Promises to Keep

by Chaffin, Char

  He’d never been able to make Ruth understand that the circumstances of a person’s arrival into the world had no bearing on their overall worth. Her past was proof that anyone could rise above the circumstances of their birth. How such an important lesson had escaped Ruth’s instruction, he didn’t know.

  How was he going to smooth this mess over?

  The silence in Travis’s Beemer was broken only by the occasional swish of the windshield wipers. Annie sat with one hand tucked in her pocket and the other pressed against Travis’s knee. Through her woolen glove she could feel the heat of his skin and the way his leg muscles tensed and relaxed as he shifted and accelerated. They both needed the contact.

  “Are you okay?” At his concerned inquiry, she turned to him, and her heart melted as she saw the way he gazed at her. At a stop light in the middle of Thompkin Square, his hand cupped her cheek. When she nodded, he smiled and the pad of his thumb brushed against her lips, before he turned his attention back to the road. To her, the caress felt like a kiss.

  Before they approached the turnoff for Spring Street, she grabbed his arm. “Can we just park somewhere for a while? I don’t want to go home yet.”

  Slowing the car, he pulled to the side of the road and shifted into neutral, then glanced at the illuminated clock on the dash. “Annie, it’s almost eleven. I promised your mother I’d have you back by then. I don’t want to get you in trouble with your folks.”

  “They won’t be mad. They trust me, and they trust you, enough to know if I’m late there’d be a good reason. Please, Travis. Just for a little while.”

  Her tense shoulders sagged in relief when he nodded. “Okay. Maybe your daddy won’t pound on me too hard for keeping you out past eleven.”

  Without another word, he turned the car around and headed for Boggy Creek Lane. Luckily for them, the wide lane wasn’t too muddy with melted snow. He parked the car and killed the headlights, but left the engine idling. In silence, they unfastened their seat belts and reached for the comfort of each other’s arms. She wanted Travis to kiss her so badly, but once he did, chances were they’d both be unable to stop. And they needed to talk out what happened that evening.

  Travis pulled back to look into her eyes and whispered, “I’m so sorry my mother acted that way. So sorry she hurt you.”

  “I just want to know why. Don’t you? Don’t you want to know why she hates me, Travis? She’s always hated me, right from the first. I used to think she’d hate any girl who liked you, but it’s only me, isn’t it? She likes that other girl, that Catherine, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. I don’t like to admit it, but you’re right. And I want to know why, too.” His palm soothed over her hair as he mused, “For some reason Dad thinks she needs to be the one who tells us. Whatever it is, I think it goes way deeper than just being snooty because I want to be with you and not Catherine Cabot.”

  “It’s because our family is poor. Your mother thinks I’m not good enough for you.” Defeat, angry pride, maybe both, colored her voice. She heard it for herself.

  “It doesn’t matter what she thinks. It never did. And I’m not a minor any longer. Maybe I can’t legally drink yet, but I can vote, and I can marry the girl I love.” Travis cupped her face between his hands and kissed her, deep and long. Her fingers grasped his wrists as she returned the ardent kiss.

  As their lips parted, he huskily assured, “She can’t make me give you up. She can’t stop us from getting married, not now, and not ever.”

  When Travis kissed her, Annie believed him. When he held her in his arms and the wild beat of his heart pounded against hers, she felt safe, protected, focused.

  She told herself she was silly to feel such panic and dread, crazy to think Ruth Quincy could ruin their future. Travis was legally an adult. Her folks would welcome him with open arms.

  While snow fell all around them and coated the windshield, Annie reveled in Travis’s embrace. They’d plan their future together, regardless of his mother’s bad opinion of her and her family.

  Finally he eased away and rested his cheek against hers. “I love you so much. I wish we could stay together all night. I don’t want to let you go, but I have to take you home. I don’t want your folks to worry.”

  She nodded and slid back into her seat.

  When they reached Annie’s house, he insisted on going in with her to explain their lateness to her folks. They tiptoed up the steps and through the front door. Except for a lamp glowing in the living room, the downstairs was dark and empty.

  In the kitchen, her mother had left the light on over the stove and there was a note propped against the saltshaker on the table. Annie picked it up and read, “‘Went to bed. Pie in the fridge if you’re hungry. Hope you had fun, love, Mama.’ They didn’t wait up. I wonder why? They won’t even know I’m late, Travis.”

  He slung an arm around her shoulders. “They trust us. Hey, don’t look so sad,” he admonished as she raised confused eyes to his. “This is a good thing. They don’t think you’re a baby any longer, and your mom left pie. Life is good. Let’s eat.”

  She laughed at his eagerness as he opened the fridge. Shoulder to shoulder at the table, they dug into the crumbly blueberry pie and ate right out of the pastry plate. When she looked up and grinned at him through a mouthful of berries, Travis grinned back.

  Life was good.

  Chapter 9

  Humming softly, Martha stepped into the dark kitchen, only to stifle a shriek of surprise at the sight of Travis seated in the shadows at the table, hunched over a mug of coffee. “Travis Quincy, you about scared ten years off me, and I guarantee I can’t afford to lose even one!” She felt for the switch on the wall and flooded the kitchen with light. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “Morning, Martha. I’m loading up on caffeine. I’m going to need it.” He knuckled the sleep from his eyes. “I’ve been up since four, thinking about everything. I’m not letting another day go by without finding out why Mother hates Annie so much.”

  Martha stifled a sigh as she moved to his side and brushed a hand through his tousled hair. “Honey, you sure you want to do this? What would it solve other than to get your mama so angry?” She pulled out the chair closest to him, then sat down and laid her palm on his arm. Beneath the faded Newport Academy sweatshirt he wore, his muscles were tense.

  She chose her words with care. “Travis, your mama isn’t going to change her mind, just because you make her admit the reasons for not liking your gal. You know that. Your mama is who she is. She loves you and she wants the best life has to offer you. If she thinks that best isn’t your sweet Annie—”

  “But she doesn’t even know Annie. She doesn’t know her family. They’re great people, Martha. They love me, not because my last name is Quincy. And Annie doesn’t care, she never did. I’ve loved her since I was thirteen. We’re meant to be together. It’s all that matters.”

  “Oh, honey, I’ve got eyes to see! I remember the first time she came here, what a cute little thing she was.” Martha smiled in remembrance. “She’s grown into a lovely young woman. I know she loves you for all the right reasons.” Her smile faded into lines of concern. “But love isn’t always enough, Trav. You’re enough of an adult to understand what I’m talking about.”

  Travis threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. “So what are you saying? You think I should just let it be, let Mother continue to hate the girl I love and never understand why? You think that makes a better foundation for our future? Because we’ve got a future together. With or without Mother’s blessing, Annie and I are going to get married someday.”

  “No. You will not, Travis. Believe me when I say this, you will not marry that girl.” The voice came from the doorway of the kitchen and had a hard edge to its usually cultured overtones. Startled, Martha and Travis both swung around.

  Ruth stood there, poised and polished in severely tailored, dark gold wool slacks and an ivory cashmere sweater. In her eyes Martha saw no warmth, only an impl
acable determination.

  “Travis, you and I are going to have the discussion we should have had last night.” Ruth’s tone held ice. “I expected you home at a decent hour, and you chose instead to squander your time with that girl.”

  She turned to Martha. “You will please leave the kitchen. Travis and I need our privacy.”

  “Not in my kitchen you don’t, missy.” Martha ignored her hoity tone. “You want to fight with your boy, take it into another room. I’ve got a luncheon to cook. Your luncheon, in fact. So you just scat, and Trav, you go with her.”

  Travis pushed his chair back and stood, waiting, but Ruth refused to budge. “I’ll thank you to remember you are an employee of Quincy Hall. You will never speak to me again in such a manner. Is that understood?”

  Slowly, Martha got to her feet. “I will speak to you in any manner I like, when I think you’re acting like a snooty brat. Which, right now, you are.” Her voice was quiet, but not at all subservient. “I’ve lived here a heck of a lot longer than you, Ruth. If you don’t like the way I act, then you’d best take it up with Ronnie.”

  “Don’t call him by that common name!” Ruth’s temper visibly flared.

  “He was Ronnie to me, long before he was a husband to you,” Martha retorted. “Now if you will excuse me, I have food to cook.”

  Ruth couldn’t get enough air in through her tightened throat to speak a word. Her hands clenched and unclenched as she stood in front of Martha, who in one quick minute reduced her to a fifteen-year-old girl again. All of her breeding, along with most of her learned refinement, seemed to slide down the drain as she stood in the kitchen of her own home feeling like an outsider.

  “Mother. You wanted to talk to me. Let’s talk.” The low command made her spin around. Travis stood near the doorway with a hand extended to her. Numb, she allowed him to take her arm and pull her from the kitchen, across the foyer, and into the study. He shut the door behind them and guided her over to the plush love seat near the bay windows. She sank onto the overstuffed cushion.

  First her cook, and now, her son. Like strangers, both of them. Treating her horribly, as if she were of no consequence. When had their opinion of her disintegrated so much? Ruth folded her hands together in her lap to still their trembles.

  She made herself really look at her son. When had he gotten so tall? Ruth suddenly found herself in the uncomfortable position of having to rethink the way she needed to relate to her own flesh and blood.

  He was still so young, despite his outward maturity. He’d barely begun to tap into his formidable potential. Somehow, before it was too late, she had to reach him, get him to understand what he was tossing aside if he continued to pursue this madness of a “future” with a Turner. She had to make him see.

  Perhaps a bit of reverse psychology . . . She spread her hands in appeal. “I am sorry, Travis. It’s difficult for me to look at you and not see the baby boy I rocked to sleep. You have grown into a splendid young man, right before my eyes, and I have refused to notice.”

  He frowned at her. “Mother, if you’ve refused to see I’ve grown up, then it’s your own problem. I stopped being a child two years ago, when I started prep school. And whether or not you can accept it, I’m old enough to marry without your permission.” He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.

  She almost smiled at that defiant and naïve statement and pose. It seemed she might have more of an upper hand, after all. But she had to play it with care, for Travis was highly intuitive. Just like his father.

  “Travis, I never tried to keep you a child. But it’s my job as a parent to guide you in the right direction. You are a Quincy. By birthright you are the only heir, a title which carries great responsibility.” She paused and considered her next words. If she could appeal to her son as one adult to another, which he seemed to crave, she might actually get somewhere with him.

  She took his silence as a good sign. “I expected your teenage years to be trying for both of us. Your small rebellions, the way you wanted individuality. I’m not so far removed from my own adolescence that I don’t recall how important that individuality is. But you are not a teenager any longer. You are on the threshold of embracing your Quincy duties.”

  “I’m also on the threshold of becoming engaged to Annie Turner. Whether you like it or not, she’s a part of my future. I’m marrying her as soon as she turns eighteen. If I wanted to marry her tomorrow, I have a feeling her folks would agree to it. They like me.”

  The touch of smugness she heard snapped her deliberate calm. Exasperated, she retorted, “Of course they like you. For God’s sake, Travis, you are going to be worth millions of dollars! I’m sure they’d like nothing better than to get their grubby hands on you. The fact that you currently moon over their daughter probably thrills them to death. Are you blind or stupid—or both?”

  Travis’s jaw tightened. “You know nothing of their family, Mother. You never once tried to understand why I feel the way I do about Annie. You never once tried to get to know her. Hell, you’ve never even said a civil word to her. All you’ve said, over and over again, is how trashy the family is. How inferior they are. I guess money talks with you and everything else walks, huh?”

  He surged to his feet. “I’m not going to listen to any more. You hang onto your bigotry. You hold your hatred close and see if it’s a good substitute for the respect you think I owe you. Someday Annie and I will start a family together. You’ll have grandchildren, but they’ll never know you.”

  He strode to the door and flung it open just as Ruth scrambled off the sofa and shouted after him. “Don’t you walk away from me, Travis! We are not finished discussing. We have not resolved this situation.”

  Travis turned from the open study door, his face like stone, his eyes glittering chips of ice. “This ‘situation’ as you refer to it, is a person with a name. It’s Annie Turner. Get used to hearing it around Quincy Hall, because I’m going over to her house right now and getting down on one knee. I’ll be engaged to her so fast it’ll make your head spin. That’s a promise, not a threat.” He strode toward the coat closet.

  As he shrugged into his jacket, Ruth came up behind him, caught his arm and whirled him around to face her.

  She’d never in her life felt such fury. With stiffened fingers she clamped onto his arms and shouted, “She comes from filth, Travis. Do you hear me? Filth!”

  “You tell me why you think that way!” Travis pried her hands from his arms and crushed her wrists in his grip. She winced in pain and tried to pull free, but he held fast.

  His voice dropped to a soft menace. “You tell me. Or else I swear I’m walking out of this house and never returning. You can take the Quincy legacy and the will and all those goddamn history books and burn them. You can keep the millions, too. And I’ll gladly explain to you just where you can shove the whole ‘Quincy Heir’ crap.” His eyes burned into hers. “I have had all I can take, Mother. You tell me why you hate the Turners, or you’ll never see me again.”

  She pulled against him and wrenched her wrists from his grasp. Massaging her sore skin, she grated, “If it will stop you from making the biggest mistake of your entire life, I’ll gladly put myself through the pain of telling you. But first, you get your father down here. I have a feeling you won’t believe me. Your father will verify everything I say. Go on.” She nodded toward the staircase. “Go and get him. By now, I imagine he’s awake.”

  “I’m already here, Ruthie.” She jerked at the sound of Ronald’s calm voice. In the open elevator, he paused, fully dressed, his face pale and tense.

  As Ronald manipulated his chair into the foyer, Travis rushed to him and fell to his knees, catching one of his hands in a gentle grip. “Did we wake you? I’m so sorry, you need your rest—”

  “Son, it’s all right.” Ronald patted Travis’s cheek, and met Ruth’s eyes as she stood in the foyer, her hands clenched into tense fists. He gave her a faint smile. “Why don’t we go back into the study?” His gaze held a
wealth of love and patience.

  Looking into the faces of her husband and son, Ruth felt the fury and bitterness drain from her as quickly as it had built. How could she ever think she could hide it? Pretend it didn’t exist and had never happened?

  If she’d been better able to master her emotions, perhaps the friendship between Travis and the Turner girl would never have gone any further than a few summer fishing sessions. By her own inept attempts to control, she’d helped it blossom into something far stronger than she could fight against with conventional means of discipline.

  She’d failed to consider the powerful allure of forbidden fruit, and now she had to face the consequences of her failure.

  Ruth took a deep breath and held it, then released it. She felt the familiar fear and tamped it down. Years ago, when Travis first walked through the front door holding the brat’s hand, she’d somehow known this day would come, though she had done her best to deny it. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Martha in the short hallway between the foyer and kitchen, her hands twisted in a dishtowel, her eyes wide with concern and worry.

  Well, there would be no more secrets in Quincy Hall, would there? Martha already knew some of it. After all, she’d been in the house that unforgettable night.

  Ruth smoothed a hand over her hair to assure it hadn’t fallen from its elegant twist. She touched the square-cut diamond on her left finger, as if to further reassure herself, and cleared her dry throat.

  “Franklin Turner . . .” Her voice faltered alarmingly and she fought the urge to run for the wide, curving staircase and lock herself in her suite of rooms. She rubbed a shaky hand over her mouth and tried again, this time in a firmer, stronger tone.

  “Franklin Turner, Annie Turner’s grandfather, kidnapped me and raped me, repeatedly, when I was fifteen years old.” Her eyes stung with tears, and they slid down her cheeks as she rasped, “That’s the legacy your precious girlfriend brings you, Travis.”