Delicate Promises

by Kelly Elliott

  “How romantic!”

  “What? How in the world do you find that romantic?”

  “Kynslee, please. How do you not find it romantic? The boy calls you every year on your birthday. Then shows up on the birthday y’all agreed to marry each other if you weren’t already hitched by then.”

  “First off, he is not a boy anymore. Honestly, I find it hard to believe he hasn’t settled down already. He’s beyond good looking and has a body to die for.”

  “Well, you can thank the US Military for that benefit.”

  I didn’t tell her that Miles had also worked with the CIA. He’d mentioned I was the only one who knew, so I guessed it wasn’t an open topic for discussion with the gossip mill in Hunt.

  “I’m sure that has something to do with it,” I stated.

  “Okay, so let’s really look at this. Miles leaves for damn near twelve years but comes back a few times. One of those times y’all hook up, then it seems like he avoids you and plans his visits when you’re not in town. Although, I’m not sure how he would know your plans.”

  The CIA probably helped with that, too, I thought. “I’m sure his momma or Lana had a hand in alerting him to my comings and goings.”

  “When he left for the Marines you made him a promise you would marry him if y’all weren’t married by thirty. That’s a pretty big promise.”

  “We were eighteen, Patty! I sort of thought he’d ask me before we got to this point. Then he went off and hooked up with women and posted it on Facebook for me to see. Clear sign he wasn’t on the same path as me.”

  “Right, that’s right. That’s when you dated the guy in Austin.”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me.”

  “Well, neither of you are with anyone now. Did you ever think maybe you both stayed single so that you could marry each other once the time was right?”

  “Please,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the way my heart picked up at the thought. Once upon a time I wanted that deep down, but no longer. At least that was what I told myself…daily.

  “Think about it. You gave your virginity to Miles, he did the same. Y’all hooked up a few more times after that, so clearly you’re attracted to each other physically. He keeps in touch with you and calls you every year on your birthday. That shows he cares deeply for you. Maybe deep down y’all are really in love with each other.”

  My stomach dropped and I looked away from her because if she looked at my face, she’d see the truth. “I’m not in love with Miles.”

  “Then why did you tell Jack no?”

  Tossing up my hands, I said, “Why does everyone keep bringing up the fact that I said no to Jack?”

  “Because you dated him for years, he asked you and you said no. There has to be a reason.”

  “I wasn’t ready to get married, settle down, and have kids!”

  “Okay. So why did you say no to Miles?”

  I stared at her, no idea how to even answer that question.

  “Did you really ask me that just now?” I said, stalling for time.

  She nodded.

  My doorbell rang, and I got up and headed to the door. “Saved by the bell,” I whispered.

  When I opened it, Miles was standing there, and I groaned.

  He smiled and my stomach flipped just like when he smiled at me time when we were kids. Or the night we made love for the first time, awkward and painful, yet still amazing. Then he said in that southern drawl of his, “Hey there, Kyns.”

  I refused to let my neglected, horny ass body win over. Rolling my eyes and not acknowledging his presence, I went to shut the door, but he stopped it with his foot. All I could see were those stupid, sexy dimples of his.

  Ugh.

  “Not now, Miles. I’d like to finish out this shitty birthday, crawl into bed, and wake up to this all being some weird ass dream.”

  “Trust me, Kynslee, this isn’t a dream. I need you to slip this on your finger now. We made a deal after all.”

  Miles held up the ring. Did he really think he could just walk into my life after all this time and think I would drop to my knees and give in?

  Hell. No.

  “No.”

  “You made me a promise.”

  “Yeah, well, you made me one too, and broke it a couple of times, if I remember correctly.” He winced and I knew that bastard remembered the morning in my parents’ barn. He remembered telling me he wanted a future with me when he was moving inside of me. Telling me what he thought I had wanted to hear. And why, for sex? Hell, I would have slept with him no matter what because I was the stupid girl who was in love with a guy who didn’t want to be with me.

  Patty walked up behind me and said, “Hey, Miles. You’re looking awfully good. Time has definitely been kind to you all these years.”

  “How’s it going, Patty?” Miles asked, giving her a wink. When Patty giggled, I shot her a dirty look. She was officially a traitor, family or not.

  Oh. My. God. Is she seriously batting her eyelashes at him?

  “Patty, I believe you were leaving,” I stated.

  “What was that?” she asked, still staring at Miles.

  “I think you were on your way out.”

  “No, I wasn’t leaving,” Patty replied, giving Miles a sexy smirk.

  I grabbed her purse off the table and pushed it into her stomach as I directed her toward the door. “Goodbye, Patty.”

  One good push and she stumbled out. Miles moved out of the way, barely avoiding her exit, and then proceeded to walk into my house, uninvited.

  “Wait, I wasn’t inviting you in!” I cried out.

  He leaned down and kissed me quickly on the lips before walking farther into my place. My fingers brushed against my tingling mouth, and I caught Patty looking back, smiling with that Cheshire cat grin that yelled, I told you so. For a brief moment I had been stunned by the unexpected contact, and she knew it. She gave me a thumbs up and went to shout something. but I slammed the door. I’d deal with that later.

  I spun on my heel and followed Miles into my living room.

  “So, you show up here after all this time and honestly think I’m going to marry you? Miles, are you insane?”

  “No. We made a promise.”

  “When we were eighteen!”

  “So.”

  “Surely there’s a statute of limitations on promises made when you are barely an adult. Why haven’t you married someone else, anyway?”

  He sat down on the sofa. “It would have been too hard to keep a relationship going while I was gone. Hell, I hardly saw my family, so having a wife or a girlfriend wasn’t even on my radar. And before you ask your next question, no, I wasn’t celibate all those years, either. I had friends every now and then.”

  Why that made my stomach hurt was beyond me.

  “So, you’re trying to tell me you’re a manwhore?” I said, a tinge of hurt in my voice.

  He laughed. “No. I said every now and then. None of them meant anything, Kynslee, and it’s been awhile. A long while, actually.”

  “I see. So, you have sex with random women to simply scratch an itch?”

  His eyes turned dark, and I couldn’t tell if that comment had made him mad or affected him in some other way. “No,” he stated firmly. “It kept my mind off of remembering the times I made love to you.”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue. The memory of Miles doing just that surged through me, causing my lower stomach to pull in desire. His fingers twisting in my hair while he pulled out of me and then pushed back in. The smell of the hay, leather, horses, it assaulted me all at once and I had the urge to squeeze my legs together to keep from touching myself.

  I’m never going this long without sex again.

  Needing to refocus this conversation, I said, “Miles. We are not getting married so it’s pointless that you are here.”

  “No, it’s not, and yes, we are.”

  Laughing, I replied, “No, we are not. You don’t even love me.”

  He stared into my eyes as if he wa
nted to argue but didn’t say a word. It was me who finally broke off the moment.

  “Miles, this is insane. Give me one good reason why you have come back to town to ‘cash in’ as you so romantically put it.”

  When he leaned forward and put his arms on his legs, I was mesmerized by him.

  I became instantly jealous of all the women who had touched him over the past twelve years. Who’d had his attention and his focus when he was on whatever mission the government and CIA sent him on.

  “Kynslee, we need to get married.”

  When my knees felt weaken, I slowly sat down. “What do you mean, we need to get married?”

  He shrugged. “Well, we’re not getting any younger and we have to start planning for kids.”

  I stared at him, trying to get these silly emotions running through me under control. Kids? He wanted kids?

  Holy hell, keep it together, Kynslee.

  I glanced down at my hands wringing in my lap, then pressed them flat on my thighs. “I see. You need to get married so you can start pumping out offspring, and any ol’ person will do. So, you decided now’s the time for your ass to show back up on my doorstep to cash in on an old promise. And that I’m stupid enough to fall at your feet and welcome your attention when you haven’t bothered with me for over a decade. Is having a wife some sort of cover you need for the CIA?”

  He laughed. “No. I’m home now, for good. I told you that.”

  So Miles wanted to come home and play house. I looked at him, praying he would give me something else. Anything that said he cared about me, loved me, that he had made the biggest mistake in his life when he pushed me into Jack’s arms. If he could just do that, I knew I would fall for him. As stupid as it was, I needed him to say it.

  I smiled because if I didn’t I would cry. “It appears I only have two words to say to you.”

  He smiled like he honestly thought he’d won this battle. “I do.”

  I walked to the front door and said the only two words that were fitting in this moment. “Fuck you.”

  Miles

  LIFTING A HAY bale, I tossed it onto the trailer. Rich paused and looked at me.

  “You showed up out of the blue and said you were cashing in on the promise. Then you said y’all weren’t getting any younger and needed to plan for kids. What did you expect her to do with that declaration, Miles? Fall into your arms and say yes?”

  “Maybe not fall into my arms, but I wasn’t thinking she would knee me in the balls.”

  Rich laughed, and I shot him a dirty look.

  “I believe you also said she punched you.”

  I rubbed my jaw and smiled. “She’s always had a good right hook.”

  “That’s because you taught her how to punch, dumbass.”

  Punching wasn’t the only thing I’d taught Kynslee. The first night we had slept together, the night we lost our virginity to one another, we had both acted like we were drunk, but both of us knew what we were doing. She had ruined all women for me at sixteen years old.

  “Dude, whatever you’re thinking, please stop.”

  Laughing, I grabbed another hay bale.

  “Did you tell her about the special ops stuff? I felt sort of bad that she and Mom never knew.”

  I had told Rich I was signing up for another five years in the Marines to work on a special mission. He hadn’t needed to know it was with the CIA, and I gave him enough details so that he knew it was a pretty big deal. My mother had been so upset when I told her, and I needed someone to know the truth, or at least a version of the truth, at least. Rich got it, but I could tell he felt guilty. Like I was burdening myself with reenlisting to erase our money worries. It was worth it, though. All sixty months of it.

  “Yeah, I told her. It was better they didn’t know at the time. You know they both would have just worried even more.”

  Rich grabbed a bale and threw it. We worked in silence before he finally said what was on his mind. “Why can’t you just tell her the truth? Tell her why you pushed her away? Tell her you love her, Miles.”

  I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. Rich knew all my dirty little secrets. All of them. “What?”

  Wiping the sweat from his brow, he sighed. “Miles, admit to her you love her and wanted a future with her, but you were scared. Scared to burden her with your missions, leaving her here in Hunt not knowing where you were or when you’d be coming home.”

  Rolling my head, I cracked my neck and blew out a breath. “I wasn’t scared.”

  He laughed. “Bullshit, dude. You freaked. It’s okay. You remember the day of my wedding when I freaked. I was ready to bolt out the door and you calmed me down.”

  “I thought you were freaked because I showed up five minutes before the wedding.”

  He smirked. “Yeah and left five minutes after. That was another time Kynslee hit me with a million questions. Even Mom wondered how in the hell you had gotten there at the last minute and left just as quickly.”

  I grinned. “I still can’t believe no one heard the helicopter.”

  Rich laughed. “Everyone was already two sheets to the wind.”

  We worked in silence a bit more.

  “I still don’t see why you aren’t being honest with her, bro. It’s clear you love her, you want to be with her. Hell, you bought a ring for her and have been carrying it around. Tell her all of that. Women eat that shit up.”

  “When I go to talk to her, I end up saying something that just pisses her off. I figured she stayed single because she knew eventually we’d be together. Why else would she tell Jack no?”

  “What if she had told him yes?”

  I stopped what I was doing and wiped my brow. “I would have had him killed.”

  Rich laughed and then stopped when I didn’t. “Dude, you’re kidding, right?”

  With a shrug, I went back to tossing the bales.

  “So, you’re back and you want to make nice with Kynslee. You really think showing up and telling her you’re cashing in on a promise is going to do that?”

  “Fine. That was a mistake. I don’t know what else to do. I haven’t seen her in five fucking years, and when I saw her, I sort of lost my mind for a minute. Or two. Hell, we’ve wasted so much time as it is.”

  Rich threw up his arms. “How about asking her out on a date first, the old-fashioned way, since your tactics obviously aren’t working?”

  “She’ll say no because she’s pissed at me.”

  He groaned. “Okay, I meant it would have been nice if you had asked her out when you saw her, instead of handing her a ring and saying you needed to get married and start having kids.”

  “Yeah, that was another blunder. No wonder she’s pissed at me.”

  “Can’t say I blame her.”

  Then an idea hit me. “I need to make her jealous. She saw that picture on social media of me with another woman, and she was furious.”

  Rich’s mouth dropped open. “Remind me again why special ops wanted you again? You’re a damn idiot.”

  “I know Kynslee. She wants what she doesn’t think she can have, which is why I think she’s waited all this time for me. I wasn’t available, and now I am so I need to make her think I’m not available again.”

  He shook his head. “Miles. Don’t do this. It’s got huge fucking mistake written all over it and that’s not how Kynslee works. Twelve years is a long time to be apart. You both have changed, dude.”

  With a wink, I replied, “Little brother, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Thanks so much for meeting me, Becky.”

  I grinned as we walked into the restaurant. The same restaurant I knew Kynslee would be at thanks to her mother telling me about their late birthday dinner. My plan had officially been put into action.

  I’d been back in town for a week and had managed to run into Kynslee at The Mercantile, the grocery store, and the small gym in our tiny downtown. Where Kynslee was, I popped up. Even on her morning jog, there I was. Twelve years of military
and CIA training assured that I would show up when she least expected it.

  I knew I was driving her insane. And tonight wasn’t going to be any different. I was currently with someone I once took out in high school. A girl I figured Kynslee still disliked. After all, I had asked Kynslee to help me learn how to kiss just so I could kiss Becky Williams. I kissed Becky in middle school, then again in high school when I took her out. She happened to be divorced now, and I wasn’t sure if Kynslee seeing me with her would dredge up bad feelings again, but I was a betting man and knew Kyns would remember our history.

  “I have to say I was so surprised when I ran into you at the grocery store earlier. And when you asked me out to dinner, well, it was a nice surprise.”

  “Thought it might be nice to catch up and not in the middle of the produce aisle.” I gave her my best smile.

  Her cheeks turned a slight shade of pink, and I could literally read the dirty thoughts running through her mind.

  Not happening, Becky. Not. Happening.

  I hadn’t slept with anyone since I found out Kynslee had broken things off with Jack. In some weird ass way, it felt like I would be cheating on her. Since her break up with Jack three years ago, I hadn’t been with anyone, and I prayed like hell that Kynslee hadn’t either.

  The hostess smiled when we walked in. I scanned the place and found Kynslee and her parents sitting at a table. And a few feet away from them was an open booth. Perfect. Becky and I would have to walk by their table if we were seated in that booth. And we would be seated in that booth since I’d be requesting that exact spot in three…two…one…

  “If you have a booth, that would be great,” I said to the hostess.

  Becky’s face lit up. If she thought we were going to snuggle on the same side, she was sadly mistaken. I needed to make it clear that this wasn’t really a date, more of a catch-up-on-old-times dinner.

  After looking down at the paper that had all the tables laid out, the hostess nodded. “Yes, I’ve got one left.”

  I kept my gaze forward and walked right by Kynslee’s table following close to Becky the entire way.

  “Miles?”

  My name stopped me in my tracks. I turned and saw her eyes bouncing from me to Becky and back to me again.