Read Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 03 - THE SPRING -- a Legal Thriller for Free Online

what?”
    “From whatever might do harm.”
    Above the town of Marble the narrow road was freshly plowed. This was the only way into the town of Springhill, and the only way out. Sophie’s home, on the far edge of town, was a high-beamed pine cabin built in the heyday of mining in the nineteenth century. The Roaring Fork Valley had prospered after silver was found in 1877, but a scant sixteen years later, to protect the nation’s gold reserves, President Cleveland demonetized silver. Most western Colorado mines and business enterprises became bankrupt; coal mining and marble quarrying saved the valley from blending back into the wilderness.
    And then, during Christmas week in 1936, a group of skiers were carried in a four-horse sleigh to the top of Little Annie Basin above the little town of Aspen, to float down from there on wooden skis through the deepest, lightest powder they had ever known. The valley’s economic and social revival began immediately. Not even World War II could stop it—the Tenth Mountain Division, the army’s crack ski troops, trained and partied in the Roaring Fork Valley. Many came back after the war to make their home and their fortune.
    Sophie and Dennis drove along the snowplowed main street of Springhill, past the Volunteer Fire Department, the little gymnasium, the funeral parlor, and the violet-colored wooden bank that looked like part of a Western movie set. Above the bank, Sophie told him, Edward Brophy had his dental office. On the far edge of town, off Quarry Road on forty acres of woods and rolling meadow, they came to Sophie’s log house. The house and land had been a gift from her parents. Sophie had rebuilt the old miner’s cabin, adding a second story, a kitchen with Mexican tile, and a greenhouse. Spanned by a wooden footbridge, a creek wound through the property. Aspens and spruce grew in a glade. Deer drank from the creek and sometimes browsed on the edge of the glade.
    Sophie lit lamps. The light was warm; the cabin had a hint of an enchanted place in a forest. A Swiss cuckoo clock ticked in the living room. An old dark brown violin case stood propped against the coffee table.
    “You play it?”
    “Since I was a child. My great-grandmother taught me. Shall I?”
    “Later, yes. Not now.” Dennis sank into the pillows of the living room sofa. Sitting next to him, Sophie touched his hands. He kissed her for what seemed half an hour: it was only five minutes. Her hands were so cool, and they seemed fragile. It made him want to protect her from whatever might do harm.
    “Do you want to make love?” Sophie asked.
    “Of course I do,” Dennis said.
    Taking his hand, she led him upstairs.
    Moonlight shone into the bedroom. From afar Dennis heard water singing over rocks. When she took off her clothes he saw that she was more lovely than he had imagined.
    In the morning she said, “It’s been two years since I was with a man. And that was very brief. I was starting to think I’d be an old maid.”
    “How could that be? A woman as lovely as you?”
    “I don’t go out. And I’m not easy to please. Listen to what I have to say. The sex was wonderful. I’m sure it will get even better. But I don’t want to be just a sweet diversion—your Colorado girlfriend. If that’s what it is, or will become, be honest and tell me. We’ll both get over it.”
    Dennis didn’t want to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.
    He knew she was more than a diversion but he was afraid to admit, so quickly, how much more he already dreamed of. He was silent, but the way Sophie smiled at him and touched his cheek with cool fingers made him feel she had read his mind.
    For a week they stayed cocooned in the rumpled bed. Sometimes it was two o’clock in the afternoon before they padded downstairs to throw open the door to the refrigerator. Other days they reached the ski slopes of nearby Snowmass Mountain at the crack of noon.
    Together they skied the Hanging Glades. Dennis heard the