Promises to Keep

by Rose Marie Ferris

  "Do you find your work as absorbing as you'd hoped it would be?"

  "So far," he replied, shrugging with a nonchalance that, like his earlier flippancy, seemed false. "I certainly can't complain that I'm not challenged by it. We've branched out considerably. We do more consulting for private industry now than for public agencies—pipelines, power plants, that kind of thing. The company is back on its feet financially. Your uncle, incidentally, has been very effective at scouting out new clients for our services."

  For a time they were silent, each of them diverted by the dying glow of the fire. Garth's face was partially shadowed, and this accentuated the austerity of his features, the pride that was so essential a part of him. Garth continued to pet Buck, and the dog's expression was almost human. Buck looked as if he were inordinately pleased with himself.

  "In your own way," Julie surmised, "I think you're every bit as committed to the preservation of certain traditions as your father was."

  After considering this briefly, Garth said, "I suppose that's true."

  "Then why do you try to disguise the way you feel about your family heritage, about the work you do?"

  "Haven't you heard?" he drawled. "The most important thing of all is to keep your cool."

  "What kind of answer is that!"

  "It's the only kind you're going to get until you have some confidence of equal value that you want to barter for a better one."

  For a moment she was dumbfounded. Then, ignoring her misgivings, she blurted heedlessly, "I already have something to tell you. But I'll only trade it for the truth." She forced herself to meet his eyes squarely. "Is it a deal?"

  "Why not?" Garth grinned broadly and cautioned, "It had better be good though."

  The warning was cause for second thoughts, but she had gone too far for a graceful retreat and she had no desire to provoke further dissension between them. She inhaled deeply and announced in a shaky voice, "I think I'm falling in love with you all over again."

  Now it was Garth who was speechless. His face was stunned and dark with some emotion she could not define, and she averted her eyes. She was appalled by her foolishness and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear his response.

  He stood up so rapidly that he alarmed Buck, and the dog skittered away from him in confusion. He patted the shepherd on the head and said evenly, "That's okay, fella."

  In the same quiet tone he declared, "It's late. I'll put Buck out and take care of locking up while you get ready for bed."

  Moving automatically, Julie rose and walked blindly toward the stairs only to be stopped by his hand on her shoulder when she reached them.

  "Good night, Julie," he said firmly, making it painfully clear that he would not be joining her in bed for anything other than sleep. He gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead and when she couldn't resist the impulse to lift her mouth for a more satisfactory caress, his hold on her tightened punishingly.

  "Damn," Garth muttered, and in the next instant his arm hooked around her neck to propel her roughly toward him while his free hand threaded through her hair, stopping to grasp a handful and crush it between his fingers. When the unexpectedly savage pressure of his mouth on hers forced her head back, it was securely wedged in the crook of his elbow.

  He ground his lips into hers so fiercely that his beard grated her skin, and she went stiff with surprise at the first touch of his mouth but she sensed that his anger was directed as much at himself as at her; in spite of his roughness her lips softened to offer a timid response. And when her lips softened, so did Garth's, while becoming, at the same time, more demanding. Julie was hazily aware that she had only thought he'd kissed her before, for this time there was no holding back.

  Garth's lips moved hungrily over hers, compelling her mouth to open for him. But no force was necessary. Her lips parted freely, wantonly. She was eager for the first heady contact of his tongue with hers, and when it came, his assault was softly insistent. Then he probed more intimately, and his ever-deepening invasion of her mouth assumed such a sweet urgency that she felt herself dissolving in the heat of his kiss and knew that nothing would ever be the same again. Surely she would be forever transformed in the fires generated by his passion.

  Her arms were tightly linked around his waist and when his mouth left hers, she slid one hand upward over his chest to stroke his cheek with wonder; lightly tracing his earlobe, the spare angle of his jaw, the strongly defined arch of an eyebrow. His eyes were dark green with amber flames scintillating in their depths.

  "You have the sexiest eyes," she murmured, and Garth's pupils expanded until they seemed to fill the whole iris. But when she tried to touch the curve of his mouth, he caught her hand with his to prevent her from doing so.

  "Don't start anything you're not prepared to finish," he advised her huskily.

  She jerked her hand away as if the feel of his skin had scorched her fingers.

  "I—I'll try not to," she whispered breathlessly.

  He put her away from him and gently turned her toward the stairs. Her knees were shaking so badly, they would barely support her, and she held tightly to the banister as she climbed. When she was halfway to the top, she glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Garth was standing as she'd left him, watching her. Her hand on the rail trembled with the strength of her need for him. She longed to hold out her hand to him, to invite him to come to bed with her—to make love to her.

  They remained this way, motionless figures in an immutable tableau, as time stood still. Even her heart seemed to have stopped beating.

  Only Buck's impatience ended it. He had grown tired of waiting to be let out for his nightly run and when he barked, the spell was broken.

  Garth moved away from the stairs to open the door for the shepherd, and Julie was free to make her way to the bedroom. Yet she was not free, and she knew that she would never be truly free again.

  Chapter Ten

  "Neither of you looks like you slept very much last night," Dan observed the next morning, beaming at them approvingly.

  They hadn't, but not for the reason Dan obviously thought. For a long while after she'd gone to bed, Julie huddled beneath the covers and listened to Garth's steady pacing on the porch that was directly below the windows of their bedroom. Finally she heard the front door open and close as he let Buck into the house, but instead of coming inside, Garth's footsteps had echoed on the concrete of the walk. Seconds later had come the sound of a car being started. The low growl of the motor became more distant as he drove down the lane away from the house.

  Because she had left the bedroom door ajar, she was able to count the hours by the chimes of the mantel clock. It was after three o'clock before Garth returned.

  "Why are you still awake?" he asked when he came to bed. His voice was thick and slightly blurred.

  "I was worried about you," she said. And rightly so, she thought. If one could go by his slurred speech and the sharp odor of Scotch on his breath, he was less than sober.

  "Well, I'm fine," he'd said. "Go to sleep now."

  He hadn't sounded fine. He'd sounded bearish and bad-tempered. And she hadn't gone to sleep. She had lain stiffly on her own side of the bed until the sky began to grow pearlescent with the approach of dawn. Though the space that separated her from Garth was not a wide one—she could easily have reached out and touched him—she had felt that there was an impenetrable barrier between them. She felt it still.

  This morning Garth was so pale that his face had an almost greenish tinge, and he had no more appetite for the ham and eggs Jessie had heaped on his plate than Julie had for her own food. His usually clear eyes were red-rimmed and puffy-lidded, and from the way he narrowed them against the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows, Julie could tell he must have a king-size headache.

  From this evidence alone she would have known that Garth was suffering from a hangover; she couldn't understand how Dan and Jessie could misinterpret such symptoms and leap to the conclusion that a night of lovemaking account
ed for his faintly debauched appearance. In her opinion such an overindulgence wouldn't faze him in the least.

  Julie blushed at this thought, and when she looked hurriedly away from Garth, she caught Jessie in the act of exchanging a wink with Dan.

  They were just finishing breakfast when Jessie asked if they would mind going into Jackson to do some shopping for her. Garth agreed quite amiably.

  He even managed a reasonable facsimile of his engaging grin.

  "Why don't you two make a day of it," Jessie suggested, glancing slyly at Dan. "Do some sightseeing and have lunch in town."

  Garth was noncommittal. "Maybe we will," he replied.

  "I have a grocery list all made out," Jessie said as she bustled from the kitchen to collect it.

  "It's cold today," Dan informed them. "They're predicting snow for tomorrow."

  "I'll get our coats," Garth announced, and Julie had to admire the even tone of his voice and the easy way he strode from the room when she could imagine the effect this must have on his headache.

  When he returned, he was wearing a handsome shearling car coat and carrying her heavy sweater and the fleece-lined vest as well. She knew she'd look ridiculously like a stuffed panda wearing both bulky garments but, giving herself a mental pat on the back for being so considerate of Garth's under-the-weather condition, she put them on without arguing the matter.

  Jessie eyed Garth appreciatively. "I wish you'd get a jacket like that for yourself, Dan," she remarked. "Your old one is so seedy."

  "What?" Dan exclaimed affrontedly. "And give up old faithful!" He shook his head sadly. "I couldn't do that, Jess. Old faithful is more than just a coat. It's kind of a good-luck charm for me."

  "That's so much hooey," Jessie grumbled. "We go through this every fall, and every fall you give me the same runaround. No one is less superstitious than you are, and you know very well that coat is no lucky piece. It's only a scruffy winter parka." In an aside to Garth she explained, "It's so moth-eaten, it reminds me of an old donkey skin—and there are times when I do believe the old donkey's still wearing it!"

  "But Jess," Dan countered, "if I got rid of it, I'd be so perfect you'd have nothing left to complain about." His smile was cherubic as he reasoned, "So you see, sweetheart, it's partly for your benefit that I keep it. After all, I know how dearly you love a lively difference of opinion."

  They were still bickering fondly with one another when Garth and Julie let themselves out of the house to walk through the crispness of the morning air to the car. Garth winced when she allowed the door on her side to slam and eased his own shut. Before he turned the key in the ignition, he put on the sunglasses that were hooked over the visor.

  Julie wanted to ask Why did you leave last night? and Where did you go? but, heeding the warning of his grim expression, she remained silent as he drove toward Jackson. Even when he stopped at a motel coffee shop on the outskirts of town, she only looked at him thoughtfully. He was paler than ever, and there was a fine film of perspiration on his forehead.

  "I just want to get something for a headache," he said smoothly in answer to her unspoken question.

  If Jessie hadn't asked them to do some errands for her, Julie wondered, would Garth have suffered until the headache ran its course rather than admit he had one? His face was taut with pain, and she felt genuinely sympathetic as she followed him into the cafe.

  Garth chose a booth that was quietly situated away from the preferred tables near the windows, and when he had downed some aspirin and coffee, he sat with his head in his hands and his eyes closed. After a few minutes had passed, Julie was relieved to see that his color was markedly improved.

  Because Garth had his back to the room, Julie was the first to notice the tall, strikingly attractive girl who was purposefully making her way through the coffee shop in their direction. From under a broad-brimmed leather hat that was trimmed with feathers, her luxuriant mane of taffy-colored hair fell straight and smooth to her athletic young shoulders and she wore the tourist's standard uniform—fringed suede jacket, western-style shirt, tight blue jeans, and hand-tooled boots—with a panache that belied her ingenuous appearance. And although her clothing was unisex, her well-endowed figure was unmistakably female.

  "Hello again," she caroled as she sat next to Garth in the booth. After a single dismissing look at Julie, her cornflower-blue eyes laughed into his. "I see you found your way home safely last night."

  Garth smiled and said, "Hello, er—"

  "Mindy. Mindy Stryker," the girl provided, affecting a pretty pout that called attention to her full mouth as it expressed her disappointment that he'd forgotten her name.

  "Mindy," Garth repeated. He was still smiling at her, and it was obvious that he was intrigued by her alluring manner. "This is Julie—"

  "Nice to meet you," Mindy interrupted uninterestedly, without shifting her avid gaze from Garth's face.

  Julie glanced from Mindy to Garth. She studied him with renewed interest and decided, uncomfortably, that his vaguely ravaged, tortured look of this morning suited him every bit as well as his smile did. In fact, she told herself disgustedly, he looked very much the Byronic hero—romantically brooding and intensely mysterious.

  "I'm so glad I ran into you again," Mindy purred. "Daddy wants to leave for home today, and since we're practically neighbors, I thought you'd like to have my address in San Francisco."

  Julie was fascinated by Mindy's demonstration of self-confidence and watched every move as the younger girl rummaged through her shoulder bag and removed a thin tube of lip liner. She pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser at the center of the table and scribbled carelessly on it with the strawberry-colored cosmetic.

  "We skeptical Scorpios have to stick together," she commented pertly as she folded the napkin to keep the lipstick from smearing and slipped it into the breast pocket of Garth's shirt. Her fingers toyed with the fleecy lining of his coat. "Besides," she cooed, her voice throaty and brazenly intimate, "you're the only good thing that's happened to me on this whole ghastly trip. Until last night it was a deadly bore. You really knocked me out with your impression of Neil Diamond. The Cowboy Bar will never be the same—and neither will I!"

  From beneath the fan of her lashes Mindy flirted with Garth, turning the full force of her extraordinary eyes on him for a full minute before she glanced over her shoulder at the distinguished middle-aged man who was waiting for her by the door. Her pout became more pronounced.

  "Daddy's getting impatient to leave," she said petulantly. "I really do hope you'll call me the next time you're going to be in San Francisco, Garth." As she sauntered toward the exit she waved a slender hand with practiced flamboyance and called, "Ciao, darling."

  When the door of the cafe had closed behind the Strykers, Julie slid out of the booth. She batted her eyelashes at Garth before she stalked angrily away from him.

  "Ciao, darling!" she said, in a fair reproduction of Mindy's dulcet delivery.

  Garth threw some money on the table and caught up with her just as she reached the car. She maintained a fuming silence while he walked around the sedan to get in on the driver's side, but as soon as he sat behind the wheel she attacked waspishly.

  "Thanks for at least remembering my name. When I think of how concerned I was when you drove off last night, I could just… just—"

  "Throw another tantrum?" Garth prompted imperturbably.

  "I thought you were drowning your sorrows," she rushed on irately, "and instead you were kicking up your heels!"

  "The one doesn't necessarily preclude the other," he retorted, "but that's beside the point. I don't suppose it ever entered your mind that I might have been working up the courage to give you an honest answer to your question."

  "My question?"

  "As to why I don't parade my feelings for all the world to see."

  "You needed courage for that? Ha!" she scoffed shrilly and was pleased to see him wince this time. "I've combed the hayseeds out of my hair and I don't believe that
line any more than I believe that mock turtle soup is made with mock turtles."

  "I don't give a damn what you believe," Garth cut in. "It's the truth nevertheless. And since I've never before welshed on a bargain, I intend to try to explain it to you. Whether you listen or not is up to you."

  His menacing expression muzzled her as effectively as the low value he placed on her opinion of him. Julie swallowed hard, attempting to dislodge the choking lump of shame in her throat. She recognized that she'd been ranting like a fishwife and she felt diminished by it.

  "I—I'll listen," she stammered.

  Garth removed the sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before replacing them. "It can be summed up with the adage 'old habits die hard'," he said.

  "But how…" She hesitated.

  "How did it get to be a habit?" he finished evenly. "To understand that, you'd have to know what my parents were like." Before he continued, he rolled the seat into a half reclining position and slouched into it, with one knee jackknifed and propped against the steering wheel and his head resting on the seat back. He closed his eyes, and his face became an expressionless mask.

  "My mother's father was a silent partner in Falconer's. From the time she was in her cradle, both of my grandfathers hoped for her marriage to Dad. It was actually more of a business merger than a marriage," he said steadily, "and once they'd produced me, there was no physical side to their relationship."

  "Since the business was of little importance to Mother, the time was bound to come when she realized how dissatisfied she was with her quasimarriage. After her father died and I'd reached school age, she had a lot of time on her hands, and to fill it she enrolled in an art course at our local college. She fell in love with her professor—or according to Dad, she thought she did. She was very discreet, very careful to preserve the appearance that she and Dad were the perfect couple, so that was all right, but the man was much younger. To my father, that was a greater offense than the fact that she'd become involved in an affair."