Promises to Keep

  Promises to Keep

  By

  Maura McGiveny

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  PROMISES TO KEEP

  Because she thought he had deceived her, five years ago Kathryn had walked out on Logan Ramsey just after promising to marry him. Now at last he had found her again, and the misunderstanding had been cleared up. Or had it? For now, it seemed, it was Logan's turn to misunderstand her!

  Books you will enjoy

  by

  MAURA McGIVENY

  A GRAND ILLUSION

  Perhaps Jenna Caldwell had spoiled her selfish young sister Meg—but she had seen it as her duty to protect her. But now it had all resulted in Royce Drummond believing that Jenna was the mother of Meg's illegitimate baby—and despising her accordingly. Hadn't Jenna carried her unselfishness a little too far?

  DUQUESA BY DEFAULT

  The imperious Duque Rafael de Santiago had helped Joanna when she was in great trouble, and taken her under his wing—but his price, it seemed, was to insist that she married his young brother Manuel. But Manuel had no wish to marry and instead tricked his brother into marrying Joanna himself. And what was poor Joanna supposed to be feeling meanwhile?

  First published 1984

  Australian copyright 1984

  Philippine copyright 1984

  This edition 1984

  © Maura McGiveny 1984

  ISBN 0 263 74566 X

  CHAPTER ONE

  The pudgy young man drew his car to the kerb and shivered as he cut the ignition. One of these days he was going to get his heater fixed. He'd been meaning to do it for a long time now, but until today he hadn't been able to afford it. He smiled to himself and slid from behind the wheel. A stiff January wind was blowing and nearly knocked him down, but he turned up his frayed collar and battled his way across the busy intersection. Not only would he have his car heater repaired, he'd buy himself a new coat too, one of those sheepskin ones that kept out the cold as well as the wet. His smile became wider. After today he would have money for all the necessities other people took for granted, and maybe he would have enough left over to take a little trip to Tahiti or Bermuda or Jamaica.

  Funny, none of his cases ever took him to exotic places like that. Just once he would like to be like the private investigators on television: a good gun battle with the bad guys and him standing there making it look easy until the police came and carted them all off to jail. He would turn to the beautiful blonde beside him and… And what? he asked himself. His wife would kill him if he tried anything!

  He was getting too old for this dream of his. It was time he accepted the fact that he was a second-rate private investigator whose only claim to fame was an uncanny knack for locating missing persons.

  This case was one of the easiest, Jim Price chuckled to himself, making his way through the shining glass doors of the downtown office building, the easiest and yet the most lucrative. Logan Ramsey wanted that woman found. No cost was too great. He'd heard through the grapevine that the man had used dozens of agencies trying to find her. He'd searched the globe for years, but she was gone, vanished into thin air.

  He gave the girl at the information desk in the lobby a wide grin. 'Good morning, Jenny. How are you this fine morning?'

  'Hi, Mr Price.' She bobbed her curly red head in his direction. 'Haven't seen you so happy in months.'

  'The end of a case, my dear, the end of a case. Mr Ramsey in yet?'

  'Bright and early this morning before any of the rest of us were even here yet. Margaret told me he'd been to check on several timber sites before he got here, too. That man must work twenty-six hours a day!'

  Not after today, Jim Price thought to himself. 'Shall I go up, then?'

  'I'll ring Margaret you're on your way.'

  'Thanks, Jenny.' He stepped into the elevator and whisked his way to the top floor.

  The corridor was thickly carpeted in a beige and brown and gold tweed, blending vividly with the rich oak panelling on the walls. The faint clicking of a typewriter was the only sound that came to him, and all at once the thought struck him that Logan Ramsey, for all his wealth and power and position, was an unhappy man. Strange, he had never realised it before. Perhaps he had been too blinded by the thought of his wealth and all the things it could buy. But Logan Ramsey was only a man, after all. And Jim Price was intrigued by the girl he had been hired to find. She was not his mistress, if he could believe the people who knew her; she just was not the type.

  Once he had located her, he saw that she kept to herself. She was shy and retiring and didn't date anyone—and he wondered about that. For more than a week he followed her everywhere and noted her comings and goings. He even pretended to be the father of a fictitious four-year-old child just to talk to her in the nursery school where she worked as an aide.

  She was polite but aloof, and he couldn't imagine what connection there could be between her and Logan Ramsey. His vivid imagination drummed up all sorts of possibilities. What he wouldn't give to know…

  'Good morning, Mr Price.' Margaret Benson's voice was cold and precise, like her. 'Mr Ramsey is waiting for you.'

  She didn't move from her desk, but her chilling perfection had the power to ruffle him and by the time he closed the door to her office behind him, he had lost some of his cheerful composure.

  The man he had come to see was standing with his hands carelessly resting in the pockets of his black slacks. He had his back to the room, looking out the wide windows that stretched almost completely along two walls. The room itself was spacious, but the length and breadth of the windows overlooking the city of Vancouver made Jim Price feel slightly giddy and he despised the weak feeling in his knees. How he hated heights! And yet this was the perfect backdrop for Logan Ramsey. He perched up here as if he was lord of all he surveyed. Exactly how many acres of timberland he owned was anybody's guess, but he'd heard rumours that the acreage was measured in hundreds of thousands.

  He realised he was staring, nervously probing the rigid lines of the tall man's back and shoulders, and he abruptly turned and forced himself to breathe deeply. Logan Ramsey was only a man, yet he felt inferior beside him. He ran a trembling hand across the back of his neck and cleared his throat, wishing he could sit down in one of the brown leather chairs in front of the desk.

  The carpeting in here was a deep russet colour and the other two walnut-panelled walls held several small paintings that reeked of the ascetic taste of their owner. For all his wealth, Logan Ramsey was not pretentious. The office was purely functional, with only a huge desk and several chairs and a low wooden cabinet set against one wall. All the sounds of the city below were muted and unreal.

  'You're early today, Price,' he said quietly without turning from his contemplation of the city. 'Sit down, won't you?' He ran a hand through his thick black hair with a premature threading of grey at the temples and loosened his tie before unbuttoning the top button of his white silk shirt. Rolling up his sleeves, he seated himself behind his desk without so much as a flicker of emotion on his stony features. 'Do you have anything to report?'

  Jim Price sensed the air of defeat about him. How many times had he faced him these last few months with nothing to say? And how many men had done the same thing before him? He cleared his throat. 'Yes, sir.'

  'You've found her?' He didn't move, but the air suddenly became charged.

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Where?'

  It was only one word and spoken so quietly that J
im Price shuddered as if a cold finger of ice had slithered down his spine. 'She's here, sir, in Vancouver.'

  Logan Ramsey was holding a pencil so tightly in his long fingers that it suddenly snapped in two. He pushed it aside on the polished surface of his desk before folding his hands together. The whitening of his knuckles belied the relaxed pose and his voice was deep with rage. 'Here in Vancouver! You've seen her? Talked to her?'

  Jim cleared his throat nervously. 'Yes, sir.'

  'And?'

  What did he want him to say? He looked at his face to get a clue as to how he should go on, but it told him nothing. A muscle was jerking in the hard line of his jaw, but what that meant was anybody's guess. He reached in his pocket and found a slip of paper with an address on it. 'This is the apartment building where she's living,' he said quietly. 'She works as an aide in a nursery school…' His voice trailed off miserably.

  'How long?' The words were clipped.

  'Er—you mean how long has she worked there?'

  Logan Ramsey nodded.

  Running a nervous finger along the inside of his shirt collar, Jim Price swallowed. 'Five years. Her employer is the gregarious sort, he couldn't tell me enough about what a good employee she is. The children practically idolise her.'

  'There's no mistake it's Kathryn?'

  'Oh no, sir, there's no mistake. She's just like the picture you gave me.' He took that from his pocket too and set it on the desk between them. 'She's thinner now, but there's no doubt it's her.' He clamped his mouth shut at the sudden tightening of Logan Ramsey's white face, and whatever else he was going to say died in his throat.

  'All this time she's been right here, right under my nose, and I couldn't find her! All this time. All those other agencies searching for her.' He looked across his desk to the flushed face of this beefy young man and began to laugh. It was entirely without mirth, a strangely mournful sound in the still room. 'I promised you a bonus if you found her within six months.' He reached in his drawer and withdrew a chequebook. The strokes of his pen were bold and forceful as he wrote out a cheque for an enormous sum. He stood and handed it to him. 'One other thing before you go.'

  Jim Price reluctantly looked at him, not wishing to take his eyes off the cheque. 'Yes?'

  'Tell me, is she married?'

  'No, sir, she doesn't have a husband. She lives alone.' He clutched the cheque and shook his head before quickly turning to the door. A lot of different people reacted in various ways to the news that he had located a missing person for them, but this was the first time he'd run across rage. 'Thank you for the cheque, sir. If I can be of service to you again, you have my number.'

  Logan Ramsey didn't say anything but watched him go with a fleeting sense of unreality. He'd found her. After all this time, all these years, she was here! He turned to the window and dragged his hands through his hair, staring out at the city. Of all the places he had pictured her to be, she was here. Who would have thought it?

  He groped for a chair like a blind man and sat down heavily. Trembling, he picked up the small picture that lay on his desk. 'Kathryn.' He whispered her name brokenly, gripping the picture with tortured fingers.

  It was a good likeness of her, even though it was one of those that developed on the spot and tended to blur. After five years it hadn't faded. She was still as vibrant as she ever was. She stood there, smiling into the camera, but he didn't need a picture to remember her in every vivid detail. She was small and slender with bright blue eyes that held the promise of love. Her hair was black and shining and tumbled in disordered waves far down her back. He had loved to tangle his fingers in its silky thickness. Even now, just the thought of it had the power to drive him mad.

  A fine sweat broke out on his forehead and his breathing became laboured. She's still mine, he thought, unconsciously crushing her picture in his powerful clenched fist. He felt the familiar stab of pain in his chest when he thought of the day this picture was taken. It was the day he had asked her to marry him, the day she had accepted.

  But he had never married her.

  The day after his proposal, she was gone. Vanished. Nothing. Not a word of goodbye.

  Her sister Carol was as surprised as he that she had left. Even her aunt didn't know where she had gone. When Logan pounded on the old woman's door, demanding to know, she couldn't tell him anything except that Kathryn had decided to leave.

  Why? he wanted to know. He had a right to know. Why? For five years he had sought but never found the answer. Now he knew where she was and now he would find out why she left him.

  'Mr Ramsey? Logan? Are you all right?'

  He ran a dazed hand across his eyes and had trouble focusing on his secretary. 'What?' He shook his head and cleared his throat. 'What is it, Margaret?'

  'I buzzed you several times on the intercom, but you didn't answer. Are you all right?' She stood beside him, clutching at his shirt sleeve.

  'Yes, yes, I'm all right,' he said irritably. He straightened and dropped the crushed snapshot into a drawer and pulled himself together with difficulty. 'What did you want me for?'

  'Your brother's on the line. He has a free evening before he leaves for his European tour tomorrow and wants to know if you can meet him for dinner tonight.'

  'You can tell that no-good brother of mine—' Logan stopped and sighed heavily. 'Never mind, I'll talk to him myself.'

  She nodded and left him, and he picked up his telephone with a sweating hand.

  'Sorry to keep you waiting, Paul,' he said shortly. 'I'm pretty busy. Tonight's out of the question. I've got some unfinished business to clear up…'

  When Kathryn left the nursery school on a wet breezy evening towards the end of January, she toyed with the idea of making a side trip downtown to window-shop. But the thought of the fast approaching first of the month and all the bills that came due then quickly put an end to that idea. That was depressing enough, without looking at things she would never be able to buy even if she saved for a whole year. With any luck, she would manage to exist all week on the ten-dollar bill in her purse. It was all that stood between her and absolute poverty.

  A tiny smile curved her lips. At least I have a job with regular paydays, she thought. At least I'm able to take care of myself and not have to depend on anyone else's charity. It's a fantastic feeling to be independent, she decided, and walked with a jaunty step in the direction of home.

  Soon it would be spring, the season of hope. She wouldn't let anything get her down. She'd take a long hot soak in the tub and heat up some soup, then settle down with the book she had borrowed from the library only yesterday. It would be a pleasant evening, the kind she enjoyed most.

  When she turned the corner on to her block, a vague feeling of apprehension slithered down her spine. This time she wasn't imagining it. For nearly two weeks now, she had had the distinct feeling that someone was following her. And it wasn't only at home but also when she was on the playground at school. She shivered, jamming her hands in her pockets before pulling her coat closer around her and running the last few yards to her apartment building.

  With her foot on the top stair, she turned abruptly and looked over her shoulder with a stern frown that was supposed to mask her fear. Whoever you are, she thought to herself, you don't scare— But before the thought had completed itself, she found herself looking down into Logan Ramsey's implacable face.

  'Hello, Kathryn,' he said softly, as if meeting her outside her building was an everyday occurrence.

  Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Goosebumps broke out all over her and she found it difficult to breathe. He was just as she remembered him: tall and handsome, his muscular frame covered in an expensive dark trenchcoat. His black hair was stylishly longer now, with the beginnings of a distinguished grey at the temples. His face was thinner and his cheekbones more prominent, but the deep clefts at the sides of his mouth hadn't altered and the mesmerising qualities of his deep blue eyes still fascinated her even after all these years.

  A sudden a
nguish squeezed her heart, but she fought against the sensation with all her might. It seemed to take her forever to find enough presence of mind to walk back down the few steps to where he stood. He probably expected her to bolt and run, but she wasn't going to let him have the satisfaction of seeing her do the expected thing.

  'Well, well. What brings you to this neighbourhood, brother-in-law?' she said softly, thankful her voice didn't quiver. 'I don't ever remember you slumming before.'

  'I came to find you.' He was matter-of-fact, quiet and firm.

  A dull red crept up her neck as she tried to match his tone. 'Whatever for?'

  'Let's go inside. I'd rather not discuss it on your doorstep.' He tossed his windblown hair out of his eyes and gripped her elbow.

  'No!' She jerked her arm away from him. 'We don't need to go inside. Whatever you have to say can be said right here. But make it short, will you? I've got a lot of things to do.'

  'I intend to take you home with me. Is that short enough?'

  Her jaw started to drop, but she sank her teeth into her bottom lip and tried to hang on to her temper. 'If you need someone to fetch and carry for Carol, hire a maid. I'm no longer at her beck and call.' She turned and started up the steps again, but something came and went in his eyes and he grabbed at the thin sleeve of her coat and nearly tore the worn material.

  'It isn't Carol who needs you. It's Jon.'

  'Jon?'

  'My son.' There was no inflection in his quiet voice and he met her wary look with eyes that turned to immovable stone.

  A shaft of pain sliced through her. His son! His son and Carol's. 'No, Logan. I have a well-paying job and a home of my own. There's no room in my life for you or Carol or your son. You'll have to get someone else to play nursemaid!' She ran up the steps and nearly succeeded in slamming the door in his face, but Logan was too quick for her and he pushed it back easily, following her into the entrance hall.