Free Snowbound Heart by Jennifer Blake Page B

not to laugh aloud at the contrast to her first eager questions.
    “I said, I wish I could see you tonight, but I promised to have dinner with Logan Longcross.”
    “I thought that was what you said. Have you gone stark, staring mad?”
    “Not at all. I told you I had to take refuge from the snowstorm. Logan Longcross just happened to own the place that was closest to hand.”
    “You are joking, of course,” Beverly said in resigned tones.
    “Do you honestly think I would joke about such a thing, Beverly Hoffman?”
    “I suppose not,” Beverly conceded. “Still, I have the strangest feeling you haven’t told me everything. Start at the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
    “Couldn’t it wait until in the morning?” Clare pleaded. “Logan will be coming back any minute, and I have to go and help him choose a shirt.”
    “You what!”
    “You heard me. I’m not sure, but I think my job is to keep people at bay while he chooses it, but at any rate, I’ve told him I would be there. You will come and get me in the morning?”
    “Yes, I will, though I’m not sure I’m not taking my life into my hands, having anything to do with such an affair. I don’t suppose I could stand to stay away, though, not until I hear what you have got yourself into. Tell me the name of the hotel again.”
    Clare gave it to her, then apologized once more for being such a laggard guest. They exchanged a few more words; then Clare, with a final good-bye, dropped the receiver into its cradle. With a faint smile still curving her mouth, she turned away. Beverly was a grand person. It was sweet of her to be so concerned and interested. The interest was inevitable, it seemed. Logan had not gotten where he was without being able to arouse the interest of women. Not that he tried. After the time they had spent together, she actually believed the attraction was a natural, unconscious force. She had been aware of it at first; then, as the hours had passed, she had come to see Logan not as an actor but as a man. With faults, yes, but also with ideals and a deep vein of sensitivity. Regardless of what Beverly might think, even in spite of the reasons she had given her own conscience, it was for the man and what he believed in, rather than for the actor, that she was here in this hotel room at this moment.
    It came as no great surprise that the scene in the hotel lobby was repeated in the men’s store where they went to replenish Logan’s wardrobe. The sales clerk, a vision of sartorial splendor, seemed to think it was a specially conferred honor to be asked to help choose a shirt and tie to complement a dark blue suit. The combinations available appeared to be endless as the man snatched shirts from the shelves and folded ties artistically at their collars. He was only prevented from covering the counters with such ensembles by Logan, who held up a hand, pointed at a subdued yet distinctive set, and told the clerk to put it in a bag. If the price of the simple purchase made Clare blink, she was not alone. The crowd at their back, to judge from their whispers, were no more used to simple white tone-on-tone shirts and diagonal-stripe silk ties running to those figures than she was.
    Autographs, the minute Logan’s attention was free, were inevitable. With the ease of long practice, he managed to slash a few words and his signature on whatever was thrust at him, and keep moving at the same time. Clare, jostled and pushed by the growing crowd, saw herself being separated from him, until Logan reached out and caught her hand to draw it through the crook of his arm. He pressed it firmly against his side, and never stopped walking. Gamely smiling, ignoring the questions thrown at her, Clare was able to keep up with him as they passed through the swinging doors of the shop and out onto the street.
    They were nearly through the gauntlet. The car was before them. Logan handed back the last immortalized paper bag and reached for the car’s