I Promise

by Joan Johnston

  “She practically pushed me out of the room. She grabbed my hand and dragged me back upstairs and all the time she was whispering to me that I couldn’t ever tell anybody what had happened—not anybody—or they would send her away to prison forever. She told me to stay in my room and not to come out until she came and got me.

  “But I couldn’t do that, Delia. I had to see what had happened to Daddy. I heard Mama on the phone, and I sneaked downstairs and . . . and that’s when I screamed.”

  Who had Hattie called? Delia wondered. Not the sheriff. She had called him later. Who, then? Her lawyer, probably. Hattie had always had a level head.

  “Didn’t you know that all these years I’ve thought you killed Daddy?”

  “Good grief, Delia. I told you at the time I didn’t kill him.”

  Delia smiled cynically. “I wouldn’t have expected you to admit to murder.”

  “No wonder you’re so upset with me for not telling you the truth sooner. I’m sorry, Delia.”

  “I don’t understand Mother at all,” Delia said. “Why couldn’t she have told me she believed me? Why didn’t she admit she was wrong sooner and ask me to come home?”

  “Maybe she felt like she didn’t deserve your forgiveness, Delia. Or that you wouldn’t give it to her, even if she asked.”

  Delia’s throat squeezed shut. Rachel knew her well. As had Hattie. It was why she had left the note. Oh, yes, she was definitely Hattie’s daughter. She had held herself aloof, no more willing to offer forgiveness than Hattie had been willing to ask for it. She had every bit as much stubborn pride as her mother.

  And now it was too late.

  The sob caught Delia by surprise. Grief she had held in abeyance as a final defiance of Hattie washed over her with all the power and devastation of a flash flood. Because she had refused to grieve, her grief when she allowed herself to feel it was a hundred times more terrible, because it was mixed with equal doses of guilt and shame.

  Delia laid her head down on her arms at the kitchen table and cried. She was inconsolable, though Rachel tried to console her. It was as though all the tears she had never shed—for the loss of her innocence and Rachel’s, for the betrayal and loss of her stepfather, for the death of her mother—had to be cried before she could move another step, before she could go on with her life.

  Every time she managed to stop, she would lift her head and see the calendar marked with Xs and start crying again.

  “Please, Delia, you’re going to make yourself sick,” Rachel said.

  “I can’t seem to st-hop,” Delia sobbed.

  She had no idea how long she had been sit ting at the table crying when she felt herself being picked up and lifted into someone’s lap. She opened her eyes enough to see it was Marsh. She sneaked a hand around his neck and clung, burying her face against his chest.

  “It’s all right, Delia,” he crooned. “Rachel called and told me everything.”

  “Ma-ma killed Dad-dy,” she sobbed.

  “I know, sweetheart. I’ve known for a while.”

  “How?” she asked. “How did you know?”

  “It was the only thing that made any sense. She was the only one besides you who could have gone to the sheriff. She was the only one who could have convinced him that Ray John committed suicide because she had threatened to expose him.”

  The sobs lessened, and Delia felt a strange calm settling over her. “I never forgave her,” she murmured to Marsh. “I told her I never would.”

  Another sob. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I’m so sorry.”

  Marsh’s arms tightened around her. “She knows, Delia. She knows.”

  “I should have cried or screamed or something. I should have made him go away. I should have told Mama.”

  “Shh,” Marsh said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all over, Delia. It’s all over now.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Rachel asked anxiously. “Should I call Dr. Robbins?”

  “I’ll take her upstairs and put her to bed,” Marsh said. “She’ll be all right after she gets some sleep.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Delia said irritably.

  She heard Marsh chuckle.

  “See what I mean?” he said. “She’ll be back to her old cantankerous self in no time.”

  “Thank you for coming, Marsh,” Rachel said.

  “I’m glad you called,” he said, rising with Delia in his arms. “You’ll have to show me where to go.”

  “I can talk,” Delia said. “And I know where my bedroom is. If you’ll put me down, I can get there myself.”

  Marsh and Rachel exchanged amused glances.

  “Maybe you can,” Marsh said, “but indulge me, will you?”

  “I don’t see why I should,” Delia said petulantly.

  “Stuff it, Delia,” Rachel said. “Let the man carry you upstairs.”

  Delia gave Rachel a startled look, but settled meekly into Marsh’s arms. “All right. Let’s go.”

  “I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Rachel said.

  Marsh headed up the stairs and then down the hall to Delia’s room. He paused at the door while Delia hit the switch that turned the bedside light on. He crossed to the bed and leaned down to pull the spread and top sheet away before he laid her down. He pulled off her boots and tucked her feet under the covers, then pulled them up under her arms.

  “Good night, Delia. I’ll call you in the morning,” he said as he bent over to kiss her on the forehead.

  She caught his wrist and said, “Please don’t leave yet.”

  He sat down beside her on the bed and brushed her bangs tenderly away from her forehead. “Do you want to talk about Hattie?”

  She shook her head.

  He waited expectantly, but when she didn’t speak, he said, “Thanks for coming over to save my house from the deluge.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And for talking to Billie Jo. It seems you explained quite a few things to her that she’s been wondering about.”

  “You’re lucky to have her.”

  “I know.”

  Delia sighed. “What’s going to happen to us, Marsh?”

  “Whatever we want to happen, Delia.”

  “As soon as the funeral’s over and I find someone to manage this place, I have to go back to New York. Especially with the accusations that have been leveled against me.”

  “I know.”

  “How do we make it work, Marsh, if I’m there, and you’re here?”

  “One of us will have to move.”

  “Are you saying you’ll give up the ranch?”

  His mouth tightened. “I can’t go anywhere until Billie Jo’s out of high school. She’s already had too much upheaval in her life for me to move her again right away.”

  “It’ll take another year and a half for her to finish high school.”

  “I know.”

  “What about your job at The Chronicle?”

  “When my editor found out I was thinking about quitting for good, he offered me an opinion column, something I can write from anywhere. I’m going to accept it.”

  “Marsh, that’s wonderful! That means you could move—”

  “No, I can’t. Not yet.”

  “So we wait another year and a half to be together?” Delia asked.

  “You could resign from the bench tomorrow.”

  Delia rose onto her elbows. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Why not? You can be a lot more help to kids in trouble as a lawyer here in Uvalde than you can sentencing teenage perps to probation or jail in New York.”

  “If I resign, it’ll look like I did it under pressure from the DA’s office. It’ll look like I’m admitting that I’m incompetent. I won’t do that, Marsh.”

  “Are you saying that if a cloud weren’t hanging over your head, you’d be willing to resign?” Marsh asked in a soft voice.

  Delia hesitated. Remembering all the years she and her mother had wasted, all the years she and Ma
rsh had wasted, she took the plunge. “I love you, Marsh. I want to be with you. If the circumstances weren’t what they are, I’d resign tomorrow. But you can see why that’s impossible.”

  Marsh grinned and wrapped his arms around her and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Will you marry me, Delia?”

  Delia laughed. “This is a little sudden, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for twenty years. Say yes.”

  He looked so excited, like a kid with his first bicycle. She hated to spoil his pleasure. But somebody had to be sensible. “Don’t ask me now, Marsh. Not when things are so unsettled. I can’t say yes, even though I want to.”

  Marsh pulled himself free. “You can do anything you want to do, Delia. You told me so yourself, twenty years ago.”

  Delia’s lips pressed flat. “I can’t resign, Marsh. Not yet. Not until the accusations made against me in the Times get refuted or until I can prove them wrong.”

  “How long is that going to take? Another year on the bench? Two? Three? Thirteen?”

  “It takes as long as it takes,” Delia retorted.

  Marsh stood. “We’ll see about that,” he said as he headed from the room.

  “Where are you going?” Delia cried.

  Marsh paused at the door. “To dig up proof that Sam Dietrich is making deals for money. The sooner I establish he’s dirty, the sooner you can resign.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Marsh had never been so frustrated in his life. Everything he saw indicated Sam Dietrich was so clean he squeaked. There was no sign anywhere, in any bank account—foreign or domestic-that Marsh or a hacker friend of his had been able to locate, that Dietrich had accepted payoff money. His bank account matched his income from his job as the Brooklyn DA. He had property and investments, but nothing illegal, nothing even remotely stinky.

  Marsh turned off his computer, leaned back in the timeworn leather chair, and put his boots up on a walnut desk autographed by the spurs of previous North scions. He rubbed his eyes, which were tired from a day spent staring at a blue computer screen. Billie Jo should be getting home from school any minute. He needed to start thinking about what he was going to fix for supper.

  Marsh didn’t have the will to get up and move.

  He had been so sure he would find something that would make it all easy. Delia would confront Dietrich and resign from the bench and come back to Texas and marry him. He snorted in disgust. So much for easy solutions.

  To make matters worse, a second denunciation had been leveled at Delia in the Times, but in the guise of news, rather than opinion. Judge Carson hadn’t made the front page, but there was a picture of Delia on page three in the front section, along with a brief article about her meteoric rise in the Brooklyn DA’s office, her close friendship with Manhattan attorney and Democratic party mover and shaker Averill Matthews, and her even closer margin of election to the bench.

  The Brooklyn district attorney was quoted as saying he believed the problem was “more the result of inexperience and inflexibility than incompetence. Judge Carson,” the article continued, “was unavailable for comment.”

  The news article didn’t make judgments; it purported to state facts. But the plain facts showed that Delia had twice as many trials scheduled as any other Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, and that overall her plea bargains were stiffer than those of other judges.

  “They don’t call her The Hanging Judge for nothing,” Marsh muttered to himself.

  He was sorry for Delia’s sake that she had been attacked by the press. He was more concerned with how her troubles were going to affect their relationship. Without some evidence to prove Dietrich was manipulating the situation, Delia’s only hope of clearing herself was to go back to work and let her work speak for itself.

  That would mean the end of their chances of getting married right away and maybe for a long, long time. And because there was nothing certain about the future, maybe forever.

  Marsh looked up and saw Delia standing at the door to his office with his grandmother’s quilt folded over her arm. She was wearing a sleeveless white cotton shirt knotted at the waist, ragged, cutoff jeans, and Keds without socks. Her hair was bound up in a short ponytail. Except for the lines around her eyes and mouth—and the missing yard of hair—she could have been the girl he had met all those years ago. He felt a stab of wistful longing for the years they had lost.

  “I knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear me,” Delia said.

  “I was thinking.” He rose and took the quilt from her and laid it over the back of the chair he had vacated. “Thanks for taking care of this for me.”

  “I know how much it means to you,” Delia said.

  It should have been the easiest thing in the world to take her in his arms and kiss her. It was what he wanted to do. He hesitated too long, and the moment passed.

  She stepped back and said, “Did you find out anything?”

  “No good news, I’m afraid. Why don’t we go into the kitchen? We can talk while I start supper.”

  “What are you making?” Delia asked as they walked back down the hall together.

  “I haven’t decided yet. Maybe you can help me make up my mind.”

  He opened the refrigerator and looked through it with Delia standing at his shoulder. Several plastic-wrapped packages of hamburger sat on the shelf, along with an equal number of packages of chicken.

  “You should probably freeze some of this,” Delia said.

  “I want to divide it into serving size portions first,” Marsh said. “I just haven’t found the time to do it.”

  He pulled out a package of hamburger. “Hamburgers it is.”

  “I’ll split the rest of these into portions for you while you’re cooking,” Delia offered, “and wrap them for the freezer.”

  “Thanks,” Marsh said. “I’d appreciate that.”

  It felt strange working in the kitchen with someone else. Marsh had never done it with Ginny, more because she didn’t want him underfoot than because he wouldn’t have been willing. It reminded him of a time when his grandmother had still been alive, and he had helped her with piecrust or cookie dough.

  He wanted this quaint domestic scene to become reality. Considering what he had—or rather, hadn’t—been able to find out about Sam Dietrich, that wasn’t likely.

  “Will you join us for supper?” Marsh asked. “I can make another burger.”

  “I wish I could, but I can’t. I don’t want to leave Rachel alone right now. I only stopped by to return your quilt and to find out what information you might have discovered about Sam.”

  Marsh met Delia’s hopeful gaze and grimaced. “I can’t find a thing, Delia. The man’s clean as a whistle.”

  Delia turned away and finished wrapping a pound of hamburger. “I guess that settles that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’ll have to go back to New York as soon as I can get things worked out here.”

  Marsh wiped his hands on a towel and crossed to stand behind Delia. He saw her tense even before he circled her waist from behind and nuzzled her nape. He felt her shiver as he sucked on the flesh below her ear.

  He turned her in his arms, and she snatched at a paper towel to wipe her greasy hands as he pulled her into his embrace. The towel fell to the floor as he captured her mouth with his.

  He had been starving; she was a feast for the senses. He slid his tongue along the seam of her lips until she opened to him, and he thrust inside. Then she was his, and he took and gave and took some more. He backed her up against the sink and thrust against her, heard the animal sound she made in her throat and answered with one of his own.

  He lifted her and set her on the counter and wrapped her legs around him.

  The hamburgers sizzled.

  So did he.

  Marsh tore his mouth from hers and laid his forehead on her shoulder, gasping for breath. “We have to stop. Billie Jo will be home any minute.”

  She took his head in her hands and b
rought his mouth back to hers and kissed him tenderly. It felt as though she were bidding him farewell.

  Then she leaned her cheek against his and hugged him tight. “There has to be something . . . some way,” she said, “something else we can do.” She leaned back, her worried gaze meeting his. “I can’t give up this easily. I won’t.”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” he said, giving her kiss-swollen lips more of his attention.

  She took his kisses, gave him a few of her own, then drew away, her brow furrowed in thought. “What else would make Sam deal with a bunch of felons besides money? What is he getting for letting them go? I know something’s rotten. I just know it! But what?”

  “Maybe we can figure it out by looking at the cases you think were fixed,” Marsh suggested. “Perhaps there’s a connection between them. How many do you think we’re talking about?”

  “The first outrageous plea bargain Sam threw at me occurred two months after I took my oath of office,” Delia said. “I can count on one hand the number since. Leroy Lincoln would be number six.”

  “That takes two hands,” Marsh pointed out.

  Delia made a face at him.

  “Can you get copies of the plea bargains and all the other pertinent information?” Marsh asked.

  “I can have Janet—my secretary—fax it to me.”

  They both looked toward the screen door when they heard the squeal of the school bus brakes.

  “Let me down, Marsh,” Delia said, her color high.

  “Kiss me first.”

  “Marsh—”

  He kissed her, his tongue slipping into her open mouth to plunder it. Then he set her on her feet and held her steady until she had her legs under her again.

  He was at the stove turning hamburgers, and Delia was at the counter wrapping the last of the chicken for freezing, when Billie Jo pulled open the screen door and stepped inside.

  “Hi, kid,” Marsh said. “How was school?” “Fine.” Billie Jo had stopped right inside the door, her ambivalent feelings about the scene she was witnessing apparent on her face.