Sullivan's Promise

by Joan Johnston

  King smiled, and Leah heard the cackle that passed for his laugh. The sound was stunning because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard it.

  “What a woman,” he muttered.

  “I think so, too.”

  Leah felt a welling of joy when she heard the male voice behind her. When she turned, Aiden stood in the doorway to King’s room. She’d told him where she was going and why. She hadn’t asked him to come—she never would have admitted how much she needed him—but she was so very glad he was here. In light of her father’s news, she desperately wanted a strong shoulder to lean on. Aiden crossed the room and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close. She felt her body lean into his, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for her to lean on him for support.

  “I came to see if there’s anything I can do to help,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Your being here is enough.” She rested her cheek against his chest just to hear the sound of his strong heartbeat.

  King glared at Aiden and said, “You’re not welcome here.”

  “If you send Aiden away, I go with him,” Leah threatened.

  “What’s he doing here, Leah?” King demanded.

  “Aiden is…” Leah hesitated. She almost said, “My husband,” but the words got stuck in her throat. This wasn’t the time to spring that news on King. “Someone I care about,” she finished. “Flynn men have married two of my sisters. You should be used to having them around by now.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he shot back.

  “Daddy.” The warning in her voice must have gotten to him. Or maybe it was her use of that word. It shut him up. “Aiden and I are determined to end this awful feud between you and his father,” she continued.

  King crossed his arms. “Never gonna happen.”

  “Maybe the animosity between you two grizzlies won’t end, but Aiden and I are going to pull your teeth and claws.”

  That image was apparently disturbing enough for King to ask, “How are you planning to manage that?”

  Leah and Aiden exchanged a glance before she turned to King and said, “We want to merge the two ranches into one.”

  “The hell you say,” King blustered. “I haven’t given Kingdom Come to you yet, young lady, and if that’s what you have in mind, you can forget about ever getting it!”

  She heard Aiden hitch in a breath. Maybe telling King what they planned to do wasn’t the wisest course. But the more Leah thought about it, the less she wanted to sneak behind King’s back.

  “Aiden and I want a future under one roof. We want to start a family. We can’t do that so long as you and Angus are at each other’s throats.”

  “Even if I were willing to bury the hatchet—and I’m not saying I am—Angus will never agree.”

  “Leave him to me,” Aiden said.

  “What sword are you going to dangle over his head?” King asked. “Nothing I’ve said or done has made a difference for forty years.”

  “My father wants more grandchildren,” Aiden said with a sardonic smile.

  Leah held her breath, waiting to see whether Aiden would admit the deal he’d made to name their first child after his father. King would have ten fits when he realized he’d be rocking a miniature “Angus” on his knee someday. Presuming she had a boy. Leah had no idea what Angus would demand if she and Aiden had only daughters.

  King’s brows arrowed down as he considered Aiden’s statement. Finally, with a snort of disgust, he turned to Leah and said, “Get out and let me think about this.”

  Leah gasped. Was her dream one step closer to coming true? Or was this a delaying tactic, while King waited to see if Matt changed his mind about coming home?

  “I don’t think your damn fool idea will work,” King said, “but I can’t wait to hear what Angus has to say. Uniting our two ranches is going to take more than a little prestidigitation.”

  Leah was startled into laughter at King’s use of a word that suggested she was going to need sleight of hand to unite one ranch with the other, as though her idea would only work if the deed were done by magic, before either of the two hoary bears could growl their disapproval.

  She focused on the positive. At least King was willing to consider giving her the ranch. The chasm keeping her and Aiden apart was no less deep, but at least she had the first building blocks for a bridge across it.

  Leah left the security of Aiden’s embrace and crossed to King, slipping her arms around his neck and pressing her cheek next to his bristly hide. She lifted her head, smiled, and said, “You do need a shave.”

  He grunted and made a face.

  “All I want is for you to get well and come home,” she whispered in his ear, “so you can rock your next grandchild on your knee.”

  King frowned and leaned back to look her in the eye. “You said that like there’s already one on the way.”

  Leah let go of King and rearranged his pajama top—no hospital gown for him. She gave a quick, sick laugh, glanced over her shoulder at Aiden, and said, “We’re a long way from being married.”

  She wasn’t a good liar, and she didn’t want to hang around long enough for King to ask more awkward questions. She turned to Aiden, shoving him toward the door. “We have to go. We’ll be back to visit tomorrow. Be good and do what the doctors tell you.”

  “Like hell I will,” he retorted.

  Once she had Aiden out the door, she hurried back to King’s bed, stood over him, pointed a finger, and said, “You’ll do everything you’re told, Daddy, or I’ll know the reason why.”

  King grinned and said, “That’s my girl!”

  She heard his cackle again as she kissed him on the cheek. She ran for the door, calling over her shoulder, “I mean it!”

  She grasped Aiden’s hand and hurried him down the hall, before he could ruin everything by telling her father they were already married. Or ask if she really was pregnant.

  AIDEN WAS HALFWAY down the hall before he realized he’d been hustled out of King’s room before he could ask the question hovering on his tongue. His heart hammering, he caught Leah by the shoulders and turned her around. “Are you pregnant?”

  Her eyes shifted sideways. “I…”

  “Tell me the truth, Leah.”

  She met his gaze, her eyes glistening with tears.

  His heart hitched, and his stomach dropped. He gently drew her into his arms and murmured, “Oh, baby.” He realized what he’d said and waited for her to object to his use of the term. More than once she’d told him she was a grown-ass woman and didn’t want to be treated like some helpless infant. Only, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to protect her, never more so than now.

  “We have to tell our parents we’re married,” he said.

  “Not yet.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “We should have been more careful, Aiden.”

  His chest felt so full of joy he thought it might burst. “I’m not sorry, Leah. I’m glad.” He waited for her to express her own feelings, but she wasn’t sharing.

  Instead she said, “It must have happened on that beautiful day the first week of March. At least, that’s the timing that works with what my doctor said.”

  He remembered the day well. She’d been feeling blue, because it looked like Matt was going to win his bet and force her to leave the ranch. He’d merely sought to comfort her by holding her close.

  Because it was a warm day, they weren’t wearing coats, and he’d tucked her softness into his hardness. She’d looked up at him, and he’d seen in her eyes that she needed him as much as he needed her. Clothes had gone flying. Boots had landed in the dirt. They’d made love on the cold hard ground, on a blanket he’d grabbed from the bed of his pickup.

  He sighed. “I guess that was one of those times we forgot to use a condom.” />
  She shot him an ironic smile. “Neither of us was thinking much at the time.”

  Aiden realized her pregnancy was going to force the issue. Leah would have to admit to their fathers that they were married, and the sooner the better, as far as he was concerned.

  “What are you waiting for, Leah? We need to tell King and Angus we’re married.”

  “King’s health is too fragile—”

  “Baloney. That man is a tank.”

  “He has leukemia.”

  “Which just means he needs to make a decision pretty soon about the ranch. He hasn’t said no, Leah. And the truth is he doesn’t have anyone else to give it to besides you.”

  “That may be true. But it doesn’t do me any good to get Kingdom Come if you can’t get Angus to give you the Lucky 7.”

  “I’ve been working on him, Leah. It can’t be long now before he hands it over.”

  “It feels to me like we’re stuck in a rut,” she said. “We can’t very well merge two ranches when we don’t own either one of them.”

  “With a little more time I can convince Angus—”

  “What do you think your father is going to say when he realizes we’ve been lying to him all this time?” she demanded. “That we’ve been married for more than a year?”

  Aiden made a frustrated sound in his throat. “So we get married again.”

  “With my father in the hospital? Who’s going to walk me down the aisle?”

  “Details.”

  “Pretty big ones,” she countered. “If we do this again, I want a real wedding, Aiden, with my sisters as bridesmaids and your brothers as groomsmen.”

  “You’re being difficult, Leah.”

  “I’m being difficult? I’m entitled, don’t you think? You married me under false pretenses the first time, to win a bet with your brother. We stood in some brightly lit wedding chapel in Vegas, and you gave me a plastic ring. I’m carrying the baby of a man I hardly see, who’s too scared to challenge his father for what he wants.”

  “Whoa, there! I’m not scared of that old man.”

  “Then why haven’t you confronted him? What are you waiting for? If you want us living under the same roof, you need to get possession of the Lucky 7. The only way this marriage works is if we merge the two properties and build ourselves a house on land in the middle, where we can manage both ranches. Otherwise, I’m going to be stuck living and working at one ranch while you’re stuck at the other. That means you won’t be seeing a lot of me. Or this baby, either!”

  She marched away but didn’t get two steps before he caught her by the arm. “Wait a goddamn minute!”

  “You keep God out of this,” she spat.

  “Look, baby—”

  She yanked herself free. “I can’t very well be a baby when I’m about to have one! Get that into your thick skull.”

  So now he was dumb? He started to reach for her, and she put her hands up like a cop at a burned-out stoplight.

  “Don’t touch me!” she snapped.

  “Can we talk about this?”

  “I’ve done all the talking I intend to do. The person you need to speak with is your father.”

  “Angus isn’t back from his trip.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Montana.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Hell if I know. He just said he had to go and left.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “He’s my father,” he said. “He doesn’t have to tell me a thing.”

  “And didn’t,” she said in disgust. “How long is he supposed to be gone?”

  “No idea.”

  She shook her head in disbelief and headed down the hall again.

  He knew better than to grab her, but he strode along beside her. “You don’t have possession of Kingdom Come yet, either.”

  “At least I asked for it.”

  “You’re being totally unreasonable, Leah. Probably all those pregnancy hormones.”

  She shot him an acid look.

  “When Angus gets home, I promise I’ll speak to him. All right?”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. “If it is hormones,” she said irritably, “they’re not going away anytime soon. So you’d better get used to me being ‘unreasonable.’ Just talk to your father!”

  This time, when she marched off, Aiden let her go. He realized, now that Leah had pointed it out to him, how unusual it was for Angus to keep his travel plans a secret. After all, Aiden might need to consult him on ranch business. So where had he gone? And how long did he plan to stay away?

  Aiden pulled out his cell and dialed his father’s number. He let it ring until it went to voicemail and said, “Dad, give me a call when you get this.”

  It was the first of ten calls Aiden made that day without ever getting a reply.

  ANGUS FLYNN HAD done a lot of things he regretted in his life. Loving Darcie Covington—now Darcie Sullivan—wasn’t one of them. Several years into his marriage to Fiona Townsend, his wife found out about Darcie and demanded he end the affair. He’d refused, arguing that he loved both women and couldn’t bear to give up either one.

  Hurt and humiliated, Fiona had pursued a devastating revenge.

  Angus still grieved the loss of his wife, who’d died in childbirth, bearing a son she’d conceived in Angus’s bed with another man. Around the same time, Darcie had married Patrick Sullivan, so the son she’d conceived with Angus would have a father. Angus had raised his fourth son, Devon, as though he were his own blood and obeyed Darcie’s request and kept his distance, while the son they’d made together grew up loving a different father.

  Sitting in the hospital cafeteria in Kalispell, waiting for Darcie to show up, Angus’s heart was fluttering like some lovesick teenager. He hadn’t seen her since she’d married Patrick Sullivan and moved to Montana. He still had all his hair, but it was more silver than black, and his face had been etched with harsh lines by wind and sun. When he felt for the six-pack he’d had when they were lovers, it was missing. Would she still find him attractive? Would she still want him in her bed?

  Seven years ago, when he’d learned Paddy had died, he’d contacted Darcie, but she’d refused to see him.

  “Rye doesn’t know the truth,” she’d said. “I don’t want him hurt.”

  Angus had been shocked to learn that their son was named Ryan, after him, with the middle name Patrick, for the father who’d raised him.That sequence told him a great deal about Darcie’s feelings for him and gave him hope. He’d been even more shocked when Darcie announced that his son had a child, and that his grandson’s mother was Victoria Grayhawk. Angus was already busy figuring out how he might use that information against his nemesis, King Grayhawk, when Darcie made him promise not to breathe a word of what he knew to anyone. It was a sign of how much he loved her that he’d forgone a perfect opportunity to pursue his vengeance against King. It was a secret he was still keeping, since Darcie hadn’t given him permission to reveal it.

  After all the years of separation, his love for Darcie still burned bright, and he’d made no effort to extinguish it. He was determined to do whatever was necessary to win her back, but it was hard to be patient. “We’re not getting any younger,” he’d argued a year ago. “I love you, Darcie. I want us to be together. How much longer do we have to wait? I don’t want to live any more of my life without you.”

  “I can’t see you, Angus,” she’d told him. “Not now. Maybe never again.” She’d been crying when she said it, which was how he knew she still loved him as well.

  Over the past year, he’d often talked to her on the phone late into the night, each of them in their own beds, sharing the large and small moments of their lives while her family, and his, were sound asleep. But talking wasn’t nearly enough.

  He
’d made a pretty good mess of his love life, but things were about to change, hopefully for the better. Rye had finally learned of Angus’s existence and wanted to meet him. Darcie thought the meeting would go better if Angus came to Montana than if Rye went to him. So here he was, waiting with bated breath for a woman he’d loved for the better part of his life to make her appearance.

  “Angus?”

  He stood, his arthritic knees protesting, and turned to face her. Darcie’s hazel eyes shimmered with tears, and her chin was trembling as she struggled to smile. Her face had suffered a similar fate to his, but her body was still slender. She was almost too thin, he thought. Likely she wasn’t eating enough because of everything that was going on. He’d have to do something about that.

  Although she’d tried to tame her hair in a bun at the top of her head, riotous curls had escaped her efforts to contain them, just as they had when she was a young woman. She was wearing what she’d always worn: Levi’s and a belted-in plaid Western shirt with scuffed cowboy boots. She looked so very familiar. And so very dear.

  He held out his arms, and she walked right into them.

  Angus rocked Darcie in his embrace, feeling her soft curves against his body as he held her close. He was afraid this moment was a figment of his imagination, the dream that had haunted him for so many years, and if he let go, she would disappear. But he could feel her moist breath against his cheek, feel her body trembling as he held her close. Darcie was really here in his arms at last. Where she belonged.

  He wanted to pick her up and whisk her away somewhere they could be alone. But he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Darcie was a mother, with a mother’s responsibilities. There was a young man, his son, with whom he needed to speak, another young man who required time to heal from his dreadful wounds, and a young lady who still had to finish college.

  He was a father, but his four sons were all grown. Brian, Connor, and Devon were married and had started families, and Aiden had finally chosen his bride.

  For the past year, Aiden had been pressuring him to hand over control of the Lucky 7. Angus’s refusal had nothing to do with Aiden’s qualifications to manage the ranch. His eldest son was a more than satisfactory boss. Angus had resisted because running the ranch was all he had left to fill his empty days. That was especially true since his feud with King Grayhawk, which had kept a fire in his belly for nearly forty years, had been put on hiatus so his son could court the eldest Grayhawk girl. Without hate for his lifelong enemy fueling every decision, Angus’s life seemed to lack direction.