Sullivan's Promise

by Joan Johnston

  “No problem,” he replied.

  “Who is that?” Vick hissed. The girl looked too young to be Sullivan’s date, but Vick couldn’t imagine why else she would have shown up at his back door.

  “Teresa!” Cody yelled joyously from the living room.

  As Vick stared with wide eyes, her son raced across the living room all the way to the kitchen and threw himself at the young woman. Her hands slid under his arms as she lifted Cody and swung him in an exuberant circle, while the sound of Cody’s laughter rippled across Vick’s spine.

  “Daddy didn’t tell me you were coming,” Cody said.

  “Teresa babysits for Cody,” Sullivan said.

  Vick stood frozen like a deer in headlights. Because she only had her son one weekend a month, she spent every moment of that time with him. Naturally, there would be occasions when all the Sullivans were busy at the same time; hence the need for a babysitter.

  Vick released a silent sigh of relief that the young woman wasn’t Sullivan’s date, and that he hadn’t sandbagged her date with Pete by taking off and leaving her with no one to care for Cody.

  Obviously, he’d had this planned.

  “Where are you headed tonight?” she asked.

  “Out.”

  Vick pursed her lips. What could she say? Where Sullivan went, and with whom, was none of her business.

  He grabbed his black felt Stetson and a shearling coat and scooted backward out the kitchen door without another word to her or the babysitter.

  Which was when Vick realized he hadn’t given the babysitter any instructions. She turned to the girl and said, “Teresa, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled and said, “Please, call me Vick.”

  “All right, ma’am.” The girl grinned, revealing a gap between her two front teeth. “Vick.”

  “I take it you’ve done a bit of babysitting for Cody.”

  “Sure have,” she said, then put her mouth against Cody’s neck and made a buzzing sound with her lips, making him giggle and hide his head under her chin.

  Vick had mixed feelings watching her son interact with the babysitter. While she’d been worried about how Cody would feel if she “abandoned” him for an evening with Pete, he seemed delighted at the chance to spend time with someone else. Was she that easily replaceable? Or did his willingness to cheerfully let her leave mean, contrary to her own experience as a child, that her son was confident his mother would return?

  “I presume you know Cody’s schedule,” Vick said.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The babysitter smiled an apology. “Vick.”

  “And you have the phone numbers for—”

  “I do. Including yours. Mr. Sullivan texted it to me today.”

  Vick wasn’t sure where to go from there. She heard a knock on the kitchen door and hurried to let Pete in.

  “Ready?” he asked, his dark eyes crinkling as he smiled at her from the doorway. He looked around and asked, “Where’s Rye?”

  “He left a little while ago.”

  “Hmm.”

  She was glad he didn’t ask any more questions, because she didn’t have any answers for where Rye had gone. She grabbed her coat and was surprised when Pete took it and held it for her. They’d only been out a couple of times before, and she’d put her coat on before she’d answered her door.

  “Who’s taking care of—”

  “Sullivan hired a babysitter.”

  “Is there a time we need to be back?”

  The fact that their evening might be curtailed by the need to take a babysitter home by a certain hour had never occurred to Vick. She’d never babysat herself, and had no experience being cared for by a babysitter. Her father had hired a series of housekeepers who lived on the property. Vick felt a flare of anger at Sullivan for not speaking with her before he’d made his arrangements.

  “Sullivan will take care of it,” she said at last. He’d hired the babysitter; he could make sure she got home on time, whatever time that was.

  “You mentioned dancing,” she said as he helped her into his pickup.

  “I thought Casey’s, unless you have a better suggestion.”

  Vick was about to suggest they drive farther south, to Kalispell, where they had a lot more options, but she didn’t know where Sullivan had gone, and she didn’t want to be too far away in case there was any kind of emergency. “Casey’s is great.”

  She wondered if other mothers worried when they were away from their children as much as she did. Because Vick had kept Cody’s existence a secret from everyone except her twin, she hadn’t been able to ask the rest of her sisters those sorts of questions.

  Looking back, Vick knew why she hadn’t immediately told Leah, who’d been a surrogate mother to her, that she was pregnant and asked for her advice. Partly, she’d been ashamed. Who got “accidentally” pregnant in this day and age? Partly, she’d been afraid of being judged for the choice she’d already made to give up her child. Partly, she hadn’t wanted to burden her sister with one more problem, when she already had enough difficulties of her own.

  Mostly, she’d kept her pregnancy, the birth of her child, and her small part in his life a secret from her sisters because she was pretty sure they would have urged her to take Sullivan back to court and demand more visitation, visitation she hadn’t believed she deserved.

  Over the years, her attitude had changed. Now, not only did she believe she was entitled to more time with her son, she believed he deserved more time with his mother.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Pete said.

  This was supposed to be a fun evening out. Vick didn’t want to spend it recounting the past or complaining about Sullivan, first hiring a babysitter without saying a word to her, and then skipping out without telling her where he was going or when he would be back.

  She put a smile on her face and unclenched her hands, which she’d stuck in her coat pockets. She would be double-damned if she let Sullivan ruin her night out.

  She’d first met Pete at a local government meeting, where she was arguing the county should commit to protecting more grizzly habitat, and talking to him had always been easy.

  So why was she having so much trouble coming up with something to say?

  “No word about the grizzly that attacked Mike?” she asked.

  Pete shook his head, then shot her a hangdog look. “I thought we had an agreement about bear talk.”

  Ten minutes into their first date, all of which she’d spent talking about grizzlies, Pete had laughed and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather talk about humans—us—than bears.”

  Vick wrinkled her nose, to acknowledge the subject of bears was off-limits and said, “Fine. How was your week?”

  “I spent the whole of it hunting for that wounded grizzly.”

  Vick laughed and shook her head. “Now who’s breaking the rules?”

  Pete grinned. “You asked.”

  “What else did you do?”

  Pete spent the rest of the journey to Casey’s relating the various incidents that kept a deputy sheriff busy in Flathead County, a lot of which concerned auto accidents, domestic disputes, missing tourists, and teenage vandalism. When they arrived, she resisted the urge to get out of the truck on her own, waiting instead for Pete to come around and open the door. When he put his hands to her waist to lift her down, her heart fluttered. His touch was strong and sure. And the littlest bit possessive.

  That sudden burst of sexual awareness was enough to make her realize that, if Sullivan weren’t in the picture, she would have been happy to pursue a more serious relationship with Pete.

  So why don’t you? If Sullivan hasn’t changed his mind about you in all this time, what makes you think he’s ever going to seek you out?

  Her twin would say she’d been flying
in a holding pattern, waiting for a place to land. After that incident in the bathroom, Sullivan had been a ghost. What was she waiting for? When was she going to allow herself to move on with her life?

  Vick had automatically put her hands on Pete’s shoulders when he lifted her, and she kept them there as he slid her down the front of his body. She could feel the strength in his arms, but with their coats separating them, not much else. When her feet touched the ground, she tilted her head slightly and focused her gaze on his eyes, which were mostly in shadow.

  He hesitated, searching her face, and she felt his gaze shift from eyes to cheekbones, to nose, and land, at last, on her mouth.

  Vick wondered if there was something she was doing with her face or her body that caused so many of the men she dated to seem unsure that she would welcome their kisses. She didn’t move forward or back, just continued to watch. And wait.

  She kept her eyes focused on Pete’s as he lowered his head, letting them slide closed as their mouths met. His lips were warm and supple and…tentative. She was shocked at how much she wanted him to deepen the kiss. When his tongue finally slid between her lips, she leaned her body into his, needing to be closer, hoping to feel more.

  She was left wanting when he suddenly stepped back. She looked up at him through lazy, half-lidded eyes, wondering why he’d ended the kiss.

  She bit back a gasp when she saw a huge shadow at his left shoulder.

  Then Sullivan said, “You two are going to freeze your asses off out here. See you inside.”

  Vick felt a flare of fury that he’d interrupted their kiss. She saw a muscle jerk in Pete’s jaw as he clenched his teeth and knew he was equally annoyed at the interruption. His eyes followed Sullivan, and if looks could kill, Sullivan would have dropped stone-cold dead before he reached the door.

  Vick stepped back, forcing Pete to release her. The mood was broken. Whatever might have happened, if they’d been left to themselves, wasn’t going to happen now.

  RYE HAD FOUGHT the urge to come to Casey’s, knowing Pete and Lexie would likely wind up there. He’d driven around for a half hour, looking for somewhere else in Whitefish he wanted to go, then muttered, “To hell with it,” and headed for the bar, which had first been opened as the Sprague Saloon in 1905. The wide plank floors and brick walls were remnants of the taverns and billiard halls that had made their home there ever since.

  He made a point of staying downstairs, rather than heading to the bar that served the dance floor up one flight, where he supposed Pete and Lexie would spend their evening. He slipped onto a backless leather-padded stool and ordered a Jack Daniel’s neat.

  The female bartender, someone new, gave him a million-watt smile and said, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have our special?”

  The girl didn’t know he was a regular at Casey’s, or she wouldn’t have suggested he have a huckleberry margarita. It was hard for Rye to believe that hunters and fishermen who came to Whitefish actually drank such a concoction, but since Montana was known for its huckleberries—purple and sweet, but half the size of a small blueberry—he supposed it gave them something to talk about when they got home.

  He shot her a look that was all the answer she needed, and shortly had his drink in front of him. Rye stared at it without picking it up. He didn’t want a drink. He wanted to go back and live the past week over again and do a better job of it.

  Dealing with Lexie had been stressful, because every interaction, especially since their naked encounter in the bathroom, was layered with repressed desire. He winced when he thought of the immature way he’d dealt with having her in his home, avoiding her as much as possible, then pulling that stunt tonight, setting up a babysitter without telling her and stalking out.

  He’d done no better with his mother. Every meeting between them at the hospital had been fraught with undercurrents. He’d confined his conversations to questions about Mike’s condition, his gut wrenching every time he looked at his brother, whose features were unrecognizable, a horror mask of bruised and swollen flesh, and ragged lines of stitches sewing him back together. He’d sat beside Mike, touching a small spot on his brother’s arm that wasn’t covered with stitches and told him to fight for his life, that he was needed and loved. All the while, he was wondering whether he was Mike’s half brother or no relation at all.

  His mother sat on the other side of Mike’s bed looking too wrung out, too overwhelmed, to handle one more burden. Rye kept putting off the confrontation about the discovery he’d made, because something else lurked in her faded hazel eyes. Something more than fear for Mike. Panic.

  So he hadn’t asked the questions that begged for answers. And the tension he felt simmered and bubbled beneath the surface, threatening to boil over.

  It was no wonder, with his emotions so close to the surface, he’d overreacted when he saw Pete kissing Lexie in the parking lot. The surge of jealousy he felt was so powerful it had been all Rye could do not to smash his fist into Pete’s mouth. He’d felt a flare of roaring heat suffuse his body when Pete’s hand slid around Lexie’s nape. His heart had lurched when it dawned on him what he was seeing.

  She’s kissing him back.

  He had no rights where Lexie was concerned. None. He’d gone for years without seeking her out. Why this sudden rush of possessiveness? What was it about seeing another man kissing her that made him want to claim her for himself?

  Perhaps his change of heart was tied up with the knowledge that his world was no longer merely black or white. That he’d been holding her to a standard that was unrealistic. People made mistakes. There was a great deal of gray out there. Otherwise, how could he explain his father keeping such a secret from him?

  Unless his father hadn’t known the truth.

  Rye growled. It was impossible to imagine his mom lying to his dad. He’d seen how much they loved and trusted and respected each other. Could their whole marriage have been built on a lie? Had his mother been pregnant with some other man’s child when she married his father? What other explanation was there? His blood type required the existence of at least one other person.

  Unless he was adopted and had two unknown parents out there somewhere.

  Rye heard a mellow voice and a quiet guitar and realized that the entertainment tonight was just a guy singing ballads in the corner. He heaved a sigh of relief. Pete wasn’t going to be putting his arms around Lexie on the dance floor upstairs. There was no need to hang around with his knuckles dragging to protect his woman like some caveman. In fact, he’d better get himself out of here before he did something he’d regret.

  Rye tossed down his whiskey and pulled out a bill to pay for his drink. When he turned to leave, he realized Pete and Lexie were sitting at one of the dining tables near the front window.

  Leave, Rye. Get your butt out the door.

  Instead, he turned and walked across the room. “Too bad about the dancing.”

  “There’s dancing later,” Pete said. “The DJ doesn’t come in until ten. We decided to get something to eat first.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Rye was already pulling out the wooden chair next to Lexie before Pete could answer.

  Pete pursed his lips ruefully. “Sure. Why not?”

  Lexie shot Rye a sideways look and said, “Is your date meeting you here?”

  “I don’t have a date.”

  “You came all the way to Whitefish to have one drink?”

  “And dinner.”

  “You were about to leave,” she pointed out. “I saw you pay your tab.”

  So she’d been watching him. Was that a good thing? He smiled and said, “I suddenly realized I’m hungry.” He kept waiting for one or the other of them to tell him to leave, but neither one did.

  So he stayed.

  Every so often, Lexie’s jean-clad thigh would brush against his under the table. She quickly moved it away, but
he watched a flush rise on her throat each time it happened. He was careful not to touch her on purpose, not to let their elbows or their hands meet, but he was aware of every move she made, every word she spoke, every glance she exchanged with the other man.

  Rye wasn’t the least bit hungry, and he had to choke down the hamburger he ordered. He used eating as an excuse not to talk. He didn’t have anything to say. He just listened. And learned a few things he would rather not have known, because they made Lexie seem more fallible, more human.

  “I can’t believe your father and Angus Flynn are still fighting over something that happened forty years ago,” Pete said.

  “He blamed my father for his sister’s death, and he’s been trying to ruin him ever since,” Lexie replied. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t only our fathers who ended up feuding. My three sisters and I spent a lot of our youth figuring out ways to make the lives of Angus’s four sons—Aiden, Brian, Connor, and Devon—miserable. We did everything from poking a hole in a gas tank so a couple of ‘those awful Flynn boys’ would have to walk home from a hunting trip in the wilderness, to gluing their boots to the mudroom floor. We shaved the hair on one of their 4-H calves, and they retaliated by putting salt in Leah’s 4-H cherry pie.”

  Pete laughed. “That just sounds like good fun.”

  “I agree. If it had stopped at that. But Eve’s cinch was cut before a barrel racing competition, and when the saddle rolled, she ended up with a broken arm. So Leah sliced Aiden’s cinch during the calf roping, and he ended up with a broken leg.”

  “Whoa. That sounds a lot more serious.”

  “It gets worse.”

  “Worse?” Pete asked. “How?”

  “Aiden bet Brian he could make Leah fall in love with him.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “He won. When Leah found out the truth, she was heartbroken.”

  “That’s too bad,” Pete said. “Did the Flynns make their bet public as revenge for one of those tricks you played on them?”

  “Taylor—my twin—is married to Brian Flynn, who made the bet with Aiden in the first place. She told me about it.”