A Vow to Love

by Sherryl Woods

  What the hell was she thinking of? he thought angrily. She couldn't throw out all of her years of work, all of her dreams just because of some ridiculous infatuation she thought she had with him. She'd find somebody else. For that matter, from what he'd seen the other night, she already had. So why would she leave now?

  "Did she say why she was going?" he asked cautiously, not sure he wanted to hear the answer. Since Brandon Halloran hadn't started the conversation by cussing him out, Penny apparently hadn't mentioned him among her reasons for packing up and running away.

  "Nothing that made a bit of sense," Brandon said vaguely. "I thought maybe you could talk to her, find out what's really going on in that head of hers. She can be downright impulsive sometimes. Maybe you can try to make her see how much she'll regret this."

  Though Brandon's evasiveness should have alarmed him, it didn't seem to matter. All that mattered was this gut-deep sense of dread and outrage washing through him.

  "Oh, I'll talk to her, all right," Sam said decisively. "She'll move back to California over my dead body."

  "I knew I could count on you," Brandon said.

  Sam wasn't so incensed by Penny's plans that he missed the smug note in Brandon's voice. Okay, so maybe the old man was scheming again, but he was right to get Sam involved this time. He might very well be the only person on the face of the earth who could make Penny see what a terrible mistake she was making.

  He debated waiting until morning to confront her, but decided he'd never sleep another wink, anyway. Besides, he wanted to talk to her while he was still furious. This was one time he didn't intend to give her an inch.

  He dragged on his clothes, considered shaving, then dismissed the idea. He doubted she'd notice. It took him considerably less time than the speed limit allowed to get to her apartment. By the time he climbed the stairs, he was ready to wring her neck. He leaned on the buzzer, while pounding on the door.

  It took at least five minutes for her to open it. Since she looked wide-awake, he guessed it was because she couldn't decide whether or not to let him in.

  "Have you lost your mind? It's nearly three in the morning," she told him without stepping aside to let him in.

  "Your state of mind is the problem. I just spoke to Granddad Brandon. He told me what you're planning to do and I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and let it happen."

  He bulldozed his way past her and moved to the middle of the living room. "Shut the door."

  Her eyes blazed with quick anger. "Excuse me, but this is still my apartment."

  He shrugged. "Leave it open, then, and let the neighbors hear everything I have to say. One of them will probably call the cops. Who knows, maybe even Ryan and Jake will be on duty. They'd get a real charge out of getting involved in another one of our little family squabbles."

  She closed the door, but she still didn't budge. Sam glanced around the living room for some signs of packing. There were stacks of stuff all over the place, but no boxes. Maybe she just hadn't picked them up yet. Hell, maybe she had a mover coming to pack for her.

  "I ought to shake you," he said, glaring at her.

  "Exactly what sin am I supposed to have committed now?"

  "How long did you dream about going to Harvard?"

  "From the time I was sixteen," she said, looking puzzled. "What has that got to do with anything?"

  "And what about your job? Do you still like it?"

  "I love it."

  "Then what the hell is wrong with you? You can't throw it all away and go running back to California just because things haven't worked out for you and me." He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. His voice dropped as he gazed into her startled eyes. "Please, don't make me feel responsible for you giving up your dream."

  Penny understood the words. She even understood the vague alarm she thought she detected in his voice. What didn't make sense was why he would be trying to prevent her from doing something she'd never voiced any intention of doing. More important even than that, though, was the genuine dismay evident in his eyes.

  Impulsively she reached up and touched his cheek. A shudder swept through him. She could feel it. Suddenly she sensed that they were standing on the edge of a precipice. What she did or said now could make all the difference to their future. Knowing that almost panicked her. She forced herself to go slowly.

  "What is this all about?" she asked quietly.

  "I don't want you to move back to California."

  "Why?"

  "Because it would be wrong for you. This is where you belong."

  Oh, Sam, she thought miserably. Why can't you just come out and say it?

  "Why do I belong here?" she asked, determined to make him face what was really upsetting him. However this misunderstanding had begun--and she thought she detected her grandfather's fine hand at work--she intended to make the most of it.

  "I grew up in California," she pointed out. "My family's there. Why shouldn't I go back?"

  "Now?" he said, clearly exasperated. He shoved his hand through his already mussed hair. "When you're just getting started? Running makes you a coward. Isn't that what you accused me of being?"

  "Maybe I had a good teacher," she replied, looking into his eyes. "One of the best, in fact. What's your point?"

  "My point is that you belong here." Blue eyes that had turned dark with misery clashed with hers. "Don't go," he said softly.

  "Why should I stay here?" she persisted. "Give me one good reason, Sam. Just one."

  He looked tormented. He turned away from her, walked to the window and stared outside for what seemed an eternity. Penny ached for him.

  With his back still to her, he finally said, "I don't think I could stand it if you left."

  Penny's heart thumped unsteadily. She wanted to go to him, to take him in her arms and promise never to leave, but she forced herself to stay where she was.

  "Why?" she asked again, knowing she sounded like a child intent on discovering why the sky was blue, the grass green, the stars shiny.

  A dry chuckle seemed to be wrenched from him. "You're going to force the words out of me, aren't you?"

  "You're asking me to stay in Boston. I think I deserve to know exactly why that matters to you."

  "Your dreams are here," he said, turning back to her.

  She nodded, allowing herself the beginnings of a smile. "Yes, they are."

  "Do those dreams still include me?" The words seemed to have been wrenched from somewhere deep inside him.

  "They always have," she admitted. "From the day I met you."

  "Then stay," he asked again.

  "Why?"

  "Because..." He met her gaze, swallowed hard, then tried again. "Because I love you and I want you here with me."

  Penny closed her eyes, thrilling to the sensation that those hard-won words sent washing through her. Tears tracked down her cheeks.

  "Thank you," she said finally. "Thank you for saying the words. Thank you for finally admitting what you feel."

  He still looked uncomfortable with the whole idea, but he didn't go all silent on her.

  "I didn't know that was how I felt until tonight when Brandon called and told me you were leaving," he admitted. "I knew that I couldn't let you go. Even five minutes ago, I wasn't sure I knew exactly why keeping you here was so important to me. And I'm still not sure I know exactly what love is, but I know the thought of the emptiness there would be in any life I had without you made me crazy." He smiled slowly. "I guess Randy was right. Men are really lousy at being in touch with their feelings."

  She grinned back at him. "Now that you are in touch, aren't you glad?"

  He reached for her then and pulled her into his arms. Penny felt the racing of his heart, even as she reveled in his solid strength.

  "Frankly, I'm scared spitless," he admitted, holding her tightly. "I don't believe in happily-ever-afters."

  "Leave that to me," she told him, sliding both hands up his chest so that she could twine them around his
neck. "I'll take care of tomorrow, if you'll concentrate on today." She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "On this minute." She deepened the kiss. "On this second."

  "Like this?"

  He grinned and began stripping away her clothes with such slow deliberation that every one of Penny's nerves sizzled with anticipation.

  "Exactly like that," she encouraged.

  "I'm feeling better about it all the time," he said, his voice husky.

  It was only after hours of showing him all the ways she would love him that Penny dared to let him in on how he'd been hoodwinked.

  "I was never planning to leave, you know," she said casually, her fingers curled in the mat of hair on his chest.

  Hooded blue eyes opened wide. "You weren't?" Then a gleam of understanding lit his eyes. "Your grandfather at work, right?"

  "How come when he's meddling, he's mine? You call him Granddad Brandon yourself the rest of the time."

  "When he's up to no good, I want no part of him," he said, though he was grinning. "You haven't said, though. Did he make the whole thing up?"

  She nodded. "He was getting pretty desperate last time I talked to him," she admitted. "I had no idea he would come up with anything quite so devious, though."

  "With his track record? This was pretty tame stuff. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm surprised he didn't try something to motivate you to make the first move. How recently did you talk to him?"

  "Just the other night. I didn't hold out a lot of hope for us."

  "And he didn't try to manipulate you?" Sam said in amazement.

  Penny thought back over the conversation. Most of it had been pretty straightforward. "He did mention that you'd gone back to work. He suggested you might be a little careless, since you didn't place much value on your own life. He wanted me to try to stop you."

  Sam regarded her intently. "You didn't believe him?"

  "I believed that you might not think people care about you, even though there's tons of evidence to the contrary, but I didn't for a moment believe you'd be careless. You're too good a cop. And I refused to interfere."

  He took a deep breath. "That's something we should talk about. I could give it up, take that job at Halloran he's always offering me," he said.

  Penny heard the anguish in his voice and knew how difficult it had been for him to make the offer. She pulled out of his arms and drew herself up onto her knees. Gazing into his eyes, she took his face in her hands. "You don't have to do that for me."

  "I don't want you terrified every time I walk out the door to go to work. I don't want you caught up in the ugliness the way you were with Tank."

  "I can handle it," she reassured him, forcing the brave words out. "The only thing I couldn't handle would be losing you because I've tried to turn you into somebody else. You wouldn't be happy. You'd resent it and me. Besides, with you on the job, maybe one day there won't be so many guys like Tank on the street anyway."

  Sam's hands closed over hers and brought them to his lips. "I love you," he said quietly.

  And this time, to Penny's joy, he didn't stumble over the words at all.

  Epilogue

  Brandon Halloran stood in the hospital hallway gazing raptly at the baby who was squalling his head off in the bassinet right down front in the crowded nursery. The nurse had pointed him out, but Brandon was convinced he would have recognized him anywhere.

  "Looks just like you," Lizzy observed.

  He gazed down at his beloved wife and saw the twinkle in her eyes. "He is a handsome little devil, isn't he?"

  "I was referring to his big mouth."

  He scowled at her affectionately. "Hush, woman. That's my great-grandbaby you're talking about."

  "And mine," she reminded him tartly. Then her voice softened. "Oh, Brandon, he really is precious, isn't he? Have you ever seen a baby as cute?"

  Brandon heard the chuckles behind him and turned to find Sam and Penny watching them, their eyes sparkling with tolerant amusement.

  "Even though it's barely dawn, we thought we'd find you here," Penny said, hugging them both. "Couldn't you even come to say hello to the new mother first? Everyone else has gone home now."

  "Thanks to your bad planning, we took that blasted red-eye flight. I'm getting too old to fly all night and still be sociable in the morning." His gaze narrowed. "What made you think we'd be down here? How'd you even know we were back in town?"

  Penny laughed. "Are you kidding? We've had minute-by-minute reports from the second your plane took off from Los Angeles, primarily because that's how frequently you called. Whoever put telephones into airplanes obviously had you in mind."

  She gazed up at her husband. "How many times did he check in with your sister?"

  "Six at last count," Sam reported, to Brandon's chagrin. "Jason unplugged the phone."

  "And with Kevin and Lacey?"

  Sam shot him a grin. "I believe they stopped answering after the first ten calls."

  Penny nodded. "Sounds about right. Add that to the half dozen calls fielded by the nursing staff and the one that actually got put through to the delivery room and I'd say you didn't miss one single minute of my labor. By the way, the doctor says he's charging extra for having to put up with your consultation. He wasn't overjoyed by all your questions about his qualifications, either."

  Brandon took the taunting in stride. He loved the sass the women in his life gave him. The men, too, for that matter. The fact that they still indulged in so much affectionate teasing made him feel alive. Some men his age were all but ignored by their families. Knowing that would never happen to him filled him with joy. He gave thanks for it every day of his life.

  He frowned at his granddaughter. "If you hadn't gone and had him so blasted fast, I'd have been here before the end," he informed her huffily. "You always were in a rush."

  "It didn't seem fast to me," she protested. "And, frankly, I wasn't about to let it drag on just to suit your timetable. If you wanted to be in on the delivery, you should have come back a week ago when I warned you I thought he was going to be early."

  Brandon shot an I-told-you-so glance at his wife and caught Lizzy lifting an imploring gaze toward heaven. That look was mighty familiar. She often asked for help in putting up with his shenanigans. Made a big deal of it, in fact, but he guessed she wouldn't have him any other way.

  "Don't get him started on that, please," she begged Penny. "It's all my fault. I told him first babies were almost never early and that labor always took a long time. He grumbled at me from the minute the call came in and never let up until we touched down in Boston. Don't blame me if he takes up residence in your guest room from your seventh month on next time."

  Brandon leaned on the cane that more and more seemed to be a necessity since he'd broken his hip in an absurd skiing accident in Switzerland the previous winter. Whoever heard of putting a tree smack in the middle of a ski run? At any rate, he was just glad it had been him and not Lizzy. She was never going to let him forget it as it was. She had told him they had no business trying to learn to ski at their age. He'd figured they didn't have any time to waste. He wanted to try everything he'd missed out on over the years. He might even take up roller-blading one of these days.

  But no matter how far they traveled or how many adventures they shared, coming home to family was still what he liked best. He thought he could relax a little now that his favorite granddaughter and that rapscallion husband of hers had finally settled down. Getting them married had required the last of his matchmaking skills. He thought maybe it was time to retire from the meddling business...at least until the next generation was a little older and needed some sage advice.

  He gazed into the nursery at the squalling baby again and his heart swelled with pride and a sense of accomplishment that wasn't rightly his to feel. "You named him yet?"

  Penny and Sam exchanged a look.

  "There was never any doubt about it," Sam said.

  Brandon regarded the pair of them with tears in his eyes as he anti
cipated the answer. He hadn't dared to hope they would honor him this way.

  "With your permission, we'd like to call him Brandon Halloran Roberts," said the fine young man Brandon had always thought of as one of his own.

  Penny reached out and squeezed his hand. "We love you, Grandfather," she said.

  His throat clogged with emotion. "Nothing could make me happier than having this baby as my namesake," he told them. "I just pray he'll have half the life I've had."

  His gaze went to Lizzy and turned gentle. "And some small measure of the love," he added. "If he has that, his life will be rich, indeed."

  Sam slid his arm around Penny's waist and regarded Brandon with all the strength and determination Brandon had always known he possessed. It was Penny, though, who had given him the ability to see it in himself.

  "We'll see to it that he does," Sam promised. "He's got a father who's finally learned what love and family are all about."

  Sam's gaze settled on his wife then and Brandon could see the depth of emotion these two shared. It had been a long time coming, but it was the kind of bond that would last through all time, just as his had with Lizzy.

  With his own heart overflowing with joy, Brandon reached for his wife's hand.

  "We've been blessed, Lizzy."

  She reached up and touched his weathered old cheek. The caress still had the power to stir him.

  "Twice blessed," she reminded him. "It's a legacy we can leave to all the generations of Hallorans to come."

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5373-9

  A VOW TO LOVE

  Copyright (c) 1994 by Sherryl Woods

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.