Promise Me Forever Read Free Page A

just…spied on them. A gathering of women, so intent on their visiting that they weren’t noticing him. He remembered times in his life when he’d yearned for a woman’s presence with such longing that he’d thought he’d die from the wanting. Not only her touch, but her fragrance, her softness, the comfort she could offer.
    He knew it was wrong to stand there, knew he should announce his presence, but he wasn’t sure what would happen once Lauren saw him.
    Did she even remember him?
    When he’d never been able to forget her?

Chapter 2
    Ten years earlier
    “I saw what you did.”
    Sitting against the back wall of the general store, Tom Warner peered out from beneath his dusty, battered hat and squinted at the young gal standing before him, legs akimbo, fists planted on her almost nonexistent hips. She sure was a pretty thing, with eyes the color of bluebonnets in spring and hair the shade of the full moon that looked down on him while he slept. “So?”
    “You stole those crackers.”
    Tom shoved the last of his bounty into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed, wishing he hadsome milk with which to wash them down. “What crackers?”
    Her jaw dropped, and she began to blink those startling blue eyes of hers. “So you’re a liar, too?”
    “What do you care? It ain’t your store.”
    “But it’s wrong to steal and lie about it.”
    Lord save him from the self-righteous. “It’s only stealing if you take something when you got the money to pay for it. Besides, I was hungry.”
    She furrowed her brow. “You ain’t got no money?”
    “I’ve got a bit”—two bits as a matter of fact—“but I’m saving it for an emergency.”
    “Being hungry is an emergency.”
    “Nah, it ain’t.” He shoved himself to his feet. He was considerably taller than she, so she had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes. He liked the way she kept watching him. “I been hungry lots of times. Something always comes along.”
    “You mean you always steal something.”
    “I mean the Lord provides.”
    “Are you a preacher?”
    “Hell, no.”
    She gasped, her eyes growing even wider. “You’re not supposed to cuss.”
    Hell wasn’t really a cussword, was it? He’d used far worse words in his day. Might be fun to use one now, see her get more riled .
    “Well, damn,” he said, taking plea sure in her horrified expression. “What’s left to a man if he can’t steal, lie, or cuss?”
    “You ain’t a man,” she said indignantly.
    “Close enough. I’m almost sixteen.”
    He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a paper and a pouch of tobacco, and slowly rolled himself a cigarette. He stuck it between his lips. While she watched, mouth agape, he flicked his thumb over a match, the strike causing it to ignite. Touching the flame to the cigarette, he inhaled deeply. Smoking always took the edge off his hunger. Course, stealing the makings wasn’t as easy as stealing crackers, but sometimes a man simply needed a challenge.
    “You ain’t supposed to smoke in the presence of a lady without asking permission,” she said, a scolding tone to her words that would have had him turning on his bootheels and walking away if she wasn’t so pleasing to look at. He wasn’t partial to being chewed out, didn’t see much point in tolerating it.
    Blowing out the smoke, squinting through it, he gave an exaggerated look around the area. “I don’t see no lady around here.”
    “I’m a lady.”
    “You’re just a kid.”
    “Am not. I’m a young lady, almost fully growed.”
    “Let me see.”
    She blinked rapidly, her nose no longer pointing at the sky. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, let me unbutton your bodice. Let me see if you’re almost fully growed.”
    She blinked again, shrugged, and thrust her chest toward him, a dare in her eyes that astounded him. “All right.”
    Sweet Lord in heaven! She was going to let him do it. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and mashed it with the toe of his worn boot.