The Promise

by Kristen Ashley

  He loved Violet. I knew that when he pulled out all the stops and made a miracle happen when he found us in the middle of nowhere in a forest and took a man’s life to save hers.

  He also loved her girls.

  And I loved that.

  “So, he’s lookin’ for the right one,” Keira shot back.

  “He’s lookin’ for somethin’,” Kate muttered.

  “No Jasper Layne,” Cal decreed, and I watched Keira jerk her gaze to Cal.

  “Joe!” she cried.

  “No Jasper Layne,” he repeated.

  I felt Benny give me a squeeze and I looked at him to see him smiling big at his cousin.

  My attention went back to the scene when Keira exclaimed, “He’s cute!”

  “He’s off-limits,” Cal proclaimed.

  “Joe!” she repeated loudly.

  Cal scowled at her. Then I stopped grinning at him and started staring at him when I saw it begin.

  I couldn’t believe it might happen.

  Then it happened.

  He caved.

  “How old is he?” Cal asked.

  “He’s a sophomore,” Keira answered—Keira, incidentally, being a freshman.

  “You wait until you’re older, he’s older, then we’ll see.”

  I watched Keira study her “Joe.” Then I watched her face get soft and her eyes light. It was then I knew she knew she had the big, rough man who was Joe Callahan wrapped around her finger.

  That had to be why she said much calmer and definitely sweeter, “Okay, Joe.”

  “You do know this is hilarious,” Benny put in at that point.

  “Shut it,” Cal growled.

  Ben chuckled, I giggled, and Vinnie Senior laughed outright.

  Cal’s face took on another dark look, this one annoyed, so I quit giggling and looked at Keira. “Sometimes, those are the best ones,” I shared my womanly wisdom.

  “What are the best ones?” she asked me.

  “The wild ones. You let them get it out of their system and you get them when they’re tame. That can be the best,” I told her, and Benny’s arm got tight, but this time it didn’t loosen.

  “Tame doesn’t sound fun,” Keira noted. Cal sighed audibly and I smiled, but only so I wouldn’t laugh.

  Cal had his hands full with this one and I thought that was hilarious.

  “It’s not tame tame, it’s the good kind of tame,” I explained. She looked confused, so I went on. “I’m just sayin’, listen to Cal. You might not get it ’cause you’re young, but you’ll learn. And he’s tryin’ to make sure when you learn, it isn’t the hard way.”

  “Right,” Keira whispered, eyeing me, eyeing Cal, and sucking my womanly wisdom in like a sponge.

  “So,” Kate said, and I looked to her. “It’s like Joe bein’ the Lone Wolf, and Mawdy and us gettin’ in there, and he’s still hot and cool, but he’s got us.”

  “Something like that,” I replied, smiling back at her.

  “The Lone Wolf?” Benny asked.

  “Shut it,” Cal growled.

  I giggled again.

  “What are we talking about?” Theresa asked, and I looked over the back of the couch to see her and Violet joining us.

  “Something we’re not talkin’ about anymore,” Cal answered.

  I gave Vi a big smile as Kate exited the couch to go sit on the floor with her sister so Theresa could sit in the corner. Violet scrunched next to me.

  The minute she did, she grabbed my hand and held on.

  I rested our hands on my thigh and held on tighter.

  “I made cannoli and Benny bought enough donuts for an army. Anyone in the mood for something sweet?” Theresa asked.

  “Me!” Keira cried.

  “Totally!” Kate exclaimed, already getting back to her feet.

  Theresa, barely just sitting down, got back up. “Let’s go make coffee and get something sweet.”

  “I could use some coffee and somethin’ sweet,” Vinnie Senior muttered, hefting himself out of the recliner and following them.

  “Ben, a word,” Cal said.

  I felt Benny tense against me. I looked at him to see he was giving a hard look to his cousin. Then he looked to me and that look softened.

  “Be back, cara,” he said quietly.

  “Right,” I replied.

  He carefully shifted from beside me and got to his feet.

  The men left and I looked to Vi.

  “Do you know what that’s about?” I asked.

  Violet was looking over the couch, watching the men depart, but at my question, her eyes came to me. “Joe obviously has something on his mind. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shared with me what it is.”

  I looked over the couch and saw that whatever it was took them out to the front stoop. In other words, where no one could listen in.

  I turned my gaze back to Violet. “Is everything cool?”

  She nodded. “Police found the carnage Hart left in his lake house. He shot you. Both Joe and Benny’s guns were registered. The cops were in the know we’d been kidnapped, and they knew all about Hart and his obsession with me. So, to end, they didn’t press charges against Joe for blowin’ a hole in his head. And, obviously you know, the same with Benny for shooting him in the stomach.”

  I knew all that. Sal had explained it to me in the hospital.

  So I clarified, “No, what I mean is, you, the girls, the drama.” I leaned closer. “They’re beautiful, Vi,” I said softly. “So sweet. Amazing. But they seem—”

  She gave my hand a squeeze. “They lost their dad, their uncle, and almost me and Joe to Daniel Hart. They latch on to family, having lost all that. Joe and I are keepin’ an eye on it, but I reckon it’s better they latch on to love rather than acting out.”

  “You’d be right about that,” I replied.

  She tipped her head to the side as she lifted her eyebrows up. “You and Benny?”

  “Long story,” I muttered, and she grinned.

  “You two look good together.”

  I caught her eyes direct. “I looked good together with his brother too.”

  She held my gaze for long seconds before she asked cautiously, “Do you like him?”

  “He’s the commissioner of the local Little League.”

  Her lips twitched and she murmured, “You like him.”

  “He’s also my dead boyfriend’s brother,” I noted for the fucking gazillionth time in three days.

  She assessed my face and remarked, “I’m sensing you don’t wanna talk about this.”

  “Since Ben made it clear what he was thinking about this, it’s pretty much the only thing I think about, we talk about, and I talk about with other people. So yeah, I could use a break.”

  Violet nodded. “Right. So you ever need to talk it through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever need to talk anything through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever just want to shoot the breeze, you call me. Okay?”

  That was so nice, I grinned at her, declaring, “I just knew you were the shit.”

  She grinned back and replied, “I knew you were the shit when you jimmied up that window so we could escape.”

  I shrugged. “Figured Hart was shooting people in the other room, it was time for us to take a stroll.”

  She started giggling and through it said, “You were so right.”

  I started giggling too and we did this for a while until we both sobered, our eyes glued to each other’s, our hands clutching tight.

  “You’re up, talking, you look gorgeous, but are you sleeping? Dealing? Healing?” Vi asked in a whisper.

  “One good thing about Benny throwing down with me is that I haven’t really had a chance to have a proper freak out about that whole thing with Hart. But we’re here, he’s not, so it all worked out in the end.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed.

  “You?” I asked.

  “I have Joe,” she answered, and I smiled. She had Cal. Cal had her. And obviously, that was all she needed.


  “You’re good for him,” I told her.

  “He’s good for me,” she told me.

  Excellent response.

  “He loves your girls,” I told her.

  “They adore him,” she told me.

  Another excellent response.

  “Thanks for making him happy,” I whispered.

  “That, honey, is not a hardship,” she whispered back.

  We smiled at each other again. Then, being women and thus, prone to do crazy shit for no reason whatsoever, we burst out laughing.

  * * * * *

  Hours later, when everyone was gone, I walked out of the bathroom in another one of Gina’s sexy-cute nightgowns to see Benny with bare feet, in his t-shirt and jeans, stretched out on the bed.

  His eyes came to me, dropped to my body, and he muttered, “Jesus.”

  That made me feel awesome and irked me at the same time.

  “You could avoid the torture by watchin’ TV downstairs,” I remarked.

  His eyes lifted to mine. “I could.”

  That was all he said.

  I sighed, went to the robe at the foot of the bed, shrugged it on, tied the belt, and climbed into bed.

  Benny was in that bed and I should be throwing a conniption about it, but I needed to climb in. It had been a big day with lots of hugging, moving around, and sitting up. It felt good to do it. It felt better I made it through. It wasn’t too much too soon, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need to take a load off.

  I turned my eyes to the TV to see Benny scrolling through the guide like a man would stand in front of a refrigerator—that was, not paying a whole lot of attention, not knowing what he wanted, not liking what he saw, and willing to do it for the next half an hour, thinking something would magically appear that would ease a craving.

  “What’d you talk about with Cal?” I asked.

  “He wanted to make sure you were good,” Ben answered, eyes to the TV.

  “He could have asked me,” I pointed out, eyes to Ben.

  “He didn’t. He asked me,” Ben told me what I already knew.

  “Did this require you being on the front stoop where no one could hear?” I pushed.

  “Yep, since it happened on the front stoop where no one could hear,” Ben stated, and that didn’t feel awesome. It just irked me.

  “Benny!” I snapped, and he looked at me.

  “Ask what you wanna ask, baby,” he said gently, reading me and knowing I was beating around the bush.

  So I quit beating around the bush.

  “Cal doesn’t seem to have a problem with the idea of you and me,” I noted.

  “He doesn’t, since he’s told me, repeatedly, after that shit went down with Hart, to get my head outta my ass and sort out you and me.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  I snapped it shut to declare, “There isn’t a ‘you and me.’”

  His eyes did a sweep of me in his bed, they came to rest on mine, and he said quietly, “Babe.”

  Shit.

  “We’re talkin’ about this tomorrow,” he reminded me. “Right now, I can tell you had a big day and you need to kick back.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that. What he was was attentive, noticing it.

  Another good thing about Benny.

  “Come here,” he ordered.

  “I’m good here,” I said, turning my eyes to the TV.

  “Frankie, come here,” he repeated.

  I looked to him. “I’m good here, Benny.”

  “Babe,” he stated firmly, but said no more.

  “I’m comfy.”

  “Come here,” he said yet again.

  “Ben, I’m fine where I am.”

  “Come here.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

  “Francesca, come…here.”

  “Are you gonna repeat it until I do it?” I snapped.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “You’re annoying,” I told him.

  “Come here.”

  “Now you’re more annoying.”

  “Come here.”

  I glared at him as I informed him, “I really wanna hit you with a pillow right now.”

  “Come here.”

  “Benny!” I shouted.

  Then I was no longer reclining on my side of the bed.

  I was tucked tight to Benny’s side on his side of the bed.

  It felt good. Natural. Right.

  I clenched my teeth.

  Then I unclenched them to say, “You’re totally freaking annoying.”

  “And you’re all kinds of cute.”

  I clenched my teeth again.

  Ben settled on some television show set in a prison.

  “I don’t watch prison shows,” I declared.

  Ben said nothing but didn’t change the channel.

  “Or war shows,” I went on inanely.

  Ben didn’t move and the channel remained the same.

  “Ben, find something else,” I ordered.

  “Please?” he said that one word as a demand.

  I tipped my head from its place on his chest to glare at him.

  He grinned at me.

  Then he offered me the remote.

  Yes, Benny Bianchi, a man who was all man handed me the remote.

  To the TV!

  Yet another good thing about Benny.

  Tentatively, like the woman I was, a woman who was entering previously uncharted territory and needing to do it cautiously, I took it.

  Even more tentatively, I found a cooking show I liked.

  Benny said not a word and I marveled as he lay there watching a cooking show with me, not saying a word.

  And again, he showed me another good thing.

  The problem with that was that I was thinking, when it came to Benito Bianchi, it was all a good thing.

  Chapter Six

  Love Is Never Wrong

  “Thanks, babe, and again, don’t worry about comin’ tomorrow.”

  It was the next morning. I was standing at Benny’s door, Asheeka out on the stoop. I was showered, ready to face the day, and letting her off shower duty.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  “I was good yesterday, better today,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Still, you need me, just call.”

  My Asheeka. So awesome.

  “What I need to do is buy you tickets to Usher the next time he’s in Chicago.”

  Her eyes went huge. “Girl, you know it would not be good, that boy and me in the same building, even if that building is a stadium.”

  What I knew was that Asheeka had a thing for a baby face. And a bigger thing for a man who could move.

  “Right. In order to avoid Usher taking a restraining order out on you, I’ll find something else,” I told her.

  This time her eyes went sweet before she replied, “I know it’d be a fool waste of time, tryin’ to talk you outta doin’ something. But I’m also gonna make it clear, you don’t have to do anything.”

  “I do,” I returned.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  My Asheeka. So awesome.

  I refrained from hugging her because that would probably make me cry and I’d just done my makeup.

  She grinned at me. “You keep me in the know about what’s happenin’ with all that,” she ordered, jerking her chin to the hall behind me, meaning Benny.

  “I get my phone back, I will,” I promised.

  She kept grinning and said, “Later, babe.”

  “Later, Asheeka.”

  She aimed her eyes beyond me and shouted, “’Bye, Benny!”

  “Later!” Ben’s deep voice shouted back from where he was in the kitchen.

  She let out a little chuckle, shook her head once, and I watched her walk down to her Land Rover and get in. I closed the door when she was pulling out.

  I turned, looked down the hall, straightened my shoulders, and walked that way.

  Benny and I had to have a chat. One where I communicated s
ome important things, he listened, and I got my way for a change.

  This I’d decided in the shower.

  This, I decided right then, was happening now.

  I walked down the hall, turned into the kitchen, took two steps in, stopped, and planted my hands on my hips.

  And there I saw that Ben was on a mission. I knew this because he had a donut clamped in his teeth, a travel mug in his hand, he was shoving his phone in his back pocket, and his car keys were sitting on the counter in front of where he was standing. His hair was wet because he’d showered in the hall bathroom. I’d heard him when I was getting ready.

  “Ben,” I called.

  He looked my way and finished with his phone, lifted his hand to the donut, took a bite, and said through a full mouth, “Yeah?”

  “We gotta talk,” I told him.

  He chewed and swallowed. “Yeah,” he agreed readily. “Ma’s got somethin’ on with Father Frances this morning, so while you were upstairs, I talked with Mrs. Zambino. She’s takin’ you to the alley today. League play. She says she and her girls’ll keep you company. I gotta get to the restaurant and do some shit. I’ll meet you back here.”

  I knew my eyes were squinty when I declared, “I’m not goin’ to the bowling alley with old lady Zambino and her cronies.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Ben replied before he took another bite of donut.

  I shook my head so I wouldn’t get distracted from my mission, and stated, “Benny, we need to talk about what I wanna talk about.”

  “Can’t. She’ll be here in five minutes and I gotta go. One of our suppliers is gonna be at the restaurant in twenty. I made the order. His shit is good, but he’s known to jack his clients around, so I gotta inspect it when it gets there so he doesn’t jack us around.”

  Although normally I would find it fascinating, the inner workings of a popular pizzeria and how a supplier might “jack you around,” right then, I couldn’t get distracted by that either.

  “I want my phone,” I announced, and Benny focused on me.

  “Babe—” he started quietly.

  “No,” I cut him off. “We have plans tonight. I made you that promise, I’m keeping that promise. I won’t take off. But I’m out of the hospital and I have a life. Friends who are probably wondering about me. A job I quit, where my notice period ended up as sick leave, but I have strings to tie up there, clients to contact. I also have a new job. They know I experienced a traumatic event, but now they probably think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I gotta check in, and to do it, I need my phone. I’d rather make my calls here. But, so as not to court the wrath of old lady Zambino, who probably now is excited about her opportunity to show off her skills at the lanes, I’ll make my calls from the bowling alley.”