Johnston - I Promise (20 page)

“What’s
she
doing in here?” Billie Jo countered.

He ventured a glance at Delia and saw she was beet red with embarrassment and desperately finger-combing her hair and tucking her shell back into her jeans. Her efforts weren’t doing much good to hide the state she was in. Her pupils were huge, and her nipples were visibly peaked beneath the silk.

He was glad as hell to know Billie Jo was safe. And equally irate about when and where she had turned up. Nothing was going to happen between him and Delia tonight for certain, and God knew when—or if—this opportunity would come again.

He turned his frustration and fury on his daughter.

“She’s here,” he said, “because we were looking for you all goddamn afternoon and evening. Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you come home on the bus? And how did you get yourself in trouble again when you were already on suspension?”

“What do you care?” Billie Jo countered. “So long as I’m not in your way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you never wanted me here in the first place. Now I see why! I’m obviously cramping your style.” She tried getting to her feet, but the quilt kept her trapped on the bed like a fly in a web.

“Who I entertain and when I do it are none of your damn business,” Marsh retorted defensively.

“Marsh, please,” Delia said. “You’re only making things worse.”

He turned on Delia like a dog in a fight that ceases to know friend from foe. “This is none of your business,” he snapped. “So stay out of it.”

“Fine!” she snarled back. “I’ll wait in the kitchen. When you’re done acting like an idiot, I’d appreciate a ride home.”

She hadn’t taken two steps before he grabbed her arm to stop her. “Delia, I—“

She wrenched herself free. “I think you and your daughter have some things to discuss. Reasonably. Rationally. Calmly discuss.”

“I get the point,” he said irritably. He turned back to find Billie Jo sitting on the edge of the bed still wrapped in the quilt from the waist down, watching them with wide-eyed interest. He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t know where to start.

He turned back to Delia for help, but she had already left the room and closed the door behind her, leaving father and daughter alone together.

He leaned back against the door with his legs spread wide and his arms folded across his chest. “All right. You’re not getting out of here until I’ve heard the whole story. So start talking.”

“Daddy . . .”

“What?”

Her eyes floated with tears. Her chin quivered. She lowered her gaze to the hands knotted in her lap. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to get into another fight. It just . . . happened. I knew how disappointed you’d be, and I . . . I needed some time alone. To think.” She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes.

He was across the room an instant later and lifted her, quilt and all, into his lap. “It’s all right, baby. I’m here.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She gripped his neck tight and clung to him, pressing her face tight against his throat as she sobbed her heart out.

Marsh felt the sting of tears in his eyes as he clutched his daughter to him. He wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to say the right thing. He wanted to be a good father. He just didn’t know how.

He brushed his hand over her mussed-up curls, soothing her, offering what awkward comfort he could. He crooned to her, not even sure himself what he was saying. Until the sobs quieted at last. Until she hiccuped and sighed.

“How did you get back to the ranch?” he asked.

“I hitched a ride.”

He forbore telling her how dangerous that was, at least for the moment, because he was afraid the slightest harsh word from him would make her burst into tears again.

“Can you tell me one thing?” he said. “Can you tell me where you were all the time I was looking for you?”

She hesitated, then said, “I was sitting under the live oak by the Carsons’ north pasture gate.”

“Why would you go there?” he asked.

“That’s where Eula said the sheriff found Delia Carson when . . . when she lost your baby.”

Chapter Eleven

One of the hardest things Delia had ever done was to leave Marsh alone with his daughter. She knew all the bad things that could happen to a teenage girl in the clutches of an angry father, all the harm and hurt and pain that could result.

But even at his angriest, Marsh had never laid a hand on Delia. And she knew from their discussions years ago that Marsh had planned, above all else, to be a better parent than his father. She had to believe he wanted to mend fences with Billie Jo. But it was hard to sit on the chrome chair at the kitchen table waiting, staring through the open window at the dark, quiet night, letting the breeze riffle her hair, wondering what was going on down the hall.

As the minutes passed and Marsh didn’t join her, Delia’s thoughts turned to what had happened between her and Marsh in the kitchen. And the hallway. And the bedroom before the light had gone on.

I must be out of my mind.

No, just crazy in love with the man. You always have been.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

What did you expect? That the fire might have gone out?
Why didn’t he ever come after me?

Why didn’t you go after him?

Both good questions. Neither of which Delia had a good answer for. There were explanations, of course.

During the first eight years after she left Uvalde, she had been in high school, college, and law school. She hadn’t written to Marsh, hadn’t let anyone know how to get in touch with her. And Marsh had simply disappeared. She had no idea where he was or what he had done with himself. She had been too confused and unhappy for the first few years to do more than survive.

When she had finally picked herself up and brushed herself off and started living again, she had been too driven to reach her professional goals to worry about Marsh. Much. It hadn’t been worry, actually. More like a constant yearning for a dream that was never going to come true.

She had started following his work when he was hired by
The Chronicle,
a budding national newspaper that, along with
USA Today,
was among the first of its kind. It had been a way of connecting to him without meeting face-to-face. Even then, she had still been running away. She had been afraid to see him again. Afraid of what he would say, what he would do. Afraid he had stopped loving her. It would have hurt too much to know that for sure.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Delia started when she heard Marsh’s voice. She felt his hands on her shoulders before she could turn around. She closed her eyes and groaned as his thumbs found the tight muscles in her neck. “God, that feels good.”

“It’s been a rough day for you.”

“And you.” She tried to get up, but he pressed her back down and kept up what he was doing. It felt too good to make him stop. Which was exactly why she should have stopped him. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Midnight.”

“I should be going.”

“Not yet. You haven’t told me what you were thinking.”

“I was thinking about you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“It’s a good start. What else?”

She took a deep breath and said, “I was thinking how scared I was all those years of seeing you again.”

His hands stopped what they were doing, but his grip tightened. “You were scared?”

She nodded.

“Why? I loved you, Delia.”

She heard the pain in his voice. She angled her body so she could look up at him, and his hands fell away. Once they did, she stood and moved away from him, toward the sink.

Running again, Delia. Stop it. Stop running.

She turned and faced Marsh. His eyes were sunken with fatigue and oh, so wary. His hair was standing every whichaway. His shirt was tucked haphazardly back into his Levi’s. He shouldn’t have looked so appealing. Or so desperately vulnerable.

Her heart lodged in her throat, making speech impossible. Being with Marsh made her feel whole again, as though a missing part of a jigsaw puzzle had been slipped into place.

Delia became aware of the refrigerator humming, of a steady drip hitting the old porcelain sink, of Marsh’s gray eyes staring intently at her.

She took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry I ran away.”

He smiled, a gentle curve of his lips, but his eyes were unbearably sad. “I know.”

She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “I wish . . .”

He opened his arms and she stepped into them and he folded them around her.

Delia felt Marsh’s arms tighten around her. “I called
The Chronicle
once looking for you,” she said.

“I never got any message.”

“I didn’t leave one.”

“Why not?”

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “Too scared.”

“Of what?”

“That you wouldn’t want to see me.”

He made a sound in his throat. “God, Delia. I never stopped thinking about you.” Marsh’s lips pressed against her temple, then her cheek, and finally sought her mouth.

Her eyes slid closed again as her lips met his in a kiss of frustration and need and forgiveness.

“It’s been an incredible day,” she said against his lips, when they finally broke apart to breathe.

Marsh chuckled ruefully. “You can say that again.”

“Is Billie Jo all right?”

He nuzzled her throat beneath her ear. “I tucked her into bed. She was practically asleep before the light was out.” He lifted his head and looked her in the eye. “She’s heard the rumors about us. It’s what she’s been fighting about at school.”

“Oh, no.”

“She was at the live oak all afternoon and evening. Thinking.”

“Did she say what she was thinking about?”

“Not precisely. If I had to guess, I’d say she doesn’t want to believe the gossip about us she’s heard at school. But she didn’t come right out and ask me for the truth, either.”

“Maybe she’s afraid of what the truth might be.”

Marsh put his hands on her shoulders. “How can I tell her the truth, Delia? If I didn’t get you pregnant, who did?”

“I see,” Delia said, curling her arms protectively around herself and backing away from him. “It always comes back to Ray John, doesn’t it? Take me home, Marsh.”

“Who killed Ray John, Delia?”

Delia froze. “He killed himself.”

“Suicide?” Marsh shook his head. “That bastard was too selfish to do any of us that kind of favor.”

“It was an accident,” Delia said breathlessly. “You saw for yourself how he was always pointing a gun at somebody’s head and pulling the trigger.”

Marsh raised a disbelieving brow. “Are you saying that’s what happened?”

“I wasn’t there at the time,” Delia snapped. “How should I know?”

“Weren’t you?”

Delia felt suffocated, like someone had a hand over her mouth and nose. She took a gulping breath of air. And another. Marsh knew something, had found out something. But only three people knew the truth. She was sure none of them had talked. So how could he possibly know? “What are you saying, Marsh? What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t believe Ray John Carson killed himself,” Marsh said. “I think he was murdered.”

“Take me home.” Delia was already headed for the door.

“Can we talk about this?”

She was out the kitchen door and headed for Marsh’s pickup, nearly running. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

She yanked hard on the door to the old pickup, got a helping yank from Marsh to open it, and pulled it closed behind her. The window was already down, and she stuck her elbow in it to keep Marsh from leaning in. She would rather have stuck her head out. She felt like throwing up.

“All right,” Marsh said, moving around the pickup and slipping behind the wheel. “I’ll let it go for the moment. But the issue isn’t going to disappear, Delia. It’ll be right there between us until you deal with it.” He ground the gears as he sent the pickup clanking down the rutted dirt road that led off the North Ranch.

Delia’s brow furrowed as she considered what Marsh had said. She angled herself so her back was braced against the door, and she was facing him with one leg tucked under her. “Is that what you think has kept us apart all these years? You think I ran away because I knew my father had been murdered?”

He kept his eyes on the highway. “The idea occurred to me. I wouldn’t have blamed you, Delia,” he added quietly.

Delia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You think
I
killed Ray John?”

“It makes sense to me.”

“I only wish I’d had the courage,” she said bitterly.

As soon as she finished speaking, Delia realized what she had done. Her heart clutched. If she hadn’t killed Ray John, that left only two other people in the house who could have—the one who had actually committed the murder and her mother.

Marsh couldn’t know Rachel was a suspect, but knowing him, he would ferret out the truth . . . unless she stuck firm to the suicide theory. “He . . . he killed himself,” she said softly.

“There were no powder burns on his hands.”

“How could you possibly know that? Why would you even think to check?”

He glanced at her, then back at the highway. “I can’t help it if my job has taught me to question things. I looked up the coronor’s report a few weeks back. I would have been out of luck, except there’s a little old gray-haired lady in records who hasn’t thrown anything away for thirty years.

“Only scant traces of gunpowder showed up on Ray John’s hands, not what should have been there if he were the one with his finger on the trigger. Most likely, he was struggling with someone when the gun went off.

“Something fishy had to be going on for that to be kept secret by the authorities. All I can figure out is that you confessed to the sheriff what Ray John had done to you, and he decided it was justifiable homicide and spared everybody the expense of a trial.”

“I . . . I never spoke to Sheriff Davis.”

“Then who did? Only somebody who knew the truth could have told the police what happened. Who does that leave?”