Johnston - I Promise (8 page)

“And this here patch is from your first pair of long pants. I made ’em myself. Kinda cute, don’t ya think, boy?”

He could remember feeling agonizingly embarrassed as a nine-year-old by the scrap of pale blue denim embroidered with a brown teddy bear. Now every time he glimpsed it while making his bed, he got a lump in his throat.

A photograph of his grandmother as a young woman sat on the copper-plated dry sink. It was the only thing he had that gave him even a remote idea what his mother might have looked like. He had overheard his grandmother confiding to a friend that his father had torn up every last picture of Rosemary North in front of Marsh’s crib one night in a drunken frenzy.

If it hadn’t been for Grandma Dennison telling him again and again that his father was only grieving, that he didn’t mean the awful names he called his son, Marsh might have turned out a lot worse than he had.

As it was, he had absorbed enough of his father’s invective in the years after his grandmother’s death to become the worst discipline problem Uvalde High School had ever known. He had been angry with his father and taken it out on the whole world.

He had spent almost as much time suspended from high school—for smoking in the bathroom, disrespect to teachers, and fighting—as he had in class. He lost his driver’s license the third time Sheriff Davis caught him driving drunk. He was nabbed shoplifting at Shepherd’s clothing store on Getty Street and spent an uncomfortable hour sitting on an upended wooden crate in the storage room until his father came to get him. Cyrus had paid for the fancy tooled leather belt Marsh had swiped, then taken him home and beaten him with it.

Because of his looks—and because he seemed reckless and a little bit dangerous—a lot of wide-eyed girls had been his for the asking. He had taken his share of them out in his pickup and kissed them and held them and pretended he had more experience than he really did.

Gloria Perkins, the mother of one of his classmates, had seduced him the summer he turned sixteen. After that, he had found girls with reputations like his who would go all the way. He had been lucky none of them ever got pregnant. It sure wasn’t because he had been careful, because he hadn’t.

A short stint for vandalism in the Texas Youth Commission’s Brownwood Correctional Facility—he had spray painted some downright nasty words on the bus of a visiting football team—had made him realize that his father wasn’t suffering as much from his antics as he was. After that, he had pretty much straightened up his act, at least enough to finish high school.

Of course, the damage to his reputation was already done. In a small town, once you’d made a name for yourself, it was pretty near impossible to change people’s opinion of you. He was known in Uvalde as “that wild North boy” and would be until the day he died.

It had never much mattered to him what people thought. Until now. He had an idea what kind of hassle his reputation was going to cause with Delia Carson’s family. She was the pampered princess of the Circle Crown. He was the town’s bad boy.

Why had Delia agreed to go out with him in the first place? Maybe there was a little bit of rebel in her, too. All Marsh could think about was seeing her again. He wondered whether she would show up at the live oak to meet him. He hoped she would. It surprised him just how much it mattered.

Delia knew she was asking for trouble. Her father had made it plain what the consequences would be if he caught her with Marsh North. But it had occurred to her as he held a gun to her head and threatened her, that he might kill her someday whether she was guilty or not. She might as well be guilty.

When she arrived at the spot where North was supposed to be waiting for her, she was disappointed to find he wasn’t there. She stepped down off her horse in the shade of an ancient, moss-draped live oak and tied the reins out of the way on the saddle horn so her palomino gelding wouldn’t step on them as he grazed.

She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stood with her hip cocked, staring across the barbed wire fence dividing Carson cultivated pasture and North scrubland, wondering what she should do now.

“Hi.”

She whirled so fast she lost her balance and nearly fell before North steadied her. She stepped back as soon as she could free herself from his grasp, but it was too late to avoid the jolt of pleasure where his callused fingertips had touched her.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, as annoyed at being scared half to death as she was glad to find him there.

“I was leaning up against the other side of the tree. I heard you coming, and I wanted to see if I could surprise you.”

“You did,” she said. “Where’s your horse?”

Marsh pointed, and she made out the rangy buckskin camouflaged behind the tall yellow grass and a thick patch of scrub mesquite on the North side of the fence.

“Do you want to ride some more right now, or would you like to rest a while?” he asked.

“The shade is nice,” she said, lifting her hair to let the breeze catch the sweat on her nape. She saw his nostrils flare and felt her body tighten like a drawstring. “Why don’t we sit here for a while.” Her knees felt weak. If she didn’t sit down, she was going to fall.

She made it the few steps to the base of the live oak and settled herself on a thick branch growing about a foot off the ground. To her consternation, Marsh sat so close their thighs nearly touched.

She noticed the ring of sweat around his hatband and the grass stains on the knees of his jeans. She pointed to the leather gloves hanging out of his back pocket and asked, “What was so important it had to get done on a Sunday morning?”

“I had some fence to repair.”

She chuckled and relaxed against the rough bark of a slightly higher branch of the tree behind her. “I don’t think that’s going to make Max very happy.”

“Who’s Max?”

“My mother’s Grand Champion Santa Gertrudis bull. I think he was enjoying the company.”

A muscle worked in Marsh’s jaw. “My father shouldn’t have done it. It was stealing, plain and simple.”

Her eyes widened. The town’s bad boy was constantly amazing her. She waited for him to continue the conversation, but he didn’t say anything, just stared at his boots.

“Do you work for your father?”

He nodded. “There’s more than the two of us can handle sometimes. I’ve been trying to talk him into hiring some help, but he doesn’t want strangers around.”

“They wouldn’t be strangers for long once they started working for you.”

“That’s what I told him, but there’s no making him see reason. Sometimes I get so mad I feel like quitting.”

“Why don’t you?” Delia asked.

From the startled look on Marsh’s face, the idea had never occurred to him. “What else would I do?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. What would you like to do?”

“I never really thought about being anything but a rancher. How about you? What are you planning to do when you graduate from high school?”

“I’m going to college.” She took a deep breath and added, “Then I’m going to law school.”

Marsh whistled. His face cracked into an amused grin. “Those are pretty big plans for such a little lady.”

Delia bristled. “These days a woman can be anything she wants. I want to be a lawyer.”

“Why?”

“I . . .” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ll laugh.”

“I promise not to laugh,” Marsh said, crossing his heart with a forefinger. “Tell me.”

She wasn’t sure he wouldn’t laugh, but she had been wanting to talk to someone about her plans for the future, and it wasn’t anything she could comfortably discuss around her father. And these days, her father seldom left her alone with her mother.

She took a deep breath and said, “I want to be a lawyer so I can help kids in trouble.”

Marsh’s brow furrowed. “Like juvenile delinquents?”

“Not exactly. Kids who have problems.”

“What did you have in mind?” Marsh asked.

“Kids who . . .” She shrugged, unwilling even to hint at her own problems. “I don’t know. Just helping in whatever way I can.”

“Sounds dumb to me,” he said.

She socked his shoulder with her fist. “I knew you would laugh!”

“Hey!” he said, catching her wrist. “Not one chuckle escaped my lips.”

Their eyes met and held. His thumb caressed her knuckles. Her pulse leaped.

“Delia . . .” His voice was raw and needy.

She leaned toward him and he leaned toward her and their mouths met, softness on softness. Her body quivered. She swallowed, and their lips parted. But their faces remained so close she would have had to look cross-eyed to see him.

Delia wanted more but knew she should quit now before things went too far. Her hand had somehow found its way to Marsh’s forearm. It was rock hard with tension. But she didn’t move away. She didn’t move at all.

Her eyes slipped closed as Marsh lowered his mouth to hers once more. His kiss was hungry this time, his lips and teeth and tongue devouring her mouth, though no other part of him touched her. Her hand on his arm remained the only other contact between them.

Feelings rose inside her, emotions so powerful and compelling they frightened her. She jerked her mouth free and sat staring at Marsh, panting, wide-eyed. But she didn’t stand up. She didn’t run away. Neither did he.

“Delia.”

The sound of his voice rasped over her, making her shiver. She had just met him. She didn’t know him. Yet she wanted to belong to him. It was crazy. She was crazy.

“Marsh.” Just his name. Said with yearning. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but a moment later he held her clasped tight and her arms were around his waist and their mouths had merged.

Her breasts were crushed against the hard wall of his chest, and her hips slid into the cradle of his widespread legs. His hands curved around her buttocks and pulled her tight against him so she could feel his arousal.

Alarm bells went off in her head.

She wrenched her mouth from his and struggled to free herself. “Let me go, Marsh,” she cried. “Let me go!”

He let her go and took a step back, but there was nothing understanding about the look on his face. He was madder than a rained-on rooster.

“What the hell is going on, Delia?” he demanded. “Don’t try to say you didn’t want to be kissed, because I was hearing yes all the way!”

“I know, but . . .”

“But nothing!”

Tears welled in her eyes, but his face didn’t soften with sympathy. His jaw stayed locked, and his fists remained clenched.

“What kind of game are you playing? Did you make a bet with somebody? Is that it? You’ll get me all hot and bothered and see how far you can make me go?”

“No!” she retorted. “It’s nothing at all like that!”

“Then what the hell is going on?”

Delia nearly blurted the truth. She caught herself in time. Marsh wouldn’t want anything to do with her if he knew what went on in her house. “I’m not playing games, Marsh,” she said in a subdued voice. “I . . . I simply never realized how fast . . . I never wanted . . . like I want you.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“I . . . I just can’t.”

“Saving yourself for your husband?” he sneered.

She flushed to the roots of her hair.

He shoved a hand through his hair and paced away from her before turning back to demand, “Why did you go out with me in the first place? Why did you come here today?”

“I like you. I had a wonderful time with you last night. I thought we could be friends.”

His lips curled up on one side, and he shook his head. “I’m not someone most people would choose for a friend.”

“I’m not most people.”

He stared at her suspiciously for a moment longer. “You really want a friend?”

“Yes, I do.”

“All right.” He held out his hand for her to shake. “You got one.”

She smiled and tentatively laid her hand in his. Sparks flew. Her gaze shot to his, and she discovered he was equally affected by the simple clasp of hands. She looked down at their joined hands and back up at him. Slowly, carefully, she eased her hand from his and threaded her fingers together to avoid reaching out to him again.

“Can I be perfectly honest with you?” she said.

“I wish you would.”

“The truth is . . . I like it when you touch me. I mean, when you kiss me and hold me. Isn’t there some way we could do that without . . . without the other?”

“You mean, just neck and pet and not go all the way.”

That was plain speaking. She felt her cheeks heat. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

He stood with his hip cocked, his hands stuck in his back pockets in an imitation of her earlier stance. “I guess so. It’s hard . . . Sometimes, if things go too far, it’s hard to stop.”

“But you would stop if I asked, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll keep on seeing me.”

Her smile broadened. “Then we’re agreed?”

“Agreed. Shake on it?”

He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. He pumped it up and down twice. There was an awkward moment before they let go of each other, followed by a longing to connect again. Delia resisted it. She needed more time to get used to him, for the electricity to wear off between them, for them to become more comfortable with each other.

“I think we should take that horseback ride now,” she said.

“You’re probably right,” he said. “Would you rather ride on Circle Crown or North property?”

“It might be better if we rode on your land.”

“All right. I’ll open the gate, and you can come on over.”

They rode for the better part of the afternoon, and Marsh showed her the borders of his father’s property. He didn’t take her anywhere near his house, because his father was there.

“My dad could turn out to be as big a nuisance as your father if he saw us together,” Marsh told her.

“In what way?” she asked.

“He’s . . . I’d rather not talk about him.”

“All right,” Delia said. “No more talk about fathers.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Marsh replied.

Delia managed any number of clandestine meetings with Marsh over the summer. They talked a blue streak when they were together about anything and everything. Except their fathers. By mutual agreement, their fathers were off-limits as a topic of conversation.