Snowed Read Free

could see that the snowfall hadn’t let up. If anything, it was coming down heavier now. French doors looked out on the terrace and the back gardens. In one corner of the room, Bradburn’s photographic equipment was set up: tripods and cameras, cables and lights, white umbrellas and backdrops. In the opposite corner, a jazz quartet played.
    The walls were adorned with framed black-and-white photographs
—
the portraits and figure studies for which James Bradburn was famous. Grudgingly Leah had to admit the man’s skill was impressive. But it only made sense he’d be an accomplished technician, she told herself. He’s been doing this for five decades or more.
    Not that she was the photo aficionada she had pretended to be when she’d found the Carleton Gallery and introduced herself to Mike. Leah knew precious little about Bradburn, not even what he looked like. But the little she did know had twisted her world around. And somehow she’d make sure it twisted his, too, before she was finished with him. Inside her pockets, her hands balled into fists.
    As she was introduced to people, she didn’t even try to remember names. One woman, however, was hard to ignore: Kara Greene, Bradburn’s agent and the hostess of the party. The heavily made-up, fortyish brunette darted here and there, gossiping, networking, making sure everyone was having a good time.
    “He’s gonna kill me,” Kara was telling Mike, with an impish grin. “He’s gonna strangle me for throwing him this party. Well, you know what I say to that
—
too damn bad, that’s what I say. The old fuddy-duddy needs this. He works too damn hard.”
    Mike tossed back the last of his martini and let his small, close-set eyes rove the room, taking no pains to hide his boredom with the garrulous agent.
    “Oh Gawd!”
    Leah followed Kara’s gaze and saw someone near the doors
—
the designated lookout, apparently
—
frantically waving his arms at her and mouthing, He’s here! Kara dashed to the light switches. Music and voices dissolved at her urgent shushing; the chandeliers and wall sconces blinked off one by one.
    The room had an otherworldly feel as Leah stood there in the near dark, cheek to jowl with scores of strangers, listening to their whispers, inhaling their mingled perfumes. One side of the room was bathed in a warm orange glow from the twin hearths. She looked toward the French doors and the windows, where silvery moonlight streamed in, reflecting off the swirling snowflakes and the white veneer that now blanketed the lawn.
    “Shhh!”
The agent’s authoritative hiss had its desired effect
—
total silence save for the crackle of the fires. In the front hall outside the ballroom could be heard an impatient baritone and an equally insistent Scottish burr
—
Bradburn’s elderly housekeeper, Mary. It was her job to get him into the room on some pretext. Someone in the ballroom giggled softly.
    At the sound of Bradburn’s voice, the dark flower of hate blossomed and grew inside Leah like a living thing, a thing to be nurtured. In the end the persistent Mary had her way. The heavy oak doors swung open and light flooded the room.
    “SURPRISE!”
    Leah stopped breathing. She could only stare in astonishment at the tall, snow-dusted man who seemed to fill the doorway in which he stood. Collar-length black hair framed a striking face with the profile of a Roman emperor. And like Caesar, his very presence commanded respect, even under the circumstances, as he took in the entire preposterous situation with one sweep of his ice blue gaze. That gaze became dangerously intense as it scoured the room once more, with the deadly resolve of a hunter seeking his prey.
    As Leah gaped at this man and reminded herself to breathe, one inescapable fact became clear.
    This wasn’t James Bradburn.
    She mentally shook herself. The man standing in the doorway pushing long fingers through snow-dampened hair was not gray and wizened. Far from it. She looked past him,