Johnston - I Promise (16 page)

The skin stretched tight across Rachel’s cheekbones as she continued, “I won’t let my son grow up seeing his father hitting his mother. I can’t bear it.”

Delia’s stomach churned with acid. She looked down at the uneaten bagel in front of her. There was no way she could choke it down now.

“Rachel, I’m so sorry,” Delia said. “I should have seen what was happening. I should have tried to help you sooner.”

The way Mama should have seen what was happening to you?
Had she been as willfully blind as her mother? It didn’t seem possible she could have made the same mistake as Hattie. But she had.

Delia reached out and clasped Rachel’s hand across the table.

Rachel’s grip tightened. “When I told Cliff I planned to divorce him, he threatened to take Scott away from me. He can do it, Delia. He knows a lot of important people. I want to be free of Cliff, but I won’t give up my son to him.”

“You won’t have to,” Delia said grimly. “I have a few influential friends myself.” Because Delia had gone to law school in Texas, she had friends who had become Texas judges. And a few more who had become sharp lawyers.

“Have you hired an attorney?” Delia asked.

“That’s another problem,” Rachel admitted. “Cliff controls all our money.”

“You don’t have any of your own stuck away somewhere?”

“We put everything in an account with Cliff’s name on it.”

Delia stared at her sister, not understanding how Rachel could have let herself become a victim again. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner, Rachel? Why have you let this go on so long?”

“I didn’t want to burden you with my problems.”

“Burden
me?” Delia’s throat ached. “Dear Lord, Rachel, you’re my sister. I know I probably haven’t said it much, but I love you. I’d do anything for you.”

The tears brimming in Rachel’s eyes spilled over. She pulled her hand free of Delia’s to grab a napkin and dab at the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Delia. I guess I’ve pretty much made a mess of things.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong. Cliff’s the villain here. You’re not going back to him again.”

“I have to go home. I have to get Scott.”

Delia frowned. “All right. To get Scott. Then you get right back on a plane and come back here.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try. Do it.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Delia. You’re not like us ordinary mortals. You never doubt yourself.”

Delia snorted a denial. “Mother won’t be out of the hospital for a while,” She said. “You can stay at the ranch until you figure out where you’d like to live. If you need money, I have enough to tide you over until the divorce is final and you get back on your feet.” She raised a hand to cut off Rachel’s protest. “I know it isn’t a perfect solution, but I won’t take no for an answer.”

“I don’t want to live at the Circle Crown,” Rachel said.

“I don’t relish the prospect of going back there any more than you do. But maybe it’s time we laid Ray John’s ghost to rest. What do you say?”

“You’d stay there with me?” Rachel asked.

“For a few days, anyway,” Delia said.

Delia saw Rachel’s gaze shift to a spot above and behind her. She turned to see what had caught her sister’s attention.

Marsh North stood there, a smile on his face, a cup of tea in his hand. “Hello, Delia.” He put a respectful finger to his Stetson. “Mrs. McKinley.”

Delia’s fingernails creased her Styrofoam cup. She forced herself to relax and said in a remarkably calm voice, “What brings you here, Marsh?”

“I came to see you.”

A frothy wave of pleasure rolled over her, despite her determination to treat this chance encounter as nothing out of the ordinary. She wished she hadn’t just spent the night sleeping in a chair. She lifted a hand to brush at her hair, pulled it down, then went ahead and sifted her fingers through the tangles. It was a nervous gesture, and she smiled so Marsh wouldn’t see that was how she felt. Nervous.

She should have contacted him long ago. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure exactly what she ought to say or do. This didn’t seem the right time to bring up the past. But it hung there in the air between them.

Meanwhile, Rachel responded with the aplomb one might expect of a politician’s wife. “Please join us, Mr. North.” She scooted over so that Marsh could sit next to her, across from Delia. He slipped his hat off and laid it on the table.

“Marsh,” he corrected.

“Then you’ll have to call me Rachel.”

Delia was busy absorbing impressions of Marsh.

He seems taller than I remember. Broader in the shoulders. His hair is still too long, still sun-bleached, but a darker shade of brown. He looks tired.

He had crow’s-feet around his eyes, and deep lines bracketed his mouth. A scar cut through his right eyebrow, and another scored the edge of his mouth. A man aged better than a woman, Delia thought. All those character lines only made him look more ruggedly handsome.

“What are you doing here?” Delia repeated.

“I came back to Uvalde to get my daughter through high school. I got custody of her when my ex-wife died six months ago.”

“I heard.” At his raised brow she explained, “Rachel told me.” She paused, feeling awkward because it sounded like she had inquired about him when she hadn’t. But it would be dishonest to suggest she hadn’t wanted to know the information, because she had. “I meant,” Delia said, “what brings you to the hospital today? Is someone you know sick?”

“To be frank, I came to check on your mother.”

Delia shot him a confused, searching look. “Why would you be checking on her?”

“I was at the ranch when she had her heart attack.” He paused and said, “Actually, I think I caused it.”

Chapter Nine

Marsh couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked. Over the past two decades, memories of Delia Carson had been like a rash that erupted at inconvenient times, irritating, prickly, sometimes painful. He had made a habit of reading the
New York Times
just to keep up with what was happening where she lived. He had seen the articles when she became a candidate for judge, watched her take a stand in print for what she believed, and drunk a toast to her election success in a smoky Oriental bar in Korea. He hadn’t seen her for twenty years, but it felt as though they had parted only yesterday. The attraction between them was as uncomfortably powerful now as it had ever been.

“Would you mind explaining that comment you just made?” Delia said. “In what way were you responsible for Mother’s heart attack?”

Marsh met Delia’s gaze and was startled to realize she was looking right at him. The experience was disconcerting because in the past she had so seldom met his gaze directly. Even when she did, it had been for only brief moments before she retreated behind lowered lids. She wasn’t hiding now. Almost the instant the thought occurred to him, she lowered her eyes to her hands, which framed a Styrofoam cup.

Hiding again, Delia? What made you nervous? Are you still as attracted to me as I am to you? Or is there something else? What is it that’s kept you away from me all these years?

“I made the mistake of thinking your mother had come to terms with the issues that caused Ray John Carson’s death,” Marsh said at last. “I was wrong.”

Marsh got the violent reaction he had been seeking from such a provocative statement, but it came from Rachel, not Delia.

The congressman’s wife choked and coughed without stopping for several seconds. “Coffee went down the wrong tube,” Rachel gasped when she could speak again.

Marsh turned back to Delia in time to catch her shaking her head at Rachel. When she saw him looking at her, the gesture stopped abruptly. What was that all about?

“At any rate,” he continued, “I’m glad your mother survived the incident,” Marsh said. “Will the surgery this morning correct her problem?”

“Dr. Robbins says it will,” Delia said. “He said he recommended bypass surgery two years ago, but Mother refused to have it. Now she doesn’t have any choice.”

“I don’t understand why she didn’t do it earlier,” Rachel said.

“According to Dr. Robbins, she didn’t want to give over management of the ranch to some stranger during the month to six weeks she’ll need to recuperate,” Delia said.

“Thank goodness you’re here now,” Rachel said.

“I can’t stay that long,” Delia said sharply.

“Why not?” Marsh asked.

“I have responsibilities. I have to be back in court.”

Rachel looked at Delia wide-eyed. “Who’s going to take care of Mom?”

“You’re a more logical choice than I am,” Delia said to her sister. “You’re going to be here.”

“Maybe,” Rachel said. “Maybe I’ll be here.”

“You aren’t going to back off from what we discussed, are you?” Delia asked.

“No, but I might not be able to come back right away,” Rachel said.

“It sounds like you two have a problem,” Marsh said. “Maybe I could be of some help.”

Delia frowned. “I don’t see how.”

“I’m living close by, and I know the ranching business. Maybe I could fill in at the Circle Crown until your mother’s on her feet again.”

“We couldn’t ask you to do that,” Delia said.

“Why not?” Rachel asked. “If Marsh has been kind enough to offer, I don’t see why—”

“Because I said we can’t, that’s why,” Delia snapped.

Her eyes were hidden from him again. What was she so afraid of? Marsh wondered. He shrugged nonchalantly. “If you don’t want my help, you don’t want my help.”

“If you won’t let Marsh help, Delia, what are we going to do?”

Marsh watched Delia swallow hard before she looked him in the eye and said, “I’ll have to stay myself. At least until I can hire a manager.”

She had seen the trap too late and fallen into it. But he wasn’t going to help her out. Not when he had her exactly where he wanted her.

“Thank goodness that’s settled,” Rachel said. “I hope you’ll excuse me, Marsh. I want to see Mom before she goes into surgery. Want to come, Delia?”

“I’ve already spoken to Mother. I’ll meet you in the waiting room in a little while.”

“All right.”

Marsh scooted out of the booth to let Rachel pass.

“Thank you for offering to help, Marsh,” Rachel said once she was on her feet with her clutch purse tucked under her arm. “I know Delia appreciates your offer as much as I do.”

“You’re welcome,” Marsh said with a smile.

“See you soon, Delia,” Rachel said before she turned and walked away.

Marsh couldn’t help following Rachel with his eyes. She had turned into a stunningly beautiful woman. But Rachel’s beauty didn’t hold a candle to the fire he saw in Delia’s eyes when he sat back down across from her.

“You tricked me,” she said as soon as Rachel was out of earshot.

“I made an offer. You refused.”

“You knew I couldn’t accept your help,” Delia said. “Not after everything that’s happened. I owe you too much already to be taking anything more from you.”

“Will you have trouble getting the time off?” Marsh asked.

Delia grimaced. “I have some vacation coming. And I can ask for a leave of absence. But the timing isn’t terribly convenient.”

“Why is that?”

“Let’s just say a certain district attorney will be doing cartwheels when he hears I’m off the bench for a while, and it irks me to give him what he wants.”

“Is that the only reason you don’t want to be here?” Marsh asked quietly.

Delia avoided his gaze. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she looked up into his eyes, he was stunned at what he saw. The pain made his breath catch.

He reached out automatically to touch her, to comfort her, but she pulled her hand free of his.

“Don’t touch me. Please. This is hard enough without . . .”

He wished he didn’t feel so much for her. Especially when Delia seemed in such a damned awful hurry to get back to New York.

She was avoiding his gaze again. He reached out and gently raised her chin with a forefinger until she was looking at him. “Conscience bothering you, Delia?”

“What I did was unforgivable. I shouldn’t have left you to face those charges alone. I’m sorry, Marsh.” A sigh of relief quivered through her. She edged back until she was free of his touch. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to say that.”

“I won’t say I wasn’t upset when you left,” Marsh said.
That was a whopping understatement.
“As it turned out, I didn’t end up facing anything. The charges were dropped.”

“Because I wasn’t there to testify.”

Marsh shook his head. “No, even before that. Someone came and talked to Sheriff Davis. Someone made him believe Ray John Carson had committed suicide. The sheriff told me I was no longer a suspect in Ray John’s death, and that the rape charges had been dropped.”

“But who . . . ?”

“You figure it out.” Marsh rose from the booth, retrieved his Stetson, and settled it low on his brow. “I’ve got some business to take care of in town. I’ll check back later to see how your mother’s surgery went.” He hesitated and said, “Unless you’d like me to stay?”

She shook her head. “No. I . . . I need some time to think.”

“That offer of help stands,” Marsh said. “If you need anything, give me a call.” A grin flashed. “Anything,” he said with an exaggerated leer, “means anything.”

Delia made herself laugh at Marsh’s blatant sexual invitation, doing her best to hide the shiver of excitement she experienced at the thought of being held in his arms and kissed . . . and loved the way they had never had a chance to love. “Get out of here,” she said with a hard-won smile.

Feeling as though the world had tilted on its axis, Delia watched Marsh walk away. Marsh was obviously willing to take advantage of their forced proximity to have a long-delayed love affair with her. She had to admit the idea was tempting. She had often, over the years, wondered what it would have been like to have sex—Would it be making love at this late date?—with Marsh.

She didn’t fool herself that it could ever be more than a brief affair. She had her life. He had his. He would never settle down again, and she could never settle for a wandering man.