Bound by a Promise

by Diana Palmer

  “Good. Maybe when you learn not to complain so much, I’ll get around to giving you one.”

  Yama made a face at him. “One must be saint to put up with you. Instead of pay hike, I should get medal.”

  Kate couldn’t repress a laugh as Yama disappeared. “He’s an absolute jewel,” she said.

  “Amen, but he won’t let me take myself seriously, and I suppose that’s an asset.” He took a long, deep breath. “He’s been with me so long, it would be like losing an arm if he left.”

  “Does he go everywhere with you?”

  A slow, easy smile touched his wide mouth. “Not everywhere,” he said in a meaningful tone.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Do you blush?” he asked suddenly.

  “Of course not!” she lied.

  He chuckled softly. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

  “Do you come to the lake a lot?” she asked quickly, sipping the hot, black coffee that Yama had poured.

  “Not any more,” he replied. He reached for his coffee cup and upset it, blistering his big hand, and let out a string of blue words.

  Kate got to her feet automatically with her napkin and wrapped it around the warm hand, gently removing the liquid from his broad, strong fingers. It was a beautifully masculine hand, she thought involuntarily, noticing the dark, crisp hairs that grew on its back, the square, well-manicured nails. It was warm and a little callused, and holding it made her tingle with a strange, unfamiliar excitement.

  “I’m all right,” he said gruffly, but he didn’t try to pull his hand away.

  “Hurt, didn’t it?” she asked with a smile.

  “Like hell. I told you I knocked things over.”

  “I would have taken your word for it, you know,” she teased, and let go of his hand to mop up the dark stains growing on the pure white tablecloth.

  He chuckled softly. “You’re good for me, you little brat. No sympathy in you, is there?”

  “Do you want me to coo and fuss over you?”

  He scowled in her general direction. “What did you say you do for a living?” he asked, ignoring her attempt at humor.

  “I’m a secretary, usually,” she replied. “Why?”

  “Are you tied up for the rest of the summer?” he persisted.

  “Well, not for a few weeks,” she admitted, confused by his dogged tone.

  “Then why don’t you move in with me?” he asked bluntly.

  Three

  She sat gaping at him, her voice gone, her eyes about to pop with the shock.

  A slow, knowing smile touched the wide contours of his mouth. “I’m not asking you to share my bed, if that’s what produced this deafening silence,” he said. “The idea of making love to a woman I can’t see doesn’t have much appeal right now, Kate.”

  She blushed, and turned her face away before she remembered that he couldn’t see her. What was he asking? And she didn’t dare live under the same roof with him. What if she trapped herself, and she might, by giving away that she’d been the maniac in the boat that struck him. What might he do? She remembered Maude’s warning, about how ruthless he could be, and she was afraid of what his power could do, not only to her, but to her father. Yet, how could she turn her back on him now, when just about everybody else in his life seemed to have done just that? And Maude had told her to take a few weeks off and close up the cabin….

  “I’d pay you your regular salary, plus,” Cambridge said quietly. “Although I won’t promise you regular hours, Kate. Sometimes I hurt like hell in the middle of the night, and dictating something for the book might ease the pain.”

  “You…want me to help you put the book together?” she asked.

  “I can’t do it alone, and Yama can cook, but he can’t type.” His lips set. “Is it the thought of working for a blind man that puts you off, Kate?” he asked tightly.

  “Why should it?” she asked without thinking.

  He seemed to relax a little. “You’d have free time,” he promised. “You like the lake, don’t you? If your friend wouldn’t mind…?”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t mind, that’s not it.” She searched for an excuse that wouldn’t wound him. “It’s just…we don’t know each other.”

  “I’m not proposing marriage,” he chuckled. “We don’t have to be on intimate terms for you to be my secretary.”

  “I’m glad of that,” she said uneasily, “because I wouldn’t know how.”

  There was a long pause. “I wish I could see you,” he said finally. “But you don’t sound very worldly, Kate, if that’s anything to go on.”

  “I never wanted to be. I don’t care much for material things.”

  “What do you care for?” he probed.

  “Gardens,” she said with a smile. “Cows gathering in a pasture late in the afternoon. Children in clean pajamas right after a bath. Those kinds of things.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve never known any of those,” he said matter-of-factly. “I live my life on a roller coaster that never stops. If I’m not on the phone, I’m in conference. If I’m not sleeping, I’m traveling.”

  “I guess a pilot’s life does get pretty hectic,” she remarked, as she remembered the half-truth he’d told her and played along with him.

  He reached in his pocket for a cigarette and rolled it absently in his strong fingers. “That wasn’t exactly the whole truth. I designed planes, and did my own testing most of the time. I…needed the element of danger, milkmaid,” he sighed. Something painful came and went in his eyes. “Have you ever felt that way?”

  “Yes, I have,” she admitted, hating the memory of what she’d done to this man, whose eyes were everything to him.

  “Why?” he asked bluntly.

  She shifted restlessly in her chair, cupping her slender hands around her coffee cup. “I was in love with a man who thought I had money. When he found out I didn’t, he couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.” Put like that, it sounded so simple, so uncomplicated, and yet it had tormented her for months.

  “Not good enough for him, Kate?” he asked. He put the cigarette to his mouth and fumbled with his lighter until he managed to light it. “What did his family own?”

  “A meat processing plant.”

  He chuckled softly. “Only one? My God, they were low on the social ladder.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll teach you about stocks and investments one day, and you will.” He drew in a breath of smoke. “Baby, one meat processing plant is like owning one tiny business in a town where another man owns a city block. Does that clarify it a little?”

  “A little,” she said. “I don’t know about being rich. I never was. I don’t think I’d like it. I’m a lot more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts than I am in evening gowns.”

  “Money has advantages and disadvantages,” he agreed. “Well, Kate, are you going to move in with me or not?”

  “I probably ought to have my head examined…”

  “Assuredly, both of us should. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl. Finish your breakfast and I’ll introduce you to the hairy member of my family.”

  “Hairier than you?” she asked in mock astonishment, her eyes on the thick pelt of black hair that showed in the neck of his open-throated white shirt.

  “I hope you can keep that sense of humor, Kate,” he remarked, “because I’ve got one hell of a black temper and I’m not in the least embarrassed about losing it. I’m impatient and bullheaded, and I can wring you out like a wet cloth before you know it. If you tend to be a crier, you won’t last here two days.”

  “Would you like to bet on how long I’ll last?” she asked him.

  “We’ll wait and see about that.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” she teased.

  She thought she’d seen big dogs before, but the gray shadow that rose ominously by the big chair in the den of the big cabin caused her heart to rise in her throat.

&nbs
p; There was a soft, dangerous deep growl as she and Cambridge moved into the room.

  “Stop showing off, Hunter,” he growled at the animal. “Come here and try to pretend you’re a pet.”

  “He’s awfully big, isn’t he?” Kate asked nervously, but she knelt and held out a hand for the dog to sniff, hoping he wouldn’t consider it an invitation to a quick snack.

  “Do you like dogs?” Cambridge asked.

  “I like cats better, but I’m afraid of them. Dogs, I mean,” she added as Hunter came up and sniffed at her hand. His tail started wagging and she let out a deep breath, not realizing that she’d been holding it.

  “You’ll get used to him. Here, boy,” he coaxed, and the big animal came up to sit at his feet, nuzzling contentedly. “He was just a pet until I had the accident,” he explained. “Now, he’s my eyes most of the time.”

  “You didn’t have him with you yesterday.”

  “I was trying something new…navigating without aids.” He chuckled. “Not very successfully, I have to admit. Yama finally did come after me. Nagging, as usual.”

  “I guess it beats having a wife nag you. Or, are you married?” she asked, remembering that she wasn’t supposed to know anything about him.

  A shadow passed over his face and his eyes glittered like green fires for an instant. “No,” he growled, “I’m not married.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, placing an apologetic hand on his sleeve, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  The light contact seemed to make him stiffen even more, and she quickly removed her hand. He didn’t like to be touched, that was apparent, and she mentally filed that fact for future reference.

  “How soon do you want me to start?” Kate asked quietly.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “So soon? But I’ll need to pack, and get in touch with my father…”

  “You can call him from here,” he told her.

  “But he lives in Austin, Texas…well not exactly in it, but as near as not!” she protested.

  “Kate, I’m not a poor man,” he said quietly, drawing on the cigarette in his hand. “You’re bound to find that out sooner or later. I’m as prone to sudden whims as a politician is to platform changes. You may wake up in the morning and find yourself on a plane to the Bahamas. I’m restless and I like to travel and I’ve got the wealth to make it feasible. One long distance phone call isn’t likely to break me.” He turned toward where he thought she should be. “Are you afraid of planes?”

  “Why…no,” she admitted.

  “Are you afraid of traveling?”

  “I’ve never done much of it….”

  “Is your passport in order?”

  “But I haven’t got one, I’ve never….”

  “It doesn’t matter, I’ll have Pattie take care of it,” he said. He frowned at her silence. “Pattie,” he emphasized, “is my office secretary. She’s young, enthusiastic, and disgustingly efficient.”

  “And madly in love with the boss, I’ll bet,” she taunted.

  “God, I hope not! She’s married to one of my assistant vice presidents.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  He smiled. “Sorry to disillusion you, honey, but I don’t seduce the office staff.”

  She blushed furiously. “I’d better go home and start packing,” she said, watching the way his big hand was ruffling the dog’s soft fur.

  “Don’t take too much time. I’ve been idle long enough. I want to get my mind back on something constructive.”

  She felt a twinge of conscience. “Of course. I won’t be long.”

  She brooded while she packed, praying that she was doing the right thing. There were so many pitfalls. What if his memory came back and somebody described her to him, wouldn’t he remember what she looked like? What if…?

  She forced herself to stop thinking about it. Tomorrow would take care of tomorrow, and worrying wasn’t going to change anything. Besides, it was time she stopped thinking about herself and started thinking about someone else. It was just beginning to occur to her that she’d done very little of that in recent months. She’d been too buried in bitterness and self-pity to turn her thoughts outward at all. Perhaps it would be good therapy, working for someone like Garet Cambridge. He wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate self-pity in any form, even his own.

  He puzzled her. She’d never known anyone quite like him, and despite his wealth and her lack of it, she felt a strange kinship with him. He made her comfortable with herself and the world around her. He made her feel somehow secure and protected. Perhaps he, too, needed companionship for a little while. Someone to make his path a little easier. If only, she thought, she hadn’t made the path so rough for him in the first place!

  She sent Maude a telegram before she left the cottage, and that night she called her father from her new bedroom in Cambridge’s spacious beach house.

  “I thought you might get home for a visit between jobs,” her father chuckled. “No hope, I guess.”

  “I’ll make it next month, I promise,” she said. “Oh, Dad, I’ve been such a pill, and I’m so sorry! I’m going to make it all up to you, I promise.”

  “Kate,” he said gently, “you’re my best girl and I love you. Don’t feel you owe me anything.”

  “But I do! I do! All those years you put in on me when I was growing up, after Mama left, all the sacrifices you made…and for what? So I could run off half cocked with a status-seeking meat packer and leave you with a mortgage you can’t pay….”

  “Now, hush,” he scolded. “I made the payment all right. I sold some of the cattle and got a handsome deal. I’m doing just fine, and you can stop sending me so much of your check. I don’t need it now.”

  “But, Dad….”

  “No buts, daughter, I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m not about to starve.” He paused for an instant, and she could almost see the lines in his thin, leathery face. “Kate, are you happy, are you getting over it?”

  “I’m…just fine,” she lied, feeling tears prick at her eyes. “Honest I am. Will you write me if I give you the address?”

  “You know I’m not much on writing, but you send me a letter first and I just might answer it, all right?”

  “All right, Daddy, I love you,” she said tightly.

  “I love you, too, girl. Be happy, Kate. Life’s so short.”

  “I will. You, too. Dad, are you doing okay?” she asked suddenly.

  “Just fine, honey,” he said. “You say about another month before you get here? I’ll do my best to wait for you. I was going on a cruise to Europe, you know, but if that was a promise….”

  “Oh, Dad,” she laughed through her tears. “Yes, just a month or so, and please cancel your cruise.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Good night, child.”

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  Working for Garet Cambridge was like nothing she’d ever experienced. He was impatient, demanding, and utterly a perfectionist; but at the same time, he made the work so interesting that she didn’t have time to get bored.

  Before her stunned eyes, the book began to take shape as he roughed out the first draft and an outline, and her heart came into her throat when she realized that he’d actually done the things he was writing about.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked at one point, relaxed in his padded armchair with one brow raised curiously. “I can’t imagine a woman being as quiet as you are today without some reason.”

  “Shell shock,” she teased, glancing at the pantherish look of his big body in the armchair that seemed to fit perfectly the contours of that body.

  “From what?” he asked, and his heavy brows drew together.

  “Your life. Here,” she added, glancing down at the paragraph that dealt with a plane whose engine caught fire and was forced down. “This part, where the engine burned and you had to bring the plane down in a swamp.”

  He smiled. “I brought it in between two trees and tore the wings off. That was a close one.”

  “It really h
appened, didn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes, little one. It really happened.” He looked thoughtful. “I’d been going for eighteen hours straight when I got into that plane. It was the dumbest move I ever made. But the board of directors were waiting for a test before they approved construction. They had to know if the plane was sky-worthy.” He shrugged. “There was a small fault in the engine design that gave it the tendency to short out and burn after the first few minutes of use. We corrected the malfunction and put it into production. It was our best selling executive jet for four years.”

  “Do you want to put that in?” she asked him.

  “Might as well. Kate, how does it read?” he asked, suddenly intent as he leaned forward to stare with unseeing eyes in the direction of her voice. “Is it comprehensible to a lay person?”

  “It is to me, and I don’t know anything about airplanes.”

  “I have a feeling,” he murmured with a half smile, “that airplanes aren’t the only things you’re ignorant about.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Never mind.” He leaned back again. “Ready for more, milkmaid?”

  “Any time, Boss,” she said lightly.

  He liked the beach. Leaving Yama to tend the house and listen for the phone, she helped Garet down to the pier every evening, where they sat on chaise lounges and listened to the dark quiet sounds of night for hours on end.

  “God, I love it here,” he said on one of their better evenings. “I’d forgotten how quiet the night could be.”

  “Didn’t you ever sit outside and listen to crickets?” she teased, glancing at him where he lazed back in the floral chaise with his blue shirt unbuttoned, baring his bronzed muscular chest, and his white shorts revealing his powerful, hair-covered thighs.

  “Honey, I didn’t know there was an outside,” he replied as he sipped his whiskey sour idly. “You know what my life was like. I seem to have mentioned it a time or two.”

  “Cocktail parties, business meetings, phones that never stopped ringing…have I got it?” she asked.

  “In a nutshell. Not much of an existence, but it was all I knew. Until now.”

  She lowered her eyes to her lap, her hands just visible in the yellow light from the cabin. “I’m sorry you had to find out…this way.”