Promise Me Forever (5 page)

Not that he’d behaved any better that afternoon. His reunion with Lauren might have gone more successfully if he’d paved the way with a bit more
finesse and not brought up the debt, a silly reminder of their childhood that he didn’t truly expect her to pay; but it served to keep her riled, and he’d always enjoyed watching the way a spark of anger could deepen the blue of her eyes. He’d often wondered if passion would do the same, but she’d left before he’d had the opportunity to find out.

He was still enjoying the flavor of his cigar when he heard the light footfalls, and instinctively knew to whom they belonged. He’d sensed her standing just beyond the shadows, watching him. He inhaled deeply, absorbing not only the rich aroma of the cigar but the fragrance of the flowery perfume wafting toward him. Underneath it all was the scent of
her
, like good whiskey, once experienced, never forgotten. He blew out the smoke he’d been holding in his lungs and waited, unmoving, until the feathery gray wisps disappeared into the night. Doing nothing more than extending the cigar slightly to the side, he asked, “Want to give it a try?”

“You always were a creature of bad habits, Tom.”

“That’s not an answer, Lauren. I’ve got a fresh one in my jacket pocket if you’d rather have it.”

She sighed with obvious impatience. “Proper ladies don’t smoke.”

“Proper ladies don’t drink or cuss. That never stopped you before.”

“I was a child then,” she said. “You were always
corrupting me, and I was silly enough to let you do it. I’m not a child any longer.”

“That much is obvious, Lauren.”

She moved up until he could see her profile out of the corner of his eye. Limned by the glow of the gaslights, she looked incredibly lovely. She had changed into a blue-gray dress, square at the neck, trimmed in lace. He thought with more light, it would enhance the shade of her eyes. She’d altered the style of her hair as well. With the curls and ribbons slightly different, her hair remained piled on top of her head as it had been earlier, leaving her long, slender neck exposed to his inspection—and he wished available to his mouth as well. The English went to a lot of trouble to prepare themselves simply to eat an ordinary evening meal.

“You had absolutely no idea that all this was over here waiting for you?” she finally asked quietly.

He took a slow drag on his cigar, released the smoke from his lungs. “Nope.”

“It must have been rather a shock—”

“That’s an understatement,” he said.

“You said you don’t remember any of it.”

“I don’t.”

“Your mother must have loved you—”

“Or not loved me at all.”

“Oh, Tom, don’t think that.”

“She left me, Lauren. What am I supposed to think?”

He considered pointing out that Lauren had left him, too, but he didn’t see the point in harping on it. Besides, his mother was gone, Lauren wasn’t. His mother had been given a choice. Lauren hadn’t.

“I didn’t know your father,” she said, “but his cruelty was legendary. I think your mother wanted to spare you suffering what he was capable of inflicting.”

“I can think of better ways to do it.”

“She had no way of knowing you’d be orphaned, or that her letter explaining what she’d done would be left with someone who couldn’t read. It took a great deal of courage for Lady Sachse to admit she was once illiterate…and it will take a great deal of courage for you to accept this burden that’s been thrust upon you.”

He shook his head. “It takes courage to face a cattle stampede. Coming here is just an inconvenience.”

“In a few months, you might feel differently about what defines courage.”

He couldn’t see that it took much courage to attend balls, dinners, and operas. Of course, to night’s dinner would be the first one he would have with company other than the previous Lady Sachse, and her mind had been more centered on Archibald Warner than correcting Tom for his lack of proper manners. Not that he thought his manners were too atrocious. He’d had occasion to dine with
businessmen and bankers and cattlemen. Working the cattle empire that was part of the Texas Lady Ventures had also exposed him to the sons of Englishmen. Their polished mannerisms had always appealed to him, and he’d worked hard to emulate them—to appear in control even when he wasn’t. While he didn’t think matters could get to the point that he’d have to show any sort of bravery, he didn’t want to be uncomfortable in his new surroundings. It was evident that all the Texas ladies had worked hard to put away their Texas ways.

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said, deciding he might be able to get what he wanted by sweetening the offer.

“I’ve had one of those from you before, Tom. I’m not interested.”

“You haven’t even heard it yet.”

“You’re wasting your breath.”

“It’s mine to waste. Teach me what I don’t know, Lauren. I’ll release you from the debt.”

She released a taut self-deprecating laugh. “The debt? You can’t possibly seriously think that I’m going to let you unbutton my bodice.”

“Either that or give me back my two bits.”

She scoffed. “Where do you think I’m going to find a quarter, in
this
country, after all these years?”

“That’s your problem, darlin’, but I aim to collect what you owe me, one way or another.”

He could see her bristling over his daring dec
laration. Well, he’d done his own bristling over the years. And even though he knew hers was most likely one debt he’d never collect, he could still hold out hope.

“Surely by now, you’ve unbuttoned a bodice and had your curiosity satisfied,” she said.

He’d unbuttoned his fair share, but he’d never found the experience completely satisfying. He took a puff on his cigar, deciding she didn’t really want her question answered.

“Are you ignoring me?” she asked.

He turned then, facing her, holding her shadowy gaze, trying to figure out exactly what it was he was seeing: fear, disgust, disappointment? He’d had the unrealistic hope that his arrival would have brought her some measure of joy, that she’d share with him some satisfactory explanation for her silence all these years.

“I could never ignore you, Lauren.”

“You did a good imitation for ten years.”

“The hell you say!” His voice rumbled into the night, and he realized he’d tossed his cigar aside and taken a threatening step toward her only when she took a quick step back, her eyes widening and her breath coming in quick little hitches. A gentleman would have retreated, would have given her room, but he’d heard the rumors floating around, knew he was thought to be a savage, and at that moment he felt exactly like what they were claiming he was.

“I wrote you every night,” he said, his rage controlled but seething. “Just like I promised. Every night the first two years you were gone. The third year, I wrote you every week. Then every month. I couldn’t always mail them as soon as they were written because sometimes towns were few and far between when we were trailing cattle, but when I got near enough to a town I took them to the post office. I wrote you, Lauren.”

She was shaking her head, shock evident in her eyes. “I never got them, Tom. Not a single one.”

“I wrote them,” he repeated, his anger dissipating as he began to realize the true reason behind her silence all these years.

“When did you stop writing them?” she asked.

“Never did stop completely. But I did stop mailing them.” Lord, but he wanted to touch her.

“You’re a thief, Tom. And you cuss. And you lie—”

Against his better judgment, he reached out, cupped her cheek, and pressed his thumb against her moist lips. “Never to you, Lauren. I never lied to you.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Why didn’t I get them?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, darlin’.”

“I looked every morning. It was years before I gave up. And even when I never heard from you, I kept hoping that you’d come for me. I hung on to that hope because sometimes it was the only thing
that would get me through the day. You can’t possibly begin to imagine how miserable I’ve been here, Tom, how much I missed the life we left behind.”

Sometimes a man couldn’t find any words powerful enough to take the tears from a woman’s eyes. And so Tom didn’t even bother to try.

He cradled her precious face between his hands, relishing the silkiness of her skin against his fingertips, doing what he’d wanted to do that afternoon, touch her with tenderness, experience again the softness that had all too often been denied him in his life. The path he’d trudged to this spot hadn’t been an easy one, and he couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t going to get any easier, despite his earlier words of bravado. But for this moment he didn’t want to think about all the challenges that awaited him.

He focused all his attention on Lauren.

The blue of her eyes lost in the shadows, the determined angle of her chin, her pert little nose. In some ways everything about her appearance was foreign to him, and in other ways it was achingly familiar.

As her eyes slowly slid closed, he lowered his mouth to hers. She tasted just as he remembered, and he knew a pang of regret so sharp that it took all his inner strength not to double over. The girl he’d longed for all these years had grown into a woman who could stir a man’s passions with
nothing more than her blue-eyed gaze focused on him. She smelled like flowers in the spring and was as warm as the sun-touched earth. He wanted to lift her into his arms and carry her farther out into the garden, where privacy could allow them to finish what they’d begun so long ago.

But it wasn’t finishing that he truly wanted. It was starting again, and he didn’t know where to begin. This lady with the occasional faint drawl, the perfect manners, the graceful walk, the poise, the charm, the knowledge to fit perfectly into this society was a direct contrast to Tom, who was still rough enough around the edges that he was in danger of damaging the reputation of any who came too close to him.

Once he’d loved her as much as a sixteen-year-old boy could love. He couldn’t honestly say that he still loved her, if what he felt for her was true affection or merely phantom sensations stirred up from a time long past. The ground beneath his feet seemed as unsteady as it did when a stampede hit. He’d come there not knowing what to expect, and the only thing he knew for sure was that he felt more lost then he’d ever felt in his entire life. And, unfortunately, he’d only recently learned that all his life he’d been lost; he just hadn’t realized it. Until the investigator had shown up at his door, Tom had never comprehended what a lie he’d been living. For all he knew, his time with Lauren had been false as well.

He’d thought of her every moment of every night of every year that they’d been separated. He’d taken her into his dreams, held on to her memory. As a fully grown woman—and she was fully grown now, no doubts there—she didn’t look that much different than he’d expected she would. A little more round, a little more refined. She would have made a nice addition to the house he’d built—the house he’d built with her in mind on the acres of land that he’d bought near Fortune.

How ironic that she’d been waiting for him to come to take her back to Texas, and he’d been planning a homecoming for her. He’d always held out hope that somehow his letters hadn’t gotten here or somehow hers to him had been lost. But he’d never given up on them completely…at least not yet. Not until destiny altered his path, changed his final destination.

Not until he tasted the sweet nectar of her mouth seasoned with the salt from her tears. She’d been miserable in England. What man would condemn the woman who’d once held his heart to a life of misery?

Ten years earlier

L
auren could hardly believe that she was lying with a boy. Lying with Tom. On the cool, green grass beside the creek. In the dark. If it weren’t for the full moon, she wouldn’t be able to see him at all.

She was wearing her nightclothes, but she figured they covered her as much as her dress would. Tom, as always, was in his trousers and shirt. He’d started wearing a vest for carrying around his cigarette makings. She knew they were there, because she could see the bulge in his pocket, but he never smoked around her anymore.

He always came late at night, after her mama had gone to bed. He’d toss rocks at her window until she got up, clambered out the window from her upstairs bedroom, and climbed down the tree to meet him. Then they’d run to the creek and just lie there, talking about everything and nothing. She kept waiting for Tom to ask her to unbutton her buttons. But he never did.

It made her love him more for wanting to be with her while she was still all buttoned up.

“There,” he suddenly said, pointing at the sky. “Did you see it?”

“Yeah.” He was good at looking in the right spot and seeing them before they disappeared. “What do you think makes the stars fall like that?”

“I don’t know. It’s one of those things that can’t be explained, I reckon.”

“Where do you think they fall to?”

“I don’t know. Maybe just another place in the sky, so folks down below can see ’em.”

“Ma says if you make a wish when the star is falling, it’ll come true.”

“I don’t believe in wishing.”

She sat up and looked down on him. His hands were folded beneath his head, his long body stretched out over the ground. He’d only been working for the Texas Lady a little over a week, but he seemed so much bigger. She figured the work and the food were responsible. He wasn’t living on stolen crackers anymore.

“That’s sad, Tom, not to believe in wishing. A person ought to want some things.”

“Didn’t say I don’t believe in
wanting
. I want plenty. I just don’t believe wishing will get me the things that I want.”

She drew her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and pressed her chin to her knees. “But stealing will. Is that what you’re saying? You won’t wish for something, but you’ll steal if you want it?”

“I ain’t stole since I went to work. Told you stealing was bad if you did it when you got money. Now I got a bit of money, so I ain’t stealing no more.”

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want you to go to jail…or to hell.”

“I ain’t worried about hell. I been there already.”

“You don’t go to hell until you die, and only if you haven’t been good.”

“I was good, and I went to hell while I was alive.”

Reaching out, she touched his elbow. She wanted to touch his chin where a few whiskers had started to grow, but she thought he might object to her actually touching skin, so she settled for the cloth that covered his arm. “On the orphan train?”

“With the family that took me in. Could never please the old man no matter how hard I worked. He’d lock me in a shed at night ’cuz he was afraid I’d run away.”

“And you did.”

“Yep.”

“How’d you escape?” she asked.

“He started beating on me, for no good reason as far as I could tell. Wasn’t the first time, but I’d gotten a little bigger and tired of it, too. So I hit back, knocked him down, and I took off running. I was a lot faster than he was. Just kept running till I got here.”

“I’m glad you stopped here,” she said.

“I wasn’t planning to, least not for good. But then I got hired to work cattle.” He shrugged. “No reason to move on when I got a full belly and a bed.”

She was a little disappointed she wasn’t the reason he’d decided to stay. It was wishful thinking, but unlike Tom she did believe in wishing. She looked out over the water of the creek.

He had such exciting adventures, had been everywhere, while she’d never set foot outside of Fortune. She considered telling him that when that star had fallen she’d wished that she’d get to travel to some exciting place, but her mama had also told her that wishes only came true if she kept them to herself; otherwise, she risked breaking the spell that would make them come true.

“You ever kissed a fella?” Tom asked quietly.

She didn’t look at him, as she shook her head. “You ever kissed anyone?”

“No.”

She heard the rustle of the grass as he sat up. “Been hankering to, though.”

She peered over at him, fighting to hold back her smile. The thing about Tom was that he always pretty much said exactly what he was thinking. “Anybody I know?”

His slow lazy grin became visible in the moonlight. “I got something for you.”

“What?” she asked, even though she figured she knew what he had for her: a kiss.

He reached behind her, took her braid, and draped it over her shoulder. She wondered why she could feel his touch of her hair clear down to her toes. She dug them into the grass, but it didn’t stop them from tingling.

He brought something out of his vest pocket and dangled it in front of her. “A hair ribbon,” he said.

“I can’t tell the color in the dark.”

“Same color as your eyes.”

Her heart was pounding hard as he wrapped it around her braid and tied it into an awkward-looking bow.

“Did you steal it?” she asked.

“Nope, it’s the first thing I bought with my hard-earned money.”

She couldn’t stop herself from smiling this time. “Truly?”

“Yep.”

“What’s the second thing you bought?”

“A penny’s worth of licorice, but I don’t have any of it left.”

“I don’t like licorice anyway,” she said, fingering the bow. She’d never had a fella give her a present. Tom had to like her something fierce to give her a ribbon. Even the funny-talking Englishman who’d started visiting her mother of late had never given her mother a ribbon.

“Think you might want to try that kiss now?” he asked.

She lifted her gaze to his. “Is that why you bought me a ribbon? So I’d kiss you?”

“Nope. I saw it and thought of you. Even if you don’t want to kiss—”

Quickly, she leaned forward, pressed her puckered lips to his, and jerked back. There, she’d done it. Before he could dare her to. He was always daring her: to smoke one of his cigarettes, to drink from not-quite-empty whiskey bottles he found outside the saloon, to meet him there by the creek. Things bound to get her into trouble if her mama ever found out. Kissing was surely the one that would get her a whupping.

She sat there, chewing her bottom lip, waiting for him to react, to say something. Anything.

“Well?” she finally demanded.

“That was like a star shooting across the heavens.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Just means it was quick, gone before I knew it was coming.” He cupped her cheek, and she was
acutely aware of how rough his skin felt against hers. His fingers and palm were callused in places. A workingman’s hands. “Let’s try this my way.”

“Didn’t think you had a way. Didn’t think you’d ever done this before,” she said.

“Doesn’t mean I ain’t been thinking about it.”

“Who were you thinking—”

“Shh, gal, sometimes you talk too much.”

Then his lips, warm and sure, yet gentle, were pressed against hers. And she thought she might love this boy until the day she died.

“Oh, Tom, it’s awful! We’re leaving!”

Tom stared at Lauren. She’d been in a panic ever since she’d clambered out her bedroom window, shinnied down the old, gnarled oak tree, grabbed his hand, holding on so tight it hurt, and pulled him into the copse of trees.

“Leaving?”

She nodded, the tears in her eyes capturing the moonlight. “That English fella asked Ma to marry him, and she said yes. We’re moving to England.”

The words stunned him, shook him clear down to his bootheels. She was the best part of living there.

Lunging at him, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. “Oh, Tom, I’m never going to see you again.”

He wound his arms around her, holding her close, felt the tears on her cheeks, warm at first, cool
against his neck. She couldn’t be leaving. It was too soon. He didn’t have anything to offer her.

She pulled back and looked at him as though she believed he had some sort of power to make everything right. “What are we gonna do?”

He swallowed hard, hating the truth of the words he was gonna have to say. “Lauren, I got nothing to offer you.”

“I thought you loved me.”

He glanced toward her house.

“I know you never said it, but I just thought—”

“I do,” he said, cutting her off. That declaration was as close as he was going to come to stating his feelings on the matter.

“So what are we gonna do?” she asked again.

Hell if he knew. He thought about the fancy clothes that fella wore, the way he talked. As prissy as it sounded, there was an undercurrent of confidence to it, something about it that made a person listen and obey. Commanding, without yelling or beating it into you. He thought if the fella had taken him off the orphan train, Tom would have worked his heart out for him. Maybe that was the reason he was working so hard for the Texas Lady Ventures. Because he didn’t want the man to be disappointed or to discover that he’d misjudged Tom’s abilities. This Englishman would take good care of Lauren until Tom could come for her.

“I think you ought to go with them.” He said it
like she had a choice, when he suspected that she really didn’t. If her mama wanted her to go, she was going to be going.

Lauren stared at him, and he could see her struggling with the notion, the truth of his words.

“I’ll come for you, Lauren, soon as I can. I promise it won’t be long. I’ll put all my money toward getting us a place.”

In the nights that followed, he thought he’d die from the dread creeping into his gut whenever he thought about her leaving. By the creek, he had her describe what she wanted her house to look like, all the little things she wanted to have. Their last night together, they slept in each other’s arms, fully clothed, bathed in moonlight.

At dawn, when he walked her back to the house, she whispered, “I’ll miss you so much. Will you write to me?”

“Every day,” he promised.

“And when you come for me, we’ll be together, forever.”

“Forever,” he vowed.