Promise, Texas

  In the two weeks since they’d met at the movie, she’d thought almost constantly of Adam. She’d hoped to hear from him and was disappointed she hadn’t.

  She’d attempted to be kind in her earlier rejections, but knew she’d hurt his pride. Her one fear now was that Adam wouldn’t be inclined to accept her apology.

  She made an effort to look casual as she worked her way across the room. “Been to any good movies lately?” she asked him a few minutes later.

  “None to speak of.”

  Before she could continue the conversation, he moved off, joining a cluster of men that included Cal Patterson and his brother, Glen. Jeannie tried to ignore her disappointment. She chatted with Martie, the school secretary, all the while searching for Adam, hoping she wasn’t being too obvious. She couldn’t believe he’d leave so soon.

  “Are you eating Milk Duds or popcorn these days?”

  Jeannie whirled around to find the sheriff standing behind her. “Popcorn.”

  He smiled in approval. “Plain or buttered?”

  As she’d told him earlier, she’d never been good at word games. But she waded in, anyway. “Buttered,” she told him. “The real thing, too.”

  “Same for me,” he murmured.

  Jeannie suspected more was being discussed here than snack-food preferences—which was fine with her.

  “Well, I see you two are finally talking to each other.”

  Jeannie hadn’t noticed Max Jordan until he spoke. Both of Adam’s parents joined them, looking pleased with themselves, as if they were solely responsible for this moment of potential romance. Margaret smiled benevolently at Jeannie, hand tucked inside her husband’s elbow.

  “Glad to see it,” Max said. “Always thought it was a damn shame that my son—”

  “Dad,” Adam warned in a low growl.

  “Go on,” Jeannie urged Max, wanting to hear what he had to say.

  Max glanced between her and his son. “On second thought, I think Adam would prefer to do his own talking.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” Adam said stiffly.

  The four of them stood there for a few minutes and made small talk about the weather, the loveliness of the bride, and the annual Fourth of July Willie Nelson Festival, which would be held once again without Willie’s presence. A few years earlier, the star had unexpectedly shown up at the annual rodeo and chili cook-off and people still talked about it. As soon as Max finished a story about Cal Patterson and an ornery rodeo bull, Margaret looked at her son. “Well, are you going to ask her?”

  “Ask her what?”

  “To dinner,” his mother said patiently.

  “Personally, I think you ought to take Jeannie out to see Bitter End,” his father suggested. “Have you visited the old town yet?” he asked her.

  “As a matter of fact, I haven’t—” she smiled at Adam “—and I’d very much like to.”

  “Adam can arrange that, can’t you, son?” Max said.

  “Perhaps,” Adam agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  For the second time that night, Jeannie’s spirits fell with Adam’s departure. Everything had seemed to come together nicely once his parents joined the conversation, but then Adam had walked away again. Jeannie felt deflated. She’d never been any good at this romance thing. Finding the right man seemed easy enough in love stories. Usually the heroine recognized him in the first few chapters—but not Jeannie. She flailed around, ignored a good man and then insulted him, and now she didn’t know how to set things straight.

  Lucas and Annie were getting ready to leave for their honeymoon when Jeannie saw Adam step out of the hall. She gauged her time carefully and followed him into the parking lot.

  “Sheriff Jordan,” she called out as he neared his patrol car.

  He turned at the sound of her voice.

  Fortunately no one else was there. “Do you have a minute?”

  “I…” He glanced at his watch, but she didn’t give him the opportunity to respond.

  “Good. First, I want to say I’m sorry. Earlier, you said you were interested in dating me and I told you I didn’t think that was a good idea. I’m afraid I might have spoken…hastily.” She couldn’t get much more direct than that. It was up to him now.

  He seemed to consider her words, then he nodded, turned and walked away. Again. Well, that answered that.

  By the time Jeannie got home, she felt even worse. It was for times like this that chocolate was created, as every woman knew. Not wanting to leave the house on a chocolate run, she scrounged around the kitchen. The best she could come up with was a half-full sack of stale chocolate chips. She tasted one, then threw them out.

  Okay, no chocolate. Desperate to find comfort, she ran bathwater and emptied an entire bottle of a perfumed bath concoction under the faucet. Bubbles exploded and grew to a frothy towering mass.

  Jeannie didn’t care. She waited until the bubbles died down a little, then stripped off her clothes and sank into the hot water, sighing deeply.

  Eyes closed, she soaked for probably an hour, replenishing the hot water from time to time. She soaked until her skin was wrinkled and prunelike. And then she had to stand under the shower to rinse off the soapy residue of the bubble bath.

  With her head wrapped in a towel and her terry-cloth robe securely cinched around her waist, she wandered barefoot into the living room and turned on the television. Lucas and Annie were about to embark on their honeymoon, and the best she could do was reruns of Law & Order.

  The show had just started when the doorbell chimed. Peering through the peephole, she saw Adam Jordan standing there. Under any other circumstances she would have hurled open the door and greeted him enthusiastically. But not when she looked like this!

  That was her problem, Jeannie decided. Her timing was all wrong. He was interested and she wasn’t. Now she was interested and he wasn’t. Hell, she didn’t care what she looked like, she wanted to know why he was at her front door.

  Doing her best to pretend her appearance was perfectly normal, she opened the door. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said as nonchalantly as she could.

  He squinted at her, but didn’t speak.

  “Yes?” she urged.

  “Do you still want to go to Bitter End?”

  She brightened. “Yes.”

  “Is tomorrow all right?”

  She nodded. “That would be perfect. Two o’clock?”

  “Two o’clock.” He stepped away from her porch.

  It was all Jeannie could do not to toss off her towel and dance a jig.

  CHAPTER 16

  Any attempt at a honeymoon had seemed farcical to Lucas, but his mother, a hopeless romantic, had insisted the newlyweds at least take the weekend to themselves; the girls would stay with his parents. Lucas talked it over with Annie, and they’d decided to spend the weekend in San Antonio. Annie had never seen the Alamo or the famous River Walk, with its shops and restaurants. Their choice thrilled his mother, who thought San Antonio was the most romantic city in Texas.

  It was dark by the time they checked into their downtown hotel. He’d reserved a room with two queen-size beds; although he’d agreed to father a child with Annie, he assumed she wouldn’t be ready for intimacy this soon. Not when he’d stopped their wedding to tell her he’d never be able to love her. It astonished—and humbled—him that she’d been willing to proceed with the ceremony.

  “Would you like to take a walk?” he asked. It was far too early to turn in for the night. He recognized his suggestion for what it was—a delaying tactic. He didn’t know if she intended to sleep in the same bed with him, and hadn’t yet worked up the courage to ask her. Although he suspected the answer would be no.

  “A walk sounds perfect,” Annie said, reaching for her purse.

  Out on the paved walkway, they held hands and strolled leisurely past the nightclubs, hotels and restaurants. The full moon lit the darker areas and Tejano music—the music of south Texas—created a lively festive atmosphere. Flat-bottomed tour
boats cruised lazily up and down the old canal.

  Lucas hoped that while they walked he could apologize for stopping the wedding; he just wasn’t sure how to explain what had happened. Annie might prefer he say nothing, considering how much the episode must have embarrassed her.

  But Lucas felt he had to speak. “I’m sorry about…earlier—at the wedding,” he said after they’d walked for ten minutes or so.

  “It was the right thing for you to do.”

  That was all she said. He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. He wanted to say that he needed her, cared for her, but couldn’t make vows that would be impossible to honor. Apparently she didn’t want to hear it. He sighed, not realizing until that moment how nervous he’d been about her reaction. She seemed to accept what he’d done. But how did she really feel?

  They walked in companionable silence for another thirty minutes, then turned and headed back in the direction of the hotel. The uncomfortable issue regarding their sleeping arrangements hadn’t been settled. It was a difficult subject to broach. However, the sooner he understood what was expected of him, the better. “The room has two beds,” he said, hoping he sounded casual.

  “I noticed.”

  “Do you…are you planning to sleep alone? Would you prefer we not share a bed yet? I realize eventually we’ll be involved, uh, physically, but…” It occurred to him then that she might assume he intended to make love to her that very night. “Not that I was expecting we’d…I’m not planning on anything…happening—”

  “Lucas—”

  “Not unless you wanted to, of course,” he rushed to add. He wished they’d decided all this before the wedding.

  “How about if we start by sleeping in the same bed?” she suggested.

  That was fine with Lucas. Other than Julia, he hadn’t had much experience with women. He’d much rather move slowly. He yearned to do the right thing by her, and as he’d already discovered, that wasn’t always easy.

  By the time they neared the hotel, Lucas felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from him. He’d let her know he felt badly about putting her in a difficult position during the wedding, and they’d arrived at a decision about their sleeping arrangements. Not a bad beginning, he felt. At least they were able to communicate.

  He noticed, however, that Annie’s steps slowed the closer they got to the hotel, until eventually she came to a stop.

  “Lucas, there’s something I need to tell you before we go back to the room.”

  “Okay.” He could see that whatever it was concerned her deeply. Annie held herself stiffly and her hands were clenched.

  “You already know I was in a car accident.”

  “Yes.” But he wasn’t about to ask questions. Any details would have to be freely offered by Annie herself. She hadn’t pried into his marriage to Julia, and he wasn’t going to investigate her past, either.

  “I…” She hesitated, pulling her hand free of his and wrapping her arms around her waist. “Before we go to bed, you should know that I—” She turned away from him.

  “Annie?” He wanted to hold her, comfort her, reassure her, but wasn’t sure he had that right. And he wasn’t sure she wanted his comfort. Or his touch.

  She turned back to face him, her shoulders squared, her face blank, revealing no emotion. “The accident left scars, Lucas. Ugly scars. A lot of them. They won’t fade and they won’t go away.”

  So that was it. He reached for her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I have scars, too, Annie, just as many, just as ugly, only you can’t see mine.”

  She blinked, and he smiled and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her near. “It’s those scars that brought you into my life,” he reminded her.

  He’d made a wise choice in marrying Annie Applegate. A very wise choice, indeed. His children—and his friends—had recognized the possibilities long before he saw them himself, but Lucas had certainly come to appreciate the idea.

  An hour later, after a quick shower, Lucas pulled back the sheets and climbed into bed. The lamp on the nightstand beside him was on, and while Annie had a bath, he flipped through a glossy restaurant-and-shopping guide he’d found in the room.

  Slowly the bathroom door opened, and Annie walked out in a white floor-length Victorian-style gown that was as beautiful as it was simple.

  Lucas felt his heart slam against his chest. Apparently he was more ready for the physical side of their marriage than he’d realized. He hated to stare but couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Do you normally sleep on the left side of the bed?” she asked.

  Somehow, he managed to break the trance. “If you want, I can switch.” His voice sounded higher than normal.

  “No, this is fine.” She busied herself folding back the sheets.

  “Shall I turn off the light?” he asked once she’d slipped into bed. She lay rigidly on her back with her arms outside the covers.

  “If you’d like.”

  Lucas reached for the switch and the room went dark.

  “How long do you think we’re going to continue being this polite with each other?” Annie asked, a smile in her voice.

  “I don’t know. I guess we should enjoy it while we can.”

  The silence stretched between them. This was their honeymoon; it didn’t seem right just to say good-night, roll over and go to sleep, but he didn’t know what Annie expected of him. He wished again that he could hold her, tell her how grateful he was that she’d married him.

  He hesitated, not wanting her to misread his suggestion. Finally he said, “Annie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Would it be all right if I moved closer to you?”

  Lucas heard the almost imperceptible sigh of relief. “I wish you would. I had no idea a queen-size bed had this much room in it.”

  Annie rolled onto her side, facing him, and he shifted toward her. She was warm and soft and smelled faintly of jasmine.

  “That’s much better,” Annie said, placing her hand in his, lacing their fingers together.

  It was a vast improvement as far as Lucas was concerned, too. He closed his eyes and as he drifted off to sleep, it occurred to him that this had been his wedding day and he hadn’t kissed his bride even once.

  Adam didn’t think he’d ever been as upset with his parents as he was at the wedding reception. Their attempt to arrange a date between him and Jeannie had been the worst kind of embarrassment. He’d been forced to leave rather than say something he’d regret later. To his amazement, Jeannie had followed him into the parking lot.

  She wanted to apologize, she said, wanted to get to know him. Fine, only he wasn’t so sure he wanted to date her anymore. At least that was what he’d tried to tell himself. It’d taken him a good two hours to admit that he was being an idiot. This was exactly what he’d been praying for since last August. This was the woman he’d idolized from afar and humiliated himself over. Now Jeannie had practically come right out and told him she was interested. And he wasn’t? That was a joke if he’d ever heard one.

  Sunday afternoon he picked her up at her small rental house a few minutes before two. She answered his knock immediately, dressed in jeans that hugged her slender hips and a loose T-shirt.

  “I’m ready,” she said, grabbing her shoulder bag.

  “Me, too.” But his throat was dry and his heart alternately beat fast, then slowed.

  “I’m so glad I’m finally getting to see Bitter End,” she told him as they headed toward his truck. “The crazy thing is, I must’ve lived here three months before I even heard of it. I’ve read extensively about the hill country but didn’t know about the town until one of the children happened to mention it.”

  Adam opened the truck door for her and helped her inside before hurrying around to the driver’s side. “I lived here my entire life and didn’t hear more than vague rumors about it until I came home, after I was discharged from the army,” he said as he started the engine.

  “How could you not?” She seemed st
unned by his revelation. “The older kids talk about it all the time.”

  “It’s only been the past few years that anyone knew much about the ghost town,” Adam explained. They made their way out of Promise and down the long stretch of county highway.

  “I’ve been wanting someone to go out there with me, but didn’t know who to ask,” Jeannie said.

  Adam was infinitely pleased that he was the one who’d be taking her, although he wasn’t sure how effective a tour guide he’d be. The ghost town wasn’t a place that especially thrilled him. He’d been to Bitter End any number of times since his return, heard the story behind the curse, as well as local speculation that the birth of Wade and Amy’s son had broken it. In his view, that was probably one myth replacing another, a new story replacing an old one. He had no problem with that—he loved a good story as much as anyone—but he did think the town was dangerous. It wasn’t restored the way some ghost towns were in Arizona and Nevada. Those places had been commercialized and set up for the tourist trade. Not Bitter End. The old town was made up of stone buildings and wooden ones. Some of them were in deplorable condition. A few of the wooden structures seemed ready to collapse, and while the others were in somewhat better shape, they had their problems.

  He also wondered if Jeannie would be disappointed when she saw the old town, and said as much.

  Jeannie insisted that Bitter End couldn’t possibly disappoint her. “My minor was in history,” she explained. “I tried to research Bitter End when I learned about it. Naturally, reading Travis’s new book helped.”

  Adam had read the book, too. Travis had written a suspense novel for adults, a story completely unlike any in his popular children’s series. The bestseller had featured an abandoned town similar to Bitter End. It had become an insider joke around Promise. Everyone knew he’d written about their local ghost town but maintained the secret, as he did, in an effort to keep Bitter End from being commercialized.