Promises Kept Read online

  As they were exiting the office, though, he stopped just before the door and handed her her key, saying, "If you try to run away from me, I'll blister your bottom, and you'll never get another room of your own, you know."

  Anna looked comically appalled at his lack of faith in her, snatching the key out of his hand and throwing over her shoulder at him as she headed for the car, "I told you I'd go to the wedding and I meant what I said. I won't leave unless you get grabby again. Then all bets are off, buster."

  He didn't like her cautioning him like that. Not at all. Especially when it ended with a threat that if he did what he desperately wanted to do to her – touch her in any way that included spanking if she needed it – she'd bolt. And he knew he'd have hell to pay to find her. She watched all of those crime stories on TV and would probably know how to disappear without a trace better than most people did.

  Like when she left for Maine, and he wondered where the hell she was for months until he happened to overhear his sister talking to her on the phone one day. Even Libby wouldn't tell him of her whereabouts. Not even on pain of a spanking, which he had hated to threaten because they both knew he wouldn't go through with it. Discipline was not a matter to be taken lightly, or administered on a whim.

  He helped Anna get her stuff into her room, looking like a thundercloud the whole time, until the car was emptied. He lingered at her door, not really wanting to let her out of his sight. "You need anything else?" he asked, wishing he thought she was going to ask him to stay.

  "No, I'm fine."

  Anna tried not to watch him as he ambled slowly to the door, then even more reluctantly closed it from the other side. She heaved a huge sigh of relief once he had. She felt like she could breathe for the first time in a long time – since he'd appeared out of nowhere on her doorstep in the middle of the night.

  Anna got Topher settled and fed him his usual food at the usual time, trying to keep things as normal for him as she could. At least they'd be normal for someone.

  Her stomach suddenly growled, and she realized that she hadn't eaten anything since the McDonald's hamburger and Auntie Anne's pretzel she'd gotten at the rest area off I90. Damn that thing was good! He had given her the evil eye, of course, pointing out to her that that was hardly a nutritious meal. Anna had pointed out to him that the hamburger had meat, grain, dairy, vegetables and fat. And she'd even had a milkshake with it, for the extra dairy. Then she turned around and bought another pretzel, just to annoy him. It was junk food, but it had filled her up, until now.

  He did warn her, though, that he was going to make damn sure that this was their only fast-food stop, and only because he wanted to get some miles under their belt and didn't want to take the time to pull off and exit for a sit down meal at a regular restaurant.

  Not bothering to dress for him in the least even after she'd freshened up a bit, she grabbed her purse and her key and went next door to bang loudly on his door. "I'm hungry. Buy me dinner."

  The door opened in the same way she had opened hers to him last night – just barely. But if he thought she was just going to go waltzing into a room that contained little more than a very inviting bed, he was dead wrong. Anna pushed at the door until it was wide open, revealing that he had been in the process of cleaning up himself.

  He was wearing only a pair of baby blue briefs as he donned a white t-shirt, staring right at her as he did it. She could watch the bulge in those briefs getting bigger and reached in to close the door again quickly, saying, "Knock on my door when you're ready." Then she retreated like a coward to the relative safety of her own room, her heart beating much too fast at the sight of him.

  She'd always loved watching him – dressing or undressing, harassing cattle while he rode like he'd been born in the saddle, which he pretty much had been, or just scarfing down a bowl of ice cream on the couch with her while they watched "The Daily Show" or Letterman. She'd eaten him up as readily as he completely destroyed a half gallon of cheesecake brownie flavored ice cream, and apparently that trend would continue. Anna sat on the end of her bed with Topher immediately claiming her lap for some much needed attention, while she closed her eyes and tried to think of England. Or the Orient. Anything other than the sexy, cold-hearted beast next door.

  A loud wrap had the cat clawing at her thighs, but when he heard Remy start to speak, he immediately ditched Anna for what he considered to be much greener pastures, rubbing against the doorway and mewling pitifully.

  "Ready?"

  Anna sighed and shooed the cat away from the door, barely able to escape without him darting out to be happily molested by his new best buddy. "Where are we going?"

  They ended up at a local steakhouse, and Remy soon realized that he needn't have worried about her appetite – he'd need to be more concerned with his wallet by the time they reached Texas if she ate like that all the time.

  And she'd managed to surprise him yet again by ordering a drink the moment they sat down, and not one of the fruity, frothy drinks she'd liked when they were together, but a glass of Johnny Walker on the rocks, light on the rocks.

  Anna figured that if she was going to need a drink at any time in her life, it was now. "Is something the matter?" she asked in a too innocent voice when he sat there glowering at her.

  He ordered his own Jim Beam, neat, and the waitress left them to peruse the menus.

  "You want an awesome blossom, or whatever it is that they call it here?" Anna asked, scanning the appetizers.

  "How about just plain old onion rings? I just saw a huge, heaping platter of them go by, and they're not the beer-battered kind. They're the lightly breaded, flakey kind you like."

  How could someone know her so completely, to remember what she liked and didn't like, and yet hurt her like he had? He must have known how deeply it cut. Perhaps that was the point? There must be something dark and sadistic about him. She was well-warned and twice smarter for it.

  "So when did you develop a taste for whiskey?" Remy asked casually.

  She finished her onion ring before looking up at him with a raised eyebrow that told him he shouldn't have been such an idiot as to have asked a stupid question like that.

  "Oh. You hit the bottle?" It wasn't a question he particularly wanted to ask, but he had to ask it.

  Anna leanded back, away from her plate as if she didn't intend on eating anything further, but she answered him, with a self-deprecating half-laugh and a sad, faraway voice. "It was more like the bottle hit me."

  She didn't know how he managed it, but the stricken look on his face had her explaining herself further to him when he really had no right to the information, and she would have much preferred not to talk about it. But she found the urge to comfort someone she had once loved very deeply almost impossible to ignore.

  "I spent a week or so in a tragic three way with Johnny and Jose, which I would never suggest you mix, ever." Anna was looking at her hands, at the other patrons, at the bartender or the décor as she spoke.

  Anywhere but at him.

  "But that was it. After that I kind of forced myself to pull it together."

  She was wringing her hands, every inch of her body language tense, as if bracing for a blow by just thinking about that time in her life and he couldn't stand it another minute. Remy reached over and, in full knowledge of the fact he was breaking one of her commandments, put his hands over hers.

  "Stop. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that, and I'll do my best not to ask you anything else upsetting for the rest of the trip, I promise."

  A runner appeared conveniently with their huge tossed salads just then, hers with balsamic vinaigrette and his with blue cheese. But as he dug into his, he could see that she had yet to touch hers. She looked like she was in another place entirely, beset by unhappy memories, and he didn't think she'd even noticed that he'd misbehaved and touched her.

  "Anna," he said, firmly and a little sharply, hoping to snap her out of her reverie. "Eat your salad. You know you won't like the consequenc
es if you don't."

  It was more than enough to bring her back to him, considering his all too familiar tone and admonishing phraseology.

  Remy, for his part, was glad he hadn't needed to bully her into eating. She didn't finish all of her salad, but then neither did he. The portions were much too enormous.

  Sizzling steaks came next, with sides of baked potato and green beans on his plate, garlic mashed and grilled onions on hers. They capped off their meal, which after that rocky start had continued on a more even and congenial keel, with dessert – by mutual agreement. Remy wanted ice cream, while Anna went with an apple cobbler that the waitress highly recommended.

  It arrived in a bowl the size of a kitchen sink – just like his hot fudge sundae – with an enormous, apple and cinnamon filled sort of square in the middle, an inch thick at least of crispy, buttery, cinnamony topping, a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream and literally bathed in real whipped cream.

  She nearly finished it too, but had to throw in the spoon about four bites from the end or she knew she was going to burst. She didn't have to worry about there being any waste though, because as soon as she surrendered, he snaked his arm out with his fudge covered spoon and absconded with the last of hers.

  "Dear God, you're going to have to carry me out," she warned, throwing her napkin on the table. "I must have put ten pounds back on in just this one meal!"

  "Good, and I'd be glad to carry you anywhere," he agreed gallantly after paying the bill in cash, including a generous tip, then rising to hold her chair for her as she got up kind of like a pregnant woman would and waddled towards the door.

  Anna patted her stomach as they road back to the hotel. "Damn, I shouldn't have eaten so much. I feel like I'm going to be sick."

  "Well, we'll cut back some the next time. Maybe appetizer or a dessert, instead of both. I'm sorry you don't feel well."

  He had always done that – been ultra concerned about her well being, hovering helpfully if she was sick or just holding her when there wasn't really anything else he could do.

  "I'll be fine. I just need to stretch out and not eat anything for the rest of the year."

  Always the gentleman, he escorted her to her door and didn't even press her to let him come in, which she had to admit she was surprised about, and, somewhere, in the back of her mind, where she refused to acknowledge it, she was just the tiniest bit disappointed.

  But Topher consoled her – and himself – once he realized that his hero wasn't going to be appearing that night by curling up on the bed next to her after she'd gotten ready, and they both fell sound asleep at the atypically early hour of ten o'clock.

  Chapter VIII

  They were up and out at o'dark thirty, going to the small café that was attached to the hotel to order a hearty breakfast for him and a smaller one for her. She didn't want a repeat performance of how uncomfortable she'd felt after dinner last night, so she just had scrambled eggs and toast and a vat of coffee, ignoring his unhappy glare at her menu selections.

  "You should have a bigger breakfast, Anna. It's the most important meal of the day!" His ridiculous grin did nothing to improve her disposition.

  She awoke on the wrong side of the bed, and had a much harder time motivating herself for some reason. Perhaps it was that she tossed and turned most of the night, in the grips of dreams about him that were so sensual in nature that she knew for a fact she had climaxed multiple times during various dreams. That did nothing to endear the reality of him sitting across the table – or across the SUV – to her in the least.

  "When did you get to be little Mary Sunshine in the morning?" she groused, not doing much more than picking at her meal, but sucking down the coffee like it was ambrosia. "I thought you preferred to sleep late?"

  Remy reached for his own coffee cup and took a healthy swig before answering. "I do, when I can. But I've got itchy feet. You know how I am when I travel, especially by car."

  "Yes, I do," she answered, feeling even more subdued than before.

  "Eat up," he encouraged – in the form of a command, as usual. "I want to get going. I'd like to make it to the outskirts of Knoxville today and we still have to go back to the rooms and check out and shoot the feline Neil Patrick Harris in your room full of drugs before we can stuff him into the trunk again."

  That brought a much fainter smile to her lips that he had hoped it would, but he wasn't bending on this. He intended that she was going to eat as well as she could while she was with him – which was hopefully a lot longer than he knew she intended. But nevertheless. She wasn't going to be losing weight on his watch.

  When a few minutes went by and she showed less than no interest in obeying him, he leaned forward and whispered huskily in a tone that made her heart ache as she recognized it, "Anna Nicolette, I would heartily suggest that you get your plate cleaned right now, because if we leave here and that plate's got one scrap of food on it, you are going to find yourself riding all the way to Knoxville on a very sore bottom."

  She gave him what he had come to think of – back then – as her stubborn child look, but sighed exaggeratedly and began to tuck into the eggs.

  "Do you want me to ask the waitress to warm them up?" he asked solicitously.

  "No," she snapped, with a bit of a pout.

  But she didn't clean her plate. There was still a good amount of eggs left as well as two half slices of toast when she pushed herself away from the table and got up.

  Remy stayed right where he was and asked her pointedly, "You're sure you're done?"

  That should have been a warning to her, but she was out of practice, apparently. When she nodded, he rose, left some cash on the table for the bill and tip, and reached out to take her hand, extremely confident that she wasn't going to make a scene about him doing that in the restaurant.

  Once they were on their way back to their rooms, though, was another matter entirely, and she did her level best to extract her hand from his, despite the fact she knew that simply wasn't going to happen, because it had never happened in the past. He was just too damned strong.

  Her next boyfriend, she vowed silently, was going to be a ninety-eight pound weakling that she could best at arm wrestling, for sure. Not someone with the upper body strength of Mr. America. Someone shorter than she was, and delicately slim. Yeah, that was it.

  Remy didn't bother trying to bring her to her own room, but headed for his – the one he could produce the key to easily. He had her whisked inside just as she opened her mouth to produce a scream that would have brought the house down, he was sure. She'd always had a good pair of lungs on her.

  He frowned, realizing that he had to wish she still did, and that the pneumonia she'd had hadn't done any permanent damage.

  But he couldn't allow himself to wallow in something he couldn't do anything about. He could, however, let her know that he was damned serious when he told her that he expected her to eat three full meals a day.

  "Just what do you think you're doing?" she asked in a haughty tone he hadn't heard in quite some time as he swept the sheets off the bed and began rummaging through his suitcase.

  What he produced had Anna knocking off the pretence that she didn't know what he was up to and sidling furtively towards the door, only to find her way blocked by an extremely immovable object. He was annoyingly light on his feet for such a big man, and managed to keep her from moving towards the bathroom, too, which she knew had a lock on the door that might buy her a little time.

  Precious little, she was sure, but some time was better than none at all.

  But it was hard for her to move evasively when her eyes were glued to the belt that was dangling from his left hand, where she'd seen it too many times before.

  It had been her nemesis, the thing she least wanted him to threaten to use on her, or heaven forbid, actually go ahead and use it to give her bottom innumerable, searing smacks that left her sitting gingerly for several long days afterwards. He had found it in the back of his closet. It was too wide to b
e in fashion now – not that he paid much attention to that kind of thing – but he had immediately recognized its value in an entirely different area of his life, and Anna had vowed multiple times never to let him go rummaging through his closet again.

  It was deceptively innocuous looking. He'd modified it so that it had a bit of a handle sort of thing, and not too long of a tail so that it could be used if she was bent over the back of a straight-backed chair or just over his knee, but just enough to get his message across, loud and clear. Anna had never been the type of woman who would argue with him about a rule he'd decided upon. She wasn't the confrontational sort. But she did have an unfortunate tendency to just agree with him about whatever it was that he had deemed she should do, and then completely ignore what he'd told her.

  She'd done that once when he'd told her that he thought she should be a more careful with her cell phone, which she had the habit of losing nearly everywhere she went, and it got expensive to replace them.

  So the second time in two months that she'd lost her phone, he'd told her when he gave her the replacement that he expected her to keep track of it by any means necessary, or there would be repercussions.

  She had said a dutiful, "Yes, Sir," but less than two months later, he hadn't been able to get in contact with her one afternoon when he needed to, and she had casually confessed that she had no idea where it was. Anna wasn't like this with any other piece of equipment. She took scrupulous care of her IPod, her IPad, her laptop, her car, but it seemed that the care and feeding of a cell phone was beyond her capabilities.

  He had put an end to that, and then some, by putting the belt to her end.

  From that point on, she'd never lost anything, ever again.

  And he intended that he wouldn't have to tell her again about her eating habits after this, as much as she might hate him even more than she already did by the time he was done with her.

  Anna found her wrist captured in record time, and herself cuddled on his lap on the end of the bed seconds later.