Snowed (14 page)

As much as she wanted to say yes, she hesitated. “James...I don’t know. People are relying on me. It’s not just Harmony Grits. My parents are getting on in years.”

“I know, and I know they need you. But there are flights every day. You can come and go as much as you like.” He made her look at him. “I’m not letting you out of my life, Leah. Promise me you’ll come back.”

“I promise,” she whispered.

His eyes shone with relief and triumph. He hauled her to him and kissed her soundly.

Unbidden, her ugly, dark secret reared up out of the shadows of her past. How could she ever tell him?
I’m his daughter, James. I came here out of hatred and vengeance. I deceived you. I’m his daughter.

James was a proud man. He’d warned her he would not be made a fool of. All she could do was pray that someday the two of them would become close enough for her to trust him with the truth. And for him to understand.

Someday.

“Gawd! I still can’t believe it,” Kara Greene said as she drove her Porsche along the now snow-free back roads of Long Island’s North Shore. “Trapped with James Bradburn and that damn cat for three days. At that big old estate. You might as well have been on a desert island. A thing like that can be either utter hell
—
” she cast a sidelong glance at her passenger “
—
or outrageously romantic.” Leah smiled and kept her mouth shut. “Not that it’s any of my beeswax, as my mother used to say.”

“Kara, I really appreciate your giving me a ride to my hotel,” Leah said. Kara had brought Mary back from her sister’s place in Queens. The two women had arrived just as Leah had donned her dress, having run it through the dryer.

“Don’t mention it. Whoa!” Kara slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a florist’s van that abruptly braked at a yellow light. As the Porsche stopped short, Leah’s purse and the envelope flew off her lap. Kara started cursing out the other driver, then stopped when she noticed Leah hastily shoving pictures back into the envelope.

“What are those? Lemme see.” While she waited for the light to turn green, Kara unceremoniously grabbed the prints and looked at the topmost one. It was the side view of Leah. “Very nice, but how’d you keep your clothes on? James could charm the knickers off the queen of England.” Next came the arresting close-up portrait of James. “I don’t believe it. I don’t
believe
it! How did you get him to sit still for a picture? He never lets himself be photographed.”

“All part of his strategy. He was trying to charm my knickers off.”

“Hah! Good girl.” Kara inspected the picture with a critical eye. “Not bad.” She turned to the next one. A reclining James stared back at her from the large black-and-white photo, full figure, wearing only low-slung jeans with the button undone and a smile to match his provocative attire. It was a smile his agent found inordinately interesting, judging by the arched-eyebrow look she now leveled at her passenger.

“What?” Leah wasn’t going to make this easy for her.

Cars behind them started honking. Kara relinquished the photos and accelerated to pass the van. “You gonna tell me the rest of it now or am I gonna have to wheedle it outta you for the next twenty miles?”

“As opposed to your usual subtle inquiries?”

“Not that I can blame you,” Kara said. “The man’s a prime hunk.”

“That’s not why I
—
”
Damn it.

Kara smiled broadly. “Not why you...?” she prompted. When Leah didn’t answer, she continued, “For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen James look at a woman the way he was looking at you.”

A tingle raced over Leah’s skin. “How was he looking at me?”

“Like Gomez looks at Morticia. Like Nick looks at Nora. Like Pepe Le Pew looks at that lady skunk. You get the picture.”

The tingle moved deeper, warming Leah from the inside out. “Really?”

“Really. James hasn’t had a serious relationship since his wife died. I guess you know about her. Not that he hasn’t had female companionship if you know what I mean, but he never lets anyone get close. I think he’s sworn off marriage for good.”

Leah wondered if that was a warning not to let herself get hurt. Since Kara was being so forthcoming with information she knew she’d never get out of James, she decided to jump in with both feet. “James said Renee was unfaithful. Do you know anything about that?”

“Sure. Everyone knew about Renee’s extracurricular activities. Everyone but James.”

Leah’s breath caught, and his vehement words came unbidden in the fuller context of this revelation.
I’ll never tolerate being made a fool of.
“He must’ve been devastated when he found out.”

Kara sighed. “I honestly thought he knew. I thought...Damn it, I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I just didn’t want to be the one to tell him.”

“How did he find out?”

“One day his brother Luke showed up at the mansion unexpectedly and caught Renee and a photog buddy of James’s doing it in the swimming pool.”

“Oh my God.”

“Luke went straight to his brother and told him. He had to keep James from taking the guy apart.”

“What about Renee?”

“You mean did he want to take Renee apart, too? I think he felt more hurt than vindictive once he found out about all her affairs. Not that he confided in me, but I’ve known the guy for fifteen years. Not much gets past me.” Kara turned onto the entrance ramp to the expressway. “The marriage was two years old and had been on life support practically from the start.”

“What did you think of Renee? Aside from the matter of her ‘extracurricular activities’?” Leah didn’t know Kara well, but she respected her judgment.

“She was manipulative and self-centered. ‘Bitch’ doesn’t even come close.”

“I guess that says it all.”

But Kara was just getting warmed up. “I think she thought she could do anything she wanted, trample on anyone and anything, and her face and body would always bail her out. She lied to James from day one.”

“About what?” As if adultery weren’t enough.

“Before he married Renee, he made it clear he wanted children and he wanted them right away.”

“Really?” This was a side of James she’d never suspected. The image of a baby in his arms made her smile.

“Sure. He’s always loved kids. Anyway, he made no secret of this, and Renee said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what I want, too. Lots of little rug rats.’ Then they get married and all of a sudden it’s ‘Maybe next year, lemme do a little more modeling first.’ Next year comes and she’s still stringing him along and he finally gets her to admit she never intends to have kids. Ever. Her figure is too valuable, she says.
Her figure is too valuable.
Like that’s not an issue for the rest of us brood mares.”

“Do you have children, Kara?”

She smiled proudly. “Ed and I have two boys and a girl. I’ll show you their pictures when we stop.”

They rode in silence for some time until the car entered the Midtown Tunnel. “Leah, did James tell you how Renee died?”

“He said she died in an auto accident. The same accident that killed his father.”

Kara looked grim. “She was running away with his father. She was leaving James.”

Leah groaned.

“She and the old man laid that on him and then took off during a sleet storm,” Kara continued. “Renee lost control of her Vette and hit a tree about half a mile from Whitewood.”

She was silent a few moments and then said, “I thought you should know that, Leah. I thought it would kinda help you get a handle on why James is the way he is. He can be a bear, no doubt about it. He expects honesty and integrity from the people he deals with, and Gawd help you if you let him down. Given his history, can you blame the guy?”

Leah closed her eyes. Honesty and integrity. Suddenly her confidence in the future of their relationship faltered.

Kara went on, oblivious to Leah’s inner turmoil. “I knew he wouldn’t tell you these things. And maybe it’s not my place to butt in, but what the hell
—
when has that ever stopped me?”

“James called his father a sadistic bastard.”

A cold look came into Kara’s eyes. “An understatement if I ever heard one. I always thought Renee teaming up with the old man was a match made in heaven. Or hell. He abused his wife and kids, verbally and physically. He was an outrageous philanderer. Must have dozens of bastard kids running around.”

Leah stared out the window at the white-tiled wall of the tunnel racing by. Was that the sum total of her existence, then, being just one more by-blow of a man like James Bradburn, Sr.?

“He married James’s mother, Antonia Ashton, for her money and Whitewood,” Kara continued. “She was very young and very sheltered
—
no match for a vulture like him. He was charming, sophisticated, a real smoothie. And a hot ticket, lemme tell you, even in his fifties and sixties
—
tall, blond, and athletic. We’re talking Robert Redford on the outside, Freddy Krueger on the inside.”

“But to steal his son’s wife. What kind of man would do such a thing?”
You know what kind of man,
Leah told herself. That was the least of what he’d done.

“Here’s how I see it,” Kara said. “First Renee decides she wants James Junior. He’s wealthy, powerful, has the connections she needs, and lives in a mansion, for crying out loud. And, as we all know
—
including you, Madame Photographer
—
he’s also your basic Greek gawd.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Kara...”

“So anyway, Sarah Bernhardt turns on the juice, making James think he’s getting everything he could possibly want in a devoted wife and
—
hah!
—
mother. Time passes, the brutal truth is revealed. Needless to say, James the Wiser is no longer the generous, indulgent sucker she married. He’s got Renee on a real short leash. Now, you gotta understand, Leah, this is a woman who’s used to having the world handed to her on a fourteen-karat-gold platter. She’s used to being
adored,
for Gawd’s sake! And her husband at this point is anything but adoring. Now along comes Daddy Bradburn, saying sit on my knee and tell me all about it, little girl.”

Leah closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest.
Sit on my knee, little girl.
The image of fourteen-year-old Annie came brutally to mind.

Blinding daylight replaced the gloom of the tunnel as the Porsche began negotiating the hectic streets of Manhattan’s East Side. Here the remnants of the blizzard were less picturesque than in the suburbs, with snow heaped in filthy mounds along the curbs.

Leah said, “Let me guess. Renee figures she’s found someone who still appreciates her, someone equally powerful and well connected.”

“Not as gawdlike perhaps, and she had to kiss the money good-bye. Plus the estate on Lawn Guyland,” Kara said. “And that’s where I figure the old man’s motive comes in. You see, Antonia never gave her husband title to Whitewood or her money. Smart cookie. And when she died ten years ago, she left everything to the boys. Every damn thing. James Senior tried to contest the will, of course, but he lost and the boys kicked him off the estate. Not that Mark and Luke wanted to live there. No way. Too many memories of a miserable childhood. They were more than happy to let James have exclusive use of it.”

Leah filled in the blanks. “So then a few years later Junior’s marriage is on the rocks, and Senior sees an opportunity to really stick it to him.”

“By cuckolding his son,” Kara agreed. “Do people still use that word, cuckold? They should
—
it’s a good word.” She leaned on her horn as a taxi cut her off. “Anyway, I don’t think the old man had a shred of feeling for Renee except as a way to get back at James. He probably would’ve dumped her as soon as the desired level of humiliation was achieved.”

Leah wanted to ask if all three boys had been adopted or only James. Could the fact that James Junior was not his biological son, the “fruit of his loins,” have played a part in the old man’s vengeful actions? But then she recalled James’s reticence to discuss the subject of his adoption, and held her tongue. Perhaps Kara didn’t even know. And if she didn’t, it wasn’t Leah’s place to enlighten her.

Kara pulled up in front of the hotel. “Listen, honey, go in and pack up and check out and everything and I’ll take you out to La Guardia.” When Leah started to protest, she said, “For Gawd’s sake, shut up and get your stuff. I’ll wait right here.”

Leah took the elevator to the twelfth floor and entered the room she hadn’t seen since Saturday, four days earlier. She was glad she’d had this discussion with Kara, glad Kara wanted her to know these things about James, painful though they were. Certain elements of his personality now fit into place like pieces of a puzzle
—
his pride, his evasiveness, his insistence on honesty. She wondered how a man who’d endured the kind of betrayal he had could find it in him to trust any woman.

And she wondered if she could find it in herself to be deserving of that trust.

*

 “...and some of the pralines,” James said.

“Good choice.” Leah rolled over on the picnic blanket and propped herself on her elbows so she could look down into his sun-dappled face. He lay sprawled on his side, perusing the Harmony Grits catalog. The day was exceptionally warm for mid-April. Prickles of grass poked her from under the blanket, but she didn’t mind.

“Aren’t you going to write this down?” he asked.

She pointed to her head. “Like a steel trap. You want peach pickles, jalapeño-onion cornbread mix, three kinds of chowchow, and pralines. Hopefully not in the same meal.”

Absently he stroked her arm, never taking his eyes off the catalog. “You’re amazing.”

“I know.”

The small apple orchard where they’d just enjoyed a picnic lunch was the most secluded and relaxing spot at Whitewood. To get there they’d trekked a quarter mile from the back of the house to where the great lawn sloped downward, and followed granite slabs that had been set into the declivity to serve as a rustic, overgrown staircase.

The orchard was a fairy-tale world of mottled light, the trill of birds and insects, and the perfumed breezes of spring. Between the lush greenery and the land’s natural rise, the big house was invisible from where they lay.