Snowbound Heart Read Free

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.
    The first cabinet door she opened held a supply of paper plates and cups, items not unreasonable for a summer place. The second held canned goods, also expected, though the supply seemed overgenerous to have been left from summer. The third cabinet held dishes, simple brown ironstone, but in the fourth was something that brought Clare to a halt. It was bread wrapped in cellophane, bread as soft and fresh as if it had just