Promises to Keep (15 page)

"Neither of you looks like you slept very much last night," Dan observed the next morning, beaming at them approvingly.

They hadn't, but not for the reason Dan obviously thought. For a long while after she'd gone to bed, Julie huddled beneath the covers and listened to Garth's steady pacing on the porch that was directly below the windows of their bedroom. Finally she heard the front door open and close as he let Buck into the house, but instead of coming inside, Garth's footsteps had echoed on the concrete of the walk. Seconds later had come the sound of a car being started. The low growl of the motor became more distant as he drove down the lane away from the house.

Because she had left the bedroom door ajar, she was able to count the hours by the chimes of the mantel clock. It was after three o'clock before Garth returned.

"Why are you still awake?" he asked when he came to bed. His voice was thick and slightly blurred.

"I was worried about you," she said. And rightly so, she thought. If one could go by his slurred speech and the sharp odor of Scotch on his breath, he was less than sober.

"Well, I'm fine," he'd said. "Go to sleep now."

He hadn't sounded fine. He'd sounded bearish and bad-tempered. And she hadn't gone to sleep. She had lain stiffly on her own side of the bed until the sky began to grow pearlescent with the approach of dawn. Though the space that separated her from Garth was not a wide one—she could easily have reached out and touched him—she had felt that there was an impenetrable barrier between them. She felt it still.

This morning Garth was so pale that his face had an almost greenish tinge, and he had no more appetite for the ham and eggs Jessie had heaped on his plate than Julie had for her own food. His usually clear eyes were red-rimmed and puffy-lidded, and from the way he narrowed them against the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows, Julie could tell he must have a king-size headache.

From this evidence alone she would have known that Garth was suffering from a hangover; she couldn't understand how Dan and Jessie could misinterpret such symptoms and leap to the conclusion that a night of lovemaking accounted for his faintly debauched appearance. In her opinion such an overindulgence wouldn't faze him in the least.

Julie blushed at this thought, and when she looked hurriedly away from Garth, she caught Jessie in the act of exchanging a wink with Dan.

They were just finishing breakfast when Jessie asked if they would mind going into Jackson to do some shopping for her. Garth agreed quite amiably.

He even managed a reasonable facsimile of his engaging grin.

"Why don't you two make a day of it," Jessie suggested, glancing slyly at Dan. "Do some sightseeing and have lunch in town."

Garth was noncommittal. "Maybe we will," he replied.

"I have a grocery list all made out," Jessie said as she bustled from the kitchen to collect it.

"It's cold today," Dan informed them. "They're predicting snow for tomorrow."

"I'll get our coats," Garth announced, and Julie had to admire the even tone of his voice and the easy way he strode from the room when she could imagine the effect this must have on his headache.

When he returned, he was wearing a handsome shearling car coat and carrying her heavy sweater and the fleece-lined vest as well. She knew she'd look ridiculously like a stuffed panda wearing both bulky garments but, giving herself a mental pat on the back for being so considerate of Garth's under-the-weather condition, she put them on without arguing the matter.

Jessie eyed Garth appreciatively. "I wish you'd get a jacket like that for yourself, Dan," she remarked. "Your old one is so seedy."

"What?" Dan exclaimed affrontedly. "And give up old faithful!" He shook his head sadly. "I couldn't do that, Jess. Old faithful is more than just a coat. It's kind of a good-luck charm for me."

"That's so much hooey," Jessie grumbled. "We go through this every fall, and every fall you give me the same runaround. No one is less superstitious than you are, and you know very well that coat is no lucky piece. It's only a scruffy winter parka." In an aside to Garth she explained, "It's so moth-eaten, it reminds me of an old donkey skin—and there are times when I do believe the old donkey's still wearing it!"

"But Jess," Dan countered, "if I got rid of it, I'd be so perfect you'd have nothing left to complain about." His smile was cherubic as he reasoned, "So you see, sweetheart, it's partly for your benefit that I keep it. After all, I know how dearly you love a lively difference of opinion."

They were still bickering fondly with one another when Garth and Julie let themselves out of the house to walk through the crispness of the morning air to the car. Garth winced when she allowed the door on her side to slam and eased his own shut. Before he turned the key in the ignition, he put on the sunglasses that were hooked over the visor.

Julie wanted to ask Why did you leave last night? and Where did you go? but, heeding the warning of his grim expression, she remained silent as he drove toward Jackson. Even when he stopped at a motel coffee shop on the outskirts of town, she only looked at him thoughtfully. He was paler than ever, and there was a fine film of perspiration on his forehead.

"I just want to get something for a headache," he said smoothly in answer to her unspoken question.

If Jessie hadn't asked them to do some errands for her, Julie wondered, would Garth have suffered until the headache ran its course rather than admit he had one? His face was taut with pain, and she felt genuinely sympathetic as she followed him into the cafe.

Garth chose a booth that was quietly situated away from the preferred tables near the windows, and when he had downed some aspirin and coffee, he sat with his head in his hands and his eyes closed. After a few minutes had passed, Julie was relieved to see that his color was markedly improved.

Because Garth had his back to the room, Julie was the first to notice the tall, strikingly attractive girl who was purposefully making her way through the coffee shop in their direction. From under a broad-brimmed leather hat that was trimmed with feathers, her luxuriant mane of taffy-colored hair fell straight and smooth to her athletic young shoulders and she wore the tourist's standard uniform—fringed suede jacket, western-style shirt, tight blue jeans, and hand-tooled boots—with a panache that belied her ingenuous appearance. And although her clothing was unisex, her well-endowed figure was unmistakably female.

"Hello again," she caroled as she sat next to Garth in the booth. After a single dismissing look at Julie, her cornflower-blue eyes laughed into his. "I see you found your way home safely last night."

Garth smiled and said, "Hello, er—"

"Mindy. Mindy Stryker," the girl provided, affecting a pretty pout that called attention to her full mouth as it expressed her disappointment that he'd forgotten her name.

"Mindy," Garth repeated. He was still smiling at her, and it was obvious that he was intrigued by her alluring manner. "This is Julie—"

"Nice to meet you," Mindy interrupted uninterestedly, without shifting her avid gaze from Garth's face.

Julie glanced from Mindy to Garth. She studied him with renewed interest and decided, uncomfortably, that his vaguely ravaged, tortured look of this morning suited him every bit as well as his smile did. In fact, she told herself disgustedly, he looked very much the Byronic hero—romantically brooding and intensely mysterious.

"I'm so glad I ran into you again," Mindy purred. "Daddy wants to leave for home today, and since we're practically neighbors, I thought you'd like to have my address in San Francisco."

Julie was fascinated by Mindy's demonstration of self-confidence and watched every move as the younger girl rummaged through her shoulder bag and removed a thin tube of lip liner. She pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser at the center of the table and scribbled carelessly on it with the strawberry-colored cosmetic.

"We skeptical Scorpios have to stick together," she commented pertly as she folded the napkin to keep the lipstick from smearing and slipped it into the breast pocket of Garth's shirt. Her fingers toyed with the fleecy lining of his coat. "Besides," she cooed, her voice throaty and brazenly intimate, "you're the only
good
thing that's happened to me on this whole ghastly trip. Until last night it was a deadly bore. You really knocked me out with your impression of Neil Diamond. The Cowboy Bar will never be the same—and neither will I!"

From beneath the fan of her lashes Mindy flirted with Garth, turning the full force of her extraordinary eyes on him for a full minute before she glanced over her shoulder at the distinguished middle-aged man who was waiting for her by the door. Her pout became more pronounced.

"Daddy's getting impatient to leave," she said petulantly. "I really
do
hope you'll call me the next time you're going to be in San Francisco, Garth." As she sauntered toward the exit she waved a slender hand with practiced flamboyance and called, "Ciao, darling."

When the door of the cafe had closed behind the Strykers, Julie slid out of the booth. She batted her eyelashes at Garth before she stalked angrily away from him.

"Ciao, darling!" she said, in a fair reproduction of Mindy's dulcet delivery.

Garth threw some money on the table and caught up with her just as she reached the car. She maintained a fuming silence while he walked around the sedan to get in on the driver's side, but as soon as he sat behind the wheel she attacked waspishly.

"Thanks for at least remembering my name. When I think of how concerned I was when you drove off last night, I could just… just—"

"Throw another tantrum?" Garth prompted imperturbably.

"I thought you were drowning your sorrows," she rushed on irately, "and instead you were kicking up your heels!"

"The one doesn't necessarily preclude the other," he retorted, "but that's beside the point. I don't suppose it ever entered your mind that I might have been working up the courage to give you an honest answer to your question."

"My question?"

"As to why I don't parade my feelings for all the world to see."

"You needed courage for that? Ha!" she scoffed shrilly and was pleased to see him wince this time. "I've combed the hayseeds out of my hair and I don't believe that line any more than I believe that mock turtle soup is made with mock turtles."

"I don't give a damn what you believe," Garth cut in. "It's the truth nevertheless. And since I've never before welshed on a bargain, I intend to try to explain it to you. Whether you listen or not is up to you."

His menacing expression muzzled her as effectively as the low value he placed on her opinion of him. Julie swallowed hard, attempting to dislodge the choking lump of shame in her throat. She recognized that she'd been ranting like a fishwife and she felt diminished by it.

"I—I'll listen," she stammered.

Garth removed the sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands before replacing them. "It can be summed up with the adage 'old habits die hard'," he said.

"But how…" She hesitated.

"How did it get to be a habit?" he finished evenly. "To understand that, you'd have to know what my parents were like." Before he continued, he rolled the seat into a half reclining position and slouched into it, with one knee jackknifed and propped against the steering wheel and his head resting on the seat back. He closed his eyes, and his face became an expressionless mask.