Coda 01 - Promises

Published by
Dreamspinner Press
4760 Preston Road
Suite 244-149
Frisco, TX 75034
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Promises
Copyright © 2010 by Marie Sexton
Cover Art by Anne Cain [email protected] Cover Design by Mara McKennen
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
ISBN: 978-1-61581-378-0
    Printed in the United States of America First Edition
January, 2010
eBook edition available
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-379-7
    Many thanks to—
    My husband Sean,
for his unwavering love and support, even when I was completely obsessive and monopolized the computer.
    Carol Ibanez, whose guidance helped me turn a novella into a novel.
    Amy Caroline, my greatest cheerleader and sounding board, for reading every version of this story, every deleted scene, and every half-baked idea that drifted through my head.
    This book is for the three of you, without whom it would never have existed.

    T HE whole thing started because of Lizzy’s Jeep. If it hadn’t been for that, I might not have met Matt. And maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to prove himself. And maybe nobody would have been hurt.
    But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I said, it started with Lizzy’s Jeep. Lizzy is the wife of my brother Brian, and they were expecting their first child in the fall. She decided that her old Wrangler, which she’d had since college, just wasn’t going to cut it as a family vehicle. So she parked it out front of our shop with a handwritten For Sale sign in the window.
    The shop was started by my grandpa. Originally it was a hardware store, but at some point, auto parts had been added as well. When my grandpa died, my dad took over the store, and when he died, it passed to Brian, Lizzy, and me.
    It was a gorgeous spring day in Colorado, and I was sitting with my feet up on the counter, wishing I was outside enjoying the sunshine, when he came in. He definitely caught my attention right away, simply because he wasn’t from around here. I’ve lived in Coda my whole life, not counting the five years I spent in Fort Collins, at the university, and I knew everybody in town. So he was either visiting somebody in the area or just passing through. We’re not a tourist town, but people do bump into us occasionally, either looking for four-wheel drive trails or on their way to one of the dude ranches that are farther up the road.
    He certainly didn’t look like one of the middle-aged suckers who frequented the dude ranches. He was probably in his early thirties. He was taller than me by two or three inches, putting him just over six feet tall, with military-short black hair and a couple of days’ worth of dark stubble on his cheeks. He was wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt and cowboy boots. Broad shoulders and big arms showed he worked out. He was gorgeous.
    “That Jeep run?” His voice was deep with a little bit of a drawl. Not Deep South drawl, but the vowels were a little longer than a Coloradoan.
    “You bet. It runs great.”

    “Hmmm.” He was looking out the window at it. “Why you selling it?”

    “Not me. My sister-in-law. She says it’ll be too hard to get a car seat in the back. She bought a Cherokee instead.”

    He looked a little confused by that, which told me he didn’t have kids himself. “So it drives okay?”

    “Perfect. Want to try it out? I’ve got the keys right here.” His eyebrows went up. “Sure! You need collateral or something? I can leave my license.”
    I think at that point, he could have talked me into about anything. My knees were feeling a little wobbly. I was trying to determine if I really was seeing a touch of green in those steel-gray eyes. I hoped I sounded casual when I said, “I’ll go with you. I know the roads around here. We can take it up one of the easy trails so you can see how it