A Man's Promise

“Thanks, Tess. The next two weeks are going to be busy as we get ready for the grand opening. I’m going to need all hands on deck.”

Excitement spread across Tess’s face. “We know, and we can’t wait. We’re ready to do whatever you need. You do everything with class, Ms. Timmons. Just look at this place.”

Shiloh glanced around again, and she couldn’t help but be filled with pride. She had known this place would be perfect the moment the Realtor had shown it to her, and she couldn’t think of any better way to use the money from the trust fund her grandparents had set up for her. She loved the location—right in the middle of Charlottesville’s gorgeous historical district. The brick streets and sidewalks, the quaint shops, the old-fashioned light posts and the thousands of tourists ready to spend money were the perfect complements to her new business. The patrons could purchase a bottle of wine to take home, or they could sit and enjoy a glass of something special at one of the café tables in front of the shop. The huge overhanging oak trees helped provide shade in the summer and a blanket against the snow in the winter.

Once in a while, she would go outside and look up at the huge sign over the large storefront window. The Wine Cellar Boutique. She’d had the sign custom made to blend in with the shop’s architecture, and just seeing it made her feel that at least she had accomplished one of the things she’d always wanted: to become an entrepreneur. One of her own choosing.

She knew her father had been disappointed that neither she nor Sedrick ever showed any interest in joining his million-dollar retail business. Samuel had ended up reaching out to his brother and nephews. He had brought them into the business. Her uncle Rodney was the complete opposite of his brother, and Shiloh often wondered how the two ever got along.

Shiloh looked out the large front window. It was late August and pretty soon it would be September. Forecasters were predicting a short fall and an early winter. Shiloh hoped they were wrong, especially since the winter being predicted would be colder than usual. She much preferred the fall, when the days were still somewhat warm and the nights were cool. What she loved the most was the changing of the leaves—the colors turned from a bright green to a rusty-red.

Inside the shop, the floors were covered with tile that had been imported from Italy, and she had installed shelves made of rich mahogany wood that held racks and racks of the best-tasting wine available anywhere. Most of the wine had been purchased directly from the vineyards. In addition to the wine, the boutique sold various kinds of cheeses, wineglasses and an assortment of breads that were delivered daily. And for those who preferred enjoying their wine inside, she had a separate seating area complete with Wi-Fi. It wasn’t unusual for patrons to come and sit and sip for a while—some had already become regulars.

Most locals and tourists had been receptive to the new boutique, and business had been booming since day one. Originally, Shiloh thought she and Tess could handle things themselves, but within days she had had to hire Markel, Collette and Donnell.

Her office was located on the second floor, and the cellar below the shop was where all her stock was located. There was also a huge room adjacent to the shop itself that she could use for just about anything, and this week the decorator was busy transforming it into the reception area for her grand opening. Out back was the brick courtyard with a huge water fountain. She would be utilizing that area for the grand opening, as well.

The third floor of the building was a private floor where her living quarters were located. Right now, the two bedrooms, the one-and-a-half baths, the living room and the eat-in kitchen unit were all she needed. There was another huge room on that floor, and if she ever felt the need for more space, all she had to do was knock down a wall.

She glanced at her watch. She was expecting her accountant any minute. “Tess, I’m going down to the cellar to finish taking inventory. I’m expecting my accountant anytime now. Send him downstairs when he arrives.”

“Okay, I sure will.”

* * *

Caden walked into the Wine Cellar Boutique and glanced around. Nice. Classy. But then, he didn’t expect anything owned by Shiloh to be any other way. The place was busy, but her employees were very efficient. Most appeared to be college age, and they were serving and greeting customers, referring to many by their first names. Instead of getting in line to buy something, he approached a young woman who was watering one of the huge plants.

“Excuse me, miss. I’m looking for Shiloh Timmons.”

A huge smile touched the young woman’s lips. “Welcome to the Wine Boutique, and I’m Tess. Ms. Timmons is expecting you.”

Caden seriously doubted that. “All right.”

“She asked me to send you downstairs to the cellar. The elevator is just over there to your right.”

“Thanks.” Caden turned toward the elevator, passing a huge display of wineglasses that were stacked in the shape of a pyramid that went all the way up to the ceiling. He stepped on the elevator and braced himself for what Shiloh would say when she saw him. Regardless of what Tess had said, he was not the person Shiloh was expecting.

The elevator ride took a few moments, and when he stepped out of it, he glanced around and immediately saw that the place was huge. The fresh smell of paint permeated the air. Hearing the sounds of shuffling papers, he moved in that direction. Rounding the corner, he saw her.

He paused and stared. Her back was to him and she was leaning over a huge crate, counting the contents. Dressed in a silky blue blouse, a black pencil skirt with a slit in the back and black high heels, she presented a picture that he couldn’t help but appreciate. There was no doubt that Shiloh was a beautiful and desirable woman. Although their relationship had been built on more than just physical attraction, he would be the first to admit that the physical had been good. Damned good. But what he’d loved most about her was her bubbly and lovable spirit—something that shone through even when she had a tyrant for a father. But Samuel was dead, and Caden could blame only himself for being the one who’d now broken that spirit.

As he studied her further, he saw she had put her hair up. It swirled into an elegant chignon at the nape of her neck. She usually wore her hair up in the summer, when the July heat began getting to her. She had always preferred cold weather to hot, and he had always enjoyed keeping her warm during those cold nights when he’d visited her in Boston.

She straightened, and he watched as she flipped through the papers on her clipboard.

Figuring that now was as good a time as any to make his presence known, he said, “Hello, Shiloh.”

Seven

Shiloh spun around, recognizing Caden’s voice immediately. And he stood there in her cellar as if he had every right to be there. The shock of seeing him was replaced with anger, and she raised her chin and narrowed her gaze while trying to ignore how good he looked in his business suit. When he performed he wore casual attire—a nice shirt with either jeans or slacks. Seeing him standing there looking as if he had stepped off the pages of a GQ magazine almost took her breath away. Almost...but not quite.

And why did he look more handsome than ever? His neatly trimmed beard might have something to do with it. Did he have to look so sexy standing there and staring at her with those gorgeous light brown eyes of his? And his nutmeg-colored features appeared creamy smooth against the whiteness of his dress shirt.

“What are you doing here, Caden?” Her tone was sharp, and she meant for it to be.

“I came to see you.”

Her eyebrows shot up. He had to be joking. “Why would you do that when you told me just last month that you couldn’t stand the sight of me?”

“I was wrong, and I came to apologize, Shiloh. I said a lot of things that night that I had no business saying. I know the truth now, and I should have listened to what you had been trying to tell me.”

She wondered who’d told him anything, but it truly didn’t matter. “Yes, you should have listened to what I had to say, but you didn’t. Not only that, you showed me how much faith and trust you had in me, Caden. A whole lot less than I had in you.”

“What was I supposed to think, Shiloh?”

It infuriated her that he would have to ask. “That nothing short of death could have kept me from marrying you that weekend. But you didn’t think about that. You thought I would lie around on the beach with another man. So much for what you thought of my character.”

“But there were pictures, and when I tried calling, a man answered the phone. Of course, I now know all of it was arranged by your father.”

“And that made you believe the worst about me?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute and then said, “I was wrong. I’m apologizing. Like I said, I thought—”

“I know what you thought. I get it. Now, will you please leave?”

He shook his head at that request. “And I know about the baby. Our baby,” he said instead. “I wish I could have been there with you,” he said softly.

A pain sliced through her heart. Caden was forcing her to remember a period in her life that had been so painful. She didn’t want to recall that she had wanted him there. The pain of broken bones had been bad enough, but then to be told she had lost their child had been an agony no one should go through. Even now, an ache still remained inside of her. And she often wondered if her child had survived whether it would have been a boy or a girl. It would not have mattered to her. She would have been a better parent to that child than her parents had ever been to her.

And she had cried every night for Caden to come, refusing to believe her father when he’d said he’d contacted Caden. Her father had told her that Caden didn’t want her and that he couldn’t have cared less about her pregnancy.

“What about you, Shiloh? It’s been four years. If you had so much faith in me, why didn’t you contact me and tell me about the baby?”

His words made something inside her snap. “I did try to contact you. For months, while I lay in that hospital bed, broken up and in pain, I didn’t believe any of the things my father was telling me about you. He even showed me newspapers that listed where you had gone on tour and the women the tabloids claimed you were sleeping with. I didn’t want to believe it. I refused to believe it.”

She paused a moment. Later, when she’d been released from the hospital, she had discovered that he’d been sleeping around with those women. “And when I could travel, I found out where you were. I wanted to know why you had betrayed me and why you hadn’t come to me when I needed you. I believed there had to be a reason, and I needed you to tell me that reason. But when I attended your concert, you had Security escort me out. Again, you didn’t want to hear what I had to say.”

Caden cursed himself, shamed by the memory. Yes, after he had received those photographs and had believed the worst, he had begun having affairs, hoping she would hear about them. He had wanted to hurt her the way she’d hurt him. Seeing her in the audience at one of his concerts had been a huge distraction and he’d acted like a fool. He’d had no idea she had come to tell him about the baby.

He looked over at her and saw her lips trembling, saw the anger in her eyes in a way he’d never seen before. He had wronged her in so many ways. Yet, she had come to pay her last respects to his grandfather by attending the memorial service. And she could have been spiteful during the board meeting, voting against him and his brothers to prevent them from retaining control of Granger Aeronautics.

When she had discovered the truth of what her parents had done, she had sought him out again, and he had said words to her that no man should ever say to the woman he loved.

Looking at her now, he knew those same words applied to himself. She couldn’t stand the sight of him.

Caden knew he had to plead his case and hoped she would give him another chance. He took a step toward her and felt agony all the way to his feet when she took a step back, away from him. “You have every right to despise me, Shiloh,” he said in a soft tone. “And I deserve all the hatred you might be feeling toward me right now. I let you down. I did the one thing I’d always promised not to do, and that was to let your father come between us again. And you’re right. You believed in me more than I believed in you.”

He paused a moment and then said, “There has been a lot of hurt and anger on both sides. I suggest we pick up the pieces and move on. Together. And I think—”

“Right now, I don’t care what you think, Caden,” she said, interrupting him. “I hurt too much to care. The only thing I want you to do is leave me alone. I want to move on...without you.”

He stared at her for a moment, not believing she could really feel that way, and he knew now was not the time to push. But he definitely needed her to understand something. “I love you, Shiloh. I know you doubt that right now, and I understand. But if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I’m a survivor. I survived the death of my mother and the injustice done to my father. Right now, the only thing that threatens my survival is you, because I need you...and I always have. And I intend with every breath in my body to make you believe in me again. I will regain your trust.”

He paused to get himself together. At that moment, he was filled with all kinds of emotion, and at the top of the list was the fear that he might have lost her for good. What he’d just told her was true. He was a survivor, but only because he’d always known she was there and always would be.

“I’m making you a promise, Shiloh—a man’s promise to the woman he loves. I promise that I will do what it takes to win you back. I promise to regain your love and trust.”

Shiloh shook her head sadly as tears filled her eyes. “I’m not sure that’s possible, Caden. So much has happened, so many hurtful things have been said. Things I’m not sure I can forgive you for saying. Like I told you, I just want to move on. If you love me as much as you claim you do, you’d let me do that.”

Caden drew in a deep breath. “And because I love you as much as I do, I can’t do that.”

She stared at him for a moment and then, without saying another word, she turned and quickly headed toward the elevator.

* * *

Shiloh barely made it to her office, closing the door behind her. Leaning against it, she tried to stop the tears that flowed from her eyes but could not. How could a man say he loved her but trust her so little? He had taken one look at those pictures and accepted them at face value, assuming she had betrayed him. Knowing that was something she couldn’t get beyond.

Her cell phone began ringing and she recognized the ringtone immediately. It belonged to Sedrick.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she tried to speak in a normal voice. “Hello, Sedrick.”

“Did Caden Granger contact you?”

She frowned. “You knew he would try?”

There was a pause on the other end before Sedrick answered. “Yes, he called me here at the hospital and asked me how to find you.”

“And you told him?” she accused.

“He would have hunted you down eventually. He was desperate to talk to you. I would have called sooner to warn you but I had an emergency with one of my patients.”

“Who told him what had happened? How did he find out?”

“Mom. He said she came to see him. She assumed he already knew. Figured you told him that night.”

“I would have had he wanted to listen to me,” she said angrily. Pain settled around her heart every time she thought of that night. “Why would Mom go see him anyway?”

“I guess she was reaching out to him to help patch up things between the two of you. Shiloh, she regrets what she did, and one day, you’re going to have to meet with her and talk about it. Hear her out. Like I said, you and I both know the old man had her under his thumb.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Sedrick asked, “Well, did he contact you?”

“He came here to tell me how sorry he was for what he did and said.”

“And did you and Caden kiss and make up?”

Was she hearing hope in her brother’s voice? “Is that what you want?”

“It’s not what I want, Shiloh. It’s what you want. Whatever will make you happy.”

She thought about her brother’s question. She’d always thought being with Caden would make her happy. It seemed she had loved him forever. She had never imagined the day would come when the thought of him would fill her heart with so much pain. And, for some reason, she was having a problem getting beyond it. Those two years when they’d become lovers had been the best she’d ever had. But now all she felt was heartache and anger.

She was doing the very thing she’d said she would never do, and that was cry over Caden Granger. But she refused to do so again. “What will make me happy is what I plan to do, and that is to move on. I can’t imagine having Caden back in my life. Too much has happened. Too much has been said. I need to get beyond that, Sedrick. For years, my life had been wrapped around Caden’s, even those years when Father forbade me to have contact with him.”

She paused a moment and then said, “Caden told me he loves me.”

“Do you believe him?”

“No. What man can love a woman and treat her the way he treated me?”

“He thought you had betrayed him, Shiloh.”

She was irritated by his words. “Why are you defending him?”

“I don’t think I’m doing that. I just want you to make sure you know what you’re doing because, personally, I don’t see Caden giving up on you. I heard it in his voice today.”

She couldn’t help but remember the promise he’d made to her. A man’s promise. If his promise was meant to give her hope, it had missed the mark because, at that moment, all she felt was regret. “It doesn’t matter what he does. I intend to live my life without Caden in it.”

“Shiloh, I know how much Caden means to you. To be fair to my colleague Wallace, I don’t think you should get involved with him until you’re sure that you are over Caden.”

“I am over him, Sedrick. Caden coming here today means nothing to me. I don’t know how much plainer I can be.”

Sedrick didn’t say anything for a minute and then asked, “So everything is still on for this weekend?”

She drew in a deep breath. “Yes, everything is still on.”

* * *

Caden got into his car and had buckled the seat belt when his cell phone went off. The ringtone meant it was Dalton. “Yes, Dalton?”

“What are you doing in historic downtown?”

Caden cursed under his breath, recalling the tracker his brother had placed on his phone. “None of your damned business. What do you want?”

“A little grouchy, are we?”

Deciding now was not the time for Dalton to get on his last nerve, he said, “Unless there’s a reason for this call, I suggest you call me back later.”

“Oh, there is a reason for it. Big brother asked me to call and inform you of the meeting at Sutton Hills. Don’t ask me what it’s about, because I don’t know. I think his Wonder Woman is going to be there. And he included Hannah.” Hannah had been the family’s housekeeper for years and had grown to become more than that. She was like a part of the Granger family, and he and his brothers simply adored her.

Caden eased into traffic. “What time’s the meeting?”

“As soon as you can get here. Jace and Wonder Woman are on their way. Tonight’s Ladies’ Night at McQueen’s, so I’m missing out on checking out several hot babes. This damned meeting better be good.”

Caden rolled his eyes. “I’m on my way.”

After he clicked off the phone, he couldn’t help wondering about the meeting Jace had called away from the office. Was something going on that made Jace feel they couldn’t have a secure conversation at Granger Aeronautics? Had Shana and her team uncovered another diabolical plot against the company? But then, Dalton had said Hannah would be attending the meeting, so maybe the meeting had nothing to do with the business after all. He would know soon enough. Jeez, he longed for the days when all he had to worry about was his concert-tour schedule.

Deciding he didn’t want to dwell on work problems for the moment, he turned his mind to his own major problem. Shiloh. Regaining her trust wouldn’t be easy, but he was determined to do it.

His goal was to put her back in his life, where she belonged.

Eight

“Welcome to Sutton Hills, Shana.”

Shana smiled over at Jace. “This place is beautiful.”

Jace told her Sutton Hills, the Grangers’ estate, encompassed over two hundred acres near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and consisted of the most beautiful land anywhere.

As they drove on the long winding road canopied by large oak trees, he pointed out several places of interest. “That’s the equestrian center to your right. Those horses are my father’s pride and joy. And my grandfather felt the same way.”

She looked over at him. “There are so many horses in the pastures.”

Jace chuckled. “Yes. Sutton Hills is considered a horse ranch because of the beautiful Thoroughbreds we have here. A number of them are entered into the major races each year.”

Shana knew that managing the stables alone was a huge undertaking. “Who handles the horses while you’re running Granger Aeronautics?”

“We have a ranch foreman who takes care of that end of things for us. Patrick has been with Sutton Hills for over forty years now, since before I was born. He’ll be retiring next year, and his son Clyde has already been groomed to take his place.”

Shana nodded. She had heard about Sutton Hills. Had even read about it during her research. She’d known it was large, but hadn’t imagined it was this immense.

“Sutton Hills is divided into four major areas,” Jace continued. “My grandparents lived in the main house, which is probably a mile or so from the equestrian center, and it sits on fifty acres of land. It’s two stories and backs up against Mammoth Lake.”

“That’s where you’re staying now? In your grandfather’s home?”

“Yes. If you look through those trees, you’ll be able to see the roof of my parents’ home. After Mom died and Dad went to prison, Granddad closed up the place and brought us to live with him. None of us has been back in that house ever since.”

Shana could understand why they wouldn’t want to return. Through the trees, she saw an outline of the structure’s rooftop. It was huge.

“And over there,” he said, slowing down. “At the mouth of the lake is the boathouse.” Quietly, he added, “That’s the place where my mother was found murdered fifteen years ago. She had two gunshot wounds in her chest.”

Shana did not say a word. She knew Jace had more to say.

He paused a moment, then said, “Dad found her. He went into the boathouse, and one of the first things he saw when he walked in was his gun lying in the middle of the floor. I wish to hell that he hadn’t picked it up—it turned out to be the murder weapon. Then he went toward the back of the boathouse, and that’s when he found Mom, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He called 911. Within hours, he was arrested for her murder. Since only his fingerprints were found on the gun, he ended up being charged with her murder.”

Shana decided not to ask if anyone had been to the boathouse since that tragic day. In all likelihood they had not. Jace told her he’d been sixteen when his mother was killed, Caden fourteen, and Dalton had been about to celebrate his twelfth birthday.

Changing the subject and the somber mood, Jace said, “You’re going to like Hannah, and she’s going to like you.”

Shana smiled. “What makes you so sure of that?”

“Because I like you. Better yet, I love you.”

A warm feeling always stole over Shana whenever he told her that. “How do you think everyone will react once they know about us and the baby?”