Promises to Keep by Rose Marie Ferris Read Free Book Online

the bottoms."
    She sat on the edge of the bed, concentrating on the toes of her shoes and turning ten shades of red.
    "What's troubling you now, Julie?" Garth asked dryly. "Aren't you reassured by the fact that I've made provisions that will help you preserve your modesty? I'm not likely to ravish you after going to such lengths to do that, am I?"
    Actually she had been deep in speculation about what, if anything, he normally wore in bed, but she couldn't very well ask
him
this and she hastily equivocated, "I was just wondering if I've always been so poorly organized."
    "Not to my knowledge."
    He continued studying her, and she glanced up at him from beneath her lashes.
    "What else is on your mind?" he asked.
    "Only that I do appreciate your sacrifice in wearing the bottoms," she answered tartly, nettled by his patronizing attitude. "I suppose such a show of selflessness should entitle you to tease me a bit."
    Garth was not at all perturbed by her sarcasm. He only grinned his wide, boyish grin and said, "I'm glad you're big enough to make some concessions."
    "Are you sure you don't want me to salaam as well?"
    "A simple curtsy will do." His response was issued imperiously. "I know you'll find it as regrettable as I do, but salaaming is no longer de rigueur."
    Confronted with such unabashed male arrogance, Julie was at a loss for words, and she could only stare at him, open-mouthed with amazement.
    But when he turned his back on her, she tried to take advantage of the opportunity this afforded her and impulsively snatching up one of the pillows from the bed, she threw it at him. His reflexes were lightning-quick, however, and he swiveled from the hips and caught it before it came anywhere near hitting him. He crushed the pillow between his broad palms and looked menacingly down at her while she eyed him warily. He defeated her in this staring duel as well, for it was she who was the first to look away.
    "You
are
getting vicious," he observed blandly. "I suppose I'd better take you out and feed you."
    Now that it was dark, the air was pleasantly cool and as they strolled the short distance to the restaurant Julie found that her irritation had already evaporated. As she walked quietly at Garth's side she asked wistfully, "Have we always fought like this?"
    "Of course not, Julie," he said with suspicious solemnity. "We usually fight much more."

    It never occurred to her that she might have lived in the Jackson Hole area until they were lingering over their after-dinner drinks. When she asked Garth about it, he nodded.
    "Yes," he said. "Your grandparents owned a cattle ranch somewhere between the towns of Jackson and Alpine. Your grandfather died long before you were born, but your grandmother—her name was Elizabeth Ayers, by the way—tried to keep the ranch going. She had to borrow heavily, but she managed to hang on to most of the acreage until she had her first stroke. That was when you were thirteen or so."
    "I gathered that over the next six or seven years her condition deteriorated to the point that she was finally forced to sell out to a neighboring rancher. The deal she made granted her a life estate in the ranch house, and you continued living there with her until she died. She'd told you she was only leasing the land to the neighbor, and it came as quite a shock when you learned otherwise."
    Julie had listened intently, and when Garth concluded, she asked, "How did I happen to return to California?"
    "From what you told me, while you were settling your grandmother's affairs, you found the deed to some property in Sonoma that your mother and father had owned along with receipts that indicated your grandmother had kept up the taxes on it. Before then, you'd had no idea exactly where in northern California your parents had lived and, on the spur of the moment, you decided to have a look at it."
    "I wonder why my grandmother didn't tell me the truth about the ranch and my parents' property," she remarked pensively.
    "You