Promises Linger (Promise Series) (47 page)

Part of her wanted to argue, but he was right. . Either she trusted Asa to handle things or she didn’t.

“You won’t get into a fight?”

“Not unless I’m provoked.”

“You promise?”

He paused on the way to the door. “I promise I won’t hurt your precious Aaron unless there’s no choice.”

She really was going to have to take a sledgehammer to her husband’s stubborn pride. “I wasn’t worried about Aaron.” He stopped and turned. While she had his attention, she added for good measure. “And you were wrong earlier.”

“About what?”

“I wasn’t trying to tell you I trusted you.”

His only response was a surprised lift of his right eyebrow. She bit her lip and then risked it all. “I was trying to say I love you.”

He stood like he’d been pole-axed. Not a muscle moved anywhere on his body, but his eyes burned almost black with emotion. Her pulse hammered in her ears. Her impetuous revelation might have been a miscalculation, she decided, as he struggled to get himself together. She counted ten beats of her heart before Asa found his voice. If he hadn’t been so obviously off balance, she might have been crushed by his reply.

A low drawled, “Thank you, darlin’,” as the man slipped through the bedroom door was hardly the response of a woman’s dreams.

* * * * *

She stared at the closed door and decided it was a miscalculation making her announcement just then. As much as she wanted him to know he ranked first with her, telling Asa she loved him as he went to confront her best friend whom he regarded as an enemy might not have the calming effect she’d been hoping for. It might, in fact, trigger all those over-protective instincts she was trying to soothe.

She listened to Asa’s steps descend the stairs. When he hit the small landing two steps from the bottom, he paused. She pictured him in her mind, getting his bearings and settling his expression into controlled amusement. When his steps didn’t resume immediately, her grin spread to a full smile. Poor baby, she must have really thrown him with her declaration of love.

The smile dropped as he continued down the stairs. She heard the study door creak open. She held her breath. If the men were going to drop each other on sight, this would be the moment. Gunshots didn’t boom, but voices did. She caught a stray “son of a bitch” and a harsh, “cold day in hell” before the study door slammed closed.

Neither did anything to settle her nerves. She started grabbing clothes willy-nilly from the dresser. She winced when a “the hell I do” shook the rafters. It would be a lot easier to let Asa handle things if she was confident the matter would be settled with discussion and not fists. For all his bluster, Asa wasn’t completely healed. Aaron knew it, too, because she’d mentioned the shooting in her note. If he took advantage of that, she’d—

She looked around the room, glanced under the bed, and found inspiration. She’d brain him with the chamber pot.

No more shouts broke through the muffling aspect of the closed door. All she could hear was the rise and fall of incomprehensible murmurs. She sat on the bed and dragged on her shoes. Wielding the boot hook like a weapon, she buttoned them tightly. When she was done, she strained to make out the conversation below. With no success.

She sprang to her feet and paced. They had no right to shut her out. She was as much a part of the problem as any of them. She had a right to be part of the solution, darn it! The rhythmic squeaking of the floor grated on her nerves. Grabbing the pillow she’d just finished embroidering the other day, she plopped into the wing-backed chair. She looked down at the needlework and shook her head. Her fingers traced over the intricate embroidery spelling out ‘Home, Sweet Home’. She crushed the pillow between her fingers before dropping it back into her lap. If Asa wanted his home to be sweet in the future, she decided, grabbing hairpins off the small table and twisting her hair up, he was going to have to stop being so darned protective.

A loud crash and a shaking of the floor beneath her feet startled her into jabbing a hair pin into her finger rather than her bun. She jerked her hand away. Every muscle in her body turned to stone as she sat, waiting, finger in her mouth, hoping against hope for a resumption of the shouting.

The floor shook again and she heaved a sigh. So much for peaceful solutions. She got up and jabbed the last hair pin into her hair. Dropping the pillow on the chair, she headed for the door. Her deal with Asa hadn’t included sacrificing her heirlooms to brawling.

She winced as another crash shook the walls. Damn Aaron! If he took advantage of Asa’s condition, he was going to have to deal with her. She hit the landing just as Aaron and Asa came hurtling through the study door. By leaning over the banister, she was able to save her Momma’s favorite vase from the table positioned below. The table was a total loss, shattering as four hundred pounds of angry male collided with it.

“Stop it!” she hollered around the flowers she’d spent a half hour arranging yesterday.

Her shout was lost amid the thump as both men landed on the floor, Aaron first with Asa on top.

“Don’t think they heard you.”

She looked up to find Cougar standing in the doorway to the study. An unlit cigarette rested between his lips.

“Why aren’t you stopping this?” she demanded.

His response was a shrug and a half smile as Asa landed a decent punch to Aaron’s face. “Doesn’t appear they’re through discussing things.”

She jumped as Aaron flipped Asa up into the railing. If they kept up this level of discussion, she wouldn’t have a house left. “They’re through.”

She tipped the large vase over, smiling as water and roses spilled onto the two men, conveniently landing in their faces and filling their noses and mouths.

As they spluttered and choked, she rested the vase on the railing and looked over at Cougar. “Do you think I have their attention now?”

His half smile turned to a full grin. “It would appear so.” His right eyebrow went up. With a dip of his chin, he redirected her attention. “At least, for the moment.”

She looked down to find the two men wiping blood and water from their faces, eyeing each other as if they were contemplating a rematch. “If you even think of resuming your previous unpleasantness, there will be hell to pay,” she informed them in no uncertain terms.

Asa’s resigned, “Aw, hell!” came on the heels of Aaron’s shocked, “Elizabeth!”

She ignored Asa and focused on Aaron. “Don’t you dare reprimand me for my language when you come into my house and pick a fight with a helpless man.”

“Helpless, my ass!” Asa growled.

Aaron stared at her, then looked at the blood on the hand he’d just pulled from his face. “Have you looked at me? This isn’t soup on my face.”

She refused to be swayed. “No matter how good an accounting Asa managed to give of himself, the fact remains that you knew he was injured and you picked a fight.”

Aaron wiped the blood on his pants, looked at Asa, and glanced over to Cougar who was all but doubled up with mirth. “You can’t believe I started this.”

“I most certainly do,” she snapped. “Asa is too intelligent a man to overlook the disadvantage his injuries present.”

Asa leaned his shoulder against the banister. She noted how gingerly he did it, and worried as he groaned and said, “I tried to keep it peaceable.”

“I’m sure you did.” She glared at Aaron. “I’m well aware of how hotheaded Aaron can be.”

“I didn’t provoke a damned thing and you know it!” Aaron growled at Asa, looking like he wanted to start up all over again.

The expression Asa turned on her was as eloquent as his see-what-I-mean shrug.

“If you didn’t start this fight, Aaron, how did it begin?” She shifted the vase more comfortably on the banister as she waited for his answer.

Aaron wiped his sleeve over his face. “I came over here as soon as I got your note. And, as soon as I stepped over the threshold, your
husband
,” he sneered the word, “started flinging wild accusations at me. Accusing me of shooting him and sinking the Rocking C.”

“I notice you didn’t deny it,” Asa piped up.

“Who the hell had time?” Aaron protested. “No sooner had you stopped throwing lies when you started throwing punches.”

Elizabeth turned on Asa. “Is that true?”

“Well…”

“I didn’t ask for prevarication. I asked if it were true.”

“Sorta.” Asa pushed a bit away from the wall, held his ribs and groaned.

Since she knew, if he were really hurt, he wouldn’t utter a sound, she ignored the blatant ploy to distract her attention. “You promised me you’d keep things civilized unless you were provoked,” she reminded him.

“Uh-huh.”

The glance he cast Aaron was full of frustrated anger. Her suspicions leapt to the fore. “Were you provoked?”

He shifted his weight and groaned louder.

“You’re wasting your time,” she informed him at his theatrics. “I’m not going to be distracted.” She tapped the vase gently on the banister. “Were you provoked?”

To her surprise, Aaron leapt to Asa’s rescue, making her instantly suspicious. “Now that I think back on it, I might have said a few things out of line.”

“That is true, ma’am,” Cougar spoke up.

She stared at them. All three wore identical expressions of sincerity. All three were suddenly united in a common goal where, just a few minutes ago, they’d been ready to bring her house down around her. What didn’t they want her to know?

“I don’t believe any of you,” she informed them.

All three had the gall to look shocked.

Something was definitely up, she decided. About the only thing that would cause Asa to do an about face was if he was protecting her. She looked at Aaron. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

She leaned her elbows on the banister and said, “You know, Aaron, the last time I saw that muscle twitching in your cheek and an expression that innocent on your face, you’d just told the teacher I was the one who’d put the frog in her lunch box.”

Aaron paused from wiping a trickle of blood from his mouth. “That was a long time ago, Elly.”

“Just goes to show that some things never change.”

“Miss Panetta liked you. I knew she’d go easy on you.”

“I’m sure, in your mind, that made it all right.”

“You only had to do a little writing. Me, she would have taken out to the shed.”

“And rightly so, since it was the fourth time you’d played that prank.”

“I didn’t like her.”

She sighed. “And you thought, if you could drive her away, we’d find someone you’d like better.”

“Yeah.”

“You always did think you knew best for everyone, but, for your information, Aaron, I liked Miss Panetta and didn’t want her to leave.”

“That’s probably why she stuck around so long.”

Elizabeth smiled. After all these years, he was still frustrated at not having his plan work out. “That and the fact she married up with the blacksmith.”

Cougar’s low laugh filtered into the room. “He wasn’t any more successful at preventing that than he was her teaching.”

Asa looked at Aaron. “Seems you have a habit of sticking your nose where it’s not wanted.”

“People don’t always know what’s good for them.”

“And you do?” Elizabeth asked.

Aaron folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the stair casing. “Did the blacksmith regret marrying the school marm?”

“I’m sure Miss Panetta’s marriage problems stem from things other than what a ten-year-old boy could foresee.”

“That and the blacksmith’s weekend habits,” Cougar offered, earning him a glare from Asa, which prompted a “begging your pardon” in Elizabeth’s direction.

“None of that changes the fact that I knew the marriage was a mistake,” Aaron pointed out.

With equal confidence, Elizabeth said, “And none of that changes that I know you’ve done something I need to know about.”

Asa looked at Elizabeth, then at Aaron. He seemed to deliberate before, with a wipe of his hand on his pants, he came to a decision. “Tell her.”

Aaron glanced at him like he’d sprouted a second head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Elizabeth was about to argue when she noted the set of Asa’s jaw. She settled back on her elbows and amused herself by rocking the vase on the banister.

Asa plucked a flower from where it sat adorning his lap. “I have to disagree with you there.” He looked up at her. “You rescuing these?” She shook her head. He flicked the flower to the front door before turning back to Aaron. “The way I see it, I can either climb into bed with you by keeping your secret or I can cuddle up with Elizabeth.” He looked Aaron over from head to toe before sending another flower winging to the front door. “No offense, but my wife’s got you beat nine ways to heaven when it comes to things I admire.”

Aaron looked to Cougar for support as he said, “There’s no reason to upset Elizabeth with something dead and buried…”