His Promise (Married in Montana Book 1) Read online

  “They say red, but it doesn’t matter. No preference?” He was looking around as he walked ahead of her into the kitchen, putting the wine on the counter, taking in the small, cozy room. It was an older home, two bedrooms, one bath, the kitchen done in warm tones—she’d painted it herself—with an antique table with four chairs set by a large window that overlooked the pasture in back. “Nice,” he said.

  She didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she let it out. She hoped he liked her house. “It’s small, but I like it,” she said. This was her house now, but it hadn’t always been.

  He didn’t say anything as he opened the red wine. He looked at her over the rims of his glasses, and there was something about Bruce wearing glasses that she loved. “Do you have wine glasses?”

  “Yeah, of course.” She went over to the small antique china cabinet, all glass and wood, which matched the table, and pulled out two glasses. “Here you go.”

  He filled both and lifted them, pausing as he handed one to Kim. Her fingers touched his, his touch warm. It had her wanting him to run his hands all over her.

  “Mmm, smells good,” he said.

  She loved his expression, which was pure joy. “Well, it’s ready. Why don’t I put everything on the table and we can eat?”

  Why was she so nervous? Come on, pull it together. She put down her glass on the counter. Bruce was standing right by the sink, so close to the oven that Kim bumped him as she slipped past.

  “Sorry, small kitchen.” She wasn’t sorry, though. She loved the feel of him brushing against her.

  “Can I help with something?”

  “Why don’t you take the potatoes to the table, and I’ll bring the lamb?” She handed him the bowl of fresh baby potatoes after dropping some butter and chives overtop. She was using her good dishes, the ones with the blue flowers, and he seemed to appreciate the extra touch she’d put into the food—or maybe he was just hungry. Kim lifted the roasted lamb from the oven, sliced it, and put it on a platter, then took it to the table with the asparagus she’d steamed.

  The table really looked nice. Napkins by the plates, her grandmother’s silver. She rarely pulled it out, but tonight she wanted everything perfect.

  “Here you go. Your wine, madam.” He put her glass in front of her plate and pulled out her chair.

  She couldn’t explain the feeling that came over her when he made that simple effort, the touch of his hand to the small of her back, holding her chair while she sat and sliding it in, looking down at her for a moment and then taking his seat across from her. It meant so much to her, and it was something no man had done before. “Thank you.”

  He took his time sitting down, and she felt giddy as she sat straight, touching her napkin and then unfolding it to rest on her lap. “Please dig in.” She gestured toward the food, then lifted the glass and took a swallow of the wine—a large one, for courage. She needed it to steady her nerves. What was wrong with her, being so nervous with Bruce? She knew him well. They had been teenage lovers, promised to each other until he left. But he’d been back for a few years, and though they talked all the time, she’d never gotten over what happened.

  “You really are a good cook.” He sliced the lamb and forked a piece with a potato into his mouth.

  She couldn’t help watching his lips, the fullness of them. She remembered how well he could kiss. She needed to stop, as she could feel her face warm, so she quickly slid a piece of sliced lamb onto her plate and dished up potatoes and asparagus. She took a bite and could feel his eyes burning into her. There was something about the way he was watching her that felt like a question, as if he was wondering something and not sure how to ask. Whatever it was, it had her stomach knotting.

  “So why’d you really want me here, Kim?”

  That certainly wasn’t what she’d expected. Maybe this was good, though, instead of all the dancing around they’d been doing for the past few years. Neither one of them had talked about what had happened. He’d never come back, and she’d married someone else. It hurt, and she’d cried herself to sleep a lot of nights. She put her fork down and squeezed her napkin, staring right back at the man she’d always loved. And would forever love. He was older now, not the teen she’d snuck out with and met in the barn and carried on a love affair with—the young man who had stolen her heart and never given it back. “You’re not seeing anyone,” she said, afraid it had sounded like a question.

  “No. There was someone for a time.”

  Who? She wanted to ask him, to demand to know. She leaned forward, and maybe her face betrayed her, showing how jealous she was feeling. The last thing she wanted was to know that Bruce had been with someone else, but then, after eighteen years, of course he had. She couldn’t stand the thought.

  “I heard you got married,” he said. “What happened to your husband?”

  Oh, there it was, the one thing she wished she could go back and undo. Marrying Craig had been a mistake.

  “Didn’t last,” she said. “It couldn’t. He wanted things I could never give him.” Mainly her heart. Craig had loved her, but no matter how she tried, she hadn’t been able to love him as she did Bruce, had never been able to give him all of her. Of course the man had known. There had always been three people in their bed. What made it worse was that Craig had realized the ghost of Bruce would forever be between them, so after two years of trying, he’d left. Kim had been alone ever since.

  “What sort of things?” Bruce asked. He was holding his wine glass, swirling the red liquid around, but he didn’t lift his gaze from her. He was pushing, and his expression was unfamiliar. The man wasn’t giving anything away.

  Why was he pushing this? Bruce wasn’t the same dashing, idealistic teen she’d fallen in love with, but then, she was no longer the starry-eyed girl who’d believed the universe revolved around him. That life was a fairytale. This man having dinner with her, who had returned to Columbia Falls after eighteen years away, was older, more mature. He had accomplished what he’d set out to do and then some. He’d always wanted to be a doctor. She just hadn’t realized he was ever interested in being a pediatrician. Why kids?

  “He wanted my heart, all of it…but I already gave that away.” She lifted her knife and fork and forced herself to take another bite. The rest of the meal they ate in silence, and she didn’t realize she’d drunk all her wine until Bruce reached over and filled her glass. Of course she welcomed the buzz, feeling lightheaded.

  “Great dinner.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, holding his wine glass and drinking. There was something in the silence between them that they’d avoided for too long.

  She smiled shyly. She didn’t know why she was feeling so awkward with him now. All the hurt from the past was a ghost between them. He’d left her and never returned like he said he would. It had hurt for so long, believing she’d been forgotten.

  “So tell me about the one who got away,” she said. “How long were you together?”

  He gave her an odd look she couldn’t make sense of. It was like driving past an accident, needing to get a peek of the tragedy even though the best thing was to move on.

  “She wasn’t the one who got away,” he replied. “It was over, but by then we’d been together fourteen years. Grace was a doctor, too.” He wasn’t really elaborating, and Kim wondered how much she’d have to pry to get him to share.

  “You worked together?” she asked. So was he attracted to educated women? Kim had a high school diploma and nothing to show for it except a meager income from the land she rented for grazing and crops. Then, of course, she also worked off and on at the feed store when they needed her.

  “Met in medical school. She was a friend. It kind of just happened.” He finished off his glass, and for a minute, the way he glanced away, out the window, she could feel him pulling back. Maybe he was considering whether it was time to leave—but she didn’t want him to go.

  “So she’s the one you left me for?”

  He tu
rned his head back slowly. “Not sure what you’re talking about, Kim. I never left you. Grace was after I heard you were married. So why’d you marry him?” He leaned back in the chair and it creaked.

  “You’re really not going to let it go? Well, I had to move on. I thought I could love him. He was there for me after you left.” What else could she say? Craig had always wanted her. She had known he was there on the sidelines, waiting for her, and he’d been there as a friend when her world fell apart. Either way, if Bruce hadn’t left her for another girl, maybe it was because he’d wanted something or someone better. That thought hurt even worse.

  “What’s going on in your head, Kim?”

  She touched the stem of her wine glass, considering all the things she’d wondered about for so long. Every possibility hurt worse than the last. To not be wanted was such a horrible feeling that had hurt her pride more than she’d admit to anyone. “If it wasn’t for a girl, what changed your mind?” she finally said. It was time to know no matter how much it hurt. Maybe then she could finally move on and stop pining for the man she would always love.

  “I’m not sure I’m following you, Kim, but let me be clear: I went away to medical school, and you married someone else. I called when I could, and never once did you call me and tell me you found someone else. Having your father tell me you were married and to leave you alone, it took me a long time to stop hating you.”

  As she watched Bruce, she was struck but a sense of surreality. She didn’t know how to begin to make sense of what he’d just said.

  ***

  Chapter Four

  She’d had to excuse herself before racing into the bathroom. She was shaking as she rested both hands on the counter, staring at her pale face and the ache that had replaced the spark she strived for in her bright blue eyes, which were now dark and filled with sorrow. Her face ached as her mind raced, trying to make sense of what Bruce was saying. He was the one who hadn’t called and told her he wasn’t coming home.

  She was angry when she pulled open the bathroom door, fury pumping through her blood. She wanted to ram her fists in his chest to get him to admit to what he’d done, but when she walked into the kitchen, she froze. He was clearing the table and wrapping up the leftover food. The minute she stopped in the doorway, his eyes were on her. He didn’t say anything as he watched her, and in the moment between them, so many unanswered questions hung thick in the air.

  “You never came home like you promised. I waited for you.” She jabbed her finger to the counter between them a little too hard, and she felt the pain shoot through her. “Ouch!” she snapped.

  He reached out and took her hand, holding her finger, going into doctor mode, but she was so angry that she snatched her hand away. She wrapped her other hand around her jolted finger, welcoming the pain, which gave her some clarity.

  “Maybe we need to have a talk, because I did call,” he said. “I expected you to understand that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity I was offered. I hoped you’d have enough faith in me to wait, but maybe that was too much to hope for.”

  He was standing so close, watching her, his expression annoyed and frustrated. It was the first time she had seen something so unforgiving in the way he looked at her. “What are you talking about? You have any idea how I waited for every one of your calls? You were at medical school, and I was working at the feed store. I knew how busy you were and that you needed to focus on your studies, but I’d have given up everything just to hear from you at any moment. There were times I waited by the phone, and my mother had to send me out of the house. You said you were coming home, and I counted those days, ninety-three days until your winter break! You never called to tell me you weren’t coming home. Every day I came home and waited for the phone to ring. Your calls got further and further apart, and then they just stopped. I called your dorm, I left messages. Sometimes you called, then you didn’t.”

  “Kim, I’m sorry, but you have no idea how busy I was with medical school—the studying, the classes. I called as often as I could.”

  “You never came home for Thanksgiving. I called you and learned you’d gone away without a word to me.”

  “I phoned you! I left a message.” He was yelling.

  “When?” she shouted back. “I went to your parents’, and I knew I had to look pathetic, asking where you were and why you hadn’t come home. The look in your mother’s eyes, when she said she was so sorry but you weren’t coming back for the holidays…” She was shaking as she stared at the fire burning in Bruce’s eyes, turning his hazel eyes darker as he stared back at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “Kim, I had a great opportunity that was only offered to a few med students, and I was one of them. It was a mission trip to South Africa, a chance I couldn’t pass up. I called and left a message for you, but you didn’t call back. I called again and spoke to your mother! I tried to explain I wouldn’t be gone forever, but it was six months. I waited, and you never called, and I had to leave. It happened so quickly.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d talked to her mother? She’d married Craig a year later after much heartache and tears and her parents urging her his way. “I don’t understand, Bruce. I never heard from you again until I saw you two years ago when you came home.”

  It was a day she’d never forget, walking into church the same way she had every Sunday, taking a seat in the second row from the back, alone. Her parents sat up front, but Kim preferred the anonymity. She hadn’t paid much attention to anyone until the end of the service, and she saw him before he saw her. He had been shaking hands with a neighbor, and she’d felt as if a thousand jolts of electricity had just zapped her right through her feet, burning her to the spot, paralyzing her muscles so she couldn’t move, couldn’t think. She hadn’t known whether to hide, to run, or to wait. Then he had seen her.

  “No, I didn’t come back. I learned you were seeing someone else. I was offered the chance to stay, and I did, for another six months. I heard you’d gotten married.” He didn’t say anything else, but he was watching her now as if she’d betrayed him. In a sense, she had.

  Kim felt weak in the knees. “But you didn’t call,” she said again. It sounded so pathetic.

  “I did call. You didn’t wait,” he said, quieter—and a little sad. “That’s really what it comes down to, Kim. Whatever you think happened, what it really comes down to is that you went into the arms of another man.”

  He glanced around the kitchen, and she could feel the distance growing between them. This didn’t make any sense, but she realized he was getting ready to leave as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He clutched them in his hand for a moment before looking at her with such sadness. “For whatever it’s worth, Kim, I’m sorry,” he said, and instead of staying, he walked past her and out the door.

  ***

  Chapter Five

  “Mom, please, I need to talk about this!”

  Kim’s mother had her shoulder-length gray hair pinned back, her face wrinkled from days in the sun. She had light blue eyes and was wearing one of her faded blue shirts, buttoned up, and flowing cotton pants. She had brewed a pot of tea and was filling two mugs. “What’s to talk about, Kim? It was years ago.” She didn’t look up at Kim as she walked around her. “Harold!” she called out to Kim’s father, who had disappeared down the hall after finishing breakfast when Kim arrived.

  She heard her father shout back from wherever he was, and she had to roll her eyes. Nothing changed. Her mother shouted for her father, he shouted back, and neither one of them met in the middle. It was a wonder she hadn’t gone deaf growing up.

  “I made tea! Would you like some?” her mother shouted to wherever he was in the house. Whatever her father shouted back had her mother mumbling under her breath as she wandered back into the kitchen. “I swear, that man is going to land in an early grave, the amount of coffee he downs. I try to get him to ease back, have some herbal tea, but he won’t even try it.”

&n
bsp; “Mom, please, this is important. I need to know the truth,” Kim said. Seriously, her mother, sometimes she wanted to shake her. She would brush off Kim’s feelings, sometimes telling her how she should think or feel, as if she had the right to tell anyone. Clarice Howard could make her so angry, dismissing her feelings every time she turned to her. What her mother did instead was tell her what she should be doing. Kim hated that. That was why she never talked to her mother. Why couldn’t she understand that?

  Clarice sighed and rested her hands on the counter, her expression letting Kim know she had a hundred other things to do. “Fine.” She swayed a bit and then shrugged helplessly, lifting her hands in the air. “I don’t know, Kim. It was so long ago. A lifetime, really. Did I talk to him? Maybe. I don’t remember. He called so often, Kim. When you weren’t here, I’d write it down and put it on the fridge.”

  She slapped her hand down on the counter so hard her mom jumped and her eyes widened. “Stop it, Mom! I loved Bruce, and you were the one who told me it was time to move on. You kept inviting Craig over when I didn’t want him here. You knew what Bruce meant to me, how upset I was when he didn’t come home at Thanksgiving. Did you know I went over to his parents’, behaving like a fool, trying to find out where he was, why he didn’t come home? His parents both looked at me with sympathy. It was mortifying. Worse, they seemed embarrassed by my carrying on when I cried. Hearing from them that he’d gone away for six months, saying he was saving so many, doing a wonderful thing—all I could think about was that he’d left me, walking away as if I were nothing. I believed I meant nothing to him.”

  Her mom pursed her lips and took a breath. “Kim, Bruce made his choice to leave, going off to another country for how long? And you were supposed to sit here and wait for him?” Clarice was shaking her head. She looked up when Kim’s dad walked in. He was taller than her mom, broad shouldered, with silver hair thinning on top. He had dressed the same as he did every day: a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned up even in this heat, the same plain brown work pants that had seen better days. He took in both of them.