Promises I Made (21 page)

The sun was still hiding behind the marine layer when we stepped out of the courthouse three weeks later. Marcus put on his sunglasses as we made our way down the steps. He was wearing his chinos, but he looked good, and I'd gotten a little choked up when he'd come into the kitchen wearing a navy blue button-down. He'd squirmed as Scotty did one more button up near his neck, then stood back and smiled with approval.

“Don't get weird on me, Scott,” Marcus had said, turning his back on us and hurrying to the coffeepot like he had something to hide.

I hadn't expected them to step in as my guardians at the last minute. Apparently, they'd been talking about it for a while, but they hadn't been able to reach a decision until the last minute. Not because they didn't want me to stay,
Scotty had assured me, but because Marcus was worried they wouldn't be able to give me the kind of parenting kids need. Scotty had argued that I was hardly a kid, and he and Marcus were as steady as an old married couple. In the end, according to Scotty, the decision had come down to one thing: neither of them wanted me to go.

I'd cried when they told me the news, then spent the next three weeks with an ever-present knot of anxiety in my stomach, worrying that it would somehow go wrong, that they would change their minds, that the court would deny their petition.

But everything had gone off without a hitch. I was old enough to have some say in my living situation, and I'd been given permission to stay with them while the court reviewed their petition. Now it was official: they were my guardians. That was what it said on the paperwork, anyway. In my eyes—and most importantly, my heart—they were my parents. And this time I knew it was for real.

“Well, kid,” Marcus said, draping an arm around my shoulder as we headed for the car, “you're stuck with us now. And you know what that means.”

“Back to the Hawaiian shirts?”

“Well, yes, there is that. Also,” Marcus said, “there's the slave labor. I think we forgot to tell you about that.”

“Slave labor?”

He nodded. “Kitchen detail, feeding the birds, you know . . . all that responsibility stuff that we're supposed to teach you.”

“I'm okay with responsibility stuff,” I said.

The attendant pulled the car around and we got in. We went out to breakfast, then headed home. The house on the peninsula wouldn't be ours much longer. Scotty and Marcus had decided it would be better for me to start fresh. They'd chosen Huntington Beach, and had already made an offer on a house there with a backyard big enough for all of Marcus's flowers and bird feeders. Best of all, the beach was a block away. We'd walked right down to the water the last time we'd seen the house, and I'd watched the surfers catching waves and the girls playing volleyball and wondered which of them I would come to know when I started school next month. Then again, maybe I wouldn't know any of them. Maybe I'd become friends with a quiet girl who sat alone and liked to read instead.

“Take the afternoon off, kid,” Marcus said as we walked into the house on Colina Verde. “We'll get you started in the salt mines tomorrow.”

“Ha-ha,” I said, heading up the stairs to my room.

I changed into shorts and a tank top and grabbed my book. Then I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of iced tea before heading to the backyard.

It was finally sunny, and I could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs as I walked barefoot to the hammock. For a while I just lay there, swinging in the sea breeze, inhaling the scent of jasmine and salt and fresh-cut grass. One of the hummingbirds was fluttering around the red bird feeder, moving so fast I almost thought it was a figment of
my imagination. It made me think of the peacocks. Like me, they were on their way somewhere else. A majority of the residents of Playa Hermosa had voted to have them moved, and they were already en route to the animal sanctuary that would be their new home. When I'd first heard the news, I'd felt bad for them. But then I started to wonder if maybe they needed a fresh start, too. If maybe home wasn't a place you knew, but a place where you were always welcome.

A flash of yellow caught my eye in the trees overhead. I laid my book facedown on my chest and peered through the branches, looking for the parrots. A few seconds later they appeared. The one with the yellow eyes was still the most aggressive, and the other birds hung back, letting him take his turn at the feeder first. When he was done, he perched on the branch of a nearby tree. It was only then that his companions—the one with the red head and the other one with blue-tipped wings—appeared. They were still pecking at the seed when a fourth bird landed next to them. His blue body stood in contrast to the green bodies of the others, and they paused to look at him before turning back to their food as the newcomer picked at the feeder alongside them. I guess he'd found a home, too.

I took a deep breath, releasing it into the salty Playa Hermosa air. It felt like I'd been holding that breath forever. Like I was finally letting go of all my pain and fear and loneliness, of everything that had kept me from fighting for the things I wanted and deserved. But in a strange kind of way, I thought everything had turned out the way it was supposed
to. Everything finally felt right. I guess Scotty knew what he was talking about after all, although he had been wrong about one thing: sometimes, if you were really, really lucky, more than one good thing came out of a bad situation. I only had to look at Marcus and Scotty to know that at least two good things had come out of mine.

I thought about Parker, probably on a beach in Mexico, sipping a beer and looking at the same ocean that crashed against the cliffs below me. I missed him, but I knew with a strange kind of certainty that I would see him again. He was my family, simple as that, and family was always a part of you. We could both rest easy now. He was free, and I had kept my promise to come back for him.

Now it was time to keep the ones I'd made to myself.

Thanks always start with Steven Malk and all of the amazing people at Writers House, for seeing me safely through troubled waters and never doubting that I would make it—even when I wasn't so sure.

Thanks also go to my editor, Jennifer Klonsky. Just when I was starting to think publishing was impossibly disheartening, ridiculously unreliable, and most of all, SLOW, I was given an editor who is kind, encouraging, and on her game every minute of every day. At a time when it sometimes feels like publishers won't invest in an author's long-term career, you have made me believe again. After working with you for the past year and a half, I'm finally starting to think that's not naïvety talking, but bona fide faith.

Thank you to HarperCollins Publishers and everyone at HarperTeen who have made me feel welcome and valued.
This is especially true for publicist Stephanie Hoover and associate editor Catherine Wallace, who see to tons of important stuff behind the scenes that nobody sees. Thanks also to Alison Klapthor, Alison Donalty, and Sarah Kaufman for another kickass cover (and for actually letting me be part of the process), and to copy editors Karen Sherman and Bethany Reis, who put me through my paces to make sure this book was as solid and accurate as possible. Any errors are totally mine.

Thanks to dear friends M. J. Rose, Tonya Hurley, Ann Rought, Jenny Milchman, Christine Fonseca, Erin Leigh Brescia, Eileen Cole, Jennifer Draeger, and so many more who share this beautiful and sometimes maddening journey to deliver our words to readers, and to those readers who buy my books, and therefore keep me writing. You are the biggest contributors of all.

Lastly, thanks go to the people who are the backbone of my life: my mother, Claudia Baker, for her unwavering faith in me; my father, Mike St. James, who reminds me that I've already done something pretty cool (we need to be reminded sometimes!); and Kenneth, Rebekah, Andrew, and Caroline. If there is universal truth, beauty, and love in my life, it is you.

PHOTO BY CAROLINE ZINK

MICHELLE ZINK
lives in New York with her four children. Her first novel,
Prophecy of the Sisters
, was chosen as one of ALA
Booklist
's Top Ten Novels for Youth of 2009 and as one of the Chicago Public Library's Best Books for Young Readers. It has also been listed on the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age and the Lone Star Reading List. You can visit her at
www.michellezink.com
.

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Lies I Told

Promises I Made

A Temptation of Angels

This Wicked Game

PROPHECY OF THE SISTERS TRILOGY

Prophecy of the Sisters

Guardian of the Gate

Circle of Fire

COVER ART © 2015 ROBERT BENSON / GETTY IMAGES

HAND LETTERING AND COVER DESIGN BY

JESSIE SAYWARD BRIGHT

HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

PROMISES I MADE
. Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Zink. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zink, Michelle.

    Promises I made / Michelle Zink. — First edition.

        pages    cm

    Sequel to: Lies I told.

    Summary: When Grace Fontaine leaves her “father” in Seattle, where he is working another con, and returns to Playa Hermosa, she receives help from unexpected sources in her quest to find information about Cormac and Renee that she can trade for her adopted brother Parker's freedom.

    ISBN 978-0-06-232715-4 (hardcover)

    EPub Edition © October 2015 ISBN 9780062327178

    [1. Conduct of life—Fiction.  2. Swindlers and swindling—Fiction.  3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.  4. Criminal investigation—Fiction.  5. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.  6. Adoption—Fiction.]

15 16 17 18 19
CG/RRDH
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION