deepening snow as she moved toward the front entrance. She could not prevent herself from running the last few yards that carried her up the ice-and-snow-covered steps and across the long lower deck. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door. While she waited, she glanced around her. The afternoon light had taken on a blue-gray cast, especially here around the house, in the shadow of the evergreens. Soon the swift mountain night would fall.

  There was no answer to her repeated knocking. She hesitated a moment; then, with the lovely curves of her mouth set in grim lines, she moved around the deck to the side of the house. Here were sliding glass doors backed by the white lining of draperies. Her knuckles made a sharper, more insistent sound on the cold glass; still no one came. The door was locked, securely locked, Clare moved on. Another set of glass doors, these also locked. How much would it take to break the long double panes? she wondered. She might have to find put.

  At the rear of the house, she stopped. More glass doors overlooked the deck, while above them rose a towering wall of glass to the peaked roof of the chalet. Before it, the deck was pointed like the prow of a ship, designed obviously to take advantage of a view, though so far as Clare could see, it jutted out over nothing except a yawning chasm filled with white snow clouds.

  Continuing along to the far side of the house, she came to a blank wall that faced onto the evergreen woods. Set into it were a number of high windows and a single steel-clad door. She was about to turn away when on impulse she stepped to this formidable entranceway and tried the handle. It turned under her hand.

  Her success was so unexpected that she stood for a full minute staring at it before she even tried to push the heavy panel open. Noiselessly, easily, it swung wide. Clare stepped inside.

  She stood in a laundry room. A cocoa mat lay before the door, protecting a floor of polished tiles. Gleaming appliances lined one wall, while on the other was a sink of stainless steel and chrome. Staring about her, Clare stamped the snow from her boots and brushed it from the folds of her coat. Finally she closed the door behind her.

  Compared to the windblown chill outside, it felt warm in the house. The sudden quiet away from the sighing and thrashing of the fir and spruce overhead had an unnatural feeling about it. Clare, as she started toward the open door at the other end of the laundry, found herself moving with almost stealthy footsteps.

  The laundry opened into a compact modern kitchen with shining wood cabinets. To one side was a table with a Tiffany-style lamp of cut glass in shades of dark green, rustred, and amber hanging above it. Beyond stretched an enormous living area. The floor was covered with deep pile carpet that rolled in rust-brown waves to a massive moss-rock fireplace, the chimney of which soared up into the cathedral ceiling. With the draperies closed, it was dim inside the room, lit only by the fading light coming through the expanse of glass that reached to the apex of the roof. She could just barely make out a spiral staircase that wound upward to a balcony overlooking the living area, and a row of doors that must be bedrooms.

  “Hello!” Clare called. “Is anyone here?” Her voice echoed in the lofty space, but no one answered.

  “Hello?” she called again, standing still with her hands in her pockets as she gazed around her. Nothing stirred in the deepening shadows of the great open room. With slow steps, almost as if she were mesmerized, she put her foot out onto the carpet and walked toward the yawning black opening of the fireplace. Coming to a stop before it, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She did not like the idea of trespassing, nor using things that did not belong to her, but she had to have shelter. She needed warmth and food or she would die. It was as simple as that. The apologies would have to come later.

  Beside the fireplace there was a woodbox with kindling, and a fair supply of logs stacked inside. Matches hung in a wrought-iron holder beside the massive mantelpiece. Laying a fire was no problem. Until she had moved into an apartment of her own, Clare had lived with her mother and father in a rambling Victorian house that had boasted a fireplace in every room. The wood in the box was pine, which seemed strange to Clare, who was used to oak. Pine, considered too fast-burning for firewood, was reserved for commercial use in Louisiana, for making paper and plywood. The dry, lightweight lengths would doubtless be easier to get to burn, no small consideration at this moment.

  She was right. Within minutes, yellow-orange flames licked at the pine. Kneeling on the hearth, Clare stretched her hands to the blaze. As the heat grew, she felt the tight knot of apprehension in her chest begin to dissolve. Not only was there wood in the box, she had noticed a large stack of split logs under the decking at the front of the house. She could stay here for some time if she had to. She disliked the idea of worrying Beverly, but she could do nothing about it. For tonight she was all right; tomorrow would have to take care of itself.

  “Tonight” was the right word. In the short time it had taken for her to lay the fire and get it burning brightly, darkness had descended. Clare, got stiffly to her feet. Outside, she could still hear the whine and rush of the snowstorm. On such a night, the best place for her to sleep would be in front of the fire. Since she had dared so much already, she might as well go a little further and see if there were blankets to be found in the upstairs bedrooms. She should have thought of that before night fell, of course. Now she would have to manage a light of some kind.

  There was always the possibility that there was a flashlight or candles in the house, if she could only find them. The best place to start looking was in the kitchen, and if she should happen to come across something to still the pangs of hunger beginning to make themselves felt in her midsection, she did not think that she would have the willpower to resist.