Kitabı oku: «One Man's Promise»

Chapter One

Dear God, it was him. That hair, those eyes, the cocky strut. It had been so long, so achingly long.

C. J. Moray stomped the brake pedal, twisted the wheel to squeal a sloppy U-turn on the quiet residential street. Rubber burned, tires spun, screeched and hit the curb with a bounce, startling the daylights out of a jogger huffing up the sidewalk.

Jamming the car into Park, she leapt out with her heart in her throat, eyes focused on the one who had been such a huge part of her life for so very, very long.

He hadn’t changed, was just as she remembered. So handsome, so regal, so deliciously wicked.

A young girl was talking to him, smiling, laughing, hugging him with the same affection C.J. herself had once lavished on him. As always, he reveled in the attention, dark eyes intensely focused, riveted on his giggling companion without sparing so much as a glance at the winded jogger.

The panting man bent over, propped his hands on his knees, gaping in astonishment as C.J. joyously rushed forward with open arms to call her beloved’s name.

Perky ears twitched, a furry head swiveled, dark eyes blinked bright and gleaming.

“Rags! Come here, boy, c’mon!”

With a gleeful yelp, thirty pounds of quivering canine excitement sprinted down the sidewalk and bounded into her waiting arms.

Laughing and crying at the same time, C.J. hugged the warm, wriggling body of the animal she had raised from a pup and adored beyond measure. “Oh, Rags—” She sputtered under a frantic assault of wet doggy kisses. “Wait...stop...silly boy!”

When the affectionate assault eased, she felt the lump rise back in her throat, softening her voice to a smoky whisper. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Rags barked in her face, licked off her eye makeup. C.J. felt as if her heart would explode from sheer happiness.

Then their joyful reunion was interrupted by a distressed wail. “Da-addy!” The abandoned girl stamped her feet. “That lady is stealing my dog! Make her stop, Daddy, make her stop!”

Rags responded by leaping down and dashing back to comfort the tearful youngster, who clamped a proprietary hand on the animal’s collar and fixed C.J. with an eat-dirt-and-die look.

C.J.’s lungs deflated like a pricked balloon. She forced a smile, and since the child was kneeling beside her bright-eyed pet, she squatted down to their level. “My name is C.J. Actually it’s Cecelia Jane, but that’s quite a mouthful, so my friends call me C.J.” The child continued to glare silently. C.J. sucked a breath, tried to keep her smile from flattening. “So, now you know my name. Perhaps you’d like to tell me yours?”

The girl, a brown-haired, pigtailed nymph who appeared to be nine or ten, narrowed her eyes, clamped her lips together and continued to glower at C.J. as if wishing her dead.

“Her name is Lissa Matthews, and she’s not usually so rude.” The jogger, having recovered his breath, stepped forward, waited until C.J. stood before extending his hand. “I apologize for my daughter’s lack of courtesy, Ms.—?”

“Moray.” His grip was warm, firm. Damp tendrils of dark hair the same shade as his daughter’s clung to a face attractively average, yet more appealing than most. She smiled through her scrutiny. “Please call me C.J.”

A pleasant light gleamed in eyes that were neither gray nor green, but a hazy combination that reminded her of heather sage. “Richard Matthews. Please call me Richard.” His hand lingered, withdrew slowly. “Well.” Clearing his throat, he shifted uncomfortably, rubbed his knuckles across a strong, slightly clefted chin. “May I assume you and my daughter’s pet share more than a passing acquaintance?”

C.J. confirmed that with a nod. “Rags and I were together for nearly six years.” Stupidly, tears stung her eyes at the sight of her shaggy-faced best friend firmly ensconced in the arms of another. “He disappeared a couple of months ago, while my roommate was moving our things to a new apartment.”

Richard Matthews didn’t seem unsympathetic, but was clearly concerned about the effect C.J.’s sudden appearance was having upon his daughter. His eyes narrowed just a touch, an expression of contemplation, or perhaps puzzlement. “We adopted the animal from the shelter. It’s quite legal.” Skimming a worried glance at the tearful child, he clasped his hands behind his back, facing C.J. with stiffened resolve. “Except for the collar engraved with his name, the animal had no identifying tags.”

“I know—”

“Nor was there a proper dog license from which the owners could be located.” The man tightened his jaw, angled a reproachful glance. “Not the behavior of a responsible pet owner, I’d say.”

“You’re right, of course, it’s just that—” C.J. licked her lips, nervously flexed her fingers. “Both tags were on a collar ring. My roommate had removed it to replace the old address tag with the new one when the movers broke a vase or something, and Rags bolted out the front door. She put up flyers all over the neighborhood—”

“And you were where when all this happened?”

“I was, er, unavailable.” She slipped a glance at the prancing pup, and her heart melted. God, she’d missed him so much. “I still have the tags. I can show them to you, if you wish.”

Richard’s chin wobbled. “That won’t be necessary. I believe you. Still, this is a most unfortunate situation.” He heaved a sigh, rubbed his face, peered over his fingertips. “Clearly, we have a legitimate conflict of ownership. The question is, what shall we do about it?”

Direct, straightforward, cut right to the chase. C.J. liked that.

Apparently Lissa didn’t. She let out a howl that sent shivers down C.J.’s spine. “Ragsy is my dog,” she screeched. “Mine! Daddy, you promised, you promised—” Her face reddened as she sucked a wheezing breath. “You can‘t—” gasp “—let her take him—” gasp “—you can’t—”

Richard sprang to his daughter’s side. “Shh, punkin, no one is going to take your dog away. Deep breaths, sweetheart, take slow, deep breaths.” He dug through the pocket of his sweatpants to retrieve a white plastic inhaler.

The child pushed it away, continued to wheeze until her face was suitably purple and her father’s concern escalated into full-fledged fear. Only when Rags pawed her arm, whining with alarm, did the girl accept the inhaler. The attack subsided as quickly as it had begun.

Lissa hugged the tousled fur of Rags’s neck, scraped C.J. with a look and made no attempt to soften a gloating grin. “Rags loves me,” she purred. “He won’t ever go away, ’cause he knows how sick I get when I’m sad.”

C.J.’s heart sank to her toes. A manipulating child, a protective father, a shadowy specter from the past. Pain. Loneliness. Sad memories.

“Perhaps,” Richard said, pocketing the inhaler and extracting a slim leather wallet, “we can come to an equitable—”

He was drowned out by Lissa’s horrified shriek. “Rags, no! Come back!”

But the gleeful animal was three houses away, hot on the trail of an orange-striped cat streaking toward a neighbor’s yard.

Richard dropped the wallet. “Oh, Lord. Waldo.”

“Waldo?”

C.J.’s question died in chaos as the screaming child bolted after her wayward pet, ignoring shouts from her harried father. “Lissa, stop! Don’t exert yourself!” He spun, stared at C.J., his face puckered with baffled annoyance that under other circumstances would have been amusing. “In six years, you couldn’t have taught your dog some manners?”

With that, Richard sprinted forth to join the fray.

The orange cat, presumably the infamous Waldo, dived beneath a raised stoop. Rags followed, wriggling through the small opening and barking madly. A yowl, a hiss, a flurry of joyful woofs. An orange blur shot out from under the stoop. A shaggy mass of brown-and-white fur squeezed out, dodged Richard’s grasping hands, used the stunned man’s head as a springboard before dashing after the cat without so much as a backward glance at the frustrated man and the wailing child pursuing him.

It was utter pandemonium. C.J., who hadn’t moved a step since the chaos began, watched with a combination of stunned disbelief and amusement that was, she supposed, wholly inappropriate for the situation. Little Lissa was clearly distraught, and her poor father was obviously as upset about his daughter’s emotional state as he was about capturing the cavorting pooch.

Still, it was an amusing display of dueling wits. Rags appeared to be winning. C.J. was content to observe the comical chaos until the cat suddenly swerved toward the street with Rags still in hot pursuit. Instinctively touching two fingers to her lips, she emitted a shrill whistle.

Rags instantly skidded to a stop.

She whistled again and the animal plopped his quivering rump on the curb, staring expectantly. C.J. lifted one arm. Rags dropped to his belly. She twitched a finger. The dog rolled over. She raised her hand. He stood. She flicked her wrist. He performed a flawless back flip, then stood with his gaze focused and his tail whipping madly to await the next command.

When she touched her breastbone, Rags made a beeline straight for her. He skidded to a stop a few feet in front of her, waited until she tapped her hip, then zipped around to “heel” position and sat smartly by her side.

“Good boy,” she whispered, and was rewarded by a tongue-lolling grin.

C.J. struggled to keep her own expression impassive while the astounded dog-chasers limped back to the starting point. Lissa arrived first, her eyes enormous, followed by her father, who stared at Rags as if the animal had metamorphosed into a small, shaggy god.

C.J. cleared her throat. “Rags—” the animal gazed up adoringly “—you’ve behaved badly. Please apologize to Lissa and Mr. Matthews.”

Rags issued two contrite whines, laid a forepaw across his muzzle.

“Good boy,” she murmured, then redirected her attention. “Now, Mr. Matthews, you were saying something about manners?”

Richard paled three shades. Then and only then did C.J. allow herself the indulgence of a proud smile.

“All right, how much?”

C. J. Moray’s lips slackened, then firmed. “Rags is not for sale, Mr. Matthews. I thought I’d made myself clear on that.”

Richard angled a glance toward the modest home where his daughter peered out the front window with huge, tearful eyes. After exerting herself by chasing Rags, she’d suffered yet another asthma attack, after which Richard had escorted her into the house with her beloved dog, hoping he could resolve this matter logically, reasonably. Now he swallowed a twinge of panic, yanked all the currency out of his wallet and thrust it at the startled woman. “Two hundred, cash.”

“Mr. Matthews—”

“If you want more, I’ll have to write you a check.”

C.J. extended a hand, then let it drop, shaking her head violently enough to vibrate the short, blond curls massed like golden spirals around a tanned face that he suspected was not as young as it appeared. “I know this is a difficult situation, but Rags and I...well, we have a very special relationship. Do you see that I can’t give him up?”

Exquisite amber-gold eyes pleaded for understanding, understanding that Richard couldn’t afford to bestow. Lissa was counting on him. “You’ve already given him up, Ms. Moray. Legally the animal belongs to us.” He shifted, avoided the pain in those incredible golden eyes and fortified himself by angling a glance at the window behind which the child he loved more than life itself waited hopefully. “My daughter is very special, too. That dog means the world to her. It would break her heart to lose him.”

“I know.”

The emotion with which the words were whispered caught Richard’s attention, as did the woman’s obvious unhappiness at having caused his daughter grief. He studied C.J., saw the subtle droop of her shoulders, stress lines creasing her forehead, a mouth that was soft and vulnerable, lightly tinted by faint remnants of pale rose lip color.

Her clothes were casual, nondescript—a loose knit shirt, white, with short sleeves and a sports logo on the pocket, beige linen slacks and sneakers that were broken in but not quite worn-out.

His attention returned to her mouth. A flash of white as a tooth scraped her lower lip, a glimmer of pink as her tongue darted out for moisture. She cleared her throat. “I’ll buy Lissa another dog, a puppy of her very own. I’ll even teach her how to train it—”

“No.” He flinched at his strident tone, softened it. “It’s a generous offer, and I thank you for it, but Lissa won’t accept another dog. She wants Rags.”

“I know that, too.” C.J. regarded him with peculiar sadness, and a hint of understanding that was oddly troubling. “And Lissa always gets what she wants, doesn’t she?”

Richard stiffened at the truth. “My daughter is not like other children. She can’t run through blooming meadows, ride her bike or play softball in the park, and she’s spent more time in hospitals than most children spend in school. It’s not her fault that she’s fragile and ill. It’s not her fault that she’s doomed to grow up without her mother. It’s not her fault that she has been denied the normal joys of childhood, which is all any child wants and deserves.” He gritted his teeth, spoke through them. “So the answer is no, Ms. Moray, Lissa definitely does not always get what she wants.”

“Please, I meant no disrespect—”

“But if you’re implying that I try to compensate for all my daughter has lost by indulging those few pleasures still available to her, then I plead guilty as charged.” He jammed the bills and wallet into his pocket and folded his arms, more angry at himself than the woman whose acute perception was more accurate than he cared to admit.

Richard was a father, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew perfectly well that Lissa wasn’t above faking illness to get her own way. His daughter could be difficult, but she had reason to be. Along with a plethora of food and environmental allergies, Lissa’s asthma was a serious, sometimes life-threatening condition. The child was physically vulnerable, emotionally fragile and motherless. Despite the difficulties of single parenthood, Richard adored his child, had devoted his life to protecting her and making her happy.

At the moment, happiness hinged on the outcome of a canine custody dispute centered upon one very specific, slightly devious and undeniably clever little dog. It was a dispute Richard dared not lose.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. Her voice was husky, like wafting wood smoke. A tingle warmed his arm where she touched him. “I know how much Lissa loves Rags, believe me, I know. But they’ve only been together a few weeks. Rags has spent his entire life with me. I’ll give you whatever you ask for him. Five hundred...a thousand...ten thousand. I’ll take out a loan, sell my car, I’ll do anything.” Her fingers trembled, tightened their grip above his wrist. “I know I’m a grown woman and your daughter is only a child, I know I must seem shrill and selfish, and maybe I am, but I’m desperate. You don’t understand, you don’t know what Rags and I have been through together.”

To his horror, tears swelled, spurted, careened down her cheeks.

“Children are resilient....” Her voice quivered, her gaze slid to the window, behind which Lissa sobbed openly, hugging the shaggy mixed breed that consoled her with frantic face licks.

C.J. stared for a moment, then turned away, shaking her head. “My God,” she murmured. “Listen to me. I can’t believe that I’m actually willing to break a child’s heart to protect my own.” She wiped her face with her hands, propped one fist on her hip and stared at the ground. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. There’s no excuse.”

Before Richard could respond, Lissa shot out the front door, sobbing her heart out. “No, Daddy, no, Ragsy is my dog! Don’t let her take him away, please, please—” gasp “—don’t let her take—” wheeze “—him—”

As Richard snatched out the inhaler, C.J. laid a restraining hand on his arm as she squatted down in front of the wheezing, red-faced child. “I’m not going to take your dog away,” she said quietly. “But there are some things about Rags you need to know. If you love him as much as I think you do, you’ll calm down now, so you can listen and learn how to take good care of him.”

To Richard’s shock, the strained gasps ceased, the child’s breathing deepened as she focused a skeptical stare. “I already take good care of Rags.”

“I’m sure you do, but did you know, for example, that Rags loves bananas?” The girl’s eyes widened. “That’s right, but if he eats more than two bites, he gets really, really sick, so you have to be sure to keep them out of reach. He likes apples, too, but again, you have to be careful how much he can have. There are certain brands of dog food he won’t eat.”

The girl brightened. “Daddy had to buy three different kinds before he found one Rags liked.”

“You see? You’ve already discovered one of his secrets. He’s finicky, and as long as you feed him apples and bananas, he figures he doesn’t have to bother with stuff he doesn’t really like. You have to be careful only to give him treats that are good for him. His tummy can be sensitive.”

Lissa nodded solemnly. “Is he allergic, like me?”

“Well, he reacts badly to fleabites, I’m afraid, but that can be controlled. I have some medicine that helps him. I’ll—”She paused, bit her lip, then managed a tremulous smile. “I’ll bring it to you.”

The child cocked her head. “You will?”

“Yes. I’ll bring you all of his vet records, and his favorite toys, too, but you have to promise me that you’ll watch him carefully, especially when he’s on his skateboard, because sometimes he doesn’t pay attention to—”

Richard interrupted. “Skateboard?”

C.J. glanced up with a shaky smile that made his heart quiver strangely. “Rags is quite the little sports dog. He also jumps rope, surfs and knows how to ride a windjammer. I was planning to take hang gliding lessons this summer, and had a special harness made so he could come with me....” Her voice drifted away.

Lissa’s eyes were appreciatively wide. “Gee, Rags does lots of tricks, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.” It was a whisper. C.J. cleared her throat, offered a bright smile with quivering corners. “But he can also be quite a rascal. He’ll try to get away with lots of things that are dangerous. You’ll have to learn how to protect him, and keep him safe. You have to train him to respond to you. I can teach you how, if you like.”

It was a generous offer. For a moment, Richard thought Lissa might actually accept. Instead, the child’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“I can do it all by myself.” Lissa spun, strode to the front door, paused with a triumphant gleam in her eyes. “Ragsy is my dog. He doesn’t need you anymore.”

“Lissa!” Richard flinched as the front door slammed, then faced the shaken woman rising to her feet. “I’m sorry.”

C.J. shrugged. “It’s all right. This has been difficult for her. I understand.” Oddly enough, he believed that she did. She raked a hand through her hair, took a deep breath, then suddenly fumbled in her slacks pocket and extracted a business card. “I’ll forward Rags’s things. If you have any questions or problems, you can reach me here.”

He absently glanced at the card, did a double take. “‘All That Jazz Academy of Dance’?”

“If I’m not there, that number will forward to my beeper.”

She licked her lips, blinked rapidly. Too rapidly. “Please give my regards to Lissa. Tell her I’m glad Rags found such a good home.”

“Ms. Moray—”

But she’d spun away, crossed the yard and was already climbing into her car. A moment later, she drove down the street and disappeared, leaving Richard both relieved and conflicted.

For the sake of a child she did not even know, C. J. Moray had relinquished all claim to the pet she clearly adored. He was grateful, of course, but he was also deeply saddened by the niggling sense that this might have been one battle his daughter should not have won.

“You just left him there?” Under the best of circumstances Bobbi Macafee was an imposing woman, tall, broad shouldered, with a thick mane of ebony hair and a horsey face that oddly enough was not unattractive. When perturbed, that face tightened into a furious mask, reddened like a neon beet and was frightening enough to have once cowed a professional wrestler, who’d unwisely refused to pose for a photograph, into hiding behind his trainer to escape her wrath.

Now Bobbi loomed large and intimidating, jammed her fists on her hips and gaped at C.J. as if she’d just confessed to abandoning an infant on a doorstep. “How could you do such a thing? I mean, Rags is family! You might as well have given up your own child!”

“There wasn’t any choice,” C.J. mumbled, retrieving the palm-sized glucometer from a kitchen shelf. She pricked her finger, smeared a blood drop on a test strip, which she inserted into a slot at the side of the machine. “That little girl loves Rags. She would have been devastated to lose him.”

“What about you?” Bobbi insisted. “Don’t your feelings count?”

“I’m a grown-up. She’s a child, a sick, lonely little girl who desperately needs love.” C.J. checked the digital readout for her blood sugar level, then put the glucometer away, measured a precise amount of orange juice into a glass and prepared a lean turkey sandwich for lunch.

Behind her Bobbi paced and fumed, ranting about the injustice of the world. C.J. ignored her. Although fiercely loyal and opinionated to the point of irksome, Bobbi was first and foremost a dear friend. They were like sisters, had been since their college days, and C.J. understood that the guilt of having been responsible for Rags’s loss in the first place weighed heavily on her roommate’s conscience.

Not that C.J. blamed her. Moving an entire household wasn’t easy, even for a woman who could bench-press two hundred pounds without breaking a sweat. It wasn’t Bobbi’s fault she’d been left to tackle the task alone. If anyone was responsible for Rags’s loss, it was C.J. herself. She should have been there to protect her precious pet during the move.

“You should sue,” Bobbi announced, nodding so vigorously that her spectacles slipped down her nose. “I know a lawyer—”

“No.”

“But the county was negligent! Honest to God, Ceejz, I called the shelter six times a day for two solid weeks after Rags ran away, and every dadgummed time they said no animal of that description had been picked up. They lied, they screwed up, they gave your dog away, for Pete’s sake! Someone has to be held accountable for that.”

Heaving a sigh, C.J. set the orange juice down. “No lawyers, no lawsuits. It’s over. I’ve made my decision. Rags is happy, well cared for, and loved. Please, can’t we drop it now? This entire subject is...painful.”

Bobbi’s face crumpled in despair. “Oh, hon—” She stepped forward, stopped when C.J. raised a palm to signal that she was perfectly fine and didn’t wish to be fussed over.

Of course, C.J. wasn’t perfectly fine and Bobbi clearly knew that. She also understood C.J.’s aversion to being the subject of worry or concern, and respected her silent request even if her furrowed brow displayed disagreement with it.

Frustrated, Bobbi straightened her glasses, heaved a deflating sigh. “Look, I have to go. The magazine is sending me out to interview an over-the-hill jockey who’s accusing some racing association of age discrimination.”

CJ. nodded without comment, took a bite of sandwich while her roommate hustled around the cluttered room gathering her briefcase, pocket recorder, camera and other tools of the journalistic trade.

Pausing at the front door, Bobbi shouldered the briefcase strap, raked red-tipped fingers through her thick tangle of long black hair and regarded her friend with blatant concern. “Are you going to be all right, Ceejz? I can reschedule this thing—”

“I’m fine,” C.J. assured her. “You go, do your job.” She enforced that edict with the brightest smile she could muster, and tipped the orange juice glass in salute. “Knock ’em dead, tiger.”

Bobbi responded with a thin nod, an even thinner smile, then slipped out the door.

Alone now, C.J. slumped against the kitchen counter, forcing herself to finish the tasteless sandwich. Eating was more ritual than pleasure. Her body required food whether she wanted it or not. At the moment, her stomach twisted, her head hurt and she was angry with herself for being so emotional.