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The Texan's Honor-Bound Promise
Peggy Moreland
A few half-truths got him through the front door. A few more white lies had him living in her house. Texan Sam Forrester never planned on such subterfuge when he set out to honor a promise. His mission was to get answers from the lovely Leah Kittrell…and she wouldn't have allowed him access to her home, to her life, if she knew who he really was.But what should have been a simple business matter turned into a tumultuous affair. Sam soon found himself in Leah's bed and knew that once she discovered the truth, his treachery would prove unforgivable.
“I Thought You Said You Were A Reformed Rake.”
Sam’s lips curved into a grin. “Even a reformed rake slips now and again.” Cupping a hand at her cheek, he touched his lips to her, withdrew with a low hum of pleasure, then returned for a second taste.
“Sweet,” he murmured, tracing his tongue along her lower lip. Angling his body more fully toward hers, he pushed his fingers through her hair and took the kiss deeper.
God help me, she thought weakly. Though every nerve in her body demanded she respond, intellectually she knew what a mistake that would be. Any kind of intimacy, no matter how innocent, could jeopardize their business relationship.
If that wasn’t reason enough for her to put an end to this foolishness, he was a virtual stranger. She didn’t know him. Not in the sense a woman needed to know a man before making love to him.
Yet in spite of the reasons pointing her away from Sam, she found herself melting against him, until every thought leaked from her mind, save one. Him.
The Texan’s Honor-Bound Promise
Peggy Moreland
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PEGGY MORELAND
published her first romance with Silhouette Books in 1989, and continues to delight readers with stories set in her home state of Texas. Winner of the National Readers’ Choice Award, a nominee for Romantic Times BOOKclub Reviewer’s Choice Award and a two-time finalist for the prestigious RITA
Award, Peggy’s books frequently appear on the USA TODAY and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. When not writing, you can usually find Peggy outside, tending the cattle, goats and other critters on the ranch she shares with her husband. You may write to Peggy at P.O. Box 1099, Florence, TX 76527-1099, or e-mail her at peggy@peggymoreland.com (mailto:peggy@peggymoreland.com).
This book is dedicated to all the wives, children and families of soldiers listed as Missing In Action while in the service of our country.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Prologue
I can’t promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear before you and before Almighty God: that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field and I will be the last to step off and I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me God.
—Lt. Colonel Hal Moore
(from the movie We Were Soldiers)
July, 1972
The mood around camp was subdued. Those soldiers who had ventured from their sleeping quarters sat in silence, their heads down, their expressions somber, their thoughts focused on the previous day’s events and their chances of making it home alive. For some, this war was a joke, a part in an elaborate play they acted out each day, under the direction of their supervising officer.
Not so for Jessie Kittrell.
To Jessie—or T.J., as he was called by his friends—this war was his one chance to escape poverty, to give his family the kind of life he’d never known. With a wife and child to support and another baby on the way, enlisting in the army had seemed the only way out of the financial rut he was trapped in. Besides the training it provided, once he fulfilled his years of service, the army would pay for his college education, courtesy of the GI Bill.
If he survived this hell, he thought grimly. Like most of the men he fought alongside, before arriving in Vietnam, he hadn’t given survival much thought. He’d been too caught up in the we’re-gonna-whip-some-butts mentality ingrained in them all during boot camp. He’d carried that cockiness with him into his first battle…and left it there, along with the contents of his stomach.
Desperate to block the images that pushed into his mind, he reached inside his shirt pocket for the photo he kept close to his heart. Dirty and creased from frequent handling, the photo was his anchor, his reminder of what he fought for, his reason for being here, his need to survive.
Tears burned behind his eyes as he stared down at his wife and daughter. God, he missed them. Three months was a long time for a man to go without seeing his family. Leah had turned two last week, a birthday party he’d missed. Would she remember him when he returned home? Would she wrap her arms around his neck and plaster a wet kiss on his cheek when she saw him, as she had in the past? Or would she cringe away and cry for her mommy?
The dull whop-whop-whop of helicopter blades overhead had him looking up. Knowing the chopper’s purpose, he slowly tucked the picture back into his pocket. He watched silently as the Huey landed and two bagged bodies were loaded onto the deck. He gulped back emotion, aware that a third soldier should have been making that ride. Buddy Crandall.
But Buddy wouldn’t be making the trip back home.
A wide hand landed on his shoulder and he glanced up to find Pops—the nickname given Larry Blair by T.J. and the rest of the guys—beside him, his gaze on the helicopter as the pilot prepared to take off.
“It’s not right,” T.J. said, shaking his head.
“Buddy should be on that chopper.”
“Yeah,” Pops said quietly. “But some things just aren’t meant to be.”
“MIA,” T.J. muttered, squinting his eyes as he watched the helicopter slowly rise into the air. “Can you imagine what getting that news is going to do to Buddy’s family? Why can’t the Army list him as Killed in Action rather than Missing in Action? Hell, we all know he’s dead! We were there. We saw what happened. There’s no way he made it out of there alive.”
“You know the rules,” Pops reminded him gently.
“If a soldier’s body isn’t recovered and his death not positively verified, he’s MIA.”
“I don’t want my family put through that,” T.J. said furiously. He glanced up at Pops. “Promise me something, Pops.”
“If I can.”
“If what happened to Buddy should happen to me, promise me you’ll let my family know. Tell ’em I fought and died like a solider. Tell ’em I won’t be coming home.”
Pops hesitated a moment, then nodded soberly. “Consider it done.” He gave T.J.’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Check your gear. We’ll be pulling out in a couple of hours.”
T.J. sat a moment longer, then dragged a hand across the moisture in his eyes and stood. He patted his pocket and the photo he kept there, then strode for his tent and the pack that held his gear.
One
The Craftsman-style two-story house Sam parked his truck in front of was situated in an older neighborhood near Tyler, Texas’s downtown area. A breezeway connected the house to a carriage-style garage and served as a pass-through to the garage’s rear entrance, discreetly hidden in the backyard.
The house was owned by Leah Kittrell. Mack McGruder had provided Sam with the woman’s name, as well as her address and telephone number. An Internet search had provided him with a few more details. According to the information he’d found, Ms. Kittrell owned her own business—Stylized Events—had gone through a messy divorce three years prior and currently served on the boards of several civic and charity organizations. The photos he’d found of her in the archive section on the Tyler newspaper’s Web site provided an image of a woman who appeared to be in her late twenties to early thirties, with long dark hair, classic features and legs that seemed to stretch forever.
More facts than he probably needed, but Sam preferred to know as much about a person as he could before entering into negotiations.
Now all he had to do was squeeze what he wanted out of the woman and he could call it a day.
Confident that he’d be back on the road within the hour, he punched the doorbell, then stepped back, smoothing a hand over hair the wind had rumpled earlier while he was changing a flat tire on the interstate.
The door swung open and a woman appeared. Leah Kittrell, he thought, easily recognizing her from the photos he’d found on the internet. But the pictures hadn’t done her justice, he thought appreciatively. While attractive in the photographs, in person she was drop-dead gorgeous. What the pictures had revealed as dark hair was in fact a sleek raven-black. But the image of her legs had been right on target. They did seem to stretch forever.
Mesmerized by eyes the color of aged whiskey, it took him a moment to realize that she was frowning at him. He quickly extended his hand.
“Sam Forrester,” he said, introducing himself.
She glanced down at the hand he offered and her frown deepened. Following her gaze, he saw the grease that stained his palm and yanked it back to drag across the seat of his jeans. “Sorry. Had a blowout on the way here. Haven’t had a chance to clean up.”
Her gaze met his again. “How many are you expecting for dinner?”
He blinked. Blinked again. “Excuse me?”
Rolling her eyes, she angled her head and pointed to the minuscule headset attached to her ear.
“Oh,” he murmured, realizing that her question hadn’t been directed to him but someone she was talking to on her cellular phone. “Sorry.”
She stepped back and motioned for him to come inside. “Forty guests,” she said thoughtfully as she closed the door behind him. “To be safe, I’d suggest we plan to serve thirty-five. Some won’t bother to RSVP but will come anyway. Others will say they’re coming and not show up.”
She turned for the rear of the house, curling her finger in a signal for him to follow. With a shrug, he trailed behind her, glancing at the rooms they passed through. Neat as a pin, he noted. Not a thing out of place. Not even in the kitchen. The woman either had a full-time housekeeper or was anal as hell.
She opened a rear door, stepped out onto a patio and led the way to the garage. It’s in there, she mouthed, indicating a side door.
Wondering what “it” was, he eased past her and opened the door. Like the rest of her house, the garage was hospital-clean and neat as a pin. An SUV was parked in the slot nearest him. In the other, a vintage Ford Mustang.
He pressed a hand over his heart. “Oh, man,” he murmured and headed for it.
He walked a slow circle around the car, then stopped in front and popped the hood. Behind him he could hear Leah talking on the phone, but he was more interested in the vintage set of wheels in front of him than her discussion of food and flowers.
Bracing a hand on the radiator for support, he stuck his head beneath the hood in order to check out the engine. “Two hundred and fifty ponies,” he said with a lustful sigh.
“So? What do you think?”
He jumped at the sound of her voice and bumped his head on the hood. Muttering a curse, he straightened, rubbing a hand over his head.
She winced. “Ouch. Bet that hurt.”
Grimacing, he dropped his hand. “I’ve had worse.” He turned back to the car and lowered the hood. “Sorry for being nosy, but I couldn’t resist. Is it yours?”
“My brother’s,” she replied, then amended, “Or it was.”
He glanced back, a brow lifted in question.
“He was killed in Iraq about six months ago. He promised my nephew, Craig, he could have the car when he turned sixteen. They were going to start restoring it when my brother returned from Iraq.” She glanced at the car, drew in a steadying breath. When she faced him again, her jaw was set in determination. “I intend to see that at least part of his promise is kept, which is why I advertised for a mechanic to do the restoration.”
And she thought he was a mechanic who’d come in response to her ad, Sam deduced. Though he knew he should correct her mistake, he decided, for the moment at least, to keep the purpose of his visit to himself and said instead, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry he ever enlisted.”
Surprised by the bitterness in her voice, he began to circle the car again. “How long had he owned it?” he asked curiously.
“Forever.”
He shot her a glance over the roof of the car and she shrugged. “My father was the original owner. I guess you could say Kevin inherited it from him.”
He turned his gaze back to the car and saw the Army decal on the rear window, it’s edges curled and brittle, and knew, by its age, her father was the one who had put it there, not her brother. Thinking this might be the opening he needed, he asked, “Your father was in the Army, too?”
She followed his gaze to the decal. “MIA, Vietnam.”
“Your family made a considerable sacrifice for our country.”
She flattened her lips. “Not by choice, I assure you.” She flapped a hand, dismissing the subject, then glanced at her watch. “My nephew should be here soon. He wants to help with the restoration. Do you have a problem with that?”
Again he felt he should correct her mistake and tell her the true purpose of his visit. But he had a feeling if he did, she’d toss him out on his ear.
“Can’t see why I would,” he replied vaguely.
She smiled, seemingly relieved by his response.
“Good. Craig really needs this.”
Before he could ask her what she meant by the statement, the door opened and a young voice called, “Aunt Leah? You in here?”
Leah turned, her smile widening. “Come on in and join us, Craig. How was school?”
Head down, a boy—somewhere between twelve and fourteen, judging by his size—shuffled toward them, one hand cinched around the strap of a backpack he had draped over his shoulder, the other stuffed in the pocket of jeans at least a size too large for his thin frame. “Okay, I guess.”
Sam yearned for a pair of scissors so that he could whack off enough of the kid’s hair to see his face.
“Craig, I’d like you to meet—” She stopped short, then looked at Sam in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name.”
“Sam Forrester.”
Smiling, she extended her hand. “Leah Kittrell.”
He held up his palm, reminding her of the grease that stained it.
She tucked her hand behind her back. “Uh, right.” She turned to her nephew and, smiling again, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and drew him to her side. “Sam, this is my nephew, Craig. Craig, Mr. Forrester.”
