Bound by a Promise

by Diana Palmer

  “If only I’d stayed out of the boat,” she whispered, and the tears came again. “At least he’ll live. At least I won’t have that on my conscience.”

  Maude hugged her affectionately. “My baby,” she said soothingly. “My poor baby.”

  And Kate cried all the harder.

  Two days passed with maddening slowness. Kate kept herself busy around the cabin, working on the manuscript until she had it completely typed and ready to go to the publisher. It would give Garet a little satisfaction to be doing something constructive, she thought miserably. If he couldn’t test-fly his planes, or design them on paper, at least he could write about them.

  On the third day, the phone rang, and she picked it up with a feel of impending doom.

  “Kate?”

  Her heart leaped at the sound of that deep, slow voice, a little slurred by drugs, but just as commanding as ever.

  “Garet!” she cried, clutching the receiver like a lifeline as she sank down into a chair by the table the phone was resting on. “Oh, Garet,” she whispered brokenly, “are you all right?”

  “Calm down, milkmaid,” he said softly. “I’m doing very well. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, of course.”

  “Of course,” he scoffed. “You’re crying!”

  “I’ve been worried,” she muttered defensively as she dabbed at the tears with a corner of her blouse.

  “So Yama told me. What are you doing down there?” he asked conversationally.

  Her heart pounded wildly and she stroked the receiver as if she were touching his hard, husky body. “I’m holding down the fort. I…I got the manuscript typed and ready to go. Do you want me to mail it?”

  “Go ahead. Then just relax and enjoy the lake until I get there.” There was a pause. “Missing me, little girl?”

  “Terribly,” she said without thinking. She drew in a deep, slow breath. “I, uh, I hear Miss Sutton’s been to see you.”

  “Anna? Oh, she’s been here constantly. Bringing me flowers, boxes of candy.” There was a pause. “Why the hell aren’t you here?” he demanded.

  “Yama said that it would be better if I waited here,” she stammered.

  “Never mind, maybe he’s right. Pattie tells me you’ve called twice already.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t ever call me sir, again,” he said quietly. “Not ever, Kate.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean….”

  “Oh, hell, I wish you were here with me!” he growled. “I’m no good at polite conversation. Kate, you’re not alone at the lake house, are you? You’ve got Hunter, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she told him. “I picked him up at the kennels. He’s…good company.”

  “Don’t go out alone at night. Promise me.”

  The concern in his voice made her feel warm all over. “I promise,” she said.

  There was a muffled curse. “The nurse is here with a shot. I’ve got to go, honey. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “All right. Garet…” She searched for something to say, anything but what she really wanted to say.

  “Good night, Kate,” he said quietly. The receiver went dead before she could find the right words.

  Time seemed to fly after that. Kate lived from day to day for the late night phone calls from New York lulled into a sense of security by the sound of Garet’s deep, quiet voice and the new note in his voice that sent chills down her spine. There was nothing personal in the calls, just idle conversation, but it was wonderful just to hear the sound of his voice.

  During the day, she spent her time walking Hunter and talking to Maude. In the back of her mind, she knew the time was rapidly approaching when she’d have to leave. Garet would be home in less than a week. She needed to start making plans now, but it was so easy to put it off, to wait just one more day, for one more phone call….

  It was late afternoon when she heard Hunter raising the devil outside the cabin. Kate had just finished grilling herself a steak, and she left it on the stove as she moved quickly to the front of the house to see what Hunter had found.

  She walked out the door in her jeans and T-shirt and came face-to-face with a dream.

  Garet Cambridge was standing at the bottom of the steps with his big hand on Hunter’s silky head. He looked up as Kate froze on the top step, and his dark green eyes looked directly into hers. They dilated. His face went hard as stone. And she knew, without a word being spoken, that everything between them was over.

  “You!” he ground out, and the hatred was in his eyes, his voice, the taut lines of his big body. He’d recognized her. He could see!

  Ten

  “What the hell are you doing in my house?” he demanded.

  She only stared at him, drinking in the dark face above the beige sports shirt, the bigness of him, the eyes that, even hating her, could see again.

  “I…” she faltered.

  “Did you come back to finish the job?” he demanded, moving up the steps to glare at her relentlessly. “Or were you finally curious enough to come find out if you’d killed me?”

  She licked her dry lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in a voice that didn’t even sound like her own. She was frightened of him now, frightened of the power he could wield, of his hatred.

  “You’re sorry,” he scoffed. His eyes narrowed, contemptuous, burning. “My God, you left me for dead, and you’re sorry?! What the hell do you expect me to say? That’s all right, no hard feelings? Well, I’m fresh out of forgiveness, you little assassin! I want your damned throat!”

  She flinched at the tone of his deep voice. Her eyes closed on a flood of tears. “I…did call,” she whispered.

  “Why?” he growled. “Were you afraid you’d missed?”

  She started down the steps, but he caught her arm roughly and dragged her around, hurting her in his anger.

  “Damn you, I’m not finished!” he said harshly. He drew her up under his blazing eyes and tightened his cruel grip. He studied her as if she were some new kind of insect.

  “Skinny little blonde,” he said mockingly. “Little spoiled brat. Did it grate so much that I called you down about speeding in that damned boat? Or were you out to get even because I ran you off my beach?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she whispered, avoiding his piercing gaze.

  “Wasn’t it? Oh, God, I dreamed about you,” he ground out. “I thought about you every day I was without my eyes, and how I was going to pay you back for it.” He jerked her closer and she cried out in pain. “You’re in for it, now, you bad-tempered little snake. Now that I know who you work for, and where to find you, I can afford to take my time. I’ll let you sit and sweat out what I’m going to do. It’ll give you something to do with your nights.”

  Her eyes met his, misty with tears, pleading, wounded. “Please….”

  “Please what?” he asked curtly. “Please forgive you? You little tramp, not until I even the score!”

  “I didn’t…!”

  He let go of her abruptly, thrusting her away from him. She wasn’t expecting it, and she stumbled, losing her balance. With a sharp cry, she went down, falling the rest of the way down the steps to land, bruised and crying, on the pine-needle laden ground at the bottom.

  Garet stood there and looked down at her, not a trace of sympathy in his cold green eyes.

  “And that,” he said quietly, “is where you belong—on your belly in the dirt. Are you hurt?”

  A sob broke from her lips as she dragged herself to her feet, biting her lip to keep from crying out at the pain in her elbow where she’d hit the hard ground. She rubbed it gingerly, oblivious to the bits of dirt and pine straw that clung to her pale blonde hair. Her soft brown eyes looked into his accusingly, as innocent and wounded as a scolded child’s.

  That look seemed to bother him. His eyes narrowed. “Oh, get the hell out of my sight!” he growled. “You can’t run far enough that I won’t find you, anyway.”

  She turned away, holding her arm
, and walked slowly down the beach, blinded by hot tears as she made her way out of his life. It was over. It was all over, now.

  Maude held her while she cried. It took a long time for the tears to pass, and the bruises she’d sustained when she fell were already beginning to pop out all over her delicate skin.

  “Are you sure he didn’t hit you?” Maude demanded, horrified, as she felt the painful elbow for a break.

  “He didn’t,” Kate said quietly. “I…I just fell.”

  “All by yourself?” the older woman asked shrewdly.

  Kate felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She looked down at the heavy rug on the living room floor.

  “You could have broken your arm,” Maude grumbled. “Or gotten a concussion. You could have broken your neck!”

  “But I didn’t,” Kate said calmly. “In a way, it’s a relief to have it out in the open. I haven’t slept a full night since it happened. Now that he can see again, maybe I can start to live. Maybe I can put away the guilt.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “Not in so many words, no,” she said quietly. “I think he’s just biding his time right now until he can decide how many pieces he’d like me cut into. Maude, I can’t blame him,” she said when Maude started to interrupt. “You couldn’t possibly know the pain he went through, the mental anguish of knowing he might never see again. I had to watch it, and whether he knows it or not, I paid for what I did in those weeks I was with him.”

  “Whatever you did, it doesn’t give him the right to manhandle you!”

  “He didn’t manhandle me,” Kate protested. “I simply fell, Maude. That’s all, I fell.”

  Maude sighed and turned away. “If you say so.”

  “Maude, can I stay here tonight?” Kate asked gently. “I…I don’t want to have to go back to Mr. Cambridge and ask for my things tonight.”

  “Oh, baby, of course you can stay! And tomorrow, I’ll go and get your things for you,” she promised.

  Kate nodded gratefully. At least she’d be spared the hatred in his eyes that last time.

  That night was the longest night she’d ever lived through. Sleep was impossible. She laid in the big double bed in the guest room and stared at the darkened ceiling with tears burning her eyes.

  As long as she lived, she’d never forget the look in Garet Cambridge’s dark eyes when he came upon her at the cabin. She’d never seen hatred in those eyes before. Even when they were sightless, there had been affection in them for Kate. All that was changed now. He knew who she was and what she’d done, and he wasn’t going to rest until he made her pay for it.

  Ironically, he’d never know just how fully she had paid for her own reckless behavior. How terrible it was going to be, loving a man who hated her, and having to go through life with only his contempt to remember as the years went by.

  If only Yama had been at the cabin, she thought miserably. Yama could always calm him down when nothing else worked. But apparently, Cambridge had left everybody behind in New York. Now he was at the cabin all by himself, and she wondered crazily if he’d had any supper. Maybe he found the steak she’d cooked for herself. At least he’d have some nourishment. The thought of him coming out of the hospital with no warm meal waiting set her off even more, and she bawled.

  Finally, when the tears passed, she tried to decide what to do next. The only alternative was to stick to her original decision—pack up and go home. Once she was out of his sight, he might put aside his hatred and go on living. At least he still had Anna, she thought bitterly. Dear Anna, who loved his bank account.

  That was what she’d do. She’d go home to her father and start over. It wouldn’t be so hard, she told herself. She could learn to live without Garet, it wouldn’t take that much effort. She’d see him in every man she met from now on, but she’d just have to learn to cope. If he’d died….

  She remembered the silent promise she’d made—that if he lived she wouldn’t even mind his contempt, his hatred. She swallowed hard. He was alive. He was in the same world with her. Her eyes closed. Perhaps it was worth it after all.

  She overslept the next morning, and the fog was already beginning to lift from the lake when Kate dragged into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. She looked down with distaste at her blue jeans and T-shirt. She’d had to put the stained, dusty clothes on because they were all she had.

  Maude was nowhere in sight, and with a feeling of anguish, she realized what that meant. Maude had already gone to see Garet.

  She sat down at the table and sipped her coffee. She wished she’d begged Maude to leave well enough alone. She could have cabled her father to send her the plane fare home, and left the clothes behind. She hoped Maude wouldn’t catch the same treatment from him that she’d received.

  “Oh, you’re up!” Maude said cheerfully as she came in the back door lugging Kate’s suitcase. “How’s the coffee?”

  “It’s fine.” Kate stared at her wanly, her pale face lined with fatigue, dark circles under her soft brown eyes as she paused, the question on the tip of her tongue.

  “As you can see, I’m still in one piece,” Maude told her, putting the suitcase down. “If you think you look bad, my dear, you should see him. He didn’t even give me an argument when I asked for your things.”

  “Thank you for going,” Kate said gently.

  Maude poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Kate at the small kitchen table. “He asked me about you,” she said casually.

  “Oh?” Kate murmured.

  “He wanted to know everything about you. Where you were from, your parents, how you came to work for me…I thought he was going to pass out when I told him your father owned a ranch outside Austin. Does he have some hangup about the cattle industry?”

  Kate’s eyes closed. “I don’t know,” she said weakly. But she knew what had happened. He’d realized that Kate and his assailant were the same person. When he knew that her father was in cattle, he made the connection he hadn’t made when he saw Kate standing on the porch of his cabin.

  “He asked about the bruises, too,” Maude said, watching Kate like a hawk. “He wanted to be sure you were all right. You didn’t tell me you fell down the steps.”

  “It wasn’t important.”

  “He thought it was.”

  Kate got up and went back toward her bedroom. “I want to get the few things together that I left here before you went to Paris. I…I’m going back to Austin this morning.”

  “Are you?” Maude asked with a tiny smile.

  But Kate was already out of earshot.

  She was just putting the last of her small possessions into the open suitcase on the bed when she felt eyes on the back of her head. With a feeling of uneasiness, she turned to find Garet Cambridge standing in the doorway, looking darker and more haggard than she’d seen him since the first days she worked for him. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat over his massive chest, his jacket was gone. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, and his dark green eyes were bloodshot.

  He stared at her, wincing when she instinctively took a step backward as he came further into the room.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly.

  She bit her lower lip, feeling the anguish come back fresh as she remembered what he’d said to her yesterday, and how he’d said it. “What do you want, Mr Cambridge?” she asked in a husky whisper.

  “To see how badly I hurt you,” he said simply, and he had the look of a man who’d pulled the wings off a butterfly. “To make sure you were all right.”

  “I didn’t break my neck,” she said gently. “It might have been better…if I had.” Her voice broke on the words, and he was beside her in a flash. A muffled curse passed his lips as he caught her up in his big arms and held her fiercely against him.

  The tears came like a flood, surging down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she wept against his shirt, “I’m so sorry! I’ve lived with
it every day, every night, and in my sleep…I could see the boat hitting…I saw you climb onto the pier, and I thought you were all right…and I called, and Anna was there. She said they’d taken you to the hospital and you’d be all right, but I didn’t know, I didn’t know…!” she whimpered.

  His arms tightened. Then he drew back to look down into her damp face, searching her eyes in a static, throbbing silence.

  His hands came up to cup her face and his eyes closed while he let his broad, strong fingers touch tentatively, gently, every soft line of her face. It was the way he’d touched her when he was blind, reading with his fingers what, at that time, he hadn’t been able to see. He brushed the tears away and bent his head. His mouth whispered across her closed eyelids.

  His eyes opened then, staring down into hers. “Kate,” he whispered achingly.

  She bit her lip. “Don’t hate me,” she pleaded, pride gone to ashes as he held her and she clung to him.

  “Could I hate a part of myself, little girl?” he asked. “Why did you come to work for me, knowing that I could find out about you any day? Why take the risk?”

  Her eyes lowered to a button on his shirt. “To make restitution in some small way,” she murmured.

  “You might have told me the truth in the beginning,” he pointed out.

  “At first you had amnesia and I was afraid of the damage I might cause,” she recalled. “Then you did remember, and you hated me so, I was afraid to.”

  “It wasn’t you I hated,” he said quietly. “It was the woman I thought you were. If I’d realized you came with me out of guilt, I wouldn’t have made you stay.”

  But it wasn’t guilt, she hadn’t stayed out of guilt. And she didn’t dare tell him that. She couldn’t tell him she’d stayed out of love.

  “I…I have to finish packing,” she murmured, and pressed gently against his chest.

  He let her move away from him, but his eyes held her as surely as his arms had.