Read Snowbound Heart for Free Online Page B

“Will you start on it soon?”
    “I’m not sure. I still have to sell the idea, or the screenplay, to the producer I want to put it on film.”
    “You mean you found this screenplay, or book, or whatever it is yourself?”
    “‘Found’ is not exactly the right word. It may help you to understand my enthusiasm for the story if I tell you I wrote it”
    Clare swung around to stare at him, her gray eyes startled. “You?”
    “Is that so unbelievable?”
    “No, not really. It’s just that is seems strange.”
    “In what way?”
    “People who develop one talent are usually inclined to stop there. A great many actors become directors, but that is really an extension of a craft they already know, isn’t it? Writing is something entirely different.”
    “It has always seemed to me that writers must have a good ear for dialogue and a sense of how people act and react in any given situation. They have to understand movement and emotion and all the other small details that make a character believable.”
    “You may be right,” Clare agreed, “though I am not in a position to say, since I concentrate on nonfiction. But I can’t believe people aren’t falling over themselves to produce this film, especially if you mean to star in it.”
    “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a big commercial buildup out of the fact that I wrote the thing. I expect if I stood still for that, there would be any number of people who would back it. What I want is a quality production with attention to background and detail and a thousand other things that the term means. There is only one man I feel I can trust to handle it for me. And for now there has been a hitch in the negotiations.”
    “One man? Who is he?”
    “A self-made, self-educated man who has more feeling for what makes people tick, characters on the screen as well as actors, than anybody else I’ve ever known. His name is Marvin Hobbs. Does it mean anything to you?”
    “No, I don’t think so,” Clare said with a shake of her head. The words were scarcely out of her mouth before she realized they were untrue. Marvin Hobbs was the husband of the woman who had been with Logan the night he slugged the photographer, the woman whose name had been linked so prominently with that of the actor in the gossip sheets. Clare did not know for certain what the holdup was in the negotiations for the picture, but she thought she might venture a guess. For something to say to break the silence, she said, “Was that your screenplay you were looking at just now?”
    He glanced over his shoulder to where he had left it lying beside the fire. “Yes, it is. It’s finished, but I’m not quite satisfied with it.”
    “I don’t suppose you would consider letting me read it?”
    “Why not?” he answered with a slight shrug. “It seems only fair.”
    “Fair?”
    “I read your articles last night, after you went to sleep.”
    “You what?” Clare flung him a quick look, a flush rising under her skin.
    “They weren’t bad; some were even good, surprisingly good.”
    Clare tilted her head on one side. “I suppose that’s a compliment?”
    “I think it must be,” he admitted, his manner offhand. “I take back what I said about the scandal sheets.”
    “You do?” she said blankly.
    “Don’t run away with the idea that I believe every word of your tale, but I read enough of your work to see that whatever you wrote would be a cut above the usual drivel, even if your method of getting a story is a little crude.”
    A bright light glittering in her gray eyes, Clare asked, “Is that why you told me about your screenplay, to see if you could persuade me to write a little propaganda in support of your cause?”
    “No,” he answered, his voice hard and his blue gaze meeting her eyes squarely. “The fact is, I had forgotten what you are until after I had begun to discuss it with you. However, I feel sure that if I tell you everything I said about it is off the record, I can depend