White Dove's Promise

by Stella Bagwell

Shaking her head, Enola sank onto the foot of Kerry’s bed. “You’re making a big mistake.”

  Kerry sighed. Ever since her mother had learned about the interview at Jared’s house tonight, she’d been treating Kerry as though she were sixteen years old rather than twenty-six. “I’m going to do an interview for the newspaper, Mom. This isn’t some life-or-death mission.”

  Enola clamped her jaws together. “It isn’t like you to be disrespectful, Kerry. Is that what this man is doing to you?”

  Kerry adjusted the soft beige blouse she’d tucked into a broomstick skirt which was printed in narrow stripes of black, beige and turquoise. The clothes were feminine, she decided, but casual enough so as not to appear she’d gone to pains to dress up for him.

  “Jared Colton hasn’t done anything to me. Except save my daughter’s life.”

  Enola tossed her hands into the air. “He wasn’t the only man there that night. The firemen, the lawmen, the emergency people were all working to get Peggy out.”

  “That’s right. And I’ll always be grateful to them,” Kerry agreed, determined not to let her mother’s comments rile her.

  “Jared Colton isn’t a hero.”

  “I didn’t say he was. Neither has he.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the door. “Is Peggy still watching television? I don’t want her to get her dress dirty.”

  Impatient with her daughter’s effort to change the subject, Enola said, “She’s watching Mr. Rogers and the doors are locked so she can’t go outside.”

  “Good. We need to leave in five minutes.”

  Enola rose from the bed and joined Kerry at the dresser mirror. “Kerry, I’m trying to talk to you about this for your own good. You may think Jared Colton’s harmless, but let’s face it, you’re not a good judge of character when it comes to men.”

  With slow deliberation, Kerry picked up a hairbrush and began to pull it through her thick hair. “What is that supposed to mean, Mom?”

  Enola reached out and gripped her daughter’s shoulder. “You thought Damon was a wonderful man. You thought he would give you a nice home with children. Instead, he was using you. If you’d used better judgment, Peggy might’ve had a father that wanted her.”

  Not at any time since Kerry had returned from Virginia, pregnant and heartbroken, had her mother said such hurtful things to her. To learn that Enola thought in these terms filled her with sadness and a firm resolution to start looking for a home of her own. Something she should have done right after Peggy was born.

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I messed up. I let myself behave like a normal woman.”

  “Kerry—”

  “Sorry, Mom. I’ve got to go.”

  Before Enola could say more, Kerry grabbed up her handbag and hurried out to fetch Peggy from in front of the television.

  “You won’t be late, will you?” Enola asked as she watched her daughter and grandchild head out the door.

  “I don’t know. But don’t worry. I’ll have my cell phone with me in case I have car trouble,” Kerry told her. Even though she knew that car trouble was the last thing Enola would be worried about.

  When Jared spotted Kerry’s compact car heading up the drive, he trotted off the porch and met her at the yard fence.

  Immediately Peggy reached for him and he made a big display of tossing her up in the crook of his arm and raving over her pretty pink dress.

  “Did you wear that just for me, little dove?”

  She nodded. “Mama says I look pretty in it.”

  He chuckled. “And your mama is right. You look as pretty as she does.”

  Jared’s eyes slanted toward Kerry and she could feel a warm blush slide up her neck and onto her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had told her she was pretty. Clarence sometimes remarked on her hair or her clothing, but their relationship was a father-daughter thing. Hearing such a compliment from a man like Jared was something altogether different.

  “Good evening, Jared. Are we late? I accidentally ran by the turnoff to your house.”

  He gestured for her to precede him through the yard gate. As Kerry stepped into the yard, she noticed he was dressed a bit more formal this evening. Instead of the jeans and pullovers she’d seen him in the past few days, he was wearing khaki chinos and a pale yellow button-down shirt with long sleeves. Brown roper boots were on his feet and a brown leather belt studded with small chunks of turquoise circled his trim waist.

  “You’re just right,” he assured her. “Would you like to go in and have something to drink or would you rather look around the place first?”

  Kerry stepped inside the yard. “Let’s look around,” she said.

  Nodding in agreement, he placed Peggy back on the ground and quickly reached for the child’s hand. “Okay, let’s walk around the house and then I’ll show you the inside and how a messy bachelor lives,” he added with a devilish wink, then settled his free hand against Kerry’s back as though touching her was a natural thing.

  The contact was electric, sending ripples of heat radiating out from his fingers. Instantly, her mind shouted at her to move away and keep a formal distance from him. Yet his closeness made her feel feminine and special. Something she’d not felt in a long time.

  As the three of them strolled beneath large shade trees, Jared explained to Kerry how the Wafford farm had once produced maize, but since the land had sold, the ground had turned fallow.

  When Kerry noticed the fittings of a natural gas pipeline jutting up from the ground not more than fifty yards away from the back of the house, she asked, “Did a gas company hit gas on your land?”

  Jared chuckled. “I’m not that lucky. I only rent this place. And I don’t think Mr. Wafford owned the mineral rights, so he didn’t get anything out of it, either. Except surface damages to his field. I think that’s part of the reason he decided to move into town and forget about farming.”

  As they walked around the back yard, Peggy spotted a swing suspended from a limb of a huge sycamore tree. The little girl raced over and jumped into the board seat fastened to two thickly braided grass ropes. Jared followed and gave her a few pushes to put the swing in motion.

  Peggy’s squeals of delight were like music to Kerry’s ears. To see her daughter so happy and relaxed was enough to tell Kerry she’d made the right decision to come out here tonight.

  “This is a pretty place,” Kerry told him. “But I’m very surprised that you live here.”

  His black brows piqued with interest as he glanced at her. “Why? Even men like me need a place to hang their hat once in a while.”

  “A man like you?” she asked, wondering if he was referring to his job or his rambling ways with women.

  “I’m a petroleum engineer,” he explained. “I never know where my job will take me.”

  He lifted Peggy from the swing. “Come on, little dove, we’d better go in the house and get ready for our company.”

  Moments later, Jared ushered them into the living room by way of the front door. Kerry was immediately surprised by the neat hominess that met her curious gaze. Most of the stuffed furniture dated back to the 1940s. Braided rugs were scattered here and there across the faded flowers on the linoleum floor, with the largest one lying in front of a native rock fireplace.

  In contrast to the older furniture, an entertainment center took up a small wall opposite the couch. Pictures of people she recognized as his family were displayed throughout the room on end tables, wall shelves and the fireplace mantle.

  Nothing about the room was what Kerry had been expecting. Maybe because she’d always considered Jared Colton a smooth operator. A man that most likely lived in an impersonal apartment where the only thing he needed was a change of clothes and enough space to entertain a lady friend. Now she could see she’d been wrong in stereotyping him in such a way.

  While her thoughts and her gaze had been rambling, Jared had led Peggy over to a small school desk in one corner of the room.

  Kerry now watched her daug
hter wiggle eagerly on the seat as Jared placed a magazine full of wildlife in front of her.

  “She likes animals,” Jared said as he returned to Kerry’s side. “That ought to keep her busy for a few minutes.”

  Kerry found it was impossible not to smile at him. “Where did you learn about entertaining children?”

  Jared chuckled. “I don’t know anything about children,” he confessed. “I’ve just been playing it all by ear.”

  “Well, Peggy seems to think you do everything right,” she told him.

  But did Peggy’s mother, Jared wondered. Up until now he’d never met a woman he couldn’t read. Even her smiles were enigmatic. And the mystery of not knowing exactly what was going on in her head made her even more attractive to Jared.

  “How has Peggy been doing today? Does she still like her new kitten?” he asked.

  The image of Peggy pushing Claws around in her baby buggy put a soft smile on Kerry’s lips. “They’re inseparable. I think Fred is starting to get jealous.”

  Jared chuckled as his gaze slid slowly, seductively over her face. “I don’t blame him. We males don’t like another male horning in on our territory.”

  The possessive gleam in his gray eyes reminded her of a determined wolf, resolute in catching his prey. Slivers of anticipation rippled down her spine and warned her this man was too dangerous to play with.

  Pregnant moments began to pass as they stared at one another. Kerry figured if the room had been dark, anyone could have seen the flashes of fire arcing between their bodies. In all of her life she’d never felt so spellbound.

  “And just where is your territory?” she finally asked.

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a sensual grin. “I haven’t marked it. Yet.”

  Kerry was struggling to think of something to say to that, when a knock on the door saved her.

  As Jared went to usher the newspaper reporter into the house, she told herself this was the last time she could allow herself to be in Jared Colton’s company. He was simply too masculine, too downright dangerous for a woman who’d already suffered a broken heart.

  Chapter Four

  The reporter was a rail-thin man somewhere in his mid-fifties with graying hair and an affable smile. After he’d introduced himself as Luther and explained to Kerry and Jared just exactly what he wanted, he proceeded to pose the three of them for a photograph.

  Before Kerry knew it, she found herself wedged next to Jared on a small couch while her daughter was artfully positioned on her rescuer’s lap. All the while the reporter snapped his camera, Kerry kept thinking the whole thing was more like an intimate family portrait than a news story photo. Husband and wife cuddled on a loveseat with their small daughter on her daddy’s lap. She could only imagine what her mother and friends were going to think when they saw it in the newspaper.

  To make matters worse, once the picture-taking ended, Kerry had every intention of rising and finding another seat in the room. But before she could make her escape, Luther pulled a nearby wooden rocker right in front of them for his own seat and began to fire questions. Kerry had no choice but to remain on the couch with her shoulder and thigh jammed against Jared.

  Forty-five long minutes later, Luther finally packed up his camera and notebook and left with the promise that they’d see the article in tomorrow’s edition of the Black Arrow Times. By then Kerry didn’t care if she ever saw the piece. Being so close to Jared had left her as jumpy as a cat. Especially when he’d spent the bigger part of the interview grinning at her.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Jared said cheerfully after he’d shut the door behind the departing Luther. “I’ll bet he’ll only get half the story twisted.”

  “Twisted?” Kerry asked in surprise. “Why should he do that? We told him exactly how everything happened.”

  Jared chuckled as he walked back to where Kerry was still sitting on the couch. “Yeah, but it always somehow gets changed when it’s transcribed to paper. Just ask Bram. I doubt there’s been one time since he’s become the county sheriff that he’s been quoted correctly.”

  Kerry quickly rose to her feet. “Well, I don’t suppose it matters all that much. As long as the readers understand that you got Peggy out of that horrible hole without hurting her.”

  All during the interview, Kerry had stressed several times to the reporter that if it hadn’t been for Jared, Peggy might still be trapped beneath the ground. Her words of praise had touched him then. And they did so even more now that the two of them were alone. “You’re giving me too much credit, Kerry.”

  She gave him a brief smile. “I don’t think so,” she said, then glanced over at Peggy who was lying on the floor quietly watching cartoons that Jared had turned on to keep the child occupied during the long interview. From the looks of her drowsy expression, Kerry knew her daughter would be asleep in just a few minutes.

  “Well, I’d better head toward home,” she told Jared. “Peggy needs to get to bed soon.”

  Frowning, Jared glanced at his watch. “It’s not that late. It’s only just now gotten dark. Why don’t you stay long enough to have some coffee and cookies before you go. They’re homemade,” he added temptingly.

  She breathed deeply as the urge to stay warred with her common sense. For the past three and a half years Kerry had deliberately shied away from any sort of personal contact with men. And for the most part, she’d been content. She’d not seen any reason to risk putting herself through that sort of hell again. But being with Jared reminded her of just how much she was missing in life.

  “Homemade cookies,” she said with a wry smile. “Don’t tell me you baked them.”

  He laughed. “No. I’m a fry cook, but other than that forget it. My sister was sweet enough to bring these over yesterday. So I saved them for this evening.”

  Kerry cast another thoughtful glance at her daughter. Peggy’s eyes were already drooping. Even if she left right now, the child would be asleep before they reached the main highway. It wouldn’t make much difference to let her sleep here at Jared’s.

  “All right,” she agreed. “But let me put Peggy on the couch first. She’s almost asleep.”

  She started after her daughter, but Jared quickly caught her by the arm. “No. I’ll get her.”

  Kerry stood back and allowed him to pick Peggy up from the floor and gently carry her limp little body to the couch. After he’d carefully tucked a throw pillow beneath her head, he glanced at Kerry. “Is she okay like this? Or does she need to be covered with something?”

  Even though the house was air-conditioned, it was not cool enough to make Peggy chilled. “She’s fine,” Kerry told him. “Thank you.”

  Jared started to move away from the couch, then paused to reach down and smooth a wayward black curl away from Peggy’s cheek. “She’s quite an angel,” he said with a sheepish smile.

  “Angels don’t crawl into dirty drainpipes,” Kerry reminded him.

  Laughing softly, he moved away from the couch and with his hand at Kerry’s back guided her toward the kitchen. “Well, even an angel can be momentarily distracted.”

  Like the living area, the kitchen was equipped with older type appliances and fixtures, but everything appeared clean and efficient. At one end of the long room, a rattan-shaded lamp swung over a pine farm table covered with a yellow-and-white plaid tablecloth. In the middle sat a mason jar filled with wildflowers of all colors and sizes.

  The feminine touch of his sister, no doubt, Kerry thought. Jared was the hard hat, work boots sort. She doubted he’d ever picked a wildflower in his life. Except maybe the kind with two legs and painted lips.

  “Have a seat,” he invited, “and I’ll make some coffee. It’s a quick drip pot so it won’t take but a couple of minutes.”

  While he gathered the coffee makings at the cabinet counter, Kerry took a seat at the end of the farm table. To her left, a double window was covered with green-and-yellow tiers that matched the table cloth. Another sign that a woman had done some
decorating in the house.

  Across the room, Jared spoke up. “I hope your mother didn’t give you a bad time about coming over here this evening.”

  Kerry wasn’t about to tell him exactly what her mother had said. It was too humiliating. “I’m a grown woman, but she still wants to treat me as if I’m a teenager,” Kerry told him.

  He carried a plate of chocolate chip and pecan cookies over to the table and placed it in front of her. “Some parents are like that,” he empathized, then added in a nostalgic voice, “I sometimes wonder what my mom would be saying to me if she was alive today. Probably that I’m getting old and I need to find a nice girl and settle down.”

  The wry grin that followed his words said he considered the idea amusing. Apparently he’d never had a hankering for one special woman and a few little Coltons to call his own, Kerry decided.

  Beneath the soft glow of the lamp, Kerry’s eyes searched his strong profile. “You hardly look old,” she pointed out.

  “Thirty-four. That may not sound old, but my father was married and had several children by the time he was my age.”

  “Your parents were killed in a plane crash, weren’t they?”

  He nodded with a sad sort of acceptance. “In 1987. They were vacationing in New Mexico and their small plane was caught in an unexpected blizzard. It went down south of Taos.”

  Kerry sipped the coffee, then said, “I didn’t really know Sally or Trevor, but I remember when the accident happened. I must have been about eleven at the time and I kept thinking how awful it would be not to have my mother and father.”

  Jared sighed. “It was awful, Kerry. For all five of us. Especially my younger sister Willow. She was only sixteen at the time. But I think having siblings to lean on always makes hard times a little easier to bear. And it helped that our grandmother, Gloria, was around to fill in a part of the gap.”

  “Is she still living?” Kerry asked curiously.

  Jared nodded. “Gran lives with Willow over the feed store. And her father, George, is still living, too.”

  The cookie in Kerry’s hand paused in midair. “You have a great-grandfather?”