Read Promise Bound for Free Online Page A

Sophie. She curled into my side and hugged me around the waist. It was good to have a sister again.
    “Danny can take care of his own baby,” Lily said.
    “Of course he can,” said Mrs. H. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t.” The red-faced infant cried and arched its back stiffly. Daniel switched it to his other shoulder, but the baby only screamed louder.
    “What have you named him?” Mrs. H asked, wringing her hands with worry at the way Daniel handled his son.
    “Pavati likes Ambuj,” Daniel said, “but I don’t know.”
    Lily left us where we’d all stopped just inside the front door, went into the living room, and opened her laptop.
    “What are you doing?” Jason asked.
    “Baby-name website,” Lily answered, tapping furiously at the keys. “How about a French name like the rest of your family, Danny?”
    I pulled up a chair and sat beside Lily as she scrolled through an unending list of alphabetical boy names, stopping at the
M
’s. I touched the screen. “Mortimer?”
    Sophie snorted and Lily smiled.
    “It says it’s French for ‘still water,’ ” I said. What was wrong with Mortimer? “That sounds peaceful. We could use some peace about now.”
    “I’ve only had two years of French,” Daniel said, “but doesn’t that mean ‘dead water’?”
    Lily frowned at the screen. “Then how about Moses? ‘Pulled from the water.’ ”
    Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    “Marlowe?” Lily asked. “That means ‘from the hill by the lake.’ You live on a hill by a lake.”
    “Hey, you kids,” said Mrs. H, “can we find this baby something to eat? He’s famished.”
    Daniel shot Mrs. H an anxious look. Of course he hadn’t thought about food. Lily scrolled back to the top of the alphabet. “What about ‘Adrian’?” she asked. “It’s French, but it means ‘from the Adriatic Sea.’ ”
    Daniel came to stand behind Lily’s shoulder and read the screen. “Pavati might like that. The Adriatic’s in the Middle East, isn’t it?”
    “Not exactly,” I said, remembering one of my first winters as part of the White family—Mother had taken us on a Mediterranean tour. Lots of cruise ships.
    “But it’s close, right?” Daniel asked.
    “Sure,” I said. “Closer than here at least.”
    “Adrian’s a good compromise,” Daniel said. “I’ll tell Pavati tomorrow.”
    Lily’s hands went rigid on the keyboard, and she and I exchanged a panicked glance before looking up at Daniel. I didn’t like the direction this was going. Lily spun her chair around and stood up. “What do you mean, ‘tomorrow’?”
    “Lily’s right,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the baby’s wailing. “It’s not a good idea. And anyway … how would you intend to do that?”
    Daniel shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt Adrian to dip his toes in the lake just for a little bit. Pavati should smell him, right? She might not need to see me, but she’ll want to see the baby, and I’ll take what I can get. However I can get it.”
    The sad droop of Daniel’s eyes touched a chord of empathy within me, but Lily said, “Don’t be pathetic.”
    That hurt. Daniel might be an idiot when it came to a lot of things, but, in that second, I understood him better than I ever had. If I were in Daniel’s place, if Lily and I were ever separated, I knew I would do anything to be with her again. Anything. And just like Daniel said, I knew
I
would take
Lily
any way I could get her. I’d thought she felt the same way about me.
    Lily’s phone buzzed, and she picked it up to check the text. “Ugh. It’s Gabby again. She’s on her way over.”
    “Then get rid of the baby,” Sophie said.
    “Adrian,” Danny said.
    Sophie rolled her eyes. “Whatever!” she shouted over the baby’s cries.
    “Sophie’s right,” I said. “No need to have to explain a baby; we’ve got enough lies to feed Gabby as it is.”
    Lily agreed with me. “I’ll tell her to meet me at Big