This I Promise You

by Smith, Maureen

  “Good idea,” she agreed, sitting up. “Let me go change first.”

  She headed upstairs to the master bedroom suite and made her way to her walk-in closet. Since Quentin was such a clotheshorse, it was a given that they would have their own separate closets. Each one was huge and boasted custom shelving, bureau-style drawers and cabinets, and plenty of hanging space behind glass doors. One entire wall held rows of shoes that were displayed on backlit floating shelves. Each closet featured high coffered ceilings, gilded wall mirrors and a modern chandelier hung above a large island. Lexi’s closet also had customized cubicles for her handbags, and a plush ottoman and bench for her to sit on while having her own private fashion show. There was also a separate vanity area equipped with mirrors and drawers for storing makeup and hair supplies.

  Lexi sometimes wondered what her teenage tomboy self would think of the boutique-style closet she now owned. Would she think it was over the top? Would she suck her teeth and sneer at her sizeable shoe collection? Or would she nod approvingly and give her a high five?

  The questions made Lexi smile as she shimmied out of her dress and changed into a crewneck pullover and skinny jeans, then slid on a comfy pair of Ugg boots.

  When she went back downstairs, Quentin had bundled up their son and put on his tiny black Timbs. They wheeled out his covered stroller, tucked him inside and then headed outdoors.

  For the past two years, they’d lived in an exclusive gated community made up of sprawling custom-built homes, each one featuring a distinct façade to eliminate the cookie-cutter look that dominated much of suburbia. Situated on wooded five-acre lots, every house was set back from the road and perched on an incline that was accessed by a long circular driveway. The lawns and gardens were impeccably manicured, and the streets were lined with a canopy of towering oaks. A picturesque lake served as a popular gathering place for summer picnics, boating, water skiing and fireworks displays.

  The residents of the Buckhead community were affluent professionals and artists, most in their thirties and forties. They got together for cookouts, potluck dinners and festive holiday parties. Every year, they held Christmas decorating contests that transformed the neighborhood into a sparkling fairyland. It was a close-knit community where everyone knew one another. So nobody gawked at the sight of celebrity chef Michael Wolf out enjoying the day with his family. And no one made a big deal over Quentin appearing on CNN after winning a major case.

  A companionable silence settled between the Reddicks as they walked around the neighborhood, their legs occasionally brushing as Quentin pushed Junior’s stroller along. Snug and warm beneath a quilted blanket, the baby gurgled contentedly while sucking on his favorite plastic toy car.

  Savoring the crisp evening breeze, Lexi sighed deeply. “This is what I always wanted.”

  Quentin smiled down at her. “What?”

  “When I was growing up watching my mother struggle to buy groceries, watching her count out change to send me to the store for a pack of smokes and a carton of milk, I dreamed about running away. As I walked past alleys littered with garbage and rundown buildings covered in graffiti, I’d close my eyes and fantasize about escaping. I fantasized about having a better life and being able to give my children the best of everything.” She smiled, gazing up at the fairy lights twinkling in the trees overhead. “Now that I have the dream house and the cars and the clothes, it doesn’t even matter to me. What matters are moments like these, the beautiful simplicity of going for an evening walk with my husband and child.”

  Quentin stopped and turned to face her. As she stared up at him, he bent his head and slanted his mouth over hers. It was such a sweet kiss, so soft and tender, that her knees went weak. Sighing with pleasure, she wrapped her arms around his neck as his lips shaped hers, pressing them apart so their breath mingled.

  She felt the lazy glide of his hands as he slid them down her back and over her hips, then tucked his fingers into the back pockets of her jeans. Her senses reeled from the heat of his touch, the searing intimacy of his kiss.

  “I didn’t know how much I wanted this life until I almost didn’t get it,” he whispered against her mouth. “None of it would mean a damn thing if I didn’t have you, Lex.”

  Her heart melted. “Oh, baby,” she breathed.

  His arms tightened around her as he lifted her off the ground, deepening the kiss.

  “Hey, hey, get a room.”

  Quentin and Lexi broke apart and glanced around to see an attractive white man and Chinese woman approaching.

  They grinned sheepishly at the couple. “Hey, guys.”

  “Hey, yourselves,” the man said teasingly. “Nice night for making out— er, taking a stroll.”

  Quentin laughed as he set Lexi back down, letting her body slide against his. When she shivered, the wicked gleam in his eyes told her he’d done it on purpose.

  Their neighbors, Dan and Amy, peered inside Junior’s stroller and smiled.

  “Looks like slugger’s down for the count,” Dan observed.

  “Sure is.” His wife sighed. “Such a handsome little guy. He’ll make an excellent husband for Emma someday.”

  The others laughed.

  “What?” Amy blinked innocently. “Didn’t you guys know that Junior and Emma are already betrothed?”

  Lexi chuckled. “Um, you’ll have to duke it out with my friend Samara. She’s already claimed Junior for her daughter, Milan.”

  “Yeah?” Amy put her fists up. “Tell her to bring it on.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Where is Emma?” Lexi asked, noting the absence of the couple’s infant daughter.

  “At home with my parents,” Amy replied. “They’re visiting for the month.”

  “That’s great. You’ll bring them to the holiday party to meet everyone, right?”

  “Definitely.”

  Dan nodded to Quentin. “You and Mike up for a round of golf next weekend?”

  “Mike’s going out of town,” Quentin said, “but I might be able to swing it. Let me see what’s up and get back to you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Amy grinned, tucking her arm through her husband’s. “We won’t hold you lovebirds up any longer.”

  Quentin and Lexi laughed. “See you guys later,” they told the couple before moving on.

  Junior remained fast asleep as they headed back home. When they got there, Lexi took him out of the stroller and carried him upstairs to the nursery.

  After putting him to bed, she closed the door quietly and started down the hall toward her bedroom. Stepping through the door, she saw Quentin standing by the double French doors that opened onto the balcony, which overlooked a black-tiled pool and the beautifully landscaped grounds of their property.

  He was on the phone, his voice vibrating with fury as he snarled, “I told you I’m not interested. Don’t ever call me again.”

  Startled, Lexi froze in her tracks, watching as he angrily clicked off the phone and unleashed a string of vicious expletives. When that wasn’t enough, he banged his fist against the window so hard the glass rattled.

  Lexi stared at him, her eyes wide with alarm. “Quentin?”

  He stiffened at the sound of her voice. When he kept his back to her, her apprehension grew with the thumping of her pulse.

  “Who were you talking to?” she whispered.

  He shoved his phone into his back pocket. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Hearing those words, her mind flashed on a memory of the first time she’d confronted her ex-husband about his cheating. I don’t want to talk about it, he’d told her sullenly.

  She’d damn near clawed his eyes out. And now Quentin wanted to feed her the same line?

  Oh, hell no!

  Closing the door behind her, Lexi marched across the room and grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn around and face her.

  “You listen here.” She stabbed the middle of his chest with her finger. “You know better than anyone what I went throug
h with Adam. What hurt me even more than the cheating was all the secrecy and lying. I might be able to handle a lot of things, but one thing I cannot deal with is secrecy. I am your wife, Quentin. You don’t get to keep secrets from me. You didn’t when we were just friends, so you sure as hell shouldn’t start now!”

  “Dammit, Alexis,” he growled, grabbing her face and pressing his forehead against hers. “I’m not cheating on you!”

  “Then I’m going to ask you one more time. Who the hell were you talking to?”

  “It was my uncle!”

  Lexi frowned. “Which one? Uncle Fletcher?”

  “No.” Quentin’s voice was flat, his expression hard. “It was my mom’s brother.”

  Lexi froze, her jaw dropping. “What?”

  Quentin released her face and stepped back. “He came to Ma’s house yesterday while I was there.”

  “Oh, my God,” Lexi whispered. “Did your mom know he was coming?”

  “No,” Quentin said darkly. “He showed up out of the clear damn blue expecting hugs and reconciliation.”

  Lexi eyed him incredulously. “After all these years?”

  Quentin nodded tersely, his jaw clenched tight.

  “Wow,” Lexi murmured in disbelief. “What did your mother say?”

  Quentin’s expression darkened. Shaking his head, he turned away to stare out the window. And suddenly Lexi understood.

  “She wants to reconcile with him, doesn’t she? That’s what your disagreement was about.”

  Quentin stood silent and motionless, his eyes focused on the dark night.

  “You don’t think she should forgive him. You don’t think he deserves her forgiveness.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” Quentin snarled harshly. “None of them do.”

  “That may be true,” Lexi conceded quietly. “But I think you should let your mother decide that for herself.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “I disagree.”

  Lexi studied the rigid line of his wide shoulders, the way he stood with his arms crossed and his long legs braced a foot apart. He was as impenetrable as a stone wall, as immovable as a mountain.

  Lexi pulled in a shaky breath. “How did your uncle get your personal cell number?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me,” Quentin gritted between clenched teeth.

  “Do you think your mom gave it to him?”

  “She’d better not have.”

  Lexi felt the rage coursing through him, understood the intensity of it.

  “I don’t blame you for being so angry,” she said gently. “I felt the same way when my father showed up at my book signing after he’d been MIA most of my life. I knew he was only after money. But you know that’s not the case with your uncle. Maybe he genuinely regrets what happened in the past. Maybe he truly misses your mother and wants to make things right.”

  “There’s nothing that son of a bitch can do to make things right,” Quentin said coldly.

  “Maybe not. But you have to look at this from your mom’s perspective. This is her family—”

  “A FAMILY THAT DISOWNED HER!” Quentin exploded, rounding on Lexi. “A family that kept tabs on her over the years, but couldn’t be bothered to send a fucking sympathy card when she lost her husband!”

  As Lexi stared at him, he turned away and slammed his palm on the window, causing the glass to vibrate alarmingly.

  Pushing a shaky hand through her hair, Lexi backed toward the bed and sat down on the edge, silently studying the hard angles of Quentin’s profile. His jaw was rigid with tension, his eyes focused dead ahead as he stared off into the night-shrouded distance, lost in his memories.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was pitched low. “I’ll never forget the day my father died. I was in eighth grade. Dad had promised to take me camping that weekend, just the two of us. I was so excited, it was all I could think about. I couldn’t wait for the weekend.” He paused, closing his eyes. “I was in math class when they called me down to the principal’s office. At first I thought I was in trouble. It wouldn’t have been the first time, and I’d been restless all day. Distracted. But my teacher wouldn’t look me in the eye when she handed me the hall pass, and I thought that was weird. When I got to the principal’s office, my mom was sitting there. I took one look at her face and I just knew—” He broke off, his voice hitching before he continued hoarsely, “I knew he was gone. But I didn’t want to believe it. I started shaking my head and backing out of the room. I wanted to get away before Ma could say the words. But then she started crying and…God, I just lost it. I screamed at the top of my lungs, ‘Daddy!’ And then my knees buckled under me and Ma rushed over, and we just sat there on the floor hugging each other and bawling our eyes out.”

  “Oh, baby,” Lexi whispered achingly, walking over to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around his broad torso and held him to her, pressing her cheek against his back. Beneath her hands, she felt him tremble.

  As close as they’d always been, his father’s death was the one and only subject they didn’t discuss very often. He’d shared heartwarming stories about going camping and hunting with his dad, about sparring with him in the boxing ring and then eating at their favorite burger joint afterward. Fraser Reddick was his hero. His senseless murder had been a devastating blow to Quentin. Although he’d had other positive male figures in his life—his grandfather, uncles, Sterling and Stan Wolf—Lexi knew he would always bear the scars of losing his father too soon.

  “I remember Ma trying to be so strong and brave for me and the rest of the family,” Quentin went on somberly. “Dad’s parents and siblings were all struggling to cope with their own grief, so Ma wanted to hold it together for everyone. At the funeral, she was so dignified and composed as she accepted condolences from the mayor and the police chief and all the cops who’d come to pay their respects. She sat through all those moving eulogies with her back straight and tears falling silently down her face. No matter how emotional other people got, she never broke down completely, and she never let go of my hand.

  “About three weeks later, I came home from school and found her curled up in a ball on her bedroom floor. She was clutching the American flag they’d given her at Dad’s funeral, and she was wailing like I’d never seen before.” Raw anguish etched Quentin’s words. “I remember feeling scared and totally helpless as I stood there watching her. In that moment, I wished like hell that she had her family there to comfort her. I’d never met any of them before, but I hated them for not being there. I hated them for deserting her.”

  “Oh, God, baby.” Lexi sniffled, rubbing her cheek against his back and trying to stem the flow of her own tears. “I can’t even imagine how devastating that must have been for you to see your mom like that.”

  “It was.” There was so much pain and anger in his voice that her heart broke for him. “So when you suggest that my uncle came here to make things right, believe me when I tell you that it’s too fucking late.”

  Lexi closed her eyes against his back. “Is that why you didn’t tell me about his visit? Because you thought I’d try to talk you into forgiving him?”

  “Maybe.” The sigh Quentin exhaled was long and ragged. “Or maybe it’s because I wanted to pretend his visit never happened. Maybe I thought if I just kept it to myself, things would stay the way they are. This may sound selfish, but I don’t want anything to rock the boat, know what I mean? For the first time in my life, I have everything I could ever want, and I’m scared as hell of losing it all.”

  Heart aching, she held him tighter. “Don’t think like that. You’re not going to lose everything.”

  He shook his head sadly. “My father probably thought the same thing.”

  It was a sobering thought that caused Lexi’s throat to constrict. After a few moments, she dropped her arms and stepped around in front of him.

  He stared down at her without speaking. The darkness and anguish in his eyes were haunting.

  She took his hand and led him over to the sitting a
rea by the fireplace. With a gentle nudge, she guided him toward the sofa, eased him down onto it and then settled astride him.

  Taking his face between her hands, she peered deep into his eyes before she spoke. “No one would blame you for rejecting your uncle’s olive branch. I certainly wouldn’t blame you. What they did to your mother was inexcusable, and I’m sure your uncle knows that. I’m sure he understands that your forgiveness is a gift he hasn’t earned.” She paused, her tone gentling as she stroked Quentin’s rigid jaw. “All that said, I want you to do something for me, baby. I want you to think about your father and the kind of man he was. From everything you’ve told me about him over the years, he had a very big heart. He not only doted on you and your mother, but he spoiled all his nieces and nephews and was always there for his parents and siblings. He absolutely loved his family and always put y’all first. Knowing how close your mother was to her family, what would he want for her right now? Would he want her to make peace with them? Would he want them in her life? What would he want for you?”

  Quentin lowered his lashes, contemplating her questions in brooding silence.

  She pointed to his heart. “If you look deep in here and find that there’s no room for compromise or forgiveness, I’ll completely understand. And you know I’ll support you. But whatever you decide to do, Quentin, you have to let your mom determine what’s best for her. She didn’t get a say in losing her husband and becoming a single mother. I think she’s earned the right to decide whether or not to reconcile with her family, even if it means opening herself up to getting hurt again. It’s her journey, sweetheart, and you have to let her make it.”

  Quentin leaned his head back against the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, pondering her words.

  She waited.

  After a long while, he blew out a deep breath and shook his head. Even without him saying a word, she knew she’d gotten through to him.

  His arms went around her, pulling her down to his chest. She wound her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, taking comfort in his heat, his strength, the reassuring beat of his heart.