Promise Me Once

  “Cat, get your ass out of bed and make breakfast! It’s your turn!” A deep voice boomed down the hallway. “NOW!”

  I moaned and rolled over onto my side. My phone caught my eye. It blinked obnoxiously at me from the nightstand, letting me know I had a text. I grabbed it, wishing I could just go back to sleep instead. But that wasn’t a possibility with my two brothers fighting and someone sending me pictures of…

  I sat upright, my phone clutched in my hand. It was a text from Tessa with a picture of me dancing on one of the tables last night.

  “Shiiiiit.”

  The fog of sleep left me. My mind sorted through all the fragmented memories of last night. Tessa and I had drove to another town almost an hour away. We hit the first bar we came to, a place just one step up from Cooper’s. The music had been loud and the place packed. They had been given away free tequila shots to any girl that danced on a table and showed her boobs. Of course I was one of the first ones. People didn’t call me wild for nothing.

  I started typing, my fingers flying over the tiny keypad.

  WTF, Tessa?

  A second later she responded.

  Morning, sunshine. How u feel?

  I answered, hating to be reminded of the sunshine that was now causing a headache to form right behind my eyeballs thanks to all the drinks last night.

  Feel like crap. Erase that pic. Now.

  She responded right away.

  Done. Nathan home?

  I rolled my eyes then wished I hadn’t, the headache now a full-fledged throb. Every girl between the ages of ten and ninety had the hots for my older brother, Nathan. He was cute and nice and everything I was not. Even Tessa, someone that swore to love Junior until her dying day, would have Nathan’s baby if he asked her to.

  I started typing again, wincing when I blinked.

  Yeah, he’s home. Yelling at me right now.

  And he was.

  “CAT! GET UP!” he shouted.

  I groaned and tossed the phone in the middle of my bed. I knew Nathan wouldn’t stop yelling until I made an appearance. That meant I had to drag myself out of bed.

  I pushed the covers back and swung my legs over the side. Cool air blew across my bare legs as I stood up. I was only wearing a skimpy t-shirt and panties. I don’t remember changing into them last night. Oh, well.

  I padded across my bedroom, twisting my long hair up into a messy bun at the same time. I didn’t pay attention to the dirty clothes covering the floor of my room. At some point I had thrown them there, four hundred dollar dresses and six hundred dollar purses. Uncared for and discarded, just like trash. My dad bought them for me, his way of making up for his absence and lack of parenting. If he had asked me what I wanted, I would have told him I would much rather have him home than a fancy dress or designer handbag. But that was never going to happen so I accepted the gifts and smiled, acting like the perfect daughter for the so-called perfect father.

  In the god-awful perfect life.

  I slung open my bedroom door and walked out, glad to be out of the sunshine and in the hallway where it was dark. A quick glance to my right told me that my younger brother, Tate, was in his room, the closed door the one he had slammed minutes ago.

  I didn’t bother knocking on it. Instead I turned and headed down the hallway. The expensive hardwood floor felt cold beneath my bare feet, making me miss the thick carpet that once lined the house. My dad’s third wife – my second step-mom – insisted that all the carpet be pulled up and replaced with wood specially selected and lumbered for her. It had cost more than most people made in a year, but I wasn’t supposed to know that. My dad didn’t and I’m not sure he ever found out either.

  I walked past their room – well, my dad’s room now. He left the third wife for a younger version, but they weren’t married yet. One day he would call and tell us that he had married Bambie or Barbie or whatever her name was. When you own the biggest oil drilling business in Texas, you could do whatever the hell you pleased.

  I passed the other bedrooms – six in total and that was just upstairs. Despite the headache lingering behind my eyes, I jogged down the stairs, making my messy bun bounce with every step. I crossed the living room, noting the empty pizza boxes and Coke cans everywhere. We had a housekeeper but Tate had chased her off last week when he put a barn mouse in her apron pocket. Guess she didn’t share the same love of animals as he did.

  I entered the kitchen a few seconds later with murder in my eyes. It was too early to cook. Too early to be awake. Too early to face Nathan and his bossiness. Just too damn early.

  I found my older brother leaning against the kitchen island, staring at his phone. He had one ankle crossed over the other, looking relaxed and GQ ready like he always did. We were cut from the same cloth, him from Dad’s first wife and me from his second. But Nathan and I were about as different as night and day. He had blonde hair and I had dark. He was good while I was bad. He was loved by all while I was scorned by most.

  Despite the differences, we were very close. Nathan had a hard exterior, a take-no-prisoner’s attitude most of the time, but he loved me no matter what I had done in the past or what I did now. I loved him just as equally, even though he could be an ass sometimes, especially in the mornings.

  “About time you woke up,” he mumbled when I walked in, still studying his phone.

  “Whatever. I need coffee.” I pushed past him to the gourmet coffeemaker on the counter. He moved out of my way, pocketing his phone.

  “What’s for breakfast? It’s your turn to cook,” he said, watching me open up a cabinet to search for a clean coffee cup.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “Really? Cook? Can’t y’all eat toast or something?”

  Nathan walked over to the industrial-sized refrigerator and pulled open one of the doors. He started studying the contents inside. “We agreed that we would take turns making breakfast, Cat. It’s your turn. Deal with it.”

  I sighed. Nathan liked his rules. I just didn’t think when I returned home for the summer that I would have to follow them.

  “Fine. I’ll cook,” I grumbled, watching the coffee sputter from the machine into my cup. As soon as it was done, I added sweetener and stirred it, needing the dark stuff like some people needed crack.

  “We’ve got crap,” Nathan muttered, sticking his head in the refrigerator. “Not a stick of butter or an egg to fry.”

  I took a sip of my coffee, watching as Nathan opened up the freezer and glanced at its empty shelves.

  “Yeah, we’ve got shit.” He shut the door and glanced at me. “Unless we count you because you look like shit, Cat.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him but he just grinned.

  “What did you do last night? Drink half the liquor in town?” he asked.

  “Nope but tried.” I smiled smugly and lifted the coffee cup to my lips to take another sip.

  “What are y’all talking about?” my younger brother asked as he barged into the room. “What did you try, Cat?”

  “None of your business,” Nathan said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest.

  Tate scowled at him. “I ain’t talking to you, Nathan.” He opened up the fridge, sticking his head in just like Nathan did seconds ago. A second later he slammed the fridge door shut and turned to glare at me. “We’ve got crap, sis, and I’m starving. You gonna let me turn into a bag of bones?”

  I set my coffee cup on the counter and headed toward him, eyeing him from the top of his brown, shaggy hair to the bottom of his torn-up, brown boots. He eyed me warily, looking like he might bolt and run any second.

  With the help of a nanny I had raised Tate when his mother – another one of my step-moms – cut and run when he was only six months old. Nathan and I were his family. Not the dad who was never around or the mom who shouldn’t have had a baby in the first place since she was only twenty years old when she had Tate. Nope. We were it – Nathan, Tate, and me. A perfect little, screwed up family.

&n
bsp; When I got closer to Tate my nose started twitching. I took a big whiff. The smell of cow manure lingered on him, mixing with the sweet smell of freshly cut hay.

  “You smell like cow shit, Tater Tot. Go take a shower and we’ll go to town for food,” I said, catching another smell of him.

  Tate scowled, fury shooting from his eyes. “My name ain’t Tater Tot and I don’t stink.” He frowned and eyed me cautiously. “You’re the one who stinks. You smell like the inside of Grandpa’s wine bottle. You go take a shower, Cat, then we’ll go.”

  Nathan chuckled, not helping me much. Ignoring him, I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Fine,” I told Tate. “But you’re going with me to carry the groceries. That’s your punishment for smelling like a cow pasture this early in the morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tate said, saluting me as I turned back to my coffee.

  I froze, my hand reaching for the coffee cup. Not many people said yes ma’am anymore but I suddenly remembered one man who did.

  A cowboy with a low brimmed hat, standing in the rain and smiling at me.

  ~~~~

  “Damn, it’s so fuckin’ hot. You could fry a goddamn egg on the hood.”

  I ignored Tate’s cussing and eased our old farm truck into an empty parking space in front of Craig’s Discount Grocery. My BMW was on the fritz, the engine a goner. Who knows when I would get it back so in the meantime my ride was a dirty pickup.

  The metal Craig’s sign stared back at me through the windshield. The letters were old and faded, matching everything else in this pitiful little town. Why my dad insisted on keeping our family home here, I didn’t know. Sure, when he was home he liked to veg out on the porch, but there wasn’t much left here for me.

  Not anymore.

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat, suddenly hating this little town even more.

  “You gonna sit there all day or we gonna get some food?” Tate asked, staring at me from across the truck.

  I paid no attention to him and turned the rearview mirror down so I could look at myself. Big, dark sunglasses stared back at me, hiding my eyes. I pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear then double-checked my messy bun.

  “Shit, Cat, it’s just the grocery store,” Tate whined, his voice breaking. “It ain’t some damn beauty pageant.”

  I licked my full lips then turned the mirror away.

  “Stop cussing,” I said, grabbing my purse and opening the truck door. “And stop being so bitchy.”

  Tate grumbled under his breath as we got out. Heat from the asphalt rose around us, warming my legs and burning my toes left exposed in my wedge heels.

  I slung my little purse on my shoulder and started across the parking lot to the store. Tate jogged to catch up with me. We passed little ol’ blue-haired ladies pushing squeaky carts to their cars and tired looking moms carrying dirty, bare-footed babies on their hips. Everyone looked exhausted, every bit of energy sucked from them thanks to the high humidity heat.

  I pushed my sunglasses higher on my nose and lengthened my strides, ignoring everyone around. Cool air enveloped me as soon as I stepped into the little discount grocery. So did the smell of mildew. The place was still stuck back in the 1950s, with old cash registers and ancient, rusted carts. It still smelled just as bad as it did when I was a little kid, walking through the doors with my high-maintenance mother. We were stared at then and I was stared at now. Guess nothing’s changed in this small town.

  “Cereal. Cereal. Cereal,” I muttered to myself, reading the drooping signs above each aisle and ignoring the stares of people in the checkout lanes. I could feel their eyes watching me. Judging me. Following me. Let them stare. Let them whisper behind their hands, telling each other, “There goes that Phillips girl. The one that got that boy and girl killed.”

  I stuck my chin higher and threw my head back. Put a little more swing into my step. It’s what I did. A way to fight back. Prove the rumors couldn’t get to me, even if they were true.

  Tate followed close behind me. “I ain’t eating cereal,” he said when we turned down the breakfast aisle. “I need a workingman’s breakfast. Eggs and bacon. Maybe some biscuits.”

  “If I’m cooking, you’re getting cereal.”

  Tate mumbled some colorful curses under his breath.

  I gave him a warning look over my shoulder before grabbing two cereal boxes. “Cheerios or Fruit Loops?” I held up both.

  Tate studied them, his eyes level with mine. For a twelve-year old, he was tall.

  And way too cocky.

  “I’m not two, Cat. I wanna eat bacon like a man,” he complained, his freckled nose scrunching up as he turned and walked away.

  I rolled my eyes and set the box of Cheerios back on the shelf, keeping the Fruit Loops. Minutes later, I found Tate in the meat aisle, studying two different packages of bacon.

  “Peppered or regular?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. The kid took his eating seriously.

  “Peppered,” I said with boredom, glancing around. “Just hurry up—”

  Shit.

  It was him. The cowboy with the stormy gray eyes and the crooked smile. The guy that made me madder than hell and hornier than sin.

  He was standing a few yards away, talking to the butcher behind the meat counter. One of his knees was bent and both of his hands were resting on the counter. He was wearing that damn cowboy hat again. The one that looked trampled and beat up. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it. There was just something about him and that hat that made me weak in the knees.

  Not that he would care. He hadn’t seemed all that impressed with me the other night. The thought still made me mad. I wanted to stomp over there and rip the fuckin’ hat off his head. Toss it to the ground just to see what he would do. I didn’t like feeling vulnerable and I didn’t like being ignored.

  In fact, I refused to be either.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. He laughed at something the butcher said, his laugh too sexy for someone so aggravating. When I heard it I felt like someone had slammed me against the wall, knocking the sense out of me. And that’s just what happened when I looked at him.

  The sense was knocked out of me.

  He turned his head just a little, enough that he saw me. His smile slipped just a smidgen and recognition filled his eyes. He forced his grin back in place and looked directly at me.

  I felt those headstone colored irises pierce mine, sending a jolt through me. The bad girl in me hoped his gaze would travel up and down my body, but it never did. He kept his focus on my face, never wavering as he dropped his hands from the counter and started walking toward me.

  Oh, fuuuuuck!

  “You hear me, Cat? I’m buying hot dogs too,” Tate said behind me, interrupting my cowboy-induced trance.

  “Yeah. Whatever,” I said with a dry mouth, watching a nympho’s dream approach me.

  He had a swagger. Yeah, that’s what I would call it – a swagger. Each step was measured. Sure. Slow and precise. My palms grew sweaty. My heart raced. My breath hitched.

  And it all scared the hell out of me.

  I stuck my chin up and cocked my hip to the side.

  “Hello, cowboy.” I smiled in what I hope was a sarcastic, smug smirk that let him know he was the last person I wanted to see. “Lucky you meeting me here.”

  The cowboy’s grin only grew wider as he sauntered toward me.

  “Who the hell is he?” Tate asked from behind me, his voice raising an octave then dropping.

  “A guy,” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.

  “No shit,” Tate said sarcastically, eyeing the cowboy up and down. “You know him?”

  I swallowed hard, my mouth still dry as a desert. “Yeah.” I let my gaze travel over the cowboy’s dusty jeans and dirt-encrusted boots. “I mean no,” I backtracked with a small shake of my head. “Not really.”

  Tate grunted, his new form of conversation. “Whatever. Girls are confusing as hell. I’m gonna go hunt me some eg
gs. Meet you up front.”

  My gaze stayed on the cowboy as Tate walked away. My knees felt weak. My face felt hot. I wanted to take a step back. Run after my little brother. Hide from the feelings coursing through me.

  But I was Catarina Phillips. I didn’t run from anything and I wouldn’t start now.

  I stuck my chin up higher as the cowboy got closer. A couple of feet away, he stopped. The air crackled. I forgot how to breathe. Pure, unadulterated anticipation froze me in place.

  He was taller than me and I was tall for a girl. The top of my head reached his chest, giving him at least a good foot on me. He looked strong, with toned, lean muscles. His body was sleek and a dangerous vibe seemed to radiate off him.

  My gaze dropped, just a fraction. It traveled over his full lips and down his chiseled jaw. It stopped at the small hollow at the base of his neck, left exposed by his open shirt collar. I had a flitting image of me pressing my lips to that spot. The thought just made me mad.

  “Cat,” he said in greeting, giving me a short nod. His voice like the softest silk money could buy. My name on his lips had the ability to send a shiver through me.

  I hated it.

  “You remembered my name? I’m surprised,” I said with a nasty smirk, crossing my arms over my chest and then tapping my foot. “I thought you might have been too busy playing the mute knight in shining armor the other night to remember me.”

  One of his eyebrows lifted. His gaze shot down to my tapping toes, his brow quirking up even more.

  “Yeah, well can’t forget a cat with claws,” he drawled, his eyes moving up my body slowly, laughter in them.

  I bristled. He was enjoying himself at my expense. Time to show him who he was messing with.

  I glanced down at his dusty, old boots. With a look of contempt, I raised one finely arched eyebrow.

  “Sorry cowboy, but I forgot your name.”

  He chuckled, low and deep and averted his gaze, rubbing the tip of his nose with his index finger in a nervous gesture.

  Good, I thought with smugness. He made me hot and bothered; I’d make him nervous. Serves him right.

  But when he raised his eyes, looking at me from beneath his cowboy hat, I was the one who grew nervous. I sucked in a breath. They held something that shook me to my core.