Promise Me This (20 page)

I am so grateful for my ten plus years as a clinical social worker, where my experience in child and family therapy taught me a great deal about humanity. About empathy, vulnerability, and the resilience of the human spirit. The thing we all share regardless of our race, gender, or socio-economic status is the need to be loved and to belong. Kindness goes a long way in helping someone keep their dignity. It might actually be a lifeline.

Despite this book being a work of fiction, domestic violence is a very real epidemic in our country. So if you need someone to speak to confidentially and/or a safe place to go, please consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline:
1-800-799-7233.

To my rock star agent, Sara Megibow: you are the voice of reason inside my head. Thank you for everything.

To my Penguin team: the art department for my amazing covers and the publicity team (Erin Galloway and Jessica Brock) for your keen ideas and professionalism. To my copyeditors, who are like unsung heroes, and my editor, Laura Fazio, who listens and pushes just enough to make me better—so glad to have you in my corner.

To my family and friends for your constant, unwavering support. I love you.

To Greg and Evan, for not complaining when I have to disappear to work through a scene or talk to the voices in my head. I don’t want to be in any other place in the world except right next to you, every single night.

To my first readers: Kate, Stina, Lindsay, and Deb. Thank you for dropping everything to read for me and then giving me crucial feedback.

To Stina and Kate: I know our writer lives have become much more hectic, but you continue to be my sounding board. Thank you.

To the Cool Kids Mafia: you know who you are. You rock!

To the book bloggers and reviewers out there—there are too many of you to list here. Please just know I appreciate all that you do for the simple love of books. Because when it comes down to it, all of us are readers first and foremost.

Last, to the readers: thank you for taking a chance on my books and reaching out to talk to me about them. For an author, there may be no better feeling.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Christina Lee’s new contemporary romance

TWO OF HEARTS

Available May 2015

Dakota

I inhaled a shaky breath as his coffin lowered into the solid ground. The drum beat echoed in my bones and the tortoise shell rattle reverberated in my veins. The holy man murmured his final offering in each direction of the wind—north, east, south, west—and then thanked the Great Spirit for safely seeing my father home.

My mother’s quiet whimpering added mass to the hard ball developing in my throat and my vision blurred through the haze of my own tears. But still I held onto that breath. Because when I finally expelled the air from my lungs, it would all be over. Different. Altered forevermore.

My father would truly be gone. And I’d be left in charge of operations at the Golden Arrow Casino.

For the past two weeks, I’d been going through the motions while the police conducted their investigation and the autopsy was performed. But this—the actual cemetery, the sacred ritual—made it absolute. And the finality of that was staggering.

I averted my gaze from the six-foot hole because the throbbing in my chest became so severe; it felt as if my heart had vacated my torso, leaving an enormous crevice. Thank goodness I remained steady in my sensible black heels and had kept my swollen eyes hidden behind my shades. I needed to stay strong for my mother and this community.

My brother Kai’s fingers slid beyond my mother’s arm to reach my shoulder and finally, I released a puff of air. I gave him and his wife, Rachel a slight nod, then offered a brief glance to my Uncle Elan and his family, standing on just the other side.

Stuart, my father’s most trusted employee and friend, stood across the rectangular pit next to Chief Red Hawk and other casino employees. He was always the rock, the voice of reason and he’d let me lean on him the last two weeks, as pressure mounted and decisions were made about the casino going forward.

Finally, I allowed my eyes to scan across the grass to the crowd gathered round. Old and new friends, members of the reservation and of the tribal nation respectfully mourned my father’s death. Later, these same people would be whispering about how his passing had impacted our community and our family’s business. The thought of their gossip made my stomach churn.

Making a sweep past the trees, my gaze collided with a set of vivid blue eyes, like two pieces of sea glass lying in the warm and calming sand. The slice to my gut was so intense my shoulders slumped forward like I might be cut in half. Mom grabbed my arm right at that moment, either to hold herself or me up, and my eyes snapped back to my father’s grave.

But Shane’s gaze remained fixed on me. I could feel it pressing in—cool and heated at the same time—similar to how that sea glass feels in your palm after hours in the surf. I gave him a cursory glance, quickly scrutinizing him the best I could, hoping my dark glasses hid my intentions. I hadn’t seen him in years, not since Kai’s wedding. Even when my brother, who’d been his best friend all throughout high school, had met with Shane during the holiday season, I always found some excuse to keep myself busy.

Besides, it wasn’t like he’d tried reaching out to me the past five years. The last real conversation we had, if you could even call it that, was just before he left for his intensive Marshall training.

But as I stood at my father’s funeral, my emotions raw and at the surface, all my feelings for Shane hit me like a thunderclap, much the same way that sorrow always railroads me. Everything became clear, like the gleam on the edge of a knife. How I’d secretly adored him for years, even though I never said it aloud. And how once he finally returned my affection, we never got the chance to see it played out.

My gaze traced the sweep of his eyebrow, the curve of his mouth, the indent in his cheek. Then moved down to his long fingers that now tap, tap, tapped his muscular thigh. I remembered how those same nails had dug into my hip as he’d thrust me forward so he could bury his head in my neck. Remembering was so overwhelming that I nearly sank to my knees in the grass.

His years of chasing fugitives as a United States Marshall had kept him fit. His broad shoulders filled out his black suit and his close-cropped hair illuminated those baby blues. I had to force my gaze away, which only sent me back to the tragedy at hand. My senses pelted from all sides, I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the rest of the day. Let alone the year.

As the funeral attendees filed past the grave to throw handfuls of cornmeal or evergreen boughs onto the wooden casket, an ominous fog arose from the ground. Gloomy clouds aligned overhead casting a dusky silhouette and almost at once it began to mist. The wetness soothed my heated skin and I welcomed it, tilted my cheeks to the sky.

Rachel’s hand grasped my arm, her low voice urging me to move forward, and when I cast my gaze around, only our immediate family remained. The funeral attendees had drifted back to their cars, some already pulling away from the curb and heading toward the exit. As a group, the four of us moved closer to the remains of my father.

We stood with our arms intertwined in a semi-circle. No one spoke as we each said our private, ultimate goodbyes. I closed my eyes and whispered my final peace.
I’ll make you proud, Daddy.

My shoulder took the brunt of her weight as my mother’s knees gave out, so I shifted and tightened my grip on her waist. As her sobs set my teeth on edge and carved deeper grooves in my soul, Kai took firm hold, tugging both of us into his arms.

When I turned to the parking lot, I spotted Shane and a flare of nostalgia wrapped over my senses, swathing me in comfort. But everything about him seemed different. He stood near a sleek Range Rover, which was a stark contrast to his beat-up high school truck. Even his very being seemed larger, not just in stature but in self-possession. An imposing figure, monopolizing all the air in the space between us.

His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and his muscular chest filled out his crisp white shirt almost too well. His eyes remained glued to mine and I nearly faltered, so pure was my longing for him in that moment. Instead, I tipped up my chin and stayed poised.

I’d never forgotten how it felt to have him leave, first after our secret summer together and then after college graduation. He’d always been the one to go. Which meant that I never was important enough for him to stay. But the problem was: nobody else since had felt essential enough to fill the void that Shane had created in my world.

Now another important man had disappeared from my life. My father. My pillar. My heart. And I was left holding all of the pieces.
Again.
It’s simply not true that leaving is the hardest thing. Being
left
was a far worse penalty.

I gazed across the expanse of trees and lawn, trying to keep in the tears threatening to escape my eyes once again. Then I looked down at Shane, who mouthed a single word to me.

Two syllables that could mean so many things, given our history.

“Sorry.”

Christina Lee
lives in the Midwest with her husband and son. She is the author of the Between Breaths Series, including
All of You
and
Before You Break
. She also owns her own jewelry business, called Tags-n-Stones, where she hand-stamps meaningful words or letters onto silver for her customers.