Promises to Keep by Rose Marie Ferris Read Free Book Online Page B

let her. She grimaced disparagingly. Garth had teased her about her modesty, but this was ridiculous!
    Was there something terribly wrong with her that was unsightly? She suddenly realized that while she'd never been aware that she was avoiding looking at her body when she was naked, this was precisely what she did. But even so, she'd seen enough to know that she had the appropriate quota of feminine accoutrements and that her parts were normally distributed. So she wasn't disfigured.
    "This is stupid!" she cried, and her voice bounced back at her from the beige tile of the walls.
    The problem had been blown up out of all proportion. It had become monumental.
    "I'm going to bed." She announced her intention belligerently, as if there were someone there to stop her, but there was no one but her to hear the words she shouted.
    Once in bed, she tossed and turned until she heard voices in the hall outside and the scraping of a key in the lock. Since he thought she would be sleeping, Garth had apparently prevailed upon the desk clerk to let him into the unit so he wouldn't have to disturb her.
    When he entered, moving quietly about the room as he made his own preparations for the night, Julie remained very still, breathing deeply and evenly as she feigned sleep.
    Garth is here and everything is going to be all right, she silently encouraged herself. This thought proved to be such an effective opiate that it was the last thing she was conscious of until she awoke before the sun the next morning.
    Thanks to the length of time she'd spent in the regimen of the hospital, Julie no longer needed the chirrupy night nurse who would come into her room every day at the crack of dawn to waken her so she could scrub the sleep from her eyes in time to spend an hour or more waiting for the breakfast trays to be delivered to the ward. After having been subjected to four weeks of this, her inner alarm had gone off, and she opened her eyes promptly at six o'clock.
    Garth was still sleeping soundly in the bed next to hers, and she envied him his undisturbed slumber. She lay without stirring, watching for daybreak in the minuscule amount of light the heavy weave of the drapes allowed to filter into the room.
    The time seemed to drag until Garth finally woke up, but when he did, he was instantly alert and immensely vital. He literally bounded out of bed and immediately disappeared into the bathroom. Seconds later Julie heard the shower running and above this the sound of his voice raised in song, its volume amplified by the acoustics of the tub enclosure.
    What was he singing? She listened with all of her being, and her mouth curved in a smile when she heard the western twang he'd adopted as he sang "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." When several choruses of this were followed by "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," her smile became more generous, and when he broke into "Rocky Mountain High" for his finale, she giggled. He'd imitated the styles of Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and John Denver and his impressions were so true to life, she expected half of the recording industry to come through the bathroom door behind him.
    When he was dressed and had reentered the bedroom, it didn't take Julie long to realize that, notwithstanding his serenade from the shower, Garth was in a foul mood. His response to her good morning was a quelling stare, and when she'd had her turn in the shower and was ready for the day—dressed, much as he was, in jeans and a plaid shirt—her further attempts at conversation were met with equally dampening monosyllables.
    She wondered whether he was always this out of sorts and uncommunicative first thing in the morning or if his grouchiness was due to their awkward situation. In some ways he was a victim of circumstances that were even less enviable than hers. How did he contrive to cope so coolly, trapped in the framework of marriage to a wife who didn't remember him? That, Julie thought, must be a much more