Promises to Keep

by Rose Marie Ferris

  "I could tell he wasn't the kind who'd go off the deep end," Dan said, defending himself.

  "You know more than I do, then," Garth said wryly. He glanced uncertainly at Julie. "You don't know how close I came to doing just that! Especially when you admitted flat out that you love Julie and in the next breath said you were married."

  "But we're not," Jessie denied. "Not legally anyway."

  "You're my wife, Jessie, in every way that really matters." Dan was adamant. "And I do love Julie. She's like the daughter we never had."

  "I won't argue with that," Jessie agreed. "I love her too. And I love you, Daniel Leeds, even if you are an old fool!"

  There was a closeness between these two that was touching to see, Julie thought, in spite of Dan's raised eyebrows that seemed to ask Garth, What can you do with such a woman?

  Dan and Jessie urged them to check out of their motel and spend the night. Because she felt a sense of kinship with them, Julie found the idea appealing, and Garth seemed happy enough to go along with the plan. He made the trip into Jackson to collect their luggage and when he returned, he found a defiant Julie waiting for him in the room they were to share.

  "I'm not going to sleep in this room with you," she announced. The tender curve of her mouth was set in a rebellious line.

  "Why not?" Garth asked. "We shared a room last night."

  "That was different. There were two beds." A wave of her hand called his attention to the double bed with which this room was furnished.

  Garth sighed wearily and shook his head. "Julie, I've no intention of moving into another room."

  "Then I will!" She made a move toward the hallway.

  "No, you won't." He stationed himself directly in front of the door and although his stance was nonchalant, his smoldering expression warned her that, should it become necessary, he would use force to prevent her leaving. "You're my wife, Julie," he said softly.

  "I don't feel as if we're married."

  "But we are and you'll only find it more difficult to adjust to the fact if you continually postpone the normal husband-and-wife intimacies."

  Her shoulders slumped dispiritedly and he re-minded her, "I gave you my word I wouldn't make any demands."

  "You also said you're not very good at resisting temptation."

  "Don't flatter yourself," he retorted coldly. "It's been a long day—a long three days since I left California. Hell, it seems more like three years! After chasing you over half the country, all I'm interested in is a good night's sleep."

  Garth turned on his heel and stalked out of the room and, left alone, Julie sank numbly onto the side of the offending bed and buried her face in her hands.

  It was disquieting to reckon with the fact that, aside from one brief and minor skirmish, she would offer no opposition to sharing both a room and a bed with him. Part of her had wanted the controversy to end this way—with Garth imposing his will on her. Did he know that? Was that why he was so confident she would comply with his edict that he could simply walk away from her?

  Something cold and damp nudged her hand away from her face and she looked up and saw that Buck had wandered into the room. The dog was sitting as close as possible to her and his fine intelligent eyes conveyed the message that he sensed her confusion and that he sympathized with her.

  Still weighed down by the burden of her thoughts, Julie absently reached out to scratch Buck behind the ears and pet the fawn and sable coat over his neck and shoulders. His tail thumped the floor, and when she would have stopped, he nudged her hand with his nose to set it moving again.

  "All right, Bucky," Julie said, laughing. "You win." She rose and together they went downstairs to the living room.

  Dan had certainly developed the gift of his expressive voice to the fullest, Julie thought sometime later as she listened to him telling Garth how he'd happened to settle in Jackson Hole. It was after midnight and Jessie had long since excused herself and retired, but Dan had held Garth so spellbound that he'd forgotten how ready he was for "a good night's sleep."

  As for her, she was too contented to move from her cozy spot near the hearth. She was half lying against a floor cushion, watching shadows cast by the fire dancing on the ceiling. Buck had curled up beside her and his head was a comforting weight on her lap, while the sound of the men's talking wove its magic around her.

  "My father and I first came west in the early thirties," Dan recounted. "Dad fought in the trenches in World War One and he'd been a victim of mustard gas. He never recovered from that, and we were riding the rails, heading for New Mexico. We thought the desert climate might help his lungs, but by the time we got to Jackson Hole, he was too sick to travel any farther."

  "It goes without saying that we were poor—and I don't mean just temporarily short of funds. Lots of people like to tell about how, during the Depression, they lived in a cold-water flat or a tarpaper shack in some shantytown, maybe even under a bridge or in a railroad tile. But hell's bells!"—Dan snorted derisively—"they don't know what poor is. Now my dad and I were really hard up against it. We were so poor, we were living in a bush!"

  Garth's quick smile showed that he was not gullible enough to accept this claim at face value.

  "Dad got to cadging drinks that winter. It was one of the coldest on record," Dan added, digressing, "but the winters here are always cold. To the natives, spring is just two weeks of bad skiing! Then one night when he'd gotten more than moderately blitzed, Dad crawled into the backseat of Bert Ransome's Model A to keep warm. The trouble was, old Bert wasn't any too sober himself and he drove all the way home without noticing anything unusual. To make a long story short, the exhaust on the car was faulty, and Dad was asphyxiated."

  Dan shook his head sadly. "Poor old man," he said, sighing. "But I guess maybe he was better off out of it."

  "What did you do then?" Garth asked. "You couldn't have been much more than—"

  "I was fifteen. A homely, scrawny kid with nothing at all to recommend me to anyone. I was like some wild creature. I trusted no one and I lived by the rule of the jungle."

  Dan stared ruminatively into the fire for a few moments. "That was when I met Julie's grandparents," he continued. "I never knew a finer man than Jim Ayers. He never turned anyone away from his door. Every hobo in the state knew where he lived and most of 'em stopped by for a free meal at one time or another. Jim used to say they might be angels in disguise." Dan paused to clear his throat. "When they made Jim Ayers, they broke the mold. And in her own fashion Elizabeth was a good woman. They were newly married, but they took me in when nobody else would have a thing to do with me and they put up with all my shenanigans till I got myself straightened out."

  "Now, the reason I've told you all of this is so Julie can appreciate that her grandmother had her fine points. In some ways she was more charitable than most, but the truth is, she wasn't cut out for motherhood. Not for marriage either." Dan chuckled. "Jessie put it in a nutshell one time when she said Elizabeth was happy as a spinster, damned miserable as a wife, and the merriest widow you ever saw."

  "By 'merry' do you mean that she liked to play the field?" asked Garth.

  "Lord, no!" Dan's eyebrows shot up. "Elizabeth had no use whatsoever for men. I never could figure out how she and Jim got together long enough to produce Julie's mother. No," he repeated, "by 'merry' I mean only that she found her own company more rewarding than anyone else's. She had impossibly high standards, you see, and she was the only one capable of meeting them. She had no tolerance at all for human failings and since she was the only 'saint' around, that kind of tended to put a crimp in her social life."

  Garth glanced at Julie. "I think I see what you mean," he said thoughtfully.

  The fire had burned down to ash-covered embers, but an errant gust of wind caused a sudden shower of sparks to fly up the chimney. Buck raised his head and whined, got to his feet, stretched and yawned prodigiously. He ambled toward the back door, his nails clicking on the polished wood of the floorboards.
r />   "Should I take him out?" Julie asked.

  "You can let him out on his own," Dan replied. "He'll come back as soon as he's made his nightly rounds."

  Julie opened the door and Buck lifted his nose and sniffed the night air before he trotted outside.

  "He's a fine animal," Garth observed as he watched the dog standing in the doorway.

  "He's getting on in years," Dan said. "Julie and Bucky kind of grew up together."

  Garth stifled a yawn with his hand and Dan looked at the mantel clock. "Look at the time!" he exclaimed. "You're too good an audience, Garth. Jessie will tell you, you shouldn't give me so much encouragement, or I'm apt to go on all night."

  Dan turned to study Julie, who was leaning against the newel while she waited for Buck to return. The light from the fixture directly over her head shadowed her features and revealed that she was pale with fatigue.

  "Why don't you and Julie go on up to bed," Dan suggested. "We'll have plenty of time to talk tomorrow. You do plan to stay on awhile, don't you?"

  Garth had also turned to study Julie. After some deliberation he replied, "Yes, if it's all right with you and Jessie, I think we will stay a few days."

  Chapter Seven

  Julie was cocooned in a delicious warmth that would have been utterly delightful if it weren't for the leaden weight around her middle. She straightened one leg fractionally, reaching with her toes for the end of the bed. When she encountered Garth's ankle, she froze and awoke fully. Her eyes flew open but except for this she didn't move. She seemed not even to breathe.

  She was lying on her side near the edge of the bed and Garth lay so close behind her that his quiet respirations stirred the hair at the nape of her neck. Their bodies were spooned together, with his knees tucked into the hollow made by her drawn-up ones. The heaviness around her waist was his arm. Thank God it was outside the blankets! She could feel his hand partially covering hers and by the dead weight of it she knew that Garth was still asleep.

  Moving only her eyes, she looked down. His hand was very big compared to hers. His fingers were long, brown, blunt-tipped. It was an extremely capable hand, very masterful-looking even though it was relaxed with sleep. Even his fingernails looked strong. The soft contours of her mouth turned upward at the fancifulness of this notion.

  Her eyes strayed over his wrist and forearm, studying them as intently as if she were a sculptor preparing to model them; measuring the substance of bone, the hardness of muscle, the agility of sinew, the suppleness of skin. If she really were a sculptor—or was it sculptress? she wondered—what material would she use for such a project?

  She discarded the possibilities of clay, but asked herself, Should Garth's hand and forearm be cast in bronze in an attempt to duplicate his skin tones, or should they be chiseled from stone for firmness? No, she thought, neither of these was the right choice.

  Perhaps they should be carved from wood. Something tough enough to have endured and flourished in spite of adversity would more nearly approximate the masculine vitality of such a subject. But what variety? Though the color wasn't right, it should be oak. She was sure about that.

  And the wristwatch. It was only six thirty and the dial was barely visible in the dusky half-light. She looked at it closely and saw that it was a gold quartz model of an exclusive brand. She had no doubt it was as valuable as it was handsome, but it would definitely have to go.

  She was distracted by the soft, dark hairs on his wrist, a few of which were caught up in the watch-band. She thought he had just the right amount to be virile and sexy without looking brutish. Her fingers itched to touch it and she made herself look away. Her eyes roamed back to his hand.

  Aside from the watch, he wore no jewelry, not even a wedding ring. She realized she was twisting the gold band on her own finger. In a number of ways she'd surprised herself this morning. The first surprise was that she'd slept at all the night before, the second was that she hadn't stolen out of bed as soon as she'd awakened, and the third was that she was wishing Garth would wake up too. And do what? she asked herself. The answer sprang into her mind, fullblown. If he were to move his hand just a little bit in either direction… The final surprise was the steaminess of the thoughts she was entertaining at this very minute.

  Applying a brake to her wayward fancies, Julie said to herself, "I'll stay here for just a few more seconds and then I'll get up." She closed her eyes and snuggled her cheek into a more restful angle on the pillow. She was no longer bothered by the weight of Garth's arm around her waist; she welcomed it.

  Maybe maple would be a better choice than oak, she mused, or maybe it should be walnut. And should Garth's hand be sculpted open or closed in a fist? She was still pondering this when she drifted off to sleep once again.

  The next time Julie awoke, she cautiously opened one eye and determined that it was full daylight. She stretched out one arm and found that she was alone in the bed. Rolling to Garth's side of the mattress, she buried her face in the depression made in the pillow by his head.

  She smiled when she heard him singing in the shower that adjoined their room. Who was he this morning? The walls in the house were sturdier than those in the motel, but she thought he sounded very much like Billy Joel.

  For some reason this filled her with optimism, and she threw the covers back and jumped out of bed, grinning at her energetic start to the day. In the hospital she'd been prone to making a slower return to full power. Usually she tested the climate of the morning a little at a time, as if she were a swimmer trying to accustom herself to the coldness of the water by dipping a toe into it.

  She went to the window, intending to have only a brief look outside, but the view of the mountains from this perspective deserved more than a cursory glance. They demanded more even than awe; they were worthy of veneration.

  "My God," she breathed softly. How could she have forgotten about the Tetons? This morning their glacier-ravaged faces were concealed from the earth-bound valley at their feet by the clouds they had captured in their craggy peaks, but in spite of this they dominated the landscape, vaulting toward the sky as if they would lay siege to the gates of heaven itself.

  When she saw the Tetons, Julie forgot that she was wearing only Garth's pajama top. She was still at the window when he came out of the bathroom.

  "There's a sight that makes my trip worthwhile," he said.

  She started, for she had been unaware of his return, and when she saw that he was looking at her instead of the Tetons, she became terribly conscious of her state of undress.

  Garth wore only jeans belted low on his hips. There was a towel draped around his neck and he was using one corner of it to wipe away the traces of shaving lather that dotted his chin. Its whiteness made his smoothly tanned skin seem even darker. She'd been right about his build. He was lean-waisted and slim-hipped, and his belly was taut and flat, without an ounce of excess flesh. The muscles of his chest and shoulders were whipcord hard and they rippled with his slightest movement as he dried his face.

  Julie realized she was staring and when she lifted her gaze, he raised one eyebrow as if to inquire whether she'd seen enough. Her cheeks stung hotly and she mumbled, "If you're through in the shower, I'll take my turn now." She didn't wait for his answer before she bolted for the bathroom:

  Once there, she turned the water on and stepped under the spray without testing it. It was so cold, it took her breath away, and although she knew that it might be just the thing to cool her inflamed senses, she adjusted the taps until the water was comfortably warm. She'd forgotten her showercap, and when her hair got wet, she decided she might as well shampoo it. By the time she'd toweled it dry enough to secure it in twin ponytails and was dressed in jeans and yet another plaid shirt, Garth had come back upstairs to see how she was progressing.

  "Jessie wants to know if you're about ready for breakfast," he said.

  "I will be as soon as I finish making the bed," she replied as she pulled the bottom sheet tight and tucked the excess mater
ial under the mattress. Garth leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and stood with his hands in his pockets, watching with more interest than her actions called for as she smoothed the top sheet over the mattress and mitered the corners at the foot.

  "You could bounce a dime off that bottom sheet," he commented idly. "I haven't seen a bed made that way since boot camp. Did you learn to do that in the hospital?"

  Without thinking, Julie replied, "No, I—" Her brows knitted in a frown. "I'm not sure where I learned it."

  Garth pushed away from the door and came to the bed to help her with the spread. "Dan told me there's a trail to the Snake River on the other side of the highway," he said. He handed her one of the pillows. "Would you care to go for a walk after breakfast?"

  "I'd like that."

  She smiled at him and was disappointed when he only inclined his head in response. But when they left the room, he put his arm around her shoulders and he kept it there all the way downstairs until they reached the kitchen.

  Dan advised them not to take the dog with them on their walk. "You won't see any game if Buck's along," he said. "Not that it's any fault of his. He's a gentleman; besides which, he's too old to go chasing after moose or elk, but they're just poor dumb critters and they don't know that."

  Although they left the shepherd at home, they didn't see any sign of bigger game, but in one swampy area the trail skirted a beaver pond and when they'd reached the river, they saw some Canada geese and trumpeter swans.

  An inflatable raft drifted by. One of the men in it was paddling desultorily and the other was casting for trout. They greeted them with smiles and silent waves of their hands.

  Throughout their hike Julie had known that Garth was observing her expectantly, and when she caught him studying her as they sat on the riverbank, she exclaimed irritably, "I do wish you wouldn't keep watching me like that. If I recognize anything, you'll be the first to know!"

  Garth grinned and reached out to tweak one of her ponytails. "That seems fair enough," he said. "It's just that there have been occasions when you haven't been particularly open with me."