Promises to Keep (6 page)

"When you've finished your tantrum," he offered dryly, "you'll realize how tired you are."

"Tantrum!" Her voice was shrill. She was outraged by his stubbornness. Her face crumpled; tears welled in her eyes until they spilled over to run down her pale cheeks. Sniffling as quietly as she could, she tried to wipe the tears away with the backs of her hands.

"God!" Garth groaned when he heard the muted sounds of her weeping. "I might have known you'd try tears as a last resort."

The injustice of this statement caused her to cry all the harder. Garth braked sharply, and the car skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Leaving the motor idling, he reached in front of her to grab a handful of tissues from the box in the glove compartment. He held them out to her, and when she didn't immediately take them, he uttered an impatient oath beneath his breath, turned the key in the ignition, and began mopping at her face himself.

At first he was so rough, he almost scoured her skin with the tissue, but his touch slowly gentled. Sighing with resignation, he gathered her in his arms to hold her close to the hard warmth of his chest, easily overcoming her halfhearted resistance to the gesture. He patted her on the back and repeatedly ran his hands over her shoulders, murmuring sympathetically until she surrendered to the temptation to be held and comforted by him. She had no idea how much time had gone by before the force of her weeping diminished to occasional hoarse, hiccuping sobs.

"I'll never understand you, Julie," Garth said at last. His voice rumbled deep in his chest and its vibrations tickled her ear. The steady beat of his heart was incredibly soothing. His shirt was sodden beneath her cheek, and she shifted slightly and plucked ineffectually at the damp spot.

"Do I usually use tears as a weapon?" she asked huskily.

"No," he admitted. "I'm sorry. It was unfair of me to imply that you do."

"I'm sorry too. I realize I must have hurt you when I ran away—"

"Let's leave that subject for now," he cut in peremptorily. "We've both had enough emotional stress for one day."

She started to protest and, sensing another flare-up of indignation, he relented. "I have nothing concrete to go on. For all I know, you and Leeds are nothing more than friends, which is why I hesitated about mentioning him at all.
Now"
—his arms tightened about her, underscoring that this was an order and not a request—"would you just drop it."

As she nodded her agreement her hair brushed his chin, and the slight abrasiveness of his close-shaven beard against the sensitive skin of her temple ignited a tingling sensation that spread like wildfire along her nerve endings. She was acutely aware of him. The faint, tangy fragrance of his after-shave combined with the masculine essence of his sun-browned skin to create a unique and dizzying blend that filled her senses until she felt drugged by it. It reminded her of— Of what?

She felt herself hovering on the brink of remembrance and closed her eyes. She was catapulted backward in time and she saw an image, as sharp and clear as if she were watching a motion picture that was being projected onto her eyelids.

A meadow, shining fair and golden in the sunlight at the crest of a hill. The smell of dried grass. Wild flowers—were they poppies?—kindling a brilliant blaze of orange as they bobbed to the surface when the wind rustled through the undulating waves of grass. The fresh green of some kind of vines seen in the distance. And tucked snugly into the valley below, the ocher of tile roofs. A silvery garland of water that wound like tinsel through the amber folds of the hills. Red wine mellowed by the sun. A man's shadow moving with heart-stopping slowness until it blocked out the sky…

As abruptly as it had begun, the vision ended. She became aware that Garth was calling her name, that his hands were locking her shoulders in a steely grip as he shook her slightly to rouse her.

"What is it, Julie?" His voice seemed to come to her from a great distance. "Are you all right?"

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she saw that he was pale under his surface layer of tan. Her pulse was racing, and she was gasping for breath as if she'd been running for miles. Her hands were clammy and her face was bathed with cold perspiration. She clutched at his forearms and was heartened by the feel of their sinewy hardness beneath her fingertips.

"What happened? God! You just seemed to go into a trance."

"It's nothing really. It's only that sometimes I can almost remember. It comes and goes without any warning."

He nodded, relieved. The color was returning to his face, and he relaxed his hold on her to move away and slump against the steering wheel, wearily running his hands through his hair. She thought that he looked every bit as tired and rumpled as she must.

"Doctor Ziegler told me about that," he said.

"I'm sorry if you were alarmed," she apologized gently. "There's no need to be."

"Did you recall anything at all?"

She was drained of energy and she leaned her head against the back of the seat, closing her eyes to make it easier to reconstruct what she'd seen as she described it.

"That sounds very much like the winery near Russian River, where you worked before we were married," Garth said when she had finished. His expression was watchful, measuring her response as he revealed, "We used to meet at the top of the hill for lunch."

"Then it's possible my memory is actually returning!"

"Your description was remarkably accurate, except for one detail. The hill where we met was much steeper than the one you saw. In fact"—he smiled in reminiscence—"the trail that leads to the top of it is so rugged, the people who live in the area call it Fat Man's Misery."

Although she couldn't stop herself from laughing along with him, she exclaimed, "That's a terrible name to give such a lovely place!"

"You had the same reaction the first time I told you that," he commented after he'd started the engine and they were traveling westward along the blacktop. "And it is a beautiful spot." His voice was softly suggestive as he added, "Romantic too."

Garth chuckled and his eyes danced roguishly, for as if on cue, Julie blushed until her entire face had turned a flattering shade of pink.

Julie didn't complain when Garth told her they'd be sharing the same motel unit. Since it was Saturday, she knew they were lucky to have found a motel in Kemmerer with
any
vacancies. At least their room had two beds.

What was disturbing was the realization that she had no nightwear. Even more disconcerting was that Garth read this thought the very instant it popped into her head.

"If you'll look in your suitcase, you'll find a couple of pairs of men's pajamas." His voice was tinged with amusement as he offered this information. "You can wear the tops," he directed, "and as a special favor to you, I'll wear the bottoms."

She sat on the edge of the bed, concentrating on the toes of her shoes and turning ten shades of red.

"What's troubling you now, Julie?" Garth asked dryly. "Aren't you reassured by the fact that I've made provisions that will help you preserve your modesty? I'm not likely to ravish you after going to such lengths to do that, am I?"

Actually she had been deep in speculation about what, if anything, he normally wore in bed, but she couldn't very well ask
him
this and she hastily equivocated, "I was just wondering if I've always been so poorly organized."

"Not to my knowledge."

He continued studying her, and she glanced up at him from beneath her lashes.

"What else is on your mind?" he asked.

"Only that I do appreciate your sacrifice in wearing the bottoms," she answered tartly, nettled by his patronizing attitude. "I suppose such a show of selflessness should entitle you to tease me a bit."

Garth was not at all perturbed by her sarcasm. He only grinned his wide, boyish grin and said, "I'm glad you're big enough to make some concessions."

"Are you sure you don't want me to salaam as well?"

"A simple curtsy will do." His response was issued imperiously. "I know you'll find it as regrettable as I do, but salaaming is no longer de rigueur."

Confronted with such unabashed male arrogance, Julie was at a loss for words, and she could only stare at him, open-mouthed with amazement.

But when he turned his back on her, she tried to take advantage of the opportunity this afforded her and impulsively snatching up one of the pillows from the bed, she threw it at him. His reflexes were lightning-quick, however, and he swiveled from the hips and caught it before it came anywhere near hitting him. He crushed the pillow between his broad palms and looked menacingly down at her while she eyed him warily. He defeated her in this staring duel as well, for it was she who was the first to look away.

"You
are
getting vicious," he observed blandly. "I suppose I'd better take you out and feed you."

Now that it was dark, the air was pleasantly cool and as they strolled the short distance to the restaurant Julie found that her irritation had already evaporated. As she walked quietly at Garth's side she asked wistfully, "Have we always fought like this?"

"Of course not, Julie," he said with suspicious solemnity. "We usually fight much more."

It never occurred to her that she might have lived in the Jackson Hole area until they were lingering over their after-dinner drinks. When she asked Garth about it, he nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Your grandparents owned a cattle ranch somewhere between the towns of Jackson and Alpine. Your grandfather died long before you were born, but your grandmother—her name was Elizabeth Ayers, by the way—tried to keep the ranch going. She had to borrow heavily, but she managed to hang on to most of the acreage until she had her first stroke. That was when you were thirteen or so."

"I gathered that over the next six or seven years her condition deteriorated to the point that she was finally forced to sell out to a neighboring rancher. The deal she made granted her a life estate in the ranch house, and you continued living there with her until she died. She'd told you she was only leasing the land to the neighbor, and it came as quite a shock when you learned otherwise."

Julie had listened intently, and when Garth concluded, she asked, "How did I happen to return to California?"

"From what you told me, while you were settling your grandmother's affairs, you found the deed to some property in Sonoma that your mother and father had owned along with receipts that indicated your grandmother had kept up the taxes on it. Before then, you'd had no idea exactly where in northern California your parents had lived and, on the spur of the moment, you decided to have a look at it."

"I wonder why my grandmother didn't tell me the truth about the ranch and my parents' property," she remarked pensively.

"You said she'd always been closemouthed about your father," Garth replied, "and evidently, as her illness progressed, her personality changed, and she became even more secretive and suspicious. She had a number of strokes, and I got the impression that in addition to that, she may have been senile. She was well into her seventies."

Introspectively she murmured, "Altogether I must have lived with her about seventeen years."