Promises Linger (Promise Series)

by Sarah McCarty

  “But you could control him.”

  “So could anyone else with enough wits and a big enough bribe.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I guess you’d never be able to trust him. He’s also a bit of a mamma’s boy.”

  “Between the two of them, I’d spend my marriage sleeping with my eyes open.” He opened his mouth to trot out another suggestion, and she forestalled him by holding up her hand. “We’ve already eliminated half the eligible bachelors in the vicinity, but just let me go through the remaining two. Jeremiah Palmer drinks when he’s not working and I will not take up with a drinking man. Brian Pallante hates the territory and has every intention of going back East as soon as he gets his sister married to someone who’ll take that puny spread of his. Offering him the Rocking C would only be an incentive for him to sell more of this territory.”

  “Can I speak now?”

  “Of course.”

  “I wasn’t going to suggest either of those men.”

  “Well, if you were going to suggest one of the hands, I have to say it’s a poor choice. Most of the men couldn’t stand a tie if it came with whiskey and saloon girls attached.”

  “Elizabeth!”

  Damn! She’ forgotten in the ease of long companionship that ladies didn’t know of saloon girls, let alone mention them. Especially with Aaron, who had rigid ideas about women and their roles. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.” He gave her one of those I-expected-better-of-you looks and then sighed. He waved his hand. “Sometimes, I forget who your mother was.”

  So did she. She glanced at her hands in her lap. Her grip on her fingers was so tight, her knuckles were white. She hoped her mother had attained some fun out of life before she died. She counted to ten and eased her grasp. “My mother was from a respectable family back East.”

  “My pa said she was beautiful, but wild as a March hare.”

  “She wasn’t crazy!”

  “You know the stories as well as I do. What would you call her?”

  Desperate. She’d call her mother desperate. Living with her father had a way of provoking that reaction in a woman.

  “My mother, for all her supposed faults, was my mother.” She met the pity and censure in his gaze without flinching. “I prefer to think of her as a good woman who made some bad choices.”

  The first one was thinking her father was lovable. The second was thinking she could save him. The third one had killed her—thinking she could escape him.

  “I’m sure you would, but people around here have long memories.” Aaron reached over and placed his hand on hers. His palm was rough and hard. “You’ve got to be careful, Elly, or your reputation will go the way of hers.”

  She freed her hand under the guise of smoothing her skirt. “I prefer to think people will accept me as I am. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Marrying two men in the space of two days has set a few tongues wagging.”

  She was sure it had. “No matter who I married, people were going to gossip.”

  “They’d gossip a lot less if you hadn’t plucked your latest from that cesspool Dell’s!”

  “At the time, I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You could have come to me.”

  “It was a situation that required my personal attention.”

  “Any situation that requires entering a saloon requires a man to solve it.” He sat forward in the chair, his hands digging into the upholstered arm. “Dammit, Elly! If you don’t want to end up like your mother, you need help. You’re running wilder than she ever did!”

  His anger, his opinion, hit her like a fist in the gut. “Is that what you think of me?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Ah, hell, runt.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Of course not. You just get me so mad, I forget what I’m saying.”

  She didn’t think he forgot a thing. She wondered if Asa shared Aaron’s opinion of her character. She wondered if he was just waiting for the moment when she dropped her ladylike demeanor and shamed him. She’d have to be careful, she decided. Very careful not to mess up. Asa had bargained for a lady. If she saw to it that’s what he got, he’d be satisfied. He wouldn’t leave.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” Aaron apologized.

  “No. You shouldn’t have.”

  He sank back into the upholstery. “I shouldn’t have brought up your mother at all. I know how much it upsets you.”

  It didn’t upset her, it infuriated her, but no one seemed to recognize that. She made her “thank you” properly polite.

  “How did we get on the subject in the first place?”

  “You were expressing your displeasure with my taste in husbands and suggesting marrying one of the hands would have been a better alternative.”

  “I did no such thing,” he countered wryly. “You went off on a tangent before I could point out that Jed Simmons would have made you an excellent husband.”

  “Your foreman?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked. He’s single, knows ranching like the back of his hand, and is as dependable as the day is long.”

  She couldn’t help sounding shocked. She was. Jed Simmons had never entered her head as a choice.

  “He’s only a few years older than me, and not bad looking to boot,” Aaron continued.

  “I never considered him.”

  “If you’d sought my counsel before impulsively rushing into a solution, you would have.”

  “The man is a dictator.”

  “Jed knows what needs doing and he expects it to get done. My ranch has never run smoother.”

  “I don’t like the way he treats his horse.”

  “That buckskin he rides never got past green broke, but that just means Jed doesn’t shy away from a challenge.”

  “Or from an opportunity to dominate something.”

  He considered her point for a moment, his head tilted slightly to one side. “I don’t think you’d need to worry about Jed being heavy-handed. He’s a fair man. As long as you handled the house and minded his rules, he’d be a good husband.”

  “Can you honestly see me calling a man who’s taken orders from me when you’ve loaned him out as Mister?”

  Aaron shrugged. “I don’t see the problem. You’d be calling any husband Mr.”

  What the hell is wrong with Asa?

  The memory of Asa’s question came shooting to the fore. She’d been mad at him because he didn’t expect overt subservience. She mentally shook her head. No doubt about it, she owed the man an apology. “Well, whether Jed would make a suitable husband or not, is rather a moot point. I’m married now.”

  Thankfully, to someone else.

  “I came here to talk about that.”

  “I thought as much, but your concern is unnecessary.”

  “I was thinking along the lines of a solution.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “For the right amount of money, Judge Carlson would be willing to set aside the marriage. He wasn’t content on how it proceeded anyway.” His glance said he was aware the judge placed the blame on her. It also said he knew her well enough not to disagree.

  “On what grounds, for heaven’s sake?” she asked, exasperated. “The marriage has been consummated!”

  Aaron’s neck went beet red, highlighting the red in his brown hair. “With a man of MacIntyre’s reputation, I assumed that would be the case.” The red spread to his cheeks as he doggedly pursued his point. “It’s…commendable that you’re up and about, attending to your duties today, but your continued sufferance is unnecessary.”

  He sounded as if he’d fully expected to find her gushing blood this morning in the wake of her husband’s assault. “I assure you, Aaron. I’m fine.”

  “You’re a lady and you have to say that. I’m also aware of your stubborn nature that makes it impossible for you to admit you made a mistake. But, the bottom line is, a woman of your sensibilities has no place taking up with a gunslinger.”

  That was going too far. She
stood up. “I did not take up with a gunslinger!”

  “If he isn’t one already, MacIntyre’s one slip from it!”

  She didn’t know much about her husband, but instinct told her Asa was far from slipping. She shook out her skirts, and said coldly, “I think this conversation has gone far enough.”

  Aaron caught her wrist in his hand, chaining her in place. “Hear me out.”

  She tugged, but he didn’t let go. Since she had little choice, she listened, but inside, anger fermented.

  “Judge Carlson is willing to set aside the marriage due to it taking place under false pretenses.” She suffered another gaze full of criticism before he explained, “Apparently, you failed to promise to love, honor, and obey.”

  “Asa and I worked that out between us, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “I’m sure MacIntyre agreed to a whole lot of nonsense to get his hands on this ranch, but he’s no one a lady such as yourself should put up with.”

  She’d about reached her limit. “For heaven’s sake, Aaron! We grew up together. Am I so good at pretending that you’ve forgotten I ride and shoot better than you?”

  The fingers on her wrist tightened imperceptibly. She reigned in her temper as he continued. “How you were raised wasn’t your fault. For all his mistakes, your father made up for his error in raising you wild by sending you back East to learn the things a mother would have taught you.”

  “He was a saint.”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic. I was there when you were growing up. I know the mistakes the man made. How frustrated he got when you weren’t the son he wanted, but, in the end, he did right.”

  By banishing her from everything she loved? By taking away her heart and soul and condemning her to four horrible years of monotonous lessons in frivolous deportment? He might as well have sent her to jail.

  “And that makes up for everything?” she asked.

  “It makes up for one hell of a lot.”

  Not in her book. Never in her book. She jerked on her arm. “Let me go.”

  He did reluctantly. “As soon as you calm down, Elizabeth,” Aaron assured her, “you’re going to see the sense in what I’m saying, so listen up.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really.”

  She sighed. Whether she agreed with him or not, Aaron truly believed he was protecting her. “Then go ahead, just know I’m not changing my mind.”

  “Being the person he is, I’m sure MacIntyre will take a cash offering not to contest the divorce. It’ll take a few months to push through, but Jed can come over here and keep things running until you’re free to marry.”

  His plan had more holes than a moth-eaten sweater. “Let me get this straight,” she said, untwisting her shirt sleeve as she clarified. “All I’ve got to do to make life perfect is to come up with enough cash from a bankrupt ranch to bribe a judge and a gunslinger, keep the bank from foreclosing while I sort out my personal life, and learn not to anger my next husband?”

  “Not perfect,” he countered, “but workable. As I mentioned before, if you hadn’t been so impulsive and consulted me before taking it into your head to marry, things wouldn’t be so complicated now.”

  “The only reason things seem complicated is because you refuse to acknowledge my plan is a perfectly good one.”

  “Dammit, Elly! I would have married you myself if Patricia hadn’t trapped me into marriage already.”

  She couldn’t resist the taunt. “Must be a failure in your superior planning abilities that made it possible for her to trap you.”

  “She wanted it!”

  “Apparently, so did you. Enough to risk getting her in the family way.”

  “I did the right thing!”

  “You met your responsibilities beautifully, but my point is that your plan was to have a little fun. You worked for months to get it. You got your fun, but, in all your planning, you never once glimpsed the lifelong commitment attached to the back end.”

  “What exactly are you getting at?” His blue eyes narrowed as he stared at her, daring her to say what she felt.

  Without a qualm, she did just that. “I feel, in light of past circumstances, that your plans lack long-term considerations.”

  “I was young and a man!”

  “As that was only two years ago, you’re still young and it goes without saying that you’re still a man.”

  His hands raked through his hair, springing free the curls he hated, proving she’d made her point even as he denied it. “I fail to see that my marriage to Patricia has anything to do with you.”

  “Exactly. As your marriage to Patricia is none of my concern, my marriage to Asa is none of yours.”

  “But you don’t have to stay married to him.”

  “No, I don’t, and I thank you for pointing that out, but I want to stay married to Asa MacIntyre. From all accounting, he’s an honorable man. He doesn’t lean to excessive drink and he has more than enough knowledge and experience to get the Rocking C back on its feet, so, while I appreciate your concern, I have no need of it.”

  He looked ready to argue. If there was one good thing about being a lady, it was the ability to end unseemly conversations. She patted Aaron’s hand, and took over the conversation. “Quite honestly, I’m content with my choice of husbands.” She squashed his argument with a friendly smile. “Now, would you like some blackberry cobbler before you head back to your place?”

  Aaron stood. He slapped his hand against his blue denims. “You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”

  “I made a sound decision. There’s nothing stubborn about it.”

  He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I care about you, runt. Don’t let your pride get in the way if you need help.”

  “I won’t.”

  “In that case, I’ll have some of that cobbler.”

  As she led the way to the kitchen, Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief that her father’s plans for her to marry Aaron had never come to fruition. They were good friends, but they would never have suited as husband and wife.

  Chapter Seven

  If he were a man who took killing lightly, this might be the moment for it, Asa decided as he watched Elizabeth through the kitchen window. As sure as God made little green apples, there was a man sitting at his kitchen table, chatting with his wife, eating the last of his blackberry cobbler. As the man was neither old nor wearing a collar, he figured he’d get off lightly if the law ever caught up to him.

  Part of him couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He hadn’t believed it when the guard he’d placed on the road had said there was a rider heading for the ranch. He hadn’t wanted to believe it when the guard had said it was a friend of Elizabeth’s, but it was hard to ignore when “it” sat at his kitchen table making free with his cobbler. Elizabeth was the first decent thing he’d ever obtained for himself, and already someone else was moving in.

  Asa saw the man swirl his finger around the plate, cleaning crumbs off the edge. He said something. Elizabeth laughed, touched his hand with hers, and then got up to pour him some more coffee. The same as she’d done for Asa that morning. More than he resented the last of his baked goods going to the interloper, Asa resented Elizabeth fussing over the stranger. She was his wife, dammit.

  Before he moved in to establish his claim, Asa took one last look at the stranger, noting his clean clothes, clean hands, clean everything. He remembered Brent’s fancy dress and lily white hands. He looked down at his own, caked with dirt and grime. While Elizabeth had married him because of his reputation, she obviously had preferences in a man. He watched as the stranger efficiently used the napkin before him, and winced when he couldn’t remember using his this morning. Clearly, given her druthers, Elizabeth liked a man clean and well-mannered. He knew enough not to wipe his mouth on a tablecloth, but was sure there were enough holes in his education for a woman with a fancy Eastern education to take note of. As for the dirt…he swatted at the dust on h
is denims. That came with the territory, but he guessed he didn’t need to track it daily into the house.

  He stepped back from the window. Elizabeth seemed safe enough, and, as hunkered in as the stranger was, Asa figured he’d stay put for the time it took him to visit the pump.

  * * * * *

  Five minutes later, damp from the washing up, Asa stepped through the back door. As soon as he entered the kitchen, the laughter stopped. Elizabeth jumped up. It could have been due to guilt, or, more probably, to the way the door slammed in his wake.

  “Evening.” He took off his hat, wincing when dust puffed out. His face and hands were clean, but a day’s labor clung to his clothes. The stranger was clean, presentable and comfortable. It irked Asa almost as much as the drop of water that slid down his neck.

  Elizabeth came immediately to his side. “You’re home early.” She took his hat from his hands.

  “One of the men said he saw a stranger headin’ this way.”

  Elizabeth started, and then smiled. “It must have been the new man. Everyone else knows Aaron’s horse about as well as they know Aaron.”

  Actually, it’d been Sam, and he’d recognized the horse, but Asa hadn’t found the knowledge that a male friend of Elizabeth’s was visiting any more calming than if he’d been a stranger bent on mischief.

  Asa looked over Elizabeth’s shoulder at the man wiping his mouth on the napkin. He was probably in his early twenties and about as comfortable as a man could get.

  “That blood bay gelding yours?” Asa asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Nice horse. Shame he’s gelded.”

  “That’s what I thought when I bought him off an Easterner.” The man pushed back his chair. The same squalling chair Asa had been sitting on that morning. The darned thing didn’t even squawk. Asa took the irritation in stride as the man extended his hand in greeting. “Aaron Ballard.”

  “Asa MacIntyre.”

  “You have quite a reputation.”

  Asa settled his weight onto his heels as he exchanged a civilized handshake. “People like to talk, especially when things get boring.”