Free Snowbound by Bill Pronzini Page A

surprise.”
    “Couldn’t you give me a hint?”
    “Well. . . .” He thought for a moment. “It’s something small in size but not in stature.”
    “Jewelry?” she asked immediately.
    “No, not jewelry.”
    “Something to wear, then?”
    “No. No, you can’t wear it.”
    “Matt, don’t tease me like this. What is it?”
    “I’ll give you a broader hint. I’m not very good at buying presents; I mean, I’m always afraid I’ll pick out something that won’t be quite right. So I don’t really buy anything, I leave that up to the individual person.”
    Money, Peggy thought—and said it aloud, “Money?”
    Hughes misinterpreted the inflection in her voice. “You’re not offended, are you?”
    God! “No, I’m not offended, baby. I . . . just didn’t expect anything like that. You’ve been so generous already.”
    Which was true enough. Peggy had waited until their fourth evening together at the motel before bringing up the subject of money; she had done it very casually and very deftly, as always, saying that her dentist had told her she needed some work on her wisdom teeth but that she really couldn’t afford it and she supposed she could endure the minor toothache discomfort a while longer. . . . As she had anticipated, he had been sympathetic and had readily offered to pay for the dental work, a token of his affection for her, wouldn’t even think of it as a loan; she had told him she couldn’t possibly, and then allowed him to talk her into accepting. And when she said that her dentist would not accept credit from her, that she would need cash, he gave her a hundred dollars that same night and insisted that she tell him when she needed more. She had needed more two weeks later, another hundred dollars, and tonight she had been going to ask him for an additional fifty—proceeding cautiously—and here he was telling her that he was going to make her a cash gift for Christmas. Wonderfully beneficent, wonderfully pliable Matt Hughes!
    He said, “I don’t think I’ve been generous enough. And besides that, I want to do it, I want to give you something nice for Christmas.”
    “You give me something nice every time we’re together,” she said, but the words were automatic, disassociated from her thoughts; she wanted to ask him how large the present was going to be—the way he talked, it was a substantial sum—but she did not want to seem overly expectant. Three hundred? Five hundred? Just how generous was he going to be?
    “And you to me,” he said. “Tomorrow night, then?”
    “Yes, Matt. Tomorrow night and any night you want.”
    He drew her full against him, kissing her eyes as if in gratitude. Excitement stirred in her loins again, as much a result of anticipation of his Christmas gift as in response to his warm and naked masculinity. He clung to her, whispering her name, as she began to stroke him, make him ready again. And while one part of her mind concentrated on their rekindled passion, another part dwelled on the twenty-one thousand dollars she had saved thus far and the concomitant knowledge that if his present was as large as he had led her to believe, if she could prolong the affair with him and he continued to supply her with money, the time when she would finally be able to leave Hidden Valley was very close at hand. Another six or eight months, maybe even less; certainly no later than mid-fall of next year, before her twenty-second birthday, before the cold winter snows came.
    Oh yes, long before the snows came. . . .

Nine
     
    Wrapped in mackinaw and muffler and waterproof boots, Lew Coopersmith had just finished shoveling thick powder drifts from his front walk when Frank McNeil came to see him shortly past nine Tuesday morning.
    It had stopped snowing sometime during the night, and the air had a crystal quality, clean and sharp like the slender ice daggers which gleamed on the front eaves of the house. A high, thin cloud-cover shielded the winter sun; but visibility was