Snowed Read Free Page A

but his only companion was little Mary, grinning hugely. Leah watched the other guests laugh and shake the man’s hand as Mary wrestled the heavy shearling jacket off his broad shoulders.
    James. Mr. Bradburn. That was what they were calling him. Leah squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her aching forehead, wondering where her plans had gone awry. When she opened them, she stopped breathing. James Bradburn was staring past the throng of guests, his penetrating gaze focused directly on her. She found herself backing up.
    “Hey, where ya going, magnolia?” Mike grabbed her arm.
    Suddenly the enormous room begin to close in on her. “Gotta get some air.” She wrenched out of his grasp and bolted through the crowd to the French doors. Outside, on the terrace, she took a few deep, fortifying breaths. She welcomed the biting cold
—
it helped clear her head as she struggled to assess the situation. Leah watched her own frosty breath mingle with the pirouetting snowflakes, which caught the light from the ballroom in myriad pinpoints of fire, like sparks floating down from heaven. The gardens and endless expanse of grounds beyond were already blanketed.
    Had Annie ever stood out here, on this precise spot on a late February night, and watched snowflakes dance and stick to her eyelashes? Leah squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself not to think about it.
Not one tear, damn it. No more tears.
    She turned and gazed at the imposing rear facade of the great house, as intimidating as the front. An hour earlier, as she and Mike had driven through the stone and wrought-iron gates of Whitewood, the Bradburn family estate, she’d felt as if she’d been there before. Gravel had crunched under the tires of Mike’s Mercedes as they’d made their way down the quarter-mile-long drive from the road to the stately home whose windows glowed in mute welcome. She remembered thinking it looked like a magazine ad for single-malt Scotch.
    Leah hadn’t been surprised at the sensation of déjà vu. While her companion had yammered self-importantly about his connection to the illustrious photographer, Leah had found herself wondering what Mike’s reaction would be were he to find out how much she already knew about Whitewood and its century-old English-style stone manor house. She could have told him the estate’s two hundred acres boasted an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, and an apple orchard. Not to mention the summerhouse and carriage barn.
    Mike’s grating voice horned in on her thoughts. “Bet you don’t see much snow in Kansas, huh, Dorothy?”
    She turned to see him peering in slack-jawed befuddlement at the snowflakes melting on his outthrust hand. “Lookee, Paw, lookee! Thar’s a heap a’ cold, white stuff a-comin’ outta the
—
”
    “You’re repulsive, Mike.”
    “Huh?”
    “I said, you’re impulsive. Such a fun, impulsive guy.” When Leah looked into her date’s little eyes, she couldn’t help picturing Mavis Fletcher’s prize sow Gertie in a two-thousand-dollar silk suit and a gold Tag Heuer watch. She desperately wanted to leave the party, and was about to say so when she remembered how many martinis Mike had downed. Even if he’d been stone-cold sober, the way he was leering at her settled the matter. She wasn’t getting in a car with him again. There had to be plenty of other guests driving back to Manhattan. She’d have no problem getting a ride.
    Shivering, Leah hugged herself and stamped her feet. She’d just turned to rejoin the party when Mike seized her shoulders in his beefy hands.
    “Looks like you could use a little warmin’ up, Miz Scarlett.” He tightened his grip, a smarmy grin on his face. “I bet some things are the same everywhere. You ever take the boys out to the pasture? Huh?”
    Sure enough—we just love to roll around in all those
cow pies,
you ignorant slob.
     Knowing she’d never be able to suffer his kiss without retching, she twisted away just as his wet mouth zeroed