Promises to Keep

by Rose Marie Ferris

  In fact, she amended, as she dared to view herself all at once from the neck down, her figure could be considered damned good!

  She badly wanted to know if the reality of her body without the towel lived up to the promise she thought she detected with it. After squaring her shoulders and tilting up her chin, she prepared to peel the towel away and was struck by the combativeness of her posture.

  Why should she feel this reluctance to let the towel drop? Even the notion that she might do so caused her face to flame with color.

  "Heavens!" she murmured. She wasn't all that prudish, was she? She was behaving like some Victorian maiden—which she damned well couldn't be. Not Victorian in these modern times and certainly, having been married to Garth, no maiden!

  With all the strength at her disposal, she willed herself to lower the towel. She was dismayed to find she still couldn't do it. Something inside wouldn't let her. She grimaced disparagingly. Garth had teased her about her modesty, but this was ridiculous!

  Was there something terribly wrong with her that was unsightly? She suddenly realized that while she'd never been aware that she was avoiding looking at her body when she was naked, this was precisely what she did. But even so, she'd seen enough to know that she had the appropriate quota of feminine accoutrements and that her parts were normally distributed. So she wasn't disfigured.

  "This is stupid!" she cried, and her voice bounced back at her from the beige tile of the walls.

  The problem had been blown up out of all proportion. It had become monumental.

  "I'm going to bed." She announced her intention belligerently, as if there were someone there to stop her, but there was no one but her to hear the words she shouted.

  Once in bed, she tossed and turned until she heard voices in the hall outside and the scraping of a key in the lock. Since he thought she would be sleeping, Garth had apparently prevailed upon the desk clerk to let him into the unit so he wouldn't have to disturb her.

  When he entered, moving quietly about the room as he made his own preparations for the night, Julie remained very still, breathing deeply and evenly as she feigned sleep.

  Garth is here and everything is going to be all right, she silently encouraged herself. This thought proved to be such an effective opiate that it was the last thing she was conscious of until she awoke before the sun the next morning.

  Thanks to the length of time she'd spent in the regimen of the hospital, Julie no longer needed the chirrupy night nurse who would come into her room every day at the crack of dawn to waken her so she could scrub the sleep from her eyes in time to spend an hour or more waiting for the breakfast trays to be delivered to the ward. After having been subjected to four weeks of this, her inner alarm had gone off, and she opened her eyes promptly at six o'clock.

  Garth was still sleeping soundly in the bed next to hers, and she envied him his undisturbed slumber. She lay without stirring, watching for daybreak in the minuscule amount of light the heavy weave of the drapes allowed to filter into the room.

  The time seemed to drag until Garth finally woke up, but when he did, he was instantly alert and immensely vital. He literally bounded out of bed and immediately disappeared into the bathroom. Seconds later Julie heard the shower running and above this the sound of his voice raised in song, its volume amplified by the acoustics of the tub enclosure.

  What was he singing? She listened with all of her being, and her mouth curved in a smile when she heard the western twang he'd adopted as he sang "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." When several choruses of this were followed by "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," her smile became more generous, and when he broke into "Rocky Mountain High" for his finale, she giggled. He'd imitated the styles of Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and John Denver and his impressions were so true to life, she expected half of the recording industry to come through the bathroom door behind him.

  When he was dressed and had reentered the bedroom, it didn't take Julie long to realize that, notwithstanding his serenade from the shower, Garth was in a foul mood. His response to her good morning was a quelling stare, and when she'd had her turn in the shower and was ready for the day—dressed, much as he was, in jeans and a plaid shirt—her further attempts at conversation were met with equally dampening monosyllables.

  She wondered whether he was always this out of sorts and uncommunicative first thing in the morning or if his grouchiness was due to their awkward situation. In some ways he was a victim of circumstances that were even less enviable than hers. How did he contrive to cope so coolly, trapped in the framework of marriage to a wife who didn't remember him? That, Julie thought, must be a much more bitter pill than the one she'd had to swallow.

  Even after they were seated in the restaurant and he'd drunk his first cup of coffee, Garth's manner toward her did not sweeten. He was pleasant to their waitress; smiling and very courteous. It seemed to Julie that she was the only one who provoked his ill-tempered grumbles. In the end she, too, fell silent, and after a few bites of scrambled egg she merely crumbled her. toast and pushed the food around on her plate.

  "Aren't you going to finish that?" Garth asked sourly.

  "I'm not very hungry."

  His eyes roved over her, detached and critical as he conducted his assessment of her. "You look as if you haven't had a decent meal since you left California," he said.

  So in Garth's opinion she was too thin, she thought, shrugging ruefully as she said farewell to her inflated estimate of her figure. "Well, you know hospital food," she replied. "You can tell the day of the week by the menu. It's so predictable, it's boring."

  For a time after they resumed their journey, Julie occupied herself with watching the scenery. It promised to be another glorious day, though not as warm as the one before. They left the towns of Sage and Cokeville behind, heading toward the Salt River Range of mountains, and the highway began to climb more perceptibly. In whatever direction she looked, there was something to fire the imagination and please the eye.

  When they passed a draw that was below the grade of the highway and Julie saw a horse-drawn canvas-covered wagon, she turned to ask Garth if he thought it might have been a chuck wagon, but after one short glance at him she changed her mind.

  His eyes were gray and dark as slate—and as hard —rendering his expression more forbidding than ever. As if he knew she'd been about to say something, he put another tape on the stereo. After he'd adjusted the tuning knobs, the measured cadences of a Chopin nocturne filled the moody silence in the car.

  Again Julie recognized the performing artist. It had to be Horowitz. Surely no other pianist could shade each nuance of the melody so poignantly and still maintain the fine balance between passion and bathos. It was becoming apparent that Garth had catholic tastes in music and, if one could rely on her familiarity with his selections, so did she.

  Reluctantly she turned her eyes away from Garth. Thunderheads were massing above the mountain peaks far to the north, and she had the distinct impression that a storm was brewing inside the car that would rival any fireworks Mother Nature could cook up.

  Though she tried not to, she couldn't resist stealing an occasional look at her husband. She thought he resembled some dark angel when he frowned at something he saw in the road ahead. Despite the warmth of the day, she shivered. She had the notion that being Garth's wife—really his wife—might be, for her, the most direct pathway to hell. But she had no doubt that if only he wanted to, he could make even that seem like heaven.

  When they reached the summit of the Salt River Pass, Garth pulled into the parking area by the side of the highway and they left the car to stretch their legs. They walked along the ridge, gazing at the previously unnoticed face of Wyoming that was revealed to them from this vantage point.

  A panorama of the rolling flanks of the mountains stretched out before them as far as they could see. It was a peaceful vista in variegated green, stimulating to the senses but so gentle to the soul that Julie felt a sharp pang
of regret that, for practical purposes, she was seeing it alone.

  But as if Garth felt as keenly as she did that it was somehow wrong to experience such sublime tranquillity and remain willfully hostile, as if he longed as she did to share it with someone, he touched the back of her hand. Although his touch might have been purely accidental, she responded by turning her hand into the encompassing warmth of his and he held her fingers tightly, almost painfully.

  For a long time they stood side by side, joined as much by the similarity of their reactions to the view as by their clasped hands. And they did not let go of each other when at last they retraced their steps to the car.

  Chapter Five

  With each mile they covered now the terrain became more rugged, the descent from the pass more abrupt. Preferring a picnic at one of the wooden tables by the river to a meal taken indoors, they stopped at the 'carryout' window of a fast-food cafe in Afton to buy provisions for lunch.

  It was noticeably cooler now that they were farther north. There was a crystalline quality about the air and the barest hint of a breeze whispered through the stately ranks of the pines, inviting the bronzy-orange leaves of the willows to dance and fly away with it.

  Because she'd eaten so little at breakfast, Julie was ravenous and the fish and chips tasted like ambrosia —with the addition of malt vinegar, better than ambrosia, she qualified as she greedily ate every crumb of her portion.

  They'd finished their food and were almost through with their drinks when, without warning, Garth announced, "Daniel Leeds is married."

  Julie darted a look at his face. It was a model of inscrutability. Her eyes skidded away from him and she pretended an interest she no longer felt in the river rushing by their picnic spot.

  "Is that supposed to be of some significance to me?" she asked.

  "You damned well know the answer to that!" Garth exclaimed harshly.

  "Why are you telling me now? Yesterday you refused to discuss it even though I wanted to. Today, because it happens to suit you, you resurrect the subject."

  "I didn't bring it up out of choice, I assure you," he replied. "It simply seemed to me that you should be informed of the fact before you actually see him."

  Steeling herself to look directly at him, she persisted, "But why tell me now—at this moment? Why didn't you tell me yesterday?"

  "I only learned about it last night when I called Leeds to let him know I'd located you and that we're on our way to see him." With exaggerated patience, Garth explained, "I've only spoken to him once. That was shortly after you disappeared and our conversation was confined to my notifying him that you might be coming to Jackson Hole. A few days later he telephoned to let me know you hadn't turned up. He asked to be kept posted and I saw that he was, but I didn't speak to him personally—not on that occasion and not since then. I asked my administrative assistant to take on that dubious privilege and he handled all the subsequent communications with Leeds as well."

  Garth paused to drink the last few swallows of his beer. He studied the empty can meditatively as he scraped designs over the trademark with his thumbnail.

  "When I called last night, Mrs. Leeds answered." He shook his head disgustedly and crushed the beer can. "She sounds a good deal older than her husband," he remarked caustically.

  "How do you know she was his wife?" she argued, taking his criticism of the Leedses as a personal insult. "Maybe she's his housekeeper. Maybe she's a friend or a relative."

  Garth's mouth hardened to a cynical line. "Sorry, Julie, but she was speaking in such a low tone of voice, I could barely hear her and when I suggested we might have a bad connection she told me it was because she'd answered the call on the extension in their bedroom. And she said—and I'm quoting her verbatim—'Dan's in bed. He's been so worried about Julie that he's hardly slept in the past few weeks, so I'd rather not disturb him.' To top it all off, she invited us to stay with them. Even you will have to admit, the only thing all of that could possibly add up to is 'wife'!"

  Julie's reaction to this indictment was a disdainful silence.

  "Well?" Garth prompted when she offered no opinion.

  "You've convinced me," she conceded.

  "And?"

  "And nothing. Zero. Zilch! It makes no difference to me because I don't remember Daniel Leeds. And even if I did, he could have ten wives for all I'd care. I don't believe there's anything more than friendship between us."

  Garth's expression became more skeptical than ever and, stung by the calculating way he was looking at her, she asked, "Why would I marry you if I were in love with someone else?"

  "I can think of several possibilities," he replied steadily. "The most likely one is that you were unhappy with your limited role in his life and you reached the conclusion that there was no future in continuing an affair with a married man. You decided that you'd look out for number one and after your grandmother died you came to California to reduce the odds you might waver in your decision."

  His mouth twisted into an unpleasant downcurve that was almost a sneer. "What it all boils down to, is that you married me for a reason as old as time— money !"

  "I've never heard anything more absurd!"

  "What's absurd about it?" he asked, purposely misunderstanding her. "I'm no Onassis, but I'm not exactly a pauper either."

  Unable to remain seated at the table when she was fuming inwardly, Julie leapt to her feet and all but ran to the river's edge. She heard Garth's beer can rattle against the metal rim of the trash barrel before it dropped in and she was aware that he was close on her heels, but she kept her eyes determinedly fixed on the pebbly bottom of the streambed until he took her by the shoulders and forcibly turned her. He was annoyed by her obstinacy and nearing the end of his patience, and he shook her a bit in exasperation.

  "I wish I could pound some sense into that hot little head of yours. For your own good, sooner or later you're going to have to face facts." The measured calmness of his voice was nullified by the severity of his frown. "It's fairly obvious that you have enough of a conscience to feel guilty about what you've done and that accounts for your amnesia. You must know that your doctors could find no physical cause for it. Perhaps if you accepted the truth about yourself, your memory would return."

  "Heaven protect me from amateur psychologists!" she petitioned heatedly. In what she hoped was a withering tone, she asked, "Did you dream that one up all by yourself, or did you have some help?"

  "It's my own idea," he acknowledged, "but Doctor Ziegler agreed with it."

  "What Doctor Ziegler knows about human nature could be written in block letters on the head of a pin!" she retorted. "And let me tell you, Garth Falconer, you'll never convince me that I'm so mercenary that I'd be capable of marrying a man—any man—for money alone." The pitch of her voice had risen with the force of her anger and her fury overcame her caution as she added, "Furthermore, I don't think you've told me this out of an altruistic desire to help me. I think your motive was nothing more and nothing less than sheer, cussed egotism!"

  "I'm willing to admit that I have my share of ego. What's wrong with that?" he countered evenly. "But as to my being driven by it—that's a case of the pot calling the kettle black!"

  They were standing toe to toe, practically nose to nose, as if they were prize fighters squaring off in the ring. Her eyes blazed up into the accusing fire of his and his hands were intolerably heavy on her shoulders, yet he'd spoken with the same deceptive quietness as before. Julie thought his core of stillness, like the eye of a hurricane, masked a potential for cataclysmic destructiveness. She found it more frightening than if he'd bullied and blustered, but she would not permit herself the luxury of backing down.

  "You—" She stopped and pulled sharply away from him. She was stymied, at a loss for an adjective odious enough to apply to him. Inadequately, she cried, "You can take your advice and your insulting opinions and blow them out your ear!"

  "Come, come, Julie!" he chided mockingly. "You can do much better than
that."

  Rising to the bait, she snapped, "You're insufferable!"

  He was completely unscathed by her outburst. His posture was relaxed and easy, with his hands resting on his hips, and that she had succeeded only in amusing him became obvious when he laughed outright. This goaded her into a further display of temperament.

  "Oooh!" she wailed. "A person can't win with you. It makes me want to stamp my feet and scream."

  "So?" He arched a condescending eyebrow at her. "Don't let me stop you. Lord knows you never have before."

  Infuriated by this additional taunt, she actually did stamp her foot. As soon as she gave in to the impulse, she was embarrassed that she'd indulged in such childish histrionics. In a turmoil of anger and shame and confusion, she spun on her heel to dash away from Garth and into the pines. When she heard him calling her name, chasing her, she ran even faster. She felt as though she were being pursued by demons and she left the trail to dodge in and out among the trees and crash headlong through the underbrush.

  In truth, her flight soon approached the proportions of a nightmare. From every side, branches and thorns reached out to clutch at her, to pluck at her clothing, to tear at her hair and skin. In her distraught state of mind, even the trunks of the trees seemed to assume frightening shapes.

  Initially the pounding of Garth's steps and the snapping of twigs breaking beneath his feet kept pace with her and this was the most alarming aspect of all. But somehow she managed to elude him until she tapped her reserves of stamina for an additional burst of speed.

  Julie could not begin to estimate how far she had run before she slowed to a walk. She no longer heard Garth so close behind and she knew only that she could not go any farther. Her legs gave way and she collapsed to sit on a fallen log. Her lungs were burning with a need for air and her chest was heaving as she labored to fill them. Her heart thudded erratically beneath her breastbone.