A Promise to Cherish

Table of Contents

 

“[LaVyrle Spencer] knows how to tug at readers’ heartstrings.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

✱
Affaire de Coeur

 

 

A triumphant story of faith and love . . . “Touching.”

 

A country music star rediscovers her heart. . . “Warm and folksy.”

 

A shunned divorcée finds unexpected love . . . “A modern fairy tale.”

 

A secret threatens to tear a family apart. . . “Tug[s] at readers’ heartstrings.”

 

A widow is torn between her family and new love . . . “A moving tale.”

 

True love blooms for two hearts from different worlds . . . “One of Spencer’s best.”

 

A moving story of a family at a crossroads . . . “A pageturner.”

 

A beautiful story of family ties renewed. . . “A lively story.”

 

The poignant tale of high school sweethearts reunited . . . “A journey of self-discovery and reawakening.”

 

A woman’s love is threatened by past secrets . . . “A tender, sensual story.”

—Lisa Gregory

 

Two misfit hearts find tenderness . . . “A superb book.”

 

A bride-to-be falls in love—with another man . . . “Incredible beauty.”

 

Sparks fly between a lady and a hell-raiser . . . “Superb.”

 

Two willful lovers—one special promise . . . “Magic.”

 

Take a chance on love . . . “Grand.”

 

Across the Western plains, only the strongest survived . . . “Splendid.”

 

First came the baby, then marriage . . . then love . . . “A superb story.”

 

A woman’s missing husband returns—after she’s remarried . . . “Emotional.”

 

The novel that launched La Vyrle Spencer’s stunning career . . . “Will leave you breathless.”

A PROMISE TO CHERISH
FORSAKING ALL OTHERS
THEN CAME HEAVEN
SMALL TOWN GIRL
THAT CAMDEN SUMMER
HOME SONG
FAMILY BLESSINGS
NOVEMBER OF THE HEART
BYGONES
FORGIVING
BITTER SWEET
MORNING GLORY
SPRING FANCY
THE HELLION
VOWS
THE GAMBLE
YEARS
SEPARATE BEDS
TWICE LOVED
SWEET MEMORIES
HUMMINGBIRD
THE ENDEARMENT
THE FULFILLMENT

Published by the Penguin Group
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Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

A PROMISE TO CHERISH

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author.

 

PRINTING HISTORY
First Jove mass-market edition / February 1983
Second Jove mass-market edition / December 2004

Copyright © 1983 by La Vyrle Spencer.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

Purchase only authorized editions.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-52533-3

 

JOVE
^®
Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “J” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

A
s the first suitcase came clunking down the luggage return of Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Lee Walker checked her watch impatiently, drummed four coral fingernails against her shoulder bag, and studied the conveyor belt with a frown. It moved like a sedated snail! She glanced at her watch a second time—only one hour and ten minutes before the bid letting! If the damn suitcase didn’t roll out soon, she’d end up at City Hall in these faded blue jeans!

Lee glowered at the flapping porthole until at last her suitcase came through. She sighed deeply and strained to reach it.

She plucked it off the conveyor belt and flew—a tall, dark-skinned flash of loose black hair and aqua feathers, the worn patches on the backside of her tight jeans attracting the eyes of several men she adroitly sidestepped. The feathers in her hair lifted with each long-legged slap of her moccasins on the terminal floor until she came at last, panting and winded by the thin Denver air, to the Economy Rent-A-Car booth.

Twenty minutes later the same suitcase hit the bed in Room 110 of the Cherry Creek Motel. Lee reached to yank the shirttails free of her jeans at the same time that she released the catch on the suitcase and flipped it open. Her hand halted. Her jaw dropped open.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Lifeless fingers forgot about buttons. Stricken eyes stared at the strange contents of the suitcase while one hand covered her lips, the other clasped her suddenly queasy stomach. “Oh sh . . .” Her eyes took it in, but her mind balked. “No . . . it can’t be!” But she was staring not at the mustard-colored envelope containing the bid for a sewage treatment plant she’d worked on for the last two weeks. Instead, a half-naked blonde tootsie lifted a pair of enormous breasts and smiled a come-hither message from the cover of a . . . a
Thrust
magazine.

For a moment Lee was struck motionless with disbelief.
Thrust?
She stood hunched over, horrified, her thoughts whirling. Then frantically she scrambled through the suitcase, throwing out item after item—a gray sweat suit, two pair of dress trousers, a man’s shaving kit, two neatly folded shirts, royal blue jockey shorts—
royal blue?
—black socks, Rawhide deodorant, a pair of well-worn jogging shoes with filthy laces, a hair blower, and a brush with very dark brown hair caught in its white bristles.

She ran a thumb over them, then dropped it distastefully and quit scrambling through the contents to grab the identification tag dangling from the suitcase handle.

With a groan Lee sank to the bed, leaned forward, and clutched her forehead in both hands.
Oh, damn my hide, I’ve really done it now. Old Thorpe will gloat over this for months!
At the thought of Thorpe and his small, racist mind, panic swept Lee, tightening the skin across her temples, making the blood sing and swirl crazily as she burst to her feet. She checked her watch. Frantic thoughts tumbled about in her head, leaving her to stand in indecision, glancing from phone to suitcase to the car keys on the bed.

Countless dire possibilities insinuated themselves into Lee’s thoughts while she wondered who to call first. Could she possibly retrieve her own suitcase and make it to the bid letting before two o’clock?

She wasted five minutes telephoning the airline’s passenger information, who told her to call lost and found, who informed her they’d get back to her in half an hour. Frustrated and angry at both herself and the airline, which hadn’t had an attendant checking baggage-claim stubs, Lee finally returned to the airport. When a search of the baggage department proved futile, there seemed little to do except call the home office in Kansas City and admit her blunder.

Lee’s stomach churned as she dialed. She pictured the fat belly and seedy little eyes of Floyd Thorpe, the company president and owner, who never lost an opportunity to remind Lee exactly why he’d hired her. Oh, he’d been waiting for this. Like the self-righteous bigot he was, how he’d been waiting. She knew full well Thorpe gritted his teeth every time they passed each other in the office. He probably visited his psychotherapist every payday after signing her check.

But never in her three years in the construction industry had Lee earned it so dearly.

Floyd Thorpe’s voice fairly shook with rage. He let out a blue streak of cuss words, ending with an order for Lee to “get your liberated female ass to that bid letting and find out who the hell was low bidder, and when you have, get on the next plane home because I’m not—by God—paying for any goddam
woman
to stay in a Colorado motel and eat on my company expense account when she doesn’t know her ass from a catch basin, and any government bureaucrat who think it’s easy to find
minority
employees who are worth diddly can shove his Minority Business Enterprise Goals—”