Promises to Keep by Jane Green Read Free Book Online Page B

these other women. Doesn’t judge them, but dares not reveal her truth, because she would then be the outcast, the one who was judged, or misunderstood.
    How is it, she wonders, that they have managed to avoid what so many of these women are going through? Is it luck? Is it work? Not work, she thinks, because her relationship with Reece never feels like work. Luck? Partly. And communication. Taking, making , time for each other. Considering each other. Listening to each other. Avoiding those times when they are with other couples and could attempt humor, but it would come at a partner’s expense—a biting comment that would elicit a smile or laughter from their friends, and an uncomfortable squirming from Reece.
    She won’t do it. She loves her husband and she knows she cannot take him for granted. She knows because of evenings like this.
    It isn’t as if Callie had a model for marriage, at least she didn’t during the formative years, which is when, they say, it counts. She can barely remember her parents being together, and what little she does remember centers around two people who seemed to be entirely different, who lived separate lives.
    Perhaps it was her mother’s relationship with George that taught her the most. Her mother always said the joy of her marriage to George was that it was the second time around. She didn’t marry because she had to. Or because it was a way to leave her mother’s house. Or because of any pressure she felt.
    She married, despite thinking that she would never marry again, because a man came along with whom she fell completely in love. A gentle, kind man, who made her laugh, and who, she used to say, she thought was the best-looking man she had ever seen.
    The fact that George always seemed, to Callie at least, very old and very craggy and not handsome in the slightest, didn’t matter. Honor was smitten from the moment she met him, and remained smitten until the day he died.
    “My handsome man” Honor would call him, leaning down while George was attempting to eat his breakfast, taking his face gently in her hands and kissing him.
    “Look at that man,” she’d say happily, to anyone who would listen. “Isn’t he just the most glorious man you’ve ever seen?”
    Everyone would agree. Not that George was the most glorious man they had ever seen, but that this was the most glorious relationship they had ever known. Being around Honor and George elevated everyone’s spirits, it made them feel good. On a subconscious level, Callie must have taken notes, for she knew that it was possible to have something like that, and anything less would be settling for second best.
    Reece grew on her slowly. She liked him enormously, and liked how she felt around him from the moment they met. But thirty was a dangerous age, she knew. She had watched as too many of her friends who were approaching thirty jumped into marriage with the first man who offered. They weren’t relationships based on love or compatibility, but on the increasingly loud ticking of a biological clock.
    She had been the bridesmaid at Samantha’s wedding. Samantha was a friend from school, a bright, bubbly and gorgeous girl who had a personality that was infinitely larger than life. She had spent her twenties on an emotional roller coaster, falling in and out of passionate love.
    Samantha’s husband, Alex, was, without doubt, the most boring man Callie had ever known. He was arrogant, dismissive and rude. He had the sort of good looks that weren’t really good, but with the right clothes, the right haircut, a lot of working out, could create the illusion.
    Callie, who loved everyone, disliked him instantly. She could see immediately that he was entirely wrong for Samantha. She knew that Samantha was marrying him because he’d asked, and because she was terrified that no one else would; and he was marrying her because he couldn’t believe his luck that someone as gorgeous as Samantha would even look at him, let alone