The Alpine Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

flushed. I felt fourteen instead of forty-two. As he strolled in my direction, I seriously considered bolting. Then I remembered how unimpressed I was by movie stars and that I was anewspaper publisher and that I had once met Gerald Ford. Somehow, the comparison was inadequate, especially since Ford had seemed far more at a loss for words than I had been.
    “Are you from the logging company?” Matt Tabor’s famous baritone echoed off the evergreens.
    It was the last question I expected. “What?” I sobered quickly. “No, I own the local newspaper. Do you mean Blackwell Timber?”
    “Right.” He was wearing some sort of black vest over his bare chest and had on a pair of very tight black pants. I tried not to notice. “Those jackasses can’t make up their minds,” Matt remarked, not necessarily to me. He was wearing his brooding look, which had served him so well in
Beau Savage
.
    “Oh?” I pretended we were having a conversation. “You mean Jack Blackwell and his crew?”
    He nodded, the black forelock somehow staying in place. “I guess that’s his name. He tells us we can use this place for the location shoot, extorts twenty grand for the privilege, then pitches a fit because we cut down eight lousy trees.” Matt Tabor sneered. I remembered the expression from
No Mercy at Midnight
. “What the hell, he can’t log anyway because his workers get too hot. Or something like that.” He gave a contemptuous shrug of his broad shoulders, just the way he did when he walked out on the heroine at the end of
Jericho in Jersey
.
    “It’s because it’s too dry,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on Reid Hampton and a tall redhead with what looked like a script in her manicured hands. “There’s a danger of forest fire.”
    “Hell.” Matt Tabor reached inside his vest and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Where’s Smokey the Bear when we really need him, huh?” For the first time, he looked directly at me as if I were really there. I looked at his cigarettes. Even after three years of not smoking, I hadn’t lost my craving. But maybe it was safer to lust after Matt Tabor’stobacco than the rest of him. “Who are you?” he asked, in a tone that implied I might not know.
    “Emma Lord. I own
The Alpine Advocate.”
Matt was puffing away, and I resolutely returned my gaze to the preparations in the meadow. I decided I must be seeing double. Two people who looked exactly like Matt and Dani Marsh were standing knee-deep in snow while several others peered, prodded, and conferred. It dawned on me that the man and woman were the actors’ stand-ins, helping the crew get ready for the actual shooting.
    Reid Hampton was coming toward us, a copy of the script under his arm. “Bundle up, Matt. We’re almost ready.”
    “Hell.” Matt Tabor dropped his half-smoked cigarette but didn’t bother to stomp it out. I watched it nervously and as soon as he turned away, I pounced.
    “Is it true,” I asked, hoping Hampton would find my safety zeal contagious rather than laughable, “that Matt Tabor and Dani Marsh plan to marry?”
    Hampton’s smile seemed to stick, rather than merely stay in place. “So I hear. We’ll see if they survive the picture.” He tipped his cowboy hat, then moved off to speak with his cinematographer. Carla had settled into a folding chair, obviously keen on watching the filming. I strolled around the meadow’s edge, looking for wildflowers.
    The mating of Dani Marsh and Matt Tabor struck a discordant note. Visually, they were a perfect pair: beautiful blond Venus; dark and handsome Adonis. But Matt Tabor seemed like a first-run version of Cody Graff. Surely five years and dazzling success in Hollywood should have changed Dani’s taste in men.
    Standing next to an old-growth Douglas fir and hearing the cedar waxwings chatter among its branches, I could believe they were talking about me. Who was I to criticize Dani Marsh’s love life? In over twenty years, I not only didn’t have a new