The Promise

by River Laurent

  My stomach feels funny and I lay my hand on it.

  “The original plan was for you to hurt yourself badly enough that you could bow out of riding or attending the masked ball, but you’ll have to pretend to hurt yourself badly enough that you’re too frightened to ride, but you are still able to go to the ball.”

  I start to feel sick. “What is her new plan?”

  “In a nutshell. She wants to go to the masked ball herself.”

  “Oh,” I gasp.

  “I’m so sorry, Cass. You shouldn’t have told her.”

  “I didn’t. She forced me into admitting it.” My fists clench as angry, helpless tears start running down my face. I am glad that Ms. Moore cannot see them. I swallow hard and try to get a hold of myself, but in spite of my best efforts, a sob tears out of my throat.

  “Oh, Cass,” Ms. Moore says. “Come on, be a brave girl. You couldn’t have kept him anyway.”

  That makes the tears fall even faster. I take a deep, shuddering breath. Just because she has money she is just going to come down here and steal my man and there’s not a single thing I can do about it. My heart feels as if it is breaking into a million pieces.

  “Stop crying, dear.”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Moore,” I sob.

  “Just a minute. Wait.”

  I dash the tears away with the back of my hand. “What?”

  “Look, let me see what I can do for you, okay?” she says.

  “Thank you,” I choke out and cut the connection. Then I rush to my bathroom, strip my clothes off, and get into the shower. I switch it on and ugly cry for a long time. I never dreamed when I took this job that I’d be asked to step aside and let Tamara take away the man I fall in love with. The tears mingle with the water rushing away down the drain.

  That night, Lars has to go to New York on business. I sit alone on the patio. Part of me refuses to believe that in five days, I will be back in Chicago, to my old life. I can’t get it out of my mind that soon, all this beauty will become just a memory. A dream I once had. I will never see Emma Jean, or Chance, or Butch, or Lars ever again.

  I pick up the wine bottle by the neck and refill my glass. I have already had two glasses and I feel very, very drunk. But I’ve cried a lot and I need to replace the liquid. My phone rings. At first, I consider not picking it up. It’s probably just Jessie and I don’t want her to see me looking so down, but then I think what the hell. I need to talk to someone. I lurch unsteadily to the phone and find it’s not Jessie. It’s Ms. Moore.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Can you talk?” she asks.

  “Yes. I’m alone.”

  “Cass, do you want to go to the ball?”

  I grip the phone hard. “Yes.”

  “But you do know that you cannot have that man, right?”

  “I know.” She is right. The sooner I accept it, the better it will be for me.

  “This is what I will do for you. I’ll send you an exact replica of the dress that Tamara will be wearing. You will wear that and go to the ball. Dance with your ranch hand and have fun, but as soon as I call you on your mobile phone, you must go to the bathroom where you will exchange places with Tamara.”

  “Tamara agreed to this?” I ask incredulously.

  “She doesn’t know yet. I will work it in such a way that she gets delayed, and it will seem as if you are doing her a favor to appear during the first half of the ball.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Moore.”

  “Though you cannot let on to him who you are, you can say a private goodbye from your heart. Remember why you’re doing this. When you get back, you can start again with all your debts paid. You are a beautiful girl and there will other men for you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, go take a couple of headache tablets and go to sleep. You might escape waking up with a hangover. Oh, and switch your phone off tonight. You don’t need to deal with her until tomorrow. She’s only going to call to gloat.”

  “I will switch my phone off. Goodnight, Ms. Moore. You’ve been very, very kind to me. I just want you to know that I really appreciate it.”

  “Goodnight, Cass,” she says softly before the line goes dead.

  I go and lie down on my bed. The room is swimming. My life feels empty and sad. I close my eyes and try to think of me galloping across the grasslands with Lars. I was happy that day. I feel a hand stroke my face and open my eyes to see Lars sitting on my bed. In the silver moonlight, he is incredibly beautiful.

  “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?” I whisper.

  “I couldn’t stay away. I missed the feel of your skin.”

  I turn my cheek to his hand. The alcohol has made me emotional and I just want to cry.

  “Hey,” he says, a frown on his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  His eyes narrow. “Have you been crying?”

  “No.”

  He switches on the light. “You have been crying. Why?”

  I remember that I don’t have my contact lenses in and immediately reach over and switch the light off. Oh, how I wish I could tell him. That I could stop lying to him. How I wish I didn’t have to go back to Chicago, back to my dreary life. How I wish he could be mine.

  He strokes my hair. “Tell me, Tamara. Please? Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out.”

  My eyes fill with tears and run down my temples.

  “Is it something I’ve done?”

  “No.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  I shake my head. Lord, men are so stupid.

  “Has someone else upset you?”

  “No,” I say quickly.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’ve been drinking and sometimes when I drink, I get emotional. Nothing is wrong.”

  “Bullshit,” he growls.

  My phone starts ringing. I forgot to turn it off. He frowns. “Who’s calling you at this hour?”

  “No one important,” I say. I’ll deal with Tamara tomorrow. At this point, there’s nothing more she can take from me. Rising on my elbows, I kiss his mouth. At first, he is too distracted by the identity of the caller to respond, but then he makes a muffled curse, wraps his hands around me, and kisses me back as if he is a man who has been lost in a desert for a long, long time and has suddenly come upon a creek full of sweet water. After a while, I don’t hear the phone ringing either. All I feel is his tongue, his hands, his body, his cock. As if he can feel my desperation, he makes love to me frantically. Our fingers clawing at each other, our bodies pushing against each other as if trying to meld together.

  When it is over, I start drifting to sleep in his arms.

  He murmurs something in my ear, but I am too drunk to make it out. My mind and body are too tired. I want to tell him I love him, but even that is too much effort. It is a relief when the blessed darkness comes to claim me.

  I wake up with an electric sledgehammer inside my head. I should have taken those pills before I went to bed. The sun is high in the sky, throwing squares of light onto the wooden floor. I roll over and groan. There is only the indentation in the pillow next to me to show that I did not dream last night. Lars did come to me.

  I stumble into the bathroom and stand under the spray of hot water and give myself a stern pep talk. You’ve got to stop with the self-pity. You’ve got Dad to think of. Be strong. Finally clean and feeling a bit more human, I get dressed and go over to the kitchen. There is a note under a magnet on the fridge door for me. Lars is out mending fences with the boys, and Emma Jean has gone to town. I am directed to the fridge where I find a ham sandwich inside.

  I take a couple of headache tablets and eat the sandwich. Then, I go out to the stables. For the last few days now I have not been expected to shovel horse dung or patrol the grounds picking up dog poop or trash. In fact, Lars has made sure that I have so little to do, I now spend most of my time grooming the horses or riding them. As soon as I enter the barn, Thunder neighs and calls to me. I sta
nd in front of his pin and hold out the lump of sugar.

  “I will miss you,” I whisper sadly against his sleek face.

  Chapter 45

  Cass

  There are only two days left before I have to leave the ranch. Before lunch, a courier brings my ballgown in a massive cardboard box. I sign for it and take it to my room. My fingers are shaking when I break it open and carefully take the dress out of its tissue.

  It’s a stunning peacock-blue, floor-length, full skirted affair that looks like it has been plucked from the pages of a fairytale. With a sweetheart neckline, a crystal embellished bodice, and yards and yards of organza, silk, and tulle, it is quite simply the most beautiful and dreamy dress I have ever seen.

  I try it on and it fits perfectly.

  Inside the package, there is also a pair of designer shoes that look like they are made of rainbow-hued glass. I could never even have dreamed of owning something so gorgeous in my other life. I step into them, stand in front of the mirror, and stare at myself in amazement.

  I hardly recognize myself. I’m not the same girl who came to this ranch. I came here, desperate for money but strong and confident, and I am leaving a broken woman defeated by a selfish, rich whore. Still, it’s a funny ole world. I came here to impersonate Tamara and now she’s coming here to impersonate me.

  I turn away from the mirror and carefully take my dress off.

  Yesterday, Lars told me that I could take the day off and do anything I liked on my last day here. He smiled when he said it, but he had no idea how much my heart hurt to hear those words. We both know I’m leaving tomorrow, but I’m the only one who knows that I won’t ever come back.

  I know Tamara only wants him because she knows I want him. After she has taken him away from me, she won’t want him for long. A ranch hand won’t fit in with her plans. I saw how rude she was to the blond man. She won’t be able to do that with Lars.

  But none of it will matter by then. I’ll be gone, never to see Lars again. I’ll be back in Chicago. He’ll stay here, doing his job, and eventually, he’ll forget about me.

  I know I won’t ever forget him.

  I hang the dress up carefully and go back out to the house. Lars is just coming in from outside. His face breaks into a grin. “Guess where I’m taking you?” he asks.

  I smile softly up to him. “Your bedroom?”

  He grabs my ass. “That’s where I want to take you, and probably where I should, but I’m actually taking you to the Dairy Queen.”

  “That sounds great.” I try to look happy.

  He looks at me strangely. “So, what are your thoughts about the day after tomorrow?”

  “What about the day after tomorrow?” I ask more specifically. I don’t want to talk about anything he isn’t talking about. I don’t even know if I can talk about leaving without bursting into floods of tears again.

  “You know what I’m talking about. You’ll be leaving and we need to talk about it.”

  “Can we not talk about it?” I ask, my voice cracking slightly.

  “You’re just not going to talk about it at all? That’s your plan?” he asks.

  “Would it be so bad if we just let things roll and see where it goes.”

  He stares at me and I find I can’t hold his gaze.

  “This discussion is not over, but I’ll leave it for the moment. Let’s go,” he says quietly. We walk to the car in silence.

  Lars has no idea how hard this is for me. This isn’t my decision, yet I have to act like it is. I wish with all my heart he could know the truth. If only there was a way I could tell him without getting him into trouble.

  We almost don’t speak at all in the car. Lars seems preoccupied as he stares straight ahead, and I am too sad to pretend to be happy. I try turning on the radio, but he turns it back off, explaining that there is never any proper reception around that area. We pull into Dairy Queen after almost an hour of dead silence. As always, he opens my door for me and leads me in like a gentleman.

  It is small and rustic and nothing like the one in Chicago. There is no one inside except the staff and a man with his hat pulled low over his eyes. There is a girl with pigtails standing behind the counter, who smiles at us.

  “We’re getting ice cream to go, Sophia,” Lars tells her. “You know my order.”

  She looks at me and I ask for double chocolate chip.

  Sophia gets the ice cream in record time and Lars pays, leaving her a ten-dollar tip.

  Once we’re back in the car eating our ice cream, Lars speaks again. “You may not want to talk about it, but I need to. You can’t just leave here without some kind of discussion of how we go forward.”

  “I have a life and it’s not here,” I say, staring miserably at my ice cream.

  “Have I ever asked you to move up here?”

  “No, but…oh, I wish I could explain the situation I’m in, but I can’t.”

  “I accept that long distance relationships are hard, but we’ll work it out.”

  I set my ice cream in the cup holder of the car and scoot over to him. He wraps both of his arms around me and rubs my back. “There is no future for us, Lars,” I whisper.

  He tightens his hold on my body. “I can’t accept that. How old are you?”

  I rack my brains. Has anybody mentioned Tamara’s age to me? “You’re not supposed to ask a woman her age,” I say.

  “Do you realize how rare what we have is? You’re young so you think you can find what we have under every rock you pick up, but I can tell you now, what we have is precious. I’m twenty-nine and I’ve never found what we have with anyone else. My brother is older than me and he doesn’t have it either.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind.”

  He takes a deep breath of frustration. It makes his chest rise against my cheek. “There has to be a reason for your decision. Are you afraid of what your dad will say? Because I can talk to him if you are.”

  “No, Lars. I’m not afraid of that.”

  “Is it something to do with the loan sharks?”

  “No.”

  “Then it just doesn’t make sense. Did I do something wrong? Tell me, because I can change for you.”

  I feel the tears start streaming from my eyes. “No, I never want you to change anything. You’re perfect. Nothing about you needs to change. It’s not you, it’s me. I wish I could explain, but I literally can’t. This is so hard.”

  “Well, I’m not fucking giving up. I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do,” he growls stubbornly.

  I don’t know what to do anymore. The man I want more than I want anything else in the world is asking me to stay and I can’t. I never knew life could be so cruel. I start sobbing into his chest and he just holds me.

  Our ice cream melts and eventually, he starts the truck and pulls away. I don’t bother looking up or moving away from him. I can’t move away from him. I never want to. If only I didn’t have to.

  My tears stop. He takes one hand off the wheel and plays with my hair. All I want is for him to understand, but he can’t because I can’t tell him the truth. Money may not be as important as happiness, but I need this money to help pay for my father’s medical bills. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I can’t quit now.

  We arrive at the ranch, but my hands refuse to let him go. Instead of pulling away from me, he sweeps me into his arms. Leaving our ice cream cups in the truck, he carries me gently into the house and into my bedroom. Carefully, he lays me on my bed and pulls the covers over my body. He doesn’t understand that what I need is him.

  “Please stay,” I whisper as he turns to leave.

  “Is that what you want?”

  I don’t tell him that I need him to love me the way I love him, because tomorrow, he won’t be mine anymore. Tomorrow, Tamara will probably get him drunk and bounce on him. Even that passing thought makes me feel sick to my stomach. I just want to live out tonight like I’ll never leave. “I want us to play out thi
s night as if I’m not leaving. I want you inside me and all over my body.”

  “I can do that,” he whispers, climbing under the covers with me. “Because you’re not leaving. Not ever.”

  How I wish that were true.

  We don’t have the hot passion that we had before. What we have this time is so much more intimate and profound. We work slowly and diligently at taking off our clothing and lay together for the longest time, skin touching skin.

  I stare into his silver eyes as he enters my body, and cry for the person that I may have become if I could have stayed with him. He is the man I can see myself making a family with and growing old with. I can see us surrounded by a whole bunch of curtain biters. My future could have been so bright here, but I have to leave it all.

  Sometimes, life throws you slices of happiness, but it quickly balances the bliss with sadness. That has been the story of my life. Lars is that shining slice. Now it is time for balance again.

  Finally, after what feels like hours of being caught in my own head, Lars gives me exactly what I asked from him. A climax so deep and long I feel as if I have broken into a million pieces. Like star dust, I float away, weightless and uncaring about what tomorrow brings.

  Chapter 46

  Cass

  I feel as if I am walking around in a daze. There is so much activity around me, and everyone seems to be so excited about the masked ball happening tonight. Apparently, it happens only once a year and is attended by the governor. Even Emma Jean has gone to town to get her hair done. Tamara’s father is supposed to arrive at the ranch to watch me ride just before the ball starts.

  This morning, I must somehow engineer my fall from a horse and feign injury; if I don’t actually sustain a real injury. I decide I’d rather fall from Misty than Thunder. Not only is he more unpredictable, but I will also be a lot higher off the ground. My plan is to take Misty out in the morning and fake a fall when no one is watching.

  Unfortunately, the opportunity for me to go out on my own with Misty doesn’t arise, since Lars insists on warming up Thunder before I ride him in front of Tamara’s father. Of course, he has no idea that I have absolutely no intention of riding for Tamara’s father, or even being anywhere near the man.