Free Snowed by Pamela Burford

thing, he reminded himself. She’d lied to him. She was trying to use him. She’d admitted it.
    One small object had been removed from the wallet, as if she’d been looking at it before she went to bed. A photograph. He lifted the tiny black-and-white snapshot and squatted by the fire to examine it. It was old
—
a couple of decades at least
—
faded and scratched, the edges worn, the corners cracked. He turned it over: nothing written on the back.
    Leah made a little noise and James looked over his shoulder, saw her reach out in her sleep to where he’d sat. Something tightened inside his chest and he firmly squelched the feeling, returning his attention to the picture.
    A young girl sat on a bench of some sort. He squinted in the inadequate firelight
—
she was surrounded by foliage, and there was some kind of fence. The age and condition of the snapshot made it hard to tell, but the girl seemed to be about thirteen or fourteen, light-haired, and dressed in a short-sleeve shirt, shorts, and sneakers. The face was fuzzy, indistinct.
    Something bothered him about the picture. He wondered if he’d seen it before. That almost made him laugh out loud. He must have seen hundreds of thousands of photographs in his lifetime, of every possible composition and setting. How could any picture not look familiar?
    Could this be Leah’s sister, the girl of her nightmare? He doubted it. The age difference made it improbable.
    Carefully he replaced the photo on the table and returned to his own room, feeling no less ignorant and a lot less noble.
    *
    Leah woke up alone, thoroughly drained. She let her eyes drift closed once more, savoring the memory of James holding her and warming her and making her feel safe. She didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d done so out of pity or, more likely, a simple selfish desire to quiet her down so he could get some sleep himself.
    After her bath she dressed in loose jeans and a bulky off-white cable-knit sweater belonging to her host. Her nightmare teased at the edges of her consciousness, demanding attention. Even as she commanded herself not to think about it, she found herself crossing to the little table by the hearth and lifting the snapshot she’d left out the night before, the only picture she had of Annie. She lowered herself onto a silk-covered wing chair near the window and stared at the image of her mother.
    How could it be that this innocent young girl gave Leah life just a year or two after this picture was taken? She’d never forget the day she’d found out, the day Mama and Daddy had sat her down in the kitchen and related the whole dreadful story. The day she’d made the decision to confront James Bradburn, Sr.
    She slipped Annie’s picture back into her wallet and headed downstairs to the kitchen. James was nowhere to be seen. She lifted the receiver of the wall phone. Still dead. Miguel could handle the office and warehouse, Leah was certain, but not being able to check in with him made her jumpy all the same. She flicked on the radio.
    “...temperatures in the teens to low twenties. Major highways are clear into and out of the city, but snow removal in outlying areas has been frustrated by the cold and the sheer volume
—
”
    Leah switched off the radio. She didn’t need that droning voice to tell her she was still snowed in. All she had to do was look out the window. She watched Stieglitz doze in his basket by the stove and wondered where James was. It was for the best, of course, that he hadn’t been there when she came down for breakfast
—
a bowl of cold cereal and a banana. Just as she knew it would be for the best if she could manage to avoid him for the duration of her stay as he’d so imperiously commanded.
    A movement out the window caught her attention. It was James skiing back to the house from the direction of the road. He displayed surprising grace and speed as his long arms and legs propelled him over the drifts. Only now did she realize how