Promise Me Forever (Sweet Beginnings Book 3)

by Maggie Dallen

  Alice sighed for the millionth time since arriving at this overheated event. “Do you want to get out of here?” she asked. “James is done. He’ll probably want to grab a bite before we head back to the ranch.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Katy got up, looking entirely out of place in a stylish A-line sundress and peep-toe heels that looked painful to Alice, but she knew better than to say as much to Katy. Even now that the big-city event planner had officially made their small town of Lulu her home, she still refused to give up the impractical heels.

  Not that Dax seemed to mind. Her traditional cowboy of a brother was so smitten he got a goofy grin whenever his fiancée was around and Alice had a feeling he didn’t notice what Katy was wearing, just as long as she wore a smile.

  Alice sighed again, but this time it was a happy sigh, with just a twinge of yearning. One day she’d find the kind of love her brothers had found, Dax with Katy and their eldest brother Cole with his wife Claire.

  They made their way through the crowd and then through a throng of scantily clad women who were hanging around the stable doors. “Buckle bunnies,” she whispered to Katy as they made their way past. Every sport had its groupies, and rodeos were no different.

  They found James changing into a clean shirt in the back and Alice had to stop walking at the sight of his bare chest. She’d only caught a glimpse of those six-pack abs before he pulled a clean T-shirt over his head but the sight was enough to make her forget how to breathe.

  “Wowza,” Katy whispered.

  Alice swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. Wowza was right. It wasn’t like she’d never seen him without a shirt—he had a physical job on their ranch and on summer days all the guys tended to ditch some clothes. But she knew enough to avert her gaze. Today’s glimpse had caught her by surprise and knocked the wind straight out of her. She was just glad those half-naked women outside hadn’t caught sight or she’d have been swatting them away with a stick.

  Not that he was hers or anything, but he also wasn’t a piece of meat. She would just be doing her duty as a friend.

  James spotted them and gave them that easy grin that made her heart happy. Well, it made all of her happy, but her heart always did a little jig in her chest when he gave her that slow, lazy smile with the crinkly eyes.

  It felt like it was just for her. Which was stupid because he smiled at lots of people. She bet everyone felt that way. He had a natural charisma like that, that was all.

  “You looked great out there,” Alice said as he pulled her in for a hug, like always. And just like always she held her breath. His particular scent was way too appealing for a friend. Especially at a time like this when he smelled like sweat and horses and leather and all things manly.

  No way. No siree. At times like this it was definitely best to just hold her breath and then pull away quickly before she turned blue.

  He gave Katy a small smile and a polite greeting, and then he clammed up. Right on schedule. James was quiet—or so everyone thought. To be fair, he was a pretty quiet guy most of the time. But Alice knew how to get him to open up. She also knew better than to try it when anyone else was around. He only opened up with her—a fact she used to think meant something special.

  But now she knew it meant she was his best friend, a fact she would forever be grateful for. There was no better friend in the world.

  “So, where should we eat?” she asked them both.

  James didn’t answer. But then, he wouldn’t. He was too easygoing by far. Sometimes she worried that if he ever got involved in a serious relationship he’d get ensnared by some woman who was super pushy. She feared that day because James, if he ever fell in love, would be too eager to please. Too quick to become a pushover. Oh, most wouldn’t assume that since he had the whole silent, tough guy façade, but she knew him better than most.

  Beneath all that macho cowboy hotness lay the heart of a romantic. A poet, even, though she’d never known him to put pen to paper.

  She’d definitely keep her eye out for pushy ladies.

  Except that she couldn’t look out for him if she were in Los Angeles, now could she?

  The whole move to California seemed to loom between them now as their eyes met.

  “Actually,” Katy interrupted their look loudly. “I totally forgot. I need to get back to my place. Someone’s coming to install cable later today.”

  Her friend was already backing away, ready to bolt.

  Alice frowned at her. Clearly Katy was running away to give them space to talk, which was exactly what she didn’t want nor need. She tried to tell her friend that through ESP and failed mightily.

  Katy was already running out the door of the barn, in heels no less, to meet a cable guy who Alice suspected was fictional.

  Katy had taken over Claire’s apartment in the center of Lulu after Claire and Cole married and moved into a small house on the outskirts of town.

  Once Katy and Dax tied the knot this Christmas, she’d be moving into the main house up at the ranch and Alice would use the apartment when she wasn’t in LA. They’d worked out a plan that this would be a trial run—Alice was pretty sure that was the only way Katy could get Alice’s overprotective brothers on board with this plan.

  She might be a grown woman but she would always be their baby sister.

  Even if it did work out, she planned on coming home often. Her family needed her and she needed them. It was just her and her brothers now that her parents were gone, and quite frankly, her brothers needed her to keep them in line and smack some sense into them on the rare occasion.

  She and James stood there facing each other in silence for far too long. Well, far too long for Alice’s liking. James would be content to stand around in silence till the cows came home. Literally. He was a cowboy.

  The only time Alice liked silence was when she was with this man…normally. He made being quiet easy. There were no expectations to talk, but when she did, he was the best listener around.

  Normally, silence between them would be fine.

  Normally.

  But not today.

  Today it felt charged with all the things they hadn’t said. Oh, all right. All the things she hadn’t said.

  And she still didn’t say them now.

  Sweet mercy, she was a coward.

  No. No, she wasn’t. And she wouldn’t be now, not any longer.

  A horse whinnied behind her in the stables and she heard the groupies giggling outside the door.

  She certainly wasn’t going to have this conversation here and now. Taking James by the arm, she led him toward the exit. “Come on, let’s grab a bite at the inn.”

  ‘The inn’ was The Lulu Inn, which hadn’t actually been an inn since the fifties. From that point on the inn had just served food, with the upstairs having been retrofitted to be a home for the family that owned it.

  The food was good, cheap, and consistent. Besides, it was their place—hers and James’s. Not in a romantic way, obviously, but it was where they always went when they were in town. James loved their burger and she had an ongoing love affair with their brownie sundae.

  “So we’re doing something new today then,” James teased as they headed toward his truck, which was closer than hers out in the visitors’ section.

  “Funny.”

  He flashed her a grin that made her stomach melt.

  She sucked in a deep breath to calm the sensation just as she always did. She was still waiting for a day when his smile didn’t have such a killer effect. It would be wonderful for their friendship if she could spend just one day with him without having to do deep breathing exercises to dispel her physical discomfort.

  If it wasn’t his sly grin making her insides melt, it was his low voice saying something impossibly sweet that made the butterflies in her belly go into a frenzy, or an unexpected brush of his hand against her back that made her nerve endings tingle.

  Distance would probably be the best cure. She knew that, it was half the reason she’d been dying to fl
ee this town since she’d moved back. But it wasn’t so easy now that the time had come.

  Much as he drove her nuts—physically and emotionally—he was her very best friend and saying goodbye…

  Well, she didn’t expect it to be any easier this time than it had been five years ago. But this time she wouldn’t make a fool of herself, and she sure as heck wouldn’t kiss him.

  The inn was crowded with other rodeo goers but they found a table in the back near the fireplace that was a blessing in the winter. They knew the waitress, Amanda, and she darted over to them first, giving them precedence over the out-of-towners. “Same?” she said to James.

  Amanda was never given to small talk on the slowest of days at the inn so they hardly expected a warm welcome on a busy afternoon like this. “Yes, ma’am,” James said.

  “And you, hon?” Amanda said, turning to face her. “You eating lunch or just skipping right to dessert?”

  It was a fair question. Alice had been known to come to the inn solely for her favorite sundae. “I’ll have a chef’s salad first,” she said.

  “Salad and sundae,” Amanda muttered, jotting it down on a pad. “Got it.”

  After Amanda had disappeared to deliver their orders, Alice faced her friend and refused to be sidetracked by the warmth in those gorgeous blue eyes or the way a smile tugged at those firm lips.

  She knew they were firm but there was no way she was going to think about that kiss. Nope, not today.

  Today they had to talk.

  She cleared her throat and he watched her, waiting patiently like he always did.

  “So,” she said slowly, toying with the fork and knife in front of her.

  “So,” he finally repeated. Oh yeah, those lips were definitely hitching up in amusement now.

  Good heavens, she had to stop looking at his mouth or she’d never get through this meal. This was pretty much the same lecture she gave herself every time she was with her best friend, and it was the reason she often prayed for immunity or a cure. Surely that existed, right? Surely some divine intervention could give her a shot of apathy, just a little dose, so she wouldn’t have to consistently steel her body and her heart against that flutter of…something.

  Something that was decidedly not friendship.

  She sighed quietly. She’d been back at the ranch full time for a year now and she was still waiting for this miracle cure.

  Maybe Los Angeles was the cure. Maybe some more time and space away from him would finally get it through that thick heart of hers that he was only her friend. That he would only ever be her friend.

  “I’m moving to California,” she said, blurting it out in a rush of air.

  She dragged her gaze up from his lips and found herself staring right into those bright blue eyes.

  He smiled outright but she wasn’t fooled. There was a sadness there in those eyes she knew so well. “I was wondering when you were going to get around to telling me.”

  She bit her lip and gave him a rueful smile of her own. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug that said she was forgiven. “I figured you had your reasons for keeping the news to yourself.”

  She blinked rapidly and licked her lips. It wasn’t as though she’d kept it a secret, a fact he must’ve been aware of. Dax and Cole knew she was leaving, as did Claire and Katy.

  James was the only one in their family that didn’t know, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain why that was. To be honest, she’d been trying not to think too hard about the reason she hadn’t mentioned the topic.

  They fell into an unusually awkward silence as Amanda returned with two glasses of ice water. When she left, James lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Did you think I’d try to talk you out of it?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, of course not.” James was the most supportive person in her life. Her brothers loved her, she knew that well, but it was James who steadfastly had her back. He was the first person she’d told about her plan to turn her family’s property into a guest ranch because she’d known without a doubt that she’d have his support.

  The Twilight Ranch had only just begun receiving guests—mainly corporate retreats so far, and they had a super exclusive celebrity wedding planned for the spring. But already that new stream of income was proving to be a saving grace.

  They’d very nearly had to sell their land last year when the financial strain had been too great, but Alice’s plan had gotten them through the worst of it and gave them hope for a prosperous future.

  If she could pull it off.

  Doubt niggled at her as it always did, but then she reminded herself that she had Katy helping out now too, and she was a professional when it came to event planning. Besides, she now had Cole and Dax firmly on board, though it had taken some serious convincing on Dax’s part.

  But James…he’d been supportive of her ideas from the first moment she’d told him, before they were even fully fleshed out. He hadn’t just believed in her, he’d helped her make a go of it, chipping in his time and handyman skills to help her renovate the long abandoned guest homes on the property and turning them into updated, if not luxurious, accommodations.

  So it must have been odd in James’s eyes, she supposed, that she hadn’t come to him first with her new plan to head to Los Angeles to help run Katy’s business.

  “I knew you’d support me,” she said now as James watched her like a hawk. Reaching over she squeezed his hand and then pulled away quickly as an electric shock shot through her.

  That right there was one of many reasons her leaving was a blessing.

  Some space would do wonders. Time and space.

  Of course, four years away at college hadn’t exactly done much to help. That distance had merely helped her get her head clear on where she and James stood with one another—but when it came to the rest of her?

  As far as her heart was concerned, she might as well still be that eighteen-year-old fool she’d once been.

  James didn’t say anything but he waited and watched. He did that patient thing that drove her nuts, as he very well knew. It was impossible to hold out against this guy. Staring contests as a kid? Forget about it. He won every time.

  Every. Single. Time.

  And if she’d done something bad and was afraid of getting in trouble? This guy would just sit and wait until she confessed all. Then he’d hold her hand as she told her parents.

  And when she’d lost her heart to him one fateful summer?

  He’d kept his mouth shut and went about his business until she was driven so crazy with impatience and longing and an ache that made her wild, she did something unforgivably stupid and kissed him.

  She let out a sigh as she reached for her water glass. Why did she even bother? “Okay, fine. I guess I was avoiding telling you, but not because I thought you would talk me out of it.”

  He didn’t even arch his eyebrows in question. He didn’t need to. She always caved.

  “I guess I just didn’t know how to say goodbye.”

  That was the truth. Sort of. There was no way on earth she was going to bring up that last goodbye and remind them both of that one dazzlingly awkward memory in their long friendship.

  No, sir. They’d both swept that moment so far under the rug there was no going back and retrieving it. They’d left it to rot and die.

  But, using that analogy, she sometimes wondered if he smelled the horrific odors of decay like she did. Not often, but they were there, wafting up and smothering her when she least expected it.

  For her part, it was humiliation, plain and simple.

  For him? She had the horrible suspicion that it was pity.

  Ugh. She gave a little shudder and looked away quickly, sipping frantically at her water in a vain attempt to wash away those thoughts. She was mentally wafting away those unpleasant, odoriferous emotions with each sip.

  At least, that’s what she told herself.

  “I’m glad you’re telling me now.” James le
aned forward with his elbows on the table, his voice low so only she could hear.

  Her gaze snapped to his and she felt a familiar jolt of awareness as their eyes connected and locked.

  No, not awareness, she sternly told herself. It was understanding, familiarity. They got one another, they always had.

  But, as her college roommate Liza liked to point out time and time again, one day she’d have that understanding with someone who saw her as something other than a little sister. And when that day came, she’d have found the love of her life and James would take his proper place in her heart, once and for all, as her best friend and nothing more.

  She found herself nibbling on her lower lip as she said another silent prayer that this amazing, mythical man would come into her life sooner rather than later so she could move on already.

  Maybe he’s in Los Angeles. That heartening thought had her sitting up straighter and giving James a proper smile. “I hate goodbyes,” she said. “You know that.”

  He nodded and she could have sworn she saw the dreaded memory in his eyes. Dang it, now he was thinking about their last goodbye.

  “But it’s not like I’ll be gone for long,” she continued on quickly. Too quickly, perhaps. She focused on unfolding her napkin and spreading it across her lap. “You never know,” she said. “I might hate the big city, or maybe I’ll love it but the big city will hate me.” She licked her lips as she sucked in a breath, well aware that she was babbling but unable to stop as all her newfound fears tumbled out of her mouth.

  She never had been able to keep anything from James and now that the topic had been opened, she couldn’t resist telling him every fear that was racing around in her brain, getting more and more frantic as her moving day approached.

  She twisted her napkin in her lap as the biggest fear flared up and refused to stay silent. “I could do a terrible job with Katy’s company,” she said. “I could totally fail. What if she fires me and I have to turn back and—”