Promises Keep (The Promise Series)

by Sarah McCarty

  “Goddammit. It just can’t be legal what you’re doing.”

  So did Millicent, it appeared. Mara winced as she dealt the last card to that large woman. Owing to the hours she’d spent sharpening her poker skills with Cougar, Mara had a sizable pile of winnings in front of her. And she was coming under attack as a result.

  “You know,” Lorie ventured slowly, her voice ripe with implication. “There were rumors of cheating out at the ranch.”

  Dorothy poured herself another glass of whiskey. The bottle rattled against the glass. Her head snapped up so fast, she landed back in her chair with an audible plop. “Oh…?”

  “And who was the one spreading the rumors?”

  Lorie shrugged unconcernedly in response to Millicent’s growl, a small, triumphant smile toying with her lips. She took another swallow of whiskey, “Cougar.”

  “And we all know what a polecat he is,” Mara jumped in, anxious to divert all that hostility from herself. She shot Lorie a dirty look.

  “Aw, hell,” Millicent cursed, tossing her cards into the middle of the table. She folded her arms across her ample chest. “I suppose he taught you everything you know?”

  Mara nodded tentatively.

  “Damn cardsharp!” Dorothy blurted out. Mara thought they were talking about her until Dorothy threw her cards into the middle of the table, too.

  “That boy took a month’s egg money off me in the time it took to sneeze.”

  “The man has no respect for the gentler sex,” Pearl declared, blinking twice to focus her vision.

  Mara was beginning to catch on. Apparently, she wasn’t the only victim of her husband’s “innocent” card games. “How much did he take you for?”

  “Ten dollars. The money I was saving for some special Irish lace for my parlor curtains.”

  “He took me for ten Sundays of free chicken and dumplings.” Millicent looked properly aggrieved. “Didn’t even have the grace to look guilty.”

  Lorie joined the crowd and tossed her cards into the middle of the table. “I’ve got three bushels of apples in the root cellar I’ve got to make up into pies.”

  Pearl uncorked the last bottle of whiskey. She filled each woman’s glass as they held it up. “Ladies, it appears to me a certain Cougar McKinnely is in dire need of a lesson, and not only for his treatment of our sister member Mara.”

  A hearty “Amen” followed that declaration, and as skilled as any seasoned drinker, each woman downed the drink in her glass. As one, they dragged their sleeves across their mouths and broke into laughter. Pearl was the first to recover.

  “Since we are now pleasantly sloshed, and free of inhibitions, it is now time to plot the downfall of one Cougar McKinnely.”

  “I favor the cast iron-frying-pan-over-the-head school of thought myself,” sweet and gentle Dorothy volunteered.

  “While that has merit,” Pearl acknowledged, “I’m afraid it won’t work in this instance.”

  “Why not?” Mara demanded. It sounded pretty good to her.

  “Head’s too hard,” Millicent informed her.

  There was that.

  Pearl pulled her spine taut, battling its tendency to slump. “As I mentioned when I got here today, I have given this matter considerable thought.”

  “Just spit it out, Pearl,” Millicent growled, rubbing at her forehead.

  Pearl pulled her dignity around her like a cloak. The effect was slightly ruined by the way she kept swaying in small circles. “Well, we all know that Cougar went crazy when Mara lost the baby, right?”

  “I thought we were going to lose him right along with Mara.”

  Pearl inclined her head regally to let Dorothy know that she didn’t mind the interruption. She caught herself on the table before she could fall flat on her face. She looked at Mara for confirmation. “And then as soon as you were out of the woods, he slapped that deed in your hands and, poof! He disappeared.”

  Mara carefully placed her hands on the arms of her chair to keep from spinning off with the room. “Yes. Without a word, he left.” Familiar anger swelled in her breast. “Damned bastard.”

  “Be that as it may,” Pearl silenced the angry muttering threatening to drown out her voice. “I feel that is significant.”

  “Doc says Cougar’s Ma died giving birth to a brother,” Dorothy volunteered, knowing the information was important, but unable to remember why. All she could think of was the good time she and Doc had had in bed that morning and how pleasant it would be to do it again tonight. “And he was with that twit Emily when she died.”

  “How was your night life?”

  Mara gaped at Millicent, unable to believe the woman had asked such a blunt, personal question. She glanced at Lorie to see if she was as shocked as herself, but Lorie was staring blankly out the window, humming a tuneless song, oblivious to all that happened around her.

  “Uh,” Mara stalled, her cheeks burning.

  “Well?” Millicent prompted. “Did you and Cougar make the mattress creak nightly or only once a week?”

  “Really!” Pearl protested.

  “Don’t go putting on airs, Pearl. Sometimes, I swear you’ve been cultivating that prim and proper role so long, you’ve forgotten how to live.”

  Pearl looked at Millicent and smiled a special smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Neither would the blacksmith,” Dorothy interjected. Millicent’s sexy, booming laugh filled the room. The outrage on Pearl’s face dissolved into amusement.

  “And here I thought I was being so discreet.”

  “This town isn’t that big,” Millicent chided.

  Suddenly, the laughter stopped and as if someone had pointed, all eyes were upon Mara. “So Mrs. McKinnely, what’s the answer?”

  There was a tiny drop of liquor in the bottom of her glass. Mara took an inordinate amount of time to drain it. “Four or five times.”

  “A week?” Dorothy prompted kindly.

  “A night,” Mara corrected.

  “Every night?” Pearl asked and when Mara nodded shyly, she gasped. “Lord have mercy!”

  Millicent was skeptical. “You’re telling us that big lug pleasures you four or five times a night, every night?”

  Mara had to swallow twice to find the small thread of her voice. “He makes love to me four or five times a night, but he likes to pleasure me more than that.”

  “Holy shit!” Millicent boomed. She dropped back into her chair and fanned herself vigorously with a fistful of cards.

  Lorie came out of her reverie for a moment. Just long enough to sigh, “That’s the man for me.”

  Millicent eyed the young woman pityingly. “Honey, that’s the man for anyone.”

  The women studied Mara with new respect before they nodded their heads slowly in agreement.

  Dorothy cleared her throat. She unbuttoned the top button of her dress as she made a mental note to drag Doc off to bed as soon as the supper dishes were cleared. “Maybe you could get back to your plan now?”

  “Yes, well.” Pearl sat heavily on the nearest chair, struggling for her train of thought. “Remind me to take care of business next time before we start drinking.”

  Lorie, who was having a tough time focusing on anything beyond the view out the window said, “I think that might be a good idea.”

  “Stop getting sidetracked, Pearl, and get on with it,” Millicent ordered. Mara sat quietly without saying a word. After that last volley, she didn’t dare call attention to herself.

  “All right,” Pearl snapped. “It occurred to me that Cougar might be feeling guilty.”

  “Because he blames me for losing the baby,” Mara nodded wisely. “I had the same thought myself.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have wasted your time thinking. Now, don’t interrupt and pay attention.”

  “Don’t be so sharp, Pearl,” Dorothy reproved. “Mara’s been through enough without our adding to it.”

  “I know,” Pearl sighed. “It just gets me so mad when a woman takes the blam
e for her husband’s stupidity.”

  Mara released her tongue long enough to venture a question. “If it’s not my fault, then whose is it?”

  “No more whiskey for her,” Millicent piped up. “It’s obvious it clouds her thinking.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “It’s a downright shame, too, usually the girl rows with both oars in the water.”

  Mara reminded herself that everyone had had a bit too much to drink. She looked to Lorie for support, but her would-be ally was slumped with her head on the table. Very unladylike snores were escaping with each breath.

  Mara bridled her temper. Counting to ten helped. “Then what does Cougar feel guilty about?”

  Pearl’s smile was as smug as any cat that got the cream. “He feels guilty about getting you pregnant in the first place.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “Crazy or not,” Dorothy interjected, “that’s a man for you.”

  “It’s the way they’re brought up.” Millicent threw in her two cents. “All their lives they’re told what delicate, fragile creatures we are. From day one, some older man is impressing upon them how women don’t have a brain in their head, how it’s always the man’s responsibility to take care of his woman.”

  “Makes for an awful load of guilt,” Dorothy sighed. “I almost lost Doc that way.”

  “Doc? But he told me he asked you to marry him.”

  “Ha! He would like you to believe that, but truth be told, I had to compromise that proposal out of him.”

  “But he loved you.”

  “Sure he did, but he had it in his head that he wasn’t good enough for me. He wouldn’t listen to a word I said, so I climbed through his hotel window and then screamed blue murder for the manager.”

  “You didn’t,” Millicent laughed.

  Dorothy shrugged self-deprecatingly. “Sometimes a woman has got to take matters into her own hands.”

  “Which,” Pearl hastened to interrupt, “is exactly what Mara is going to have to do.”

  “I agree.”

  “Me, too.”

  Mara stared at her three conspirators cautiously. “Just what do you suggest I do?”

  “If Cougar’s got it in his head that he’s responsible for you losing that baby, it’s going to have to be pretty drastic.”

  Millicent agreed with Pearl. “How’s your stomach girl?”

  Mara touched her belly. “Fine.”

  The older women nodded as one. “Good, because it’s going to take everything you’ve got to pull this off.”

  “Pull what off?”

  “Our simplest and most devious plan to date,” Dorothy explained, actually rubbing her hands together with her glee.

  Mara held up both hands as if she could stop this, but she might as well have tried to halt a freight train. Once Pearl, Millicent, and Dorothy got the bit between their teeth, she discovered, they tended to run with it. Pearl dragged in a battered valise from the hallway. As she pulled out the contents, Mara felt her face go up in flames and her heart take wing.

  The ladies of the secret society of W.O.M.B. might just be able to pull this off after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I can’t believe I’ve come back to this,” Mara muttered, standing in the doorway to Cougar’s bedroom. Her bedroom. On the big bed where she and Cougar had loved so vigorously, rolled her husband with a dark-haired woman. Mara’s hand slid through the slit seam in her skirt to rest on the hilt of the knife strapped to her thigh. And not just any woman. She’d recognize that profile anywhere. Nidia.

  “Goddammit, woman! Get off me.”

  Mara’s eyebrows rose. “I might believe she took advantage of you once, but twice is more than I can manage.”

  “Holy shit!” Cougar swore as he emerged from under layers of ruffled petticoats. He swallowed as his worst nightmare stared him in the face. Mara stood in the doorway, and any hope he had that she might be understanding about this wilted under the heat of her glare. He ran his hand through his hair.

  “It’s not what you think.” He began. Nidia’s arm snaked around his neck. He struggled to throw it off. Damnation, the woman had more tentacles than an octopus.

  Mara pulled her knife free. “On the contrary, it’s exactly what I think.” She advanced on the bed. Reaching around Cougar, she grabbed Nidia by the hair. “I warned you before about touching what’s mine.”

  Nidia tossed her head. Mara tugged, but Nidia plastered herself to Cougar’s bare back.

  “Move, Cougar,” Mara ordered in a voice that gave her husband pause.

  He didn’t believe Mara would really hurt the woman, but then again, her eyes were hot enough to scorch glass. “Now, Mara,” he began.

  Mara dropped the knife to his groin. A tiny prick through his denims, and Cougar knew she had drawn blood. “Now.”

  Cougar moved. The triumphant smirk faded from Nidia’s face when she realized Cougar had no intention of protecting her from Mara. Nidia eyed the knife in Mara’s hand speculatively. Very slowly, she slid toward the edge of the bed.

  Mara flashed a hard smile. As Nidia gathered her muscles to pounce, Mara used her grip on her hair and yanked her to the floor. She hit with a thud. As Nidia spun over, Mara placed the tip of her knife to her throat. Cougar had never guessed that she could be like this.

  “The only thing saving you from me doing to you what I did to Cecile is the fact that he’s still dressed and you didn’t get what you wanted,” Mara stated with a cold conviction that heated his blood. Damn, she was sexy when mad. Stepping back, Mara motioned Nidia to her feet.

  “Get out.”

  Nidia turned to him. He held up his hands. “I’m not calling the shots right now.”

  It was a rather novel experience. One he didn’t have much time to appreciate because as soon as Nidia left the room, Mara turned to him.

  “I’m glad you understand that.”

  Something in the tone of that soft statement caused Cougar to study his wife more closely. She looked as fresh as a spring day in her red and white striped dress. He remembered that dress. If she moved just right, all that frothy lace at the neckline moved in such a way as to give some intriguing glimpses. He’d missed those breasts and the woman they were attached to.

  Mara’s gaze dipped to his groin, and her smile stretched to something he couldn’t translate. “We have to talk, McKinnely.”

  The knife winked in the morning sunlight. “Put the knife down, Mara.”

  “When I’m ready.”

  “Now.”

  “Not until after we talk.” She motioned to the door with the knife. “In your study.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Make me.”

  Mara pulled her arm back until the knife was in perfect throwing position behind her shoulder. Her gaze focused with unerring intensity on his groin.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “After what I just walked in on, I wouldn’t push it, McKinnely.”

  Cougar decided now was not the time to challenge Mara’s authority. She was mad enough to spit bullets, and everyone knew an angry woman was an unreasonable woman. Maybe unreasonable enough to take a knife to a man’s pride and joy. With as much dignity as he could muster, he headed out the door and down the stairs. “You know you have me at a disadvantage,” he remarked casually over his shoulder as if his wife wasn’t strolling in his wake, a knife pointed at his back. “You know damned well I wouldn’t hurt a hair on your head.”

  Mara’s only acknowledgment was another enigmatic smile.

  “Don’t you feel a little guilty wielding a knife on a defenseless man?” he asked as he entered the study.

  “Nope.”

  Cougar spun around. “Why the hell not?”

  With a hard push of her small hand in the middle of his chest, Mara toppled all six foot four inches of him into the big leather chair behind his desk.

  Mara braced one hand on the chair and with the other, strategically placed the knife at his groin. “After the way you d
eserted me, I’m not inclined to feel guilty about much. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m damned pissed.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Cougar muttered as cold steel bit into his flesh. Anger began to perk along with desire. “And if you don’t remove that knife immediately, you’re going to find out how dangerous it is to cross a McKinnely.”

  Mara glared right back at him. “You’ll have to let me know how it feels. Because you’ve already crossed one, and that McKinnely is madder than hell.”

  “That McKinnely is going to get her fanny tanned.”

  “It would take a better man than you to do it. You’re nothing but a low-down cheating coward!”

  “You know there was nothing going on between Nidia and myself.”

  “And how do I know that?”

  Cougar folded his arms across his chest. He did his best to ignore the back of the knife as it pressed on his erection. “Because you know I didn’t get hard until you walked into the room.”

  The knife bit into his flesh as she blinked. “You’re still outrageous.”

  “And you’re still out of line.”

  “No.” Mara shook her head. “For the first time in the last month, I’m on the right path.”

  Cougar arched a brow at her. “Threatening your husband’s manhood is the right path?”

  “It beats the hell out of sitting in some damned boarding house blubbering over why you left me, and blaming myself for your stupidity.”

  Cougar winced. He knew that his decision would devastate Mara, but he didn’t like hearing it put into words. He also didn’t like the unladylike mannerisms she’d picked up from Millicent. “Your language needs improvement.”

  Mara remained unfazed by the rebuke. She merely shrugged. “So do your manners, but you don’t hear me complaining.”

  “My manners?”

  “It’s not gentlemanly to abandon your wife immediately after she’s had a miscarriage.”