Promises to Keep (17 page)

"In Jessie's case, such an attitude is understandable," he mused. "She has a body most women in their twenties would give ten years off their lives to possess, so clothes to her are like gilt to the lily."

"Do you especially admire full-figured women?" Julie asked, hoping he would give a negative reply.

He nodded with daunting enthusiasm. "What man wouldn't admire a woman with a figure like Jessie's? She's a veritable goddess. I'd like to have seen her when she was young. She really must have been something."

Julie's expression was crestfallen and she hurriedly lowered her eyes.

"
However
," Garth asserted, "it's always been my contention that there are more important considerations than size." He ran one finger along the slope of her collarbone and continued audaciously, barely suppressing his laughter. "If a woman has the right instincts and she's a good armful and her, uh, measurements provide a nice
handful
, I've never been known to complain."

Julie's eyes flashed up at him. Her cheeks were vivid with embarrassment. "Did you wake me up just so you'd have someone to tease?"

"No," he denied evenly. "It's not that you aren't delightfully easy to provoke, but my primary mission was to let you know that Dan and Jessie have gone out for the evening and"—he paused briefly for emphasis—"in their absence,
I
have prepared dinner." He stood and walked toward the door. "It's on the table and if you don't hurry, it'll be cold before we have a chance to eat it, so I'll see you downstairs in a few minutes, okay?"

"Okay," she echoed faintly, taken aback by the idea of Garth slaving over a hot stove.

He nodded and went into the hall, only to lean back around the edge of the door and deliver a villainous ogle.

"Do me a favor," he said. "Wear your dress for dinner."

"If you l-like," she acceded diffidently.

"Oh, I like." He grinned meaningfully. "I like very much!"

After he had gone, she threw back the covers and hurried to get into her clothes. Her hands were made all thumbs by her excitement and she ruined two pairs of pantyhose before she gave up and slipped her sandals on over her bare feet. As she brushed her hair until it shone richly dark in contrast to her fair skin, she surveyed her appearance in the mirror.

The dress had a halter top and a simple, knife-pleated skirt. Its warm coral, gold, and pink hues suited her very well. She applied a little eye shadow and some peach-tinted lip gloss and she was ready. At the top of the stairs she stopped to catch her breath before she made a sedate descent.

Garth was waiting in the hall just outside of the kitchen. He was playing the role of maitre d' to the hilt and, without speaking, he led her to the table, where he seated her with a great show of formality. He filled her wineglass with Cold Duck and removed the warming cover from the plate at her place with a flourish. When she saw the submarine sandwich, the pickle, and potato salad that were arranged there, she burst into laughter.

Between giggles she asked weakly, "H-how can a s-sandwich and salad get cold?"

"It's pastrami," Garth revealed, pleased by how well his audience had received his joke.

"Mmmm, my favorite!" Julie said enthusiastically as she bit hungrily into hers.

"I remember," Garth said.

He offered her some corn chips and took a handful for himself. He seemed not to have noticed that she'd startled herself when she'd dredged up another memory, even if it was only about pastrami.

"Where did Dan and Jessie go?"

Garth grinned widely. "Would you believe a square dance?"

"With Dan's gout? That doesn't seem very likely."

"Exactly my reaction," Garth confirmed sagely, "but that's where they claimed they were headed. They particularly stressed the point that they wouldn't be home before we'd gone to bed."

"They'll probably skulk around outside until they see the lights go out."

"In that case, maybe we should make sure we have an early night."

His voice was suddenly serious, and Julie's heart skipped a beat before it knocked heavily against her ribs. She sought to hide the fact that he'd disconcerted her by taking a sip of wine, only to sputter when it went down the wrong way.

Except for this lapse, however, their meal was a pleasant one. They conversed easily and as they lingered at the table, he drinking coffee and she her preferred tea, it was the Cold Duck that launched Garth on the topic of how they'd met.

"This is the winery you used to work for." He indicated the label on the bottle. "Their Cold Duck isn't bad, but they have an exceptional Pinot Noir and a fine Gamay Beaujolais. Their reputation is based on the excellence of their varietal wines."

"How did we happen to meet again after all those years?" she asked.

"We were introduced by friends." His eyes glinted with devilish enjoyment, and he immediately contradicted his statement. "No. That's not the precise truth," he said. "That was how we met for the
third
time."

"Now you've aroused my curiosity!"

Garth chuckled. "I told you that you'd worked as a tour guide."

Julie nodded eagerly.

"Well, a friend of mine, Rod Parent, was dating another of the tour guides. Things were progressing satisfactorily between them until you came on the scene."

"How did I interfere?"

"You were assigned to share Betty's cottage," he replied, smiling nostalgically. "Rod asked me to agree to a blind date with you in order to get you out of their hair, so he and Betty could have the place to themselves for the night. I didn't place your name until later and I wasn't too keen on the prospect. I hadn't been on a blind date since Lord knows when, but I owed Rod a favor, so I caved in. Needless to say, since I was roped into it, my mood wasn't the best, and that's why I gave you such a hard time."

"A hard time…" she repeated blankly.

"Rod and I arrived about four in the afternoon. It was Betty's day off, and they were getting an early start, so I had some time to kill. I decided to spend part of it going through the winery. They hadn't told me you were the guide on duty, and I was disruptive." He shook his head. "Perhaps I'm being too easy on myself, because you'd only just finished your training, and it was obvious you were nervous. At the time though, I was feeling so perverse, it seemed entertaining to heckle you."

Julie's eyes were round with disbelief. "That was an awful thing to do!"

"I know," Garth conceded, shrugging and trying unsuccessfully to look contrite. "But, never fear, you got your own back on me! Besides, you blushed so predictably. I'd never seen a girl as easy to embarrass as you. I kept interrupting you and every time I did, you had to go back to the start of your spiel. Apparently that was the only way you could recite it."

She laughed merrily with him. "It sounds funny enough now," she commented when she had sobered, "but I'll bet I wasn't at all amused at the time."

"No, you weren't," Garth said wryly, "and I have to admit that was a major part of the attraction for me. I was taking out my resentment on you. It wasn't a very nice thing to do, but I wasn't in a 'nice' frame of mind."

"You said I got even with you though," she reminded him.

"And then some," Garth exclaimed. "The last stop on the tour was the gift shop and tasting room. By then I was feeling fairly well pleased with myself. Actually,
smug
is what I was. You were passing out wine to the people on the tour and you served the other customers and opened a fresh bottle before you asked if I'd care for a sample. You were so damnably demure that I thought, This girl can't be for real! I couldn't resist making one last wisecrack—and frankly it was a more than usually explicit one—at which point you poured a whole fifth of Chablis right where it did the most to dampen my spirits."

"Is that all?" She feigned nonchalance. She was finding it hard to keep from laughing.

"What do you mean, 'Is that
all
'? It was cold as hell!" He shuddered at the recollection and gave her a pained look. "My God, woman, what more do you want?"

"I'd like to know what you said to prompt such a reaction."

Garth looked pointedly at the teacup she had just refilled. "I don't think I care to risk repeating it while you're holding a
hot
drink."

"I'll put it down then."

She did this and watched him so expectantly that he shifted uneasily in his chair.

"I'm not sure I can quote myself exactly," he stalled.

"A general idea will do," she persisted brightly. She leaned one elbow on the table and cupped her chin with her hand to cover a furtive smile. If she didn't know better, she'd think Garth was blushing. The tips of his ears were certainly a healthy pink.

"Well—" He hesitated. "Look, Julie, it's going to sound really stupid under these conditions."

"I don't mind," she said airily.

"Of course
you
don't! I'm the one who's going to look like an ass." He slammed his own cup down on the table and sighed resignedly. "All right," he growled, "since you're so blasted anxious to hear it. It was something to the effect that I wouldn't be content with just a sample, and that the real test of manhood was being able to, uh, make love—for as long as it takes to empty an entire bottle of wine—"

"Only you meant emptying the bottle by drinking the wine," she finished sweetly.

Garth nodded. He was decidedly flustered. "And you proceeded to pour it out in two seconds or less!" A foolish grin spread across his face. "And to add insult to injury you apologized for revealing my
shortcomings
. So I figure I got more than I deserved."

"Altogether, it doesn't sound as if it was a very promising start to a blind date," Julie remarked pensively.

"It wasn't. And the evening was more of the same. If anything it was
worse
. You were steamed because I might have gotten you fired. Still, you had to acknowledge I'd gone to bat for you with your boss. So when I explained the problem Rod and Betty were having finding some privacy, you insisted on being dropped off in town. You planned to go to a double feature and stay at the movie theater until it was late enough to go home."

"I told myself I was happy to be rid of you. I thought I never wanted to see you again. But I couldn't get you out of my mind. The next weekend I went back to the winery with Rod—he was my excuse, you see—and that was when I discovered who your father was."

"Did that time go any better?"

His smile faded. "Not much," he said glumly. "I made the fatal mistake of kissing you. From then on I was sunk and I knew it."

"Didn't we have any common interests?" she asked wistfully.

"Enough, I suppose," he replied brusquely. "We both enjoyed all sorts of music, wind-surfing, going to the beach—that type of thing."

She could tell from the abstracted way he'd answered that he was deep in thought and, sighing regretfully over the fact that their lighthearted conversation had ended on such a low note, she began clearing the table.

They did go to bed early that night but because of her nap Julie was wakeful. She lay quietly with her back to Garth, reliving the events of the evening.

After they'd tidied the kitchen and set out some food for Buck, Garth put a Brahms concerto on the stereo. They hadn't bothered to light the fire, since neither of them wanted to leave it burning when they turned in. When they put Buck outside, they waited on the porch for him to complete his nightly circuit of the grounds and they'd laughed at his antics as he frolicked around the yard, as frisky as a puppy, until he ran out of sight behind the garage.

Garth stood by the railing with his feet planted firmly apart and his head thrown back as he looked up at the sky. In this lordly stance his pride was flagrantly apparent, but for some reason Julie was no longer put off by it.

"Will you look at those stars," Garth said in a subdued voice. "They're so close, you'd swear you could reach up and grab a handful of them."

"I know," she agreed reverently. "It's so clear, it's hard to believe that snow is forecast for tomorrow."

It was true that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but the night air was icy; a penetrating wind was blowing from the northwest. Julie snuggled more closely into her sweater, burying her chin in the heavy shawl collar. There was no moon and although the more prominent glaciers and snowfields dimly reflected the starlight, the saw-toothed ridges of the Tetons were more envisioned than actually seen.

The howl of a coyote reverberated from far away and the darkness underscored the eeriness of the cry. Julie felt the short hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end; the skin on her forearms broke out in goose-flesh. The call was repeated, and from a different direction the counterpoint was picked up when another animal joined the plaintive song. She sidled closer to Garth while they listened to the desolate duet. On and on went the weird harmony, and the wild cries of yearning spoke to something equally primitive within her.

Garth was also affected. His shoulders were hunched and his hands were clenched about the porchrail so tightly, the knuckles were a stark bone-white through his sun-browned skin.

"God," he muttered hoarsely. "That's got to be the loneliest sound in the world."

Wanting to comfort him, Julie had put her hand over one of his, but he hadn't seemed to notice.

Would she ever truly understand him? she wondered. Somehow she didn't think so. She knew some of his moods; she had learned—the hard way—that the color of his eyes was a reliable indicator of a few of them: Gray for anger, for disapproval, for pride. Green for contentment, for concern—for passion? Gold for humor, for teasing, for happiness. And sometimes they were a mixture of all three. What did that signify? Doubt, perhaps? Or rare indecision?

It bewildered her to think that for the past few days he had so frequently questioned her reasons for marrying him, while she had never once mustered sufficient courage to ask him why he had married her. For her it was enough to know that Garth was her husband and that she loved him.
Oh, God
, she acknowledged silently,
I love him so much
. Everything else seemed to pale into insignificance in the radiance of that miracle.