Vows Read online

  Vows

  ROCHELLE

  ALERS

  Vows

  © 1997 by Rochelle Alers

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission. For permission please contact Kimani Press, Editorial Office, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  A very special thanks to Minnie—my late mother, counselor and prophet…

  Vivian Stephens—literary visionary…

  Mary Oluonye and Marsha Anne Tanksley, who recognized Joshua as a man for all seasons long before he appeared in print…

  Monica Harris—editor and kindred spirit…

  LaVerne—for the gifts from the Spirit…

  And for all my readers—this one’s for you!

  My bitterness will turn into peace,

  you save my life from all danger;

  you forgive all my sins.

  —Isaiah 38:17

  Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One: The Seduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Two: The Stranger

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  His touch was gossamer, almost magical, his fingers sliding over her breasts and down to her flat belly. Vanessa could not believe the exquisite torture wringing spasms of heat, cold and pleasure from her dormant body. It was as if she had been waiting years, all of her life, for the gratification her husband offered her at that moment.

  How could he, this stranger—know her body better than she did? How could he, this man she had only known for eight days—know Vanessa Blanchard-Kirkland better than she knew herself?

  His kisses, which had begun as slow and searching, were now strong and urging. “Open your mouth,” he ordered softly, coaxing her to respond, and she opened her mouth to his. His tongue slipped inside, awakening a response deep within her.

  Her shuttered lids flew up and Vanessa recognized the repressed passion in Joshua’s startling, light green eyes. His electric gaze, shocking pale silver hair, and the deep, rich mahogany brown of his tanned skin made him so compelling and magnetic that everything about him was potent and breathtaking.

  Closing her eyes she savored the sensation of his flesh melding with hers, making them one. A soft sigh of satisfaction escaped her as she breathed lightly from between parted lips. The rush of heat swept from the soft core of her center and radiated outward like spokes on a wheel.

  She rose to meet Joshua in a moment of uncontrolled passion, her eager response matching his. Pinpoints of passion burned brightly as she rose and—suddenly, without warning—fell headlong into darkness and emptiness.

  Vanessa couldn’t stop her fall as tears leaked from under her closed lids. The recurring dream had attacked again, this time the images more vivid than before. However, this was the first time her missing husband had revealed his face to her in her dream.

  Turning her face into her pillow she cried silently, uncontrollable sobs shaking her body, and it was only later, much later, that she fell asleep again. This time the dream did not come back to remind her that the man she had fallen in love with and married had disappeared without a trace. She didn’t know whether she was Vanessa Blanchard or Vanessa Kirkland, married, separated, divorced or widowed.

  Bright ribbons of New Mexico summer sunlight slanted across the bedroom floor, and Vanessa knew immediately upon waking that she had overslept. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and moaned. It was nearly eight-twenty.

  Reaching for the telephone, she dialed her boss’s private number. The connection was broken after the second ring. “Good morning. Colonel McDonald’s office. Miss Grant speaking.”

  “Jenna, it’s Vanessa.”

  “What’s the matter, Vanessa? You sound funny.”

  She swallowed several times, trying to moisten her dry throat. “I have a sore throat. Please tell Warren I won’t be in today.”

  “Are you taking a personal day?”

  “No. Put it down as a sick day.”

  “I hope you feel better.”

  “Thank you, Jenna.”

  Vanessa replaced the receiver and lay back against the pile of pillows cradling her shoulders. Not only was her throat sore and dry, but she knew without looking at a mirror that her eyes were swollen from her crying.

  This was the third time within two months that she had called in sick because she had spent the night crying after the disturbing dream woke her. The dream was always the same.

  Combing the fingers of both hands through her chemically straightened black hair, she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. Perhaps if she talked out her dreams with a therapist they would stop haunting her.

  She had considered seeking a professional counselor when they first began, but had balked several times because of embarrassment. How could she tell someone that she had met a man while on vacation, married him eight days later, then discovered that he had abandoned her in a foreign country?

  There were times when she thought she had imagined him, but then came the times when she knew he was real. Her dreams brought back the memories of the passion she had shared with him; an all-consuming passion she had never shared with any man except the man she had claimed as her husband.

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. No one would believe her.

  She lay in bed, willing her mind blank. Soon her breathing deepened and she finally went back to sleep.

  It was the telephone and not a dream that pulled Vanessa into awareness. She groped for the receiver several times before locating it.

  “Hel-lo.”

  “Vanessa, are you all right? Do you want me to call Roger and have him stop by and see you after he finishes at the hospital?”

  She recognized her sister’s voice and smiled. “I’m okay, Connie.”

  “You don’t sound okay.”

  “I am. Really.”

  “If you’re okay, then why aren’t you at work? You never take off from work unless you’re sick.”

  “I have a sore throat.”

  “Then you’re sick. Right after I hang up I’m going to call Roger and—”

  “Don’t, Connie!” Vanessa shouted as loudly as she could. “I don’t need a doctor,” she continued in a softer tone. “What I need is someone to talk to,” she said quickly, the plea rushing from her lips before she could stop it. Again, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Can that someone be your sister?”

  Biting down hard on her lower lip, Vanessa nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  It was done. She was now committed to telling Connie about her dreams. “Thanks.”

  She hung up the phone, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and headed for the bathroom. Last night’s dream had been too real, but the events leading up to the dreams were also
real, and it was time she told someone about the incident that had changed her and her life forever.

  She took a leisurely shower, knowing it would take her sister more than half an hour to drive from her sprawling hillside home in La Tierra, an area just north of Santa Fe where Connie lived with her cardiologist husband and two school-age sons, to her own modest, three bedroom, Spanish style townhouse.

  Patting herself dry, Vanessa took an inordinate amount of time to cream her body with a thick, oil-based, scented lotion. The thin mountain air absorbed all the moisture from her skin, and before the onset of the summer heat she took every step to protect it, at any cost.

  She brushed her hair and secured it at the crown of her head with several large pins; peering into the mirror over the bathroom sink, she noted that some of the swelling around her eyes had gone down. Most people would not notice the slight puffiness under her large eyes, but those people did not include Connie. There were very few things she could conceal from Constance Blanchard-Childs.

  Returning to her bedroom, she slipped into her underwear, a pair of shorts, and a tank top. She pushed her feet into a pair of well-worn sandals at the same time the doorbell rang.

  Vanessa went down the staircase, making her way to the front door and opening it. Connie always parked her racy, red BMW coupe in her driveway instead of the area reserved for visitors.

  Connie held out her arms, and she allowed her older sister to comfort her as she pressed a kiss to her scented cheek.

  “Come on in out of the sun.”

  Connie walked into the brick-tiled entry way and took off a pair of oversized sunglasses, fanning her moist face with a manicured hand. The resemblance between the sisters was startling. Both were tall and slender, with dramatic, large, dark eyes.

  Vanessa closed the solid mahogany door, shutting out the heat. The central cooling and heating systems kept the interior comfortable and virtually dust-free.

  “Have you eaten breakfast?” she asked.

  “I’ll eat after we talk.”

  The women walked into the living room and sat down opposite each other on a sofa and love seat. Taking a deep breath, Vanessa stared at her sister’s attractive face.

  “Do you remember when I went to Mexico for vacation?”

  Connie nodded. “Of course I do.” Her smooth brow furrowed. “Are you in some type of trouble?”

  Vanessa pursed her lips. “No, but I’m married to—”

  “You’re what?” Connie interrupted, the words exploding from her mouth.

  “I met a man and married him.” She couldn’t believe her confession sounded so glib.

  Connie’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “In Mexico?”

  “Yes, in Mexico.”

  Connie moved from the love seat and sat down next to Vanessa. Taking her hand, she shook in her head in amazement. “How could you keep something like this from me? Mercy, Vanessa, I’m your sister.”

  “If I hadn’t had the dreams about him I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”

  “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me?” Connie said, anger and disappointment filling her scathing tone.

  “It has nothing to do with trust, Connie. It’s more like pride and embarrassment.”

  “The hell with your false pride and being embarrassed. I have to know everything.”

  The anxiety that had filled her waking days subsided with the admission. The fear and the apprehension Vanessa had carried for more than a year eased, and she knew she had made the right decision to tell Connie about the man she had fallen in love with on sight.

  “I met Joshua Kirkland on the flight….”

  PART ONE

  The Seduction

  Chapter 1

  Vanessa noticed him immediately as he made his way down the aisle of the AeroMexico jet, his darting gaze searching the numbers and letters over each seat.

  He was tall and slender, and what riveted her attention was his deeply tanned skin contrasting with his startling, close-cut silver hair. But it wasn’t until he came closer to where she sat that she noticed his eyes. They were a cold, pale green.

  At first glance she thought he was older, because of his silvered hair, but with his approach she doubted whether he was forty. There were a few lines around his shimmering eyes, and she surmised that he had earned those from squinting in the sun. His impassive expression did not lend itself to a softening of his firm mouth or the crinkling of the lines around his eyes in an open smile.

  He was impeccably dressed, unlike her and most of the other casually attired passengers on the Santa Fe flight to Mexico City, via a ninety-minute layover in El Paso, Texas.

  His wheat-colored linen jacket, reminiscent of a field of sun-dappled, waving particles of grain, was an exact match for his pale, coarse hair. His pristine white shirt set off the deep, rich color of his face, his silk tie in varying shades of brown and gold, the expertly tailored, double-pleated, dark brown slacks falling from his slim waist to the tops of his imported Italian loafers, and a legal-size leather portfolio with a distinctive world-renowned leather crafter’s logo that silently announced European.

  Vanessa averted her gaze as he stood beside her seat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him remove his jacket, fold it carefully, then store it in the overhead bin.

  She turned her attention to the activity outside the large aircraft, watching as the ground crew transferred luggage from rolling carts to the cargo area of the plane.

  “Excuse me, please.”

  Her head came around quickly and she stared up at the silver-haired man. His voice was deeper than she would have expected it to be, and his accent was definitely American. Realization dawned, and she knew he had been assigned the window seat next to her.

  He took several steps backward as she stood up and slipped out of her seat. Standing beside him made Vanessa aware of how tall he was. She stood five-nine in her bare feet, and as an adolescent she had towered over most of the boys in her classes until her last year of high school. Her fellow passenger had to be several inches above the six-foot mark.

  She registered the warmth of his body and the clean, citrus-based fragrance of his cologne as he moved past her and sat down. Retaking her seat, she secured her seatbelt and picked up the magazine she had bought at a gift shop in the airport.

  She soon found herself deeply engrossed in an article on aging and the advantages and disadvantages of cosmetic surgery, shutting out the clamor going on around her as passengers searched for their seats, stored carry-on luggage under seats, or made room in the crowded overhead bins. Flight attendants worked quickly and efficiently to seat everyone before the cockpit crew was cleared for takeoff.

  Vanessa had waited more than six months for this long-planned, well-deserved trip to Mexico. As an accountant with a Santa Fe based military defense manufacturing firm, she was responsible for contracts, and Grenville-Edwards had been the winner of a Pentagon bid for the so-called Joint Strike Fighter. The company was expected to build at least 2,800 of the planes, guaranteeing Grenville-Edwards’s prosperity well into the next century and the expansion of their work force by thousands of employees.

  She had agreed with the Wall Street Journal analyst who reported that over the life of the project the fighter could generate sales of more than 750 billion, including spare parts and foreign sales.

  Her work at Grenville-Edwards occupied so much of her waking time that a social life had become almost nonexistent for her. She hadn’t had a serious relationship in more than four years—not since she had left her native Los Angeles after a broken engagement. At the urging of her sister, she took a leave of absence from the small private college where she taught accounting, and stayed with Connie and her family. The three month leave was extended to six. After securing a position with Grenville-Edwards she relocated to Santa Fe. She lived in her sister’s guest house for a year before she purchased her townhouse in a newly constructed private community in a Santa Fe suburb.

  She returned to Los Angeles
twice a year to visit her parents, and not once did they ever mention the name of the man she had once promised to spend her life with. Kenneth Richmond lived part of the year in L.A. and the remainder in Washington, D.C. He had won a congressional seat from their district, and was now Congressman Richmond.

  Thinking of Kenneth wrung a smile from Vanessa. Kenneth Richmond—handsome, brilliant, charming and a consummate womanizer. He would do very well in Washington, where women outnumbered men at least five to one.

  The flight attendants walked up and down the aisle, making certain the cabin was secured for takeoff. Vanessa glanced over to her right and noticed a stack of printed sheets resting atop the man’s leather portfolio. A company’s letterhead indicated a Dusseldorf address, and even though she could not read the language she knew the printed words were German.

  Her gaze moved up, studying the clean-cut lines of his profile. His sharp features were perfect and symmetrical, and if it hadn’t been for his reserved expression his handsome face would have been almost as delicate as a woman’s. High cheekbones blended into a lean jaw and a strong chin. His mouth was firm without being too full or too thin.

  Vanessa stared at his long lashes resting on his cheekbones; their soft, charcoal gray color set off the paleness of his penetrating eyes.

  Without warning he glanced at her, and she felt heat flare in her face. He had caught her staring. His expression remained impassive as his gaze slowly examined her face, lingering on her mouth, before shifting back to the sheaf of papers on his lap.

  The heat in her face increased. She was annoyed at herself for being embarrassed. She was thirty-three years old, and a man she’d found attractive had caught her staring at him.

  When, she thought, had she become so involved in her career that she had neglected her own needs? As a normal woman, her physical needs had at one time been strong and passionate.

  She couldn’t blame Kenneth for her wariness with men. It had been her decision not to marry him, and her decision to not become involved with some of the men she occasionally dated.