Chapter Two
Clayton Porter paced in his library. There was a fire in the grate and Clayton walked close to its light.
It was quickly growing dark outside and Clayton was still thinking about the girl. His first instinct had been to come home and forget about her, sit into one of his oversized brown leather chairs and get lost in Proust, but he'd been unsuccessful in his attempt.
His mind kept wandering back to her big blue eyes, the full curve of her face, the full curve of her body.
She looked like she'd been through something. She looked cold, scared, and she'd been crying. The longer he'd been home the more he'd been thinking that he'd done the wrong thing in leaving her there… but the longer he was home the less likely it would be to find her. That was an excuse, of course, he could find her if he wanted to, but he wasn't at all sure if he did want to.
“Are you ready for supper sir?” Lincoln said with the same placid look he always wore. Lincoln had been Clayton’s father’s man and Clayton had decided to keep him on in the twenty years since his father’s death.
“Yes, I’ll be down in a moment,” Clayton turned away from the other man and looked into the fireplace. “Actually,” Clayton called out to Lincoln’s retreating figure, “I think I’ll be a little late for dinner tonight.”
Lincoln turned to look at Clayton, “Very good, sir.”
Clayton listened to the sound of Lincoln’s footsteps receding. Was he really going to put on his boots and tromp around looking for a girl?
There was no use avoiding it, it would bother him all night otherwise. He would just have to figure it out when he found her.
Taking a deep breath he walked away from the fire and out of his library into the main hall. Clayton’s parents had owned homes in Connecticut, London, Paris, a penthouse in Manhattan. They'd traveled extensively and lived just about everywhere, but since the death of his father and quick demise of his mother, Clayton had taken residence in the Montana mansion and stayed put.
He didn't like traveling, he hadn't liked it then and he didn't like it now. He liked the trees of the forest, the mountains, and the lakes. He liked the plants that grew naturally in uncultivated soil. He liked the solitude.
He'd taken over the family business once he'd graduated with his MBA from Harvard and managed to grow the family's assets by more than 500%. It was something that Clayton gave "staying out of it" a lot of credit too. He had the feeling that most people stuck their nose where it didn't belong.
Clayton held conference calls and emailed but mostly he relied on cold hard numbers to do the talking for him. He made 99% of his decisions off of the numbers that populated on his computer every morning.
He was headed down the broad wood steps when Lincoln walked into view at the bottom of the staircase. Clayton stopped.
“Yes?” he stood with his foot overhanging the next step down. He could always tell by the look on Lincoln’s face that the man had some news for him.
“There’s someone at the front door, sir.” There was something in the way Lincoln said it that told Clayton it wasn’t one of the local men he occasionally brought to the house to talk business with.
“It’s a woman,” Lincoln said the word slowly as if Clayton might not grasp his meaning. “A rather distraught looking woman.”
Clayton nodded his head. Suddenly every instinct he’d had to run away, to keep well away from this woman, came flooding back to him. Lincoln could certainly handle a woman without Clayton’s help. He stood staring at Lincoln, undecided on what to do.
“Shall I deal with her, sir?” Lincoln seemed to be reading his mind. Clayton looked at the older man. He didn’t particularly like being thought of as someone who couldn’t handle his own affairs. He was quite capable, as he demonstrated every day, in running and growing a multi-billion dollar estate.
“You can send her up to the library,” Clayton let his words grow crisp.
He turned and went straight back up the stairs and into his library. The image of the woman passed through his mind again. What was he doing? He should have agreed—let Lincoln deal with her.
“Sir,” Lincoln’s voice came from the door to the library. “This is Ms. Josephine Wentlandt.”
Clayton turned to see the woman. Her blue eyes found his and Clayton had to look away. His gaze moved at first to the fire then moved back to the cool blue of her eyes.
“What can I do for you Ms. Wentlandt?” Clayton tried to keep his voice as formal and impersonal as possible.
The woman stood stuck to her spot. She looked around at the room then looked over Clayton. She seemed unreasonably calm and the open emotions he’d been able to see so clearly in her before were nowhere to be found now.
Suddenly she smiled.
“I’m afraid I got lost,” the woman practically blushed and Clayton turned his head to the side. He was trying to figure out just what was going on. He was certain that she was lying, that the smile, the bashfulness, were all a ruse… but why?
“Did you?” Clayton didn’t think much about what he was saying as he was trying to decipher some enigmatic code that he, quite obviously, didn’t understand.
“Yes,” the woman’s face turned to him sharply. She clearly hadn’t planned on his second guessing her.
“Well, Lincoln can take you into town,” Clayton nodded at Lincoln.
“It will only be a matter of minutes, I’ll just go around to get the car,” Lincoln gave a small nod to Clayton before turning his attentions to the woman.
"No," all of the lighthearted pretenses left her voice. "I mean…I'm not feeling at all well."
“Then hadn’t you better go into town to see a doctor?” Clayton moved closer. He was entranced by those eyes. In one moment he didn’t want to see them go in the next he wanted them out of his sight.
“Nothing serious, nothing a little rest won’t cure.” She looked to the fire then at the room, “You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” Clayton looked around at the room as if seeing it for the first time.
“Would you mind terribly if I rested for a bit here?” she asked. Her eyes were large and Clayton, for a moment, could see the fear in them once again.
“Of course,” he motioned to the seat across from him.
“What would you like to do about dinner, sir?” Lincoln began to leave.
“Can I persuade you to take dinner with me, Ms. Wentlandt?”
“That would be much appreciated,” she smiled weakly as she sat into the large brown chair.
Clayton looked at Lincoln, “Perhaps some tea and water for now.”
Lincoln left the room and Clayton sat in the chair opposite the woman.
“Thank you,” she lifted her large blue eyes to his, “and please call me Jo.”
“Jo,” Clayton tried out the name and watched as the energy seemed to drain from the woman across from him. “If you don’t mind my saying so you look very tired. You should consider letting Lincoln take you into town after dinner.”
“No, no,” her eyes flickered away from his and he could see that her mind was somewhere else. “I was camping nearby…I got lost. I can go in search of my campsite tomorrow.”
“Camping?”
Jo nodded with a brief smile.
“You must have been very scared, lost on your own in the wild?” Clayton pressed.
“No, not really…” she tried to gain back some of the energy she had presented earlier but he saw that she was struggling to keep up the act.
“What if you’d come across a wild animal? What if you’d come across a bear?” Clayton watched her very carefully. Jo’s entire countenance changed and she looked up at Clayton in a way that surprised him. He was almost sorry that he’d brought it up.
“Are there many bears in these parts?” Jo was watching Clayton as carefully as he was watching her.
“Of course,” Clayton tried to dismiss the notion. “I suppose you must be very hungry if you’ve been lost from your camp site for very long.”
“I am,” Jo looked away from Clayton and into the fire.
The two sat silently for a long minute, the sound of the fire crackling the only thing between them.
“Do you mind my asking…but are you Clayton Porter?” Jo’s question was quick and sharp. Clayton felt like he was being struck with a hot poker.
He stood, “Are you a journalist?”
He knew she wasn’t but something about her made him suspicious. Something wasn’t right. She was hiding something and he didn’t trust her.
Jo put a hand to her chest, “Me? No, of course not.”
Clayton walked across the rows of old, leather-bound editions, and looked out the nine-foot window down onto the back of the house.
“I just assumed, since you are in a house like this one, out in the middle of the forest…everyone knows who you are,” Jo’s voice bounced over the books and into Clayton’s ears.
“Lincoln will bring you your tea in here, I’d better go see to dinner,” Clayton turned and walked past Jo, past the fire, and out of the library.