Free Snowbound Heart by Jennifer Blake

will be too disappointed when I don’t show up,” Clare said when the sound of the four-wheel vehicle had faded in the distance.
    “I think he will,” Logan answered. “He is still not sure you are real.”
    A small smile curved her mouth. “He’s right, I’m not.”
    “You could be.”
    The suggestion was tentative, as though he was trying the taste and feel of it himself. Clare tilted her head. “Off the record, of course,” she said dryly, “and only long enough to convince Marvin Hobbs that you have no designs on his wife?”
    “Something like that,” he agreed, his gold-tipped lashes shielding his expression. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to know how the meeting turns out?”
    She stared at him. “Of course I would, but I can’t believe you would be willing to have me there.”
    “Yes, it’s strange how things work out, isn’t it?”
    His tone was much too bland. Her gray eyes narrowed in suspicion, she said, “Aren’t you afraid I might take advantage of the situation? If you acknowledge me in public as your fiancee, things could get sticky.”
    He lifted an eyebrow. “They might, but I think you are too intelligent for that.”
    “Intelligent instead of ethical? I like that!”
    “I thought you would,” he murmured.
    Clare chewed the inside of her lip. Did he really want her to come, or was he making the suggestion only to see what she would say? She did not think for a moment that he needed to hide behind the fiction of a fiancee, despite his offer. What she should do was firmly refuse to have anything to do with it. That would show him she had no designs on him, either as a fan or as a writer of newspaper articles. But wait — was that by any chance his purpose in encouraging her, to find out once and for all the truth of what she had told him about herself? If she was what she had said, an amateur freelance writer who had stumbled upon his retreat by accident, then she must refuse. But if she were an experienced professional out for a big story, then she would not dare let such an opportunity as this slip through her fingers.
    “What’s it to be?” he inquired, his smile just a shade too knowing for her liking.
    “You really expect me to jump at this chance, don’t you?” she said with a lift of her chin. “You have it all figured out, because you never believed what I said in the first place. Well, Logan Longcross, as much pleasure as it would give me to prove you wrong, I think I would prefer to confuse you instead. Has it occurred to you that if I wanted to go out of my way to convince you of my good faith and throw you off guard, I would refuse to play this role you have written for me and hope to catch the juicy developments from the sidelines? As it is, I am going to do no such thing. I am going to accept Marvin Hobbs’s invitation to dinner. Whether you wanted one or not, you have just acquired yourself a fiancee for the evening.”
    After some discussion, Clare and Logan decided the best thing to be done was to follow Hobbs into town as soon as possible. There they could take rooms at a hotel. From the way Logan spoke, Clare thought he meant to pay the cost of her room, since she would be staying, more or less, for his sake. She was just as determined to pay her own way, though she saw no point in making an issue of it just now.
    From her room Clare could call Beverly, explain the delay and her plans for the evening, and arrange to meet her the following morning. Logan would take care of having her car retrieved, since he would be better able to give the garage tow truck directions to it. With that out of the way, he would have to go shopping. When he had packed for his stay at his mountain home, formal attire had not been one of the things he had thrown into his luggage. Though he had worn a suit for the flight into Aspen, the shirt with it had been open-necked in the European style. With a different shirt and a tie, it would serve the purpose. His purchases out of