The Bridal Promise

by Virginia Dove

  “Motif?” Matt exclaimed indignantly.

  “Oh, all right! Theme,” she snapped. “Happy now? This is as much your responsibility as it is mine, Ransom. I’d be pleased to hear any suggestions you’ve got.”

  Matt looked at her for a time before speaking. “I suggest that you’d be taking on a big project. You won’t get it done quickly, Mrs. Ransom. This sounds to me like a long, heavy haul. We all have full-time jobs. None of us here will be able to devote much spare time to this.”

  “I know that,” she countered. “So?” Suddenly, it felt like a showdown.

  “So what happens when the baby comes?” he asked softly. Too softly.

  “I can work this project and be with the baby a lot easier than I could be with the baby working for a bank, Matt. I can be my own boss this way. And besides,” Perri continued, “there’s no urgency to get everything up and running. There’s no shotgun clause in Gannie’s will, now that we’re married. I reread it last night. We don’t have a due date for getting the project on its feet. I can take my time.”

  “It’s too much for you to do on your own,” he declared solidly. “And I’m opposed to your idea of working for an Oklahoma City bank anyway.” There, he’d said it. He was relieved to see her accept his objection. “And this archive idea is really a full-time job. You’ve already got one starting soon that will take up all your time,” he pointed out. “It’s just too much. What Gannie did took more than years—it took up her whole life.”

  What remained unsaid was Matt’s understandable concern: By focusing on the tapes, Gannie had stayed wedded to the past And he didn’t have to mention that his first wife had miscarried twice.

  Fine,” Perri said confidently. He’d found a logical way to fix her idea and make it better. I know someone we could hire as a curator. Someone who was born here,” she added. “She could work with me to set it up and then take over. As co-executors we could agree to hire her,” Perri added. “The money is there.”

  The pause lengthened as they studied each other. “It is a huge undertaking. Matt,” she agreed gently. “You’re right But I would think that the baby would keep me going, would keep me inspired to provide this link to the past. Just as I would think your baby would prevent me from becoming too wrapped up in it like Gannie. The baby would see to it I didn’t overdo,” she said, smiling.

  Matt smiled back. His pride once again had him licked. But this time, his pride was in Perri. Something true passed between them.

  In that instant, at the sight of his hesitant smile, it no longer troubled Perri that Matt only needed her to be a mother to his child. “So,” she said turning another brilliant smile on Deepwater, “what’s our first step, legally speaking?”

  Unwilling to tip the balance of the moment, Deepwater opted for caution. “Give me time to study the prospectus, darlin’. I’ll get back to you,” he said as he started to rise, plate in hand. It wouldn’t do to side with Perri too soon.

  “Not before you tell me what you think, Johnnie.” Matt challenged.

  John gave the appearance of thoughtful consideration, “I think donating some of Gledhill’s antiques to furnish a genealogy center out on the property would make an excellent tax write-off,” he said. “And it would fulfill the terms of the will regarding the use of that land.”

  “Write-off?” Matt brightened at that. “Clear this place out at the same time?” A building for the tapes, apart from Gledhill; a container for the past that Perri could get away from, and a project to keep her here all in one neat package. “Sold!” he said.

  “It’s that simple for you, Matt?” Perri demanded, indignantly.

  “There’s nothing simple about it, woman,” he stated without compunction. “We will be taking a load on our shoulders that is going to weigh a ton. I hope you realize that.”

  Hiding a smile, Donnie glided silently by to clear the table. No one mentioned the change in pronouns. John and Donnie looked everywhere but at each other as they joined up at the dishwasher. It didn’t take so much as a glance for them to coordinate their next move.

  “Darling, do something more than just standing there looking rough and ready. Stop John and Donnie from loading the dishwasher.” Perri huffed as she gathered up her notes.

  He wasn’t going to let her get away with that prissy tone. “Well,” he said softly as he pulled her toward him, “I am ready, darling, now that you mention it. And we could try it a little bit rough. I might like that,” he said as he swatted her fanny. Just as he’d hoped, it annoyed the hell out of her.

  Deepwater and Donnie studied the dirty dishes, pretending not to notice Matt’s grin. Together, they made believe that to see Matt Ransom truly smile at last didn’t just ache their eyes.

  Nine

  Seated at her computer, Perri shivered slightly in the air-conditioning. Outside. the sun was frying everything. it touched. She pointed, clicked and waited for a reply from a genealogical resource agency. Then, with happy wonder, she took a moment to study the roses from Matt. The battered silver pitcher captured the sunlight coming in from the dining room window, enhancing their lush colors. Such an unexpected surprise.

  Perri sighed with remembered pleasure and lightly stroked a rose. The roses inspired such confidence. They ranged from pure white to blazing red, with some astonishing hybrids intermingled among the solids. She’d been floored when he’d walked in the door with them. It was almost like having the old Matt back, she thought, tapping the locket around her neck for luck.

  Thinking of Matt made her smile and dream. Presently, she felt a repeated thump against her sternum. Her finger had continued its idle drumming without her realizing. She stopped fidgeting and clicked to print the open document on her monitor.

  Perri was well aware that this search should have been done before her dinner party. She could have presented Matt, John and Donnie with solid proof that her idea was on target. But she had never gotten around to it

  Here she was, with this idea for the land and the tapes that felt so right; yet only now was Perri thinking about the possibilities of on-line genealogy links and CD-ROM. She was only now learning the difference in an Ahnentafel and an Ancestor File. She could have searched out the possibilities for registering their data in time for the dinner party, at least. So why didn’t I? she wondered.

  She didn’t have to wait long for a soundless voice somewhere inside to answer. She had been waiting for approval. Perri held onto the sides of her chair and stretched out her back, the wood cool and smooth under her hands. She hadn’t fought for this project, she acknowledged, because it meant too much to her. She had waited for everyone else’s approval. She had held back to allow them to accept or decline what she wanted to do with the Donated Land

  Who was she kidding? She had waited for Matt to decide her idea was all right Had she fought passionately for her project, it would have hurt too much if he hadn’t agreed. If she had committed herself and lost, it would have been devastating. It was difficult to admit that fear of rejection, Matt’s rejection, had kept her from doing the necessary research for an idea she believed in. But it was the truth. She had been afraid to put her heart on the line.

  Perri swore silently, dismayed at her actions. Such passivity had shaped her past and was reaching ahead, grasping hold of her future. Once before, she had lost it all without a battle. She had given up her home rather than fight back the night Leila Ransom had come to Gledhill.

  Worse, she hadn’t fought for Matt. Perri had locked away the love she had felt for him and permitted herself to be run out of town. She slumped against the dining room chair as she considered ways she could have acted differently.

  Recollection brought rage, chagrin, and remorse welling up inside her. She had accepted Leila’s ultimatum without a fight. She’d gone from Spirit Valley, and from Matt, instead of standing firm.

  What if a battle would have been unnecessary? Or what if she could have won? Dammit, she had never paused to think it through. A seventeen-year-old girl wasn
’t prepared to make such decisions alone.

  She’d never once considered an alternative way to respond. A dreadful hurt had clouded her logic, her common sense and her choices. Her mother could have, and most certainly would have handled the situation, had she but known. Gannie would have cleaned Leila’s clock had she learned the truth. And Gannie could have persuaded Matt to at least listen to reason.

  Perri closed her eyes, looking inward for some answers. Raleigh had continued the pattern. She had waited with a plaintive, defeated patience until she had sensed her stepmother’s love and acceptance to be genuine. Only then had she relaxed with her father’s second family.

  Being a lady had meant waiting for approval and never battling back. Now however, as her eye followed the lively curl of a red and white rose, the worst truth she faced was that she had never fought for Matt. She bad never fought for her home, or for the life and the family they had planned to make together. She had simply departed, never taking a stand for the man she loved.

  It was hardly shocking to note that she hadn’t put her heart on the line for Gannie’s tapes. It was no real surprise to discover that she’d contained her enthusiasm for the project until the support and approval had appeared in Matt’s eyes. Then she had felt secure enough to get to work. But initially she had never said the words “I want.”

  Perri stared hard at the roses, as if they held an answer. How much more reassurance did she require for it to finally sink in? She was indeed accepted.

  How much longer was she going to wait to move into her own life and her role as Matt’s wife? Perri sighed. If she was waiting for him to fall in love with her, she was out of her mind.

  Okay. Maybe it was time to stand for something that meant a great deal to her. It was no joy to go through life permitting oneself to be so easily dismissed. There had to be a way to use that ladylike patience to change such an unproductive habit.

  Perri drank in the sight of roses reflected off the shiny surface of her dining room table. Somewhat reassured, she turned her attention back to her computer screen, pointed and clicked. While waiting for the words “Document: Done” to appear, she stroked her locket and formed a plan to bring about something she longed to achieve. Something for Matt, for her child’s future and for herself.

  Matt pulled the key from the ignition and idly rubbed his knee. He was dusty, hot and tired. He was also hungry, sleep-deprived and in pain. He’d dodged, but the two-year-old had still managed to clip him hard with a kick.

  For once, he reflected sourly, Matt Ransom hadn’t been quick enough. He had lost a step all day. Now he was just trying to will up enough steam to make it into the kitchen for a cold beer.

  Matt sank deeper into the driver’s seat and sighed. He’d sure lost a step with Whit today as well, and the realization did nothing to improve his mood. Both of them had dug in their heels over Whit’s self-imposed exile. Remembering their fight over the phone was bringing his headache back.

  Yet in all fairness, Matt couldn’t accurately qualify their conversation as a fight. Whit didn’t fight. He remained amiable, soft-spoken and unbending. You could talk yourself hoarse and Whitaker Ransom would let you.

  Matt knew he could work smarter and have the time to focus on improvements if Whit would just come home. But instead, his stubborn little brother wouldn’t budge from the Panhandle, where rain was but a memory. He hadn’t even made it down for Matt and Perri’s wedding.

  And Whit refused to voice his reasons. He had changed so dramatically after Matt had married Cadie. Matt had had too much to deal with at the time to remember clearly what had happened to change Whit. If he ever knew.

  “Sell out and come home,” he’d said. “I need you. You can move into my old place.” Matt had pushed as hard as he dared. “Your family needs you.”

  Whit had remained genial and unmoved by the unexpected appeal in Matt’s voice. “That’s what coming home would mean, big brother.” He had sounded as dry as the land blowing out from under him. “Out here this close to hell,” he’d replied, “I don’t have to fill your boots.”

  But that wasn’t what was really eating deep. Matt knew what was bothering him most. Perri. He’d been stewing over her all day and it had thrown him off but good. Rubbing weary eyes, for the hundredth time he told himself not to be superstitious over a nightmare and a pregnant wife. It was ridiculous that, even now, such a lousy dream could leave him feeling so cold inside. Matt wasn’t the sort to ever heed a dream.

  He had jolted awake in the middle of the night, frozen with the hypervigilance of the hunted. Matt had lain beside her holding his breath, trying to capture the source of such acute fear. In the dream fragments that had remained upon awakening, Perri had been lost to him. He could vividly recall trying to get to her. He’d been desperate to keep her safe; yet, there’d been no sense of any specific danger. But every effort, every move he had made to reach her in the dream had been performed in agonizing slow motion.

  In an unfamiliar room of an abandoned shack, Matt had felt a heavy weight bearing down on him. Heart pounding, he had made a determined effort, but it was as if he were moving underwater. He had fought the hindrance with a recklessness born from the unspoken knowledge that he couldn’t get to Perri because he was so lost without her.

  His efforts had finally landed him at the front door, which he had wrenched open. The countryside beyond the old shack had been a disturbing sight. Matt had recognized bayou country; however, the dream landscape had been completely frozen over. He was a man unaccustomed to ever being so out of tune with his environment. And yet he had surely been at odds with the dreamworld before him. The open door led out onto an eerie landing and on into a swamp. But no bateau or pirogue could ride through that.

  A fog of suspended sleet had swirled over a stream of solid ice. Curtains of icy Spanish moss had cascaded from the oaks. A frozen bird, perching on a smooth, frosted stone, had looked as if it would burn cold to the touch. And a green snake, its scales glistening with ice crystals, had curled comfortably on the landing.

  The iced-over swamp had been such a terrifying sight he’d jolted awake. Sweating and needing reassurance, he had waited for dawn, with his hand gently resting on Perri’s hair. Grounded by her scent and the sound of her even breathing, he’d desperately searched inward to pin down the danger.

  The lush scent of honeysuckle, mingled with a mild undertone of alfalfa and horse, returned him to the present Matt made the startling realization that he had gotten out of his pickup and was trudging toward Gledhill’s glass-enclosed back porch. He’d done it all on automatic. “I really am out of it,” he muttered on a yawn. He promised himself a beer and a shower. Hell, he’d just take a beer into the shower, he figured, as he opened the back door and entered.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, shoving his hat back from his forehead.

  Twelve floor-to-ceiling windows made up the enclosed back porch. Taking in the chaos, he noted that Perri had pulled all the furniture into the middle of the room. Armed with plenty of rags and window cleaner, she was at work on an east window.

  Perri looked up from her efforts and frowned. “What happened ? Why are you limping?” she demanded, her voice sharp with concern.

  He knew she lived in apprehension of the ordinary accidents that went along with his job. “My knee. I got kicked. Tell me we have cold beer,” he commanded. Matt slammed down on a residue of alarm and never registered the tiny coil of anger that swiftly twisted to life. He flicked on the ceiling fan, a little belatedly he reckoned, and considered turning on the air conditioner as well. “You shouldn’t be working like this, Perri,” he declared. “Not while you’re pregnant.” Even he didn’t care for his overbearing tone, but too bad.

  “We have beer,” she replied, sticking to what she obviously considered to be the essentials. “I’ll get you one, along with an ice pack.”

  “I don’t want an ice pack, dammit, I want a beer,” he grumbled as he hung his hat on a peg She was not going t
o distract. him with that ice pack.

  Matt’s fury mounted as he followed her. He looked around the kitchen, letting his eyes linger over each familiar object. He made a genuine effort to ground himself in the mundane, everyday signs of his life. But it didn’t happen. The kitchen felt alien, as unreal as the room he had tried to escape last night in his dream.

  He was overreacting due to fatigue and pain and he knew it But for some reason he couldn’t quite nail down, it set him off to see her engaged in everyday domestic activities. She tossed him a beer as he limped into the kitchen.

  “At least sit down and rest that knee while you eat something. You look beat,” she said gently.

  “I’ll shower first,” he declared, turning toward the hall. He wasn’t doing it solely to be ornery. He really needed a shower. “I won’t be a minute.” He didn’t need it pointed out to him that he was about done in. Taking a sip, he puzzled briefly over his own contrariness as he started for the stairs.

  A shower and clean clothes didn’t improve his mood. “You’ve been a busy girl today, haven’t you?” Matt asked as he reentered the kitchen and sat at the table.

  The economy of movement and the efficient way she’d quickly gotten food to the table during his shower touched the same raw nerve that had been pressed hard in his dream. He still wanted to get to her. However, being awake seemed to have soured the dream’s desperate need. Matt couldn’t seem to help himself. He wasn’t proud of the fact that pain could make him mean. He ignored the ice pack she placed before him. “What did you do today besides move all the furniture and inhale cleaning fumes?” he asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

  Perri sighed and brought the potato salad to the table. She had promised herself that today she would take action. She had promised herself that this time she wouldn’t wait patiently, hoping for her turn. And a promise was a promise. “Well, I did some thinking about our trip,” she replied. “I’ve decided where I want to go.”