Hold Me (Promise Me Book 1)

by Brea Viragh

  “Aw, sweetheart. You weren’t gone for long.”

  I winced at the jibe, however unintentional, before schooling my face. “Indulge me, then. I’m sure I missed something exciting.”

  Randolph smiled. “You didn’t miss much, my girl. The town marches steadily toward progress with talks of a second stoplight.”

  I speared a juicy piece of beef. “Now I know you’re joking.”

  “They’ve been talking about putting green apartments in where that old warehouse sits vacant.” Enjoying the thread of conversation, Randolph dug into his dinner. “It’s been up for sale for years but so far there hasn’t been a nibble. I’ve been to a few town council meetings discussing the possibility of a complex but nothing is set in stone yet. And you remember my partner, Tim Marshal?”

  I nodded.

  “He’s retired now. Arthritis.” Randolph clenched and released his fists. “He can’t do the work he used to, so he’s enjoying his time off. Too many grandkids to count.”

  “At least you have another good partner willing to help with his share of the work.” I narrowed my eyes at August. “Or at least he’d better.”

  “I do the best I can! I hardly have time to get my property in shape, what with the tidal wave of orders. We’re shipping as far as Alberta,” August professed.

  “Canada? How wonderful! You must be so proud.” I shot the last comment to Jennifer to include her in the conversation.

  She puffed proudly. “It’s all due to August and his hard work. Randolph never considered leaving the community when he first started his whittling. Nothing outside Heartwood County.”

  “You consider my life’s work and passion whittling?” Randolph lifted his brows.

  “I refuse to engage in this argument again. I’m merely saying the business has flourished since you brought August on to work.” Jennifer reached a hand across the table to pat her son’s arm. “He’s the real heart of the operation.”

  “I was doing fine on my own,” Randolph grumbled.

  I swung my feet faster, nervous energy skittering through the bones of my toes as my upper body remained still.

  “I don’t remember much about your business,” I put in. “But I recall always hearing the singing pluck of strings from the workshop as you tinkered.”

  Jennifer took a sip of water. “Sweetie, you were hardly conscious of yourself then. I think you and August had just turned six when Randolph started his little hobby.”

  Sitting there in the unchanged dining room, with the same bluebell print wallpaper I remembered from my childhood, I listened to the familiar rhythm of their voices. The dynamics had shifted over the years into something different and around the table we were each transformed, but every person there held my affection, some in a different way now, mixed with respect as well.

  Unfortunately, some of us were hell-bent on creating chaos. I supposed the days were nothing short of dull without the constant stimulus of drama.

  “I can’t believe how you’re growing into your own. Maturity sits well on you,” Jennifer said as she studied me up and down. “You are the spitting image of your mother.”

  And I couldn’t believe how she and Randolph had aged. I thought these past few years had aged me to a raisin until I saw August’s parents, who welcomed and hurtled past the big six-oh.

  “Thank you…?” I said in lieu of a better response.

  My foot swung to the point of slapping the wood table until August captured it between his knees. I squirmed against the contact but he held firm.

  Jennifer held her glass of water up in a toast. “Izzy Cook has returned to Heartwood.”

  “Jen, stop it,” Randolph warned.

  “Stop what? Telling the girl how we’re glad she’s home? And how pretty she looks?” Jennifer leaned toward me, with elbows on the table. “Honey, tell me why haven’t you gotten married yet?”

  The hint of bite to her question had me struggling to pull my foot free from August’s grasp.

  “I’m counting on it, ma’am. Next year, if everything goes according to plan.” I flashed my engagement ring around the table for effect.

  “Simply stunning,” Jennifer commented without looking. “I suppose my August was never good enough for you. I had hoped you two would end up together, but the years keep going by with no grandbabies in sight…”

  I choked at the unexpected attack at the same time Randolph set his napkin down hard. “I said stop it! You are not going to meddle in their lives any longer. I’ve heard plenty out of you.”

  “What meddling? I want to hear, from her own mouth, why she decided to run off across the country and lasso someone else. She and August were always such great friends,” Jennifer lamented.

  The roast beef turned to tasteless ash in my mouth. “Yes, you’re right. Friends,” I insisted. “We have each other’s backs but no inclination for anything else.” I looked to August for confirmation. “Right?”

  August opened his mouth to comment but his mother bowled him over with another string of opinionated backlash.

  “I always thought you would stay here. That you would move into the house and help me. Be a wife to my son. No one has ever clicked the way you two did.” Jennifer swirled the ice in her glass and laughed. “I certainly never found that kind of connection.”

  Randolph slammed his hand on the table, setting silverware clinking. “Jennifer, you’ve said more than enough.” The ends of Randolph’s mustache bristled. “If you want to be bitter at someone, then turn over here and have at me. I won’t have you berate the kids any longer.”

  The potatoes dried in my mouth as I struggled to get the bite down amidst the squabbling. A flush rose from the neck of Jennifer’s blouse until the colors of her face and shirt matched.

  “I am not bitter. I’m exactly as the good Lord made me,” Jennifer replied succinctly. “He saw fit to give me trial after trial until I became strong.”

  “There it is again!” Randolph threw his hands in the air. “The same argument you’ve circled back to for the last twenty years.”

  August and I watched them volley back and forth, and I forced my gaze down, trained on the plate. Each bite revealed the pattern of the china a little more, dancing lords and ladies clasped together in joyous celebration around the rim.

  The moment I looked up, August gestured toward the door with a quick jerk of his chin and I gladly accepted the opportunity to be excused. Immersed in their perpetual battle, neither Randolph nor Jennifer noticed as we snuck away like wayward children.

  August held the screen door open and I ran through. It snapped closed behind us as we hurried down the back porch steps toward the quiet hush of the woods.

  “Hurry,” I prodded. “Before they figure out we’re gone.”

  We ambled until the bickering faded. Leaving us with nothing but heavy silence. Several hundred feet from the house became a safe enough distance for speech.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Seems I’ve had a lot to apologize for these last few days,” August said, resigned.

  “Don’t be sorry. These things happen.”

  “I knew as soon as I opened my mouth it was a bad idea to invite my dad. Then I tried to get him out of it but he wanted to see you. And he’s not the only problem. My mother can’t stand to be in the same room with him. When he showed up right before you I managed to extract a promise for their best behavior, but it never works out...”

  I felt sorry for August then. True, my parents weren’t the poster for a happy marriage. I grew up with the undeniable truth that separate bedrooms were the glue to staying together and to be able to put on a good face. Still, they hid the cracks well, never given to outward displays of emotion. And now they were in an RV together, go figure.

  August stopped suddenly, swiveling back toward me with his hands balled into fists. “How long does it take?”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “Before they can stand to be in the same room together without dredging up the past. It happens
every single time, no matter the circumstances. Isn’t a decade enough? Two? When does it end?”

  I took a step away in an automatic reaction to his outburst.

  Their backbiting apparently bothered him more than he showed. I told myself it wasn’t my business to interfere. His family needed to work out whatever complexities still lurked under the surface. It had nothing to do with me.

  My guilt, of course, let none of that happen. If they hadn’t planned the dinner for me then everyone could have had a happier evening.

  I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Beneath my fingers, his muscles trembled from restraint when he stilled. Yes, it bothered him to a great extent. “Try not to let the argument get to you. There’s nothing you can do about their tempers. Your parents are both set in their ways and I’m sure whatever they fight over has nothing to do with you,” I offered.

  “The problem is, their disagreements won’t end soon enough.” August shook his head. “They will never end as long as we stay in this town. As long as she has the house and he has his woodshop, they are forever entwined with the community, and neither has the guts to leave.”

  He shrugged away from my hand in a slight move.

  I didn’t touch him again after I saw the frustration he kept in check, and I was swept up in a protective wave of affection.

  “Like I said, there’s nothing you can do. You need to let them work things out on their own,” I repeated, listening to the melodies of crickets.

  “They don’t work things out, Iz. They yell and cast blame around like fishing nets. Whoever happens to be in the way gets caught. Then they both hold up their hands, unwilling to accept any accountability. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

  I watched him run a hand through his hair, mussing the strands until they stood on end. “Don’t be ashamed. You’re caught in the middle, and sometimes you can’t get out. I’m not embarrassed to hear them so don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried. I’m disappointed,” he muttered, stroking the nape of his neck. His teeth clenched and he shot me a tight lipped smile.

  “August, calm down.” I took a step forward then and gripped his arm. The muscles there constricted. “There’s no use getting upset. Do you want to take a walk?”

  I looked over onto the fields, illuminated and pristine under the pale orb of the moon. It had been too long since I’d stood with my face turned to the sky or felt the cool country breeze ripple across my skin and heard no car horns, no city sounds of hustle and bustle.

  August let out a great breath of air. “Sure,” he said mildly. “I need to clear my head.”

  He took off without me.

  “Okay, I’ll follow, no problem,” I muttered to myself before trundling after him.

  His long strides ate up the ground and I struggled to keep pace. After a time, he stopped in the middle of a wide meadow. Together we watched the night give birth to stars as lightning bugs began their mating dance. Crickets joined them in a timeless serenade and the slight breeze caressed me. And for the first time I thought moving back home hadn’t been the worst decision of my life. Maybe.

  “I tried not to let it bother me,” August said abruptly, his voice clear and deep. “All these years they’ve lived on opposite ends of the county and I’ve been their mediator, and I tried to be patient. To stay out of it. But you know what?” He stopped and looked back at the house in the distance. “I can’t.”

  I waited a moment before speaking. “It’s all right to be bothered. They concerned me and I only saw ten minutes’ worth of fighting. Not a lifetime. But in the end, what they do doesn’t matter.” Turning my head, I studied the man beside me. August was, of course, the friend who’d stood by my side until the unfortunate impetus drove a wedge between us.

  I saw kindness and caring, as well as loyalty and intelligence. And when those cornflower blue eyes lit up, I recognized him as a handsome man. The kind I may have dated if we hadn’t known each other so well. Funny how I never noticed before.

  Now, in addition to those things, I saw the little boy, all grown up, who wanted his parents to be nice to each other if only for his sake. There was anger and damaged pride, and a desire to throw up his hands in defeat, yet he didn’t.

  We continued walking farther than intended, through thick grass and wildflowers. The tree line ahead loomed dark against the slanted moonlight. “I don’t want to drag you into this,” he said softly. “All I hoped for was a quiet dinner without any of the bullshit.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  As horrible as it sounded, I secretly relished the opportunity to escape my own problems for a time. Did that make me a bad person? Perhaps.

  It was enough, I reasoned, to smell the grass and listen to the night peepers. Tomorrow I would think about the issues I needed to contend with, like money for bills and where I’d be able to find it. What to do when I felt like my life had taken a detour without me.

  At least now I remembered that I wasn’t alone. Someone walked beside me, like he’d always walked beside me, and I’d forgotten how he faced his own demons. How we held each other’s hand during the divorce and each disaster since.

  “It is my fault. I should have canceled dinner when I realized my father was serious about coming. I thought I could handle it.” August sat on a stray log left from a long-ago storm. “It never gets any easier,” he told me.

  “I know.” Indeed, I did. Over the years I’d become a master at saving face. It helped when production companies rejected my lyrics time and time again.

  “They can’t even behave in front of you.” August let out a harsh laugh and stood again, too much energy to stay still. “You are as close as family. They hide it from everyone else. Not even the church sees what they conceal. It’s all about putting on a good face in public.”

  Yes, finally something I understood. My kind of people, though I hated seeing August hurt this way. The caregiver inside of me that I’d neglected for years rose up and demanded I do something.

  “Hey, don’t get so upset. It’s life, and there’s nothing you can say or do to make them change. Just understand how much they love you, and let them live their own lives.”

  August shook his head. “I’ve never been much for philosophy.”

  “No, you haven’t, which is why I got a failing grade on the paper we co-wrote,” I said ruefully. Crossing over to him, my forearms swung around his shoulders in a loose hug. “Thanks for having me over for dinner tonight.”

  “You’re welcome.” His arms in time found their way around my waist and squeezed. “What would I do without your wisdom, eh?”

  I chuckled. “Be very sad, of course. And probably take it out on some poor unsuspecting punching bag, so it’s a good thing I’m here.”

  August made a sound of agreement before burying his face in my neck. “I’m so happy you’re home.”

  “Me too.” The scary thing was, I meant it.

  “Isabel.”

  The way he said my name, the entirety of it instead of the zippy nickname I’d never liked, had the syllables sounding like something warm and chocolaty poured into a mug.

  “Yes, that’s me,” I responded with forced lightness. “Silly old Isabel.”

  He stood in the moonlight and those radiant beams softened his features when he pulled back to stare. “What are you thinking about now?”

  Quite frankly, nothing. My mind had turned to mush and I had trouble catching a single thought.

  I made something up on the spot. “Penguins. What about you?”

  “Definitely not penguins.” His throaty moan grew in volume the longer he held me, fingers clenching against the fabric of my shirt.

  I patted his back. “Hey, it’s not so bad. Chin up. It will be fine.”

  Alarm bells sounded in my head when his hands moved to my middle back, their strength evident. I raised a hand to his chest. “What…what is this?” I fluttered my fingers nervously between us.

  “It’s nothing,” he assured me
. “A little something from a dream.”

  “This isn’t a dream, August. This is reality.” I shivered when he raised a hand to cup the back of my neck.

  “It’s a dream for me.”

  “Don’t.” The protest fell on deaf ears as he leaned down to close the distance. My mind pulled away even as my body moved closer, pressing the whole of me against him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  His apology was the last I heard as his lips skimmed over my own. Later it occurred to me I should have stepped away when he approached. I should have done something, anything, to halt the forward motion before our mouths met in a sure kiss.

  But those thoughts came later.

  The kiss was not overpowering, a give and take as his tongue explored my mouth. Firm, easy. Possessive.

  Need stirred and rose up in a violent swell demanding to be recognized, as did the feelings I’d locked away and told myself did not exist.

  His lips were gentle, coaxing a response though he required none. Warmth spread through me as I opened my mouth to taste and touch him, to feel the press of his body against me. It moved bit by bit as his head angled down to reach me.

  August, the careful and charming man who chuckled at my temper and did his utter best to please, the man who remained loyal when I’d disregarded him. Discarded him.

  I broke contact when goose bumps worked their way along the skin of my arms. My breasts ached and throbbed, betraying my better judgement. “August, stop,” I murmured. “This is wrong.”

  Wasn’t it wrong? I couldn’t think, had a hard time focusing on anything outside of his taste.

  “It will be fine.” He threw my words back at me as he continued to press his suit, teeth nipping at the corner of my mouth and sending an ache down my center.

  “No, I can’t—” Instead of heeding my own advice I moved closer for a second kiss, a single peck as soft as a sigh. “I can’t.”

  August knew exactly what he was doing when his arms tightened around my waist and the world spun around us. Of their own accord, my fingers inched up to tangle in the windblown strands of his hair, a raw groan escaping my throat when his mouth found mine again.