To Believe

by Carolyn Brown

  “No, thank you,” the man said. His nose twitched at the smell of cigarette smoke, beer, whiskey and hot human sweat, which had worked up as the men and women danced on the bare, wood floor. At least they called it dancing. It looked more like men and women melting their bodies together and swaying to the music. Occasionally a couple would two-step with some kind of form around the dance floor, but most of them appeared to be merely holding each other up until the bar closed down and they could go home and fall into a drunken heap on their dirty little couches in their nasty little houses.

  Why did the company limo have to start smoking? Another hour and he would have been in his motel room, lap-top computer opened up and FAX machine plugged in. Instead he was sitting in this hill billy honky tonk in the midst of a bunch of people straight from The Beverly Hillbillies or Hee-Haw.

  “Nice woman. You could do worse on a Friday night,” Buddy teased. “She’s got a beauty shop up in Wynnewood. Only been divorced two times and neither of them was her fault.”

  “I said no,” the man said bluntly. “Who’s the singer?”

  “Roseanna Cahill,” Buddy said. “She ain’t the regular singer. Jodie is the regular one, and that’s her band up there. They’re called The Gambler’s. Been playing here and around the border town joints for a couple of years now. That there is her sister. Jodie is at the national rodeo finals in Las Vegas tonight riding a big mean bull so Roseanna’s singing for her. Rosy’s got a pretty good voice, huh?”

  “I like classical music. I never listen to anything else,” the man yawned.

  “Classical music and bottled water,” Buddy muttered with another shake of his head. What was the world coming to? Men dressed up in thousand dollar suits, riding in limos, and sitting at his bar. It was a crazy night, for sure.

  “Roseanna sings for Jodie every now and then when Jodie is away with her rodeo business. I’d be willing to get Joe Bob to take a look at your car if you’d help me play a joke on her. She’s always giving me the dickens and I’d love to get back at her.” He had to bite the inside of his jaw to keep from laughing. He’d told Roseanna he’d get even and by golly, revenge was pretty sweet.

  “Really?” The man turned around to stare rudely at the woman on the stage.

  “Yep,” Buddy nodded. Wait until Roseanna Cahill found out he’d talked a city slicker into helping him get even with her. She’d breathe fire at him, but they’d be even for all the jokes she’d played on him. Last time she sent some young good-looking girl up to the bar to pretend she was Deanna Carter and he even grabbed a napkin and asked for her autograph before he realized he was being teased.

  “What do you want me to do?” The stranger asked.

  “Pretend she’s a hooker,” Buddy whispered.

  Rosy was about the farthest thing from a hooker. Didn’t even drink to his knowledge and didn’t have the faintest taint of a bad reputation about her. The only hint of a black mark on her character was that bad temper. That came from the Weston side. All those women could hold their own.

  “Sure, I’ll do that if you’ll get that mechanic to look at my limo,” the man said. He pulled a pen from his coat pocket, wrote on a napkin, and motioned to the fellow standing under the lights beside the metal doors. The older gentleman picked his way among the swaying bodies to the front of the stage.

  Buddy could hardly keep from dancing a jig right there behind the bar. Pay backs were hell, and it was high time that Roseanna had a little taste of her own medicine even if it was a mean stunt.

  Roseanna saw the man write on the napkin and hold up a finger to summon the other man. It must be wonderful to be so important that he could just raise a finger and someone would jump to his bidding. Just who was he anyway? And why didn’t he get his business done and get out of the joint? She figured the folded napkin he handed up to her would be a request for a special song. She bent down and took the paper from his outstretched hand and kept on singing. When that song ended she held up five fingers to the drummer to let him know she needed a short break.

  Roseanna hopped off the stage and held the napkin up to the light. She’d sing the song as soon as she found a cold Coke and downed half of it in one gulp. She wondered what country song a Mafia boss would ask for and was surprised when she read the message.

  How much for the whole night if I provide the motel room?

  She looked toward the bar with a quizzical expression.

  Buddy stared right at her, a grin on his face like a possum eating grapes through a barbed wire fence. In a flash, she realized he had told that Mafia don that she was a hooker, and what the proposition was for—the whole night in a motel room.

  She shoved people right and left as she made her way to the far end of the bar, never taking her eyes off the man sitting on the stool watching her with the coolest green eyes she’d ever seen. If Kyle had indeed sent the man to cause trouble then he’d sent him to the right place, because trouble was on its way.

  The closer she got, the taller she was and the more beautiful. Big, round green eyes set below perfectly arched dark brown eyebrows which were raised in defiance. Lashes, so thick they looked artificial, blinked through the smoky haze and her flawless complexion was absolutely translucent. She had a mouth movie stars would kill for with those bee stung lips that begged to be kissed, and legs that went from earth to heaven.

  She stopped just inches from his nose and shook the napkin at him. “What are you talking about?”

  He slid off the stool and boldly looked her up and down twice, playing his part very well in the hoax. It wasn’t really so very difficult. Had he been interested in one night stands he would have surely picked her out of a line up. But Trey Fields wasn’t the kind of man to keep company with hookers. The only reason he had a part in the joke was to get out of this hillbilly dive and go home.

  “I just asked how much for the whole night in my motel room. I understand you’re a hooker when you’re not singing,” he said matter-of-factly.

  She drew back her fist, thought twice and opened her hand just before it made contact with his jaw. “You low down rat. I’m not a hooker. I’m a member of the police force.”

  He grabbed his throbbing jaw and sputtered, “Well, the bartender …”

  She pointed at Buddy. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  Joe Bob stopped dancing and jogged across the floor, his fleshy jaws flopping as much as his big belly. “What’s going on here?”

  Buddy laughed at Roseanna’s blushing red face. “Pay backs are hell.”

  “You’re worse than a rat,” she growled at Buddy.

  The Mafia Don rubbed his jaw and looked at Joe Bob. “Are you a mechanic?”

  Joe Bob nodded. “Sure am. What’re you needing a mechanic for?”

  He turned his back on Roseanna. “My limo is smoking and the check engine light is flashing.”

  “Well, let’s go outside and see about it. Why didn’t you come and get me when you first came in the bar? Mighta saved yourself a slug from Rosy. Lord, them Cahill women has got a temper. What ever it was you said, you better apologize now or never come back around. Jodie hears you done insulted her sister and you’ll just think you been slapped. That woman won’t quit beating on you’til you’re cold as ice.” He made his way to the door with the man with his bodyguard following behind.

  Outside he raised the hood of the long, black limousine. “Looks like you got a radiator leak. I got some stuff in my truck that might let you limp on up I-35 until you can get to a garage.”

  “That woman’s really on the police force?”

  Joe Bob shook his head and chuckled. “Yes, she is. That’s Roseanna Cahill. She’s Bob Cahill’s daughter from down south of Sulphur. That’s her sister’s band in there … Jodie’s. Jodie makes the rodeo rounds and she’s in Las Vegas riding the bulls tonight, trying to bring home the big gold belt buckle. Old Buddy put you up to that, didn’t he? Roseanna’s always teasing him and he’s been saying he’ll get even with her. Well, I guess he did.�
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  “I don’t expect you get fighting mad when you’re drunk, either?”

  Joe Bob unscrewed the radiator cap, let the last vestiges of steam fly and poured in a bottle of thick, oily stuff. “Hell, no. When I get drunk, I go to sleep. Only I don’t get drunk very often. Mostly, I just like to dance. Now, we’ll fill’er up with water and you’ll be ready to go.”

  “Where did you say that woman lives?”

  “South of Sulphur. Her folks have the Cahill Ranch and her granny has run a bed and breakfast down there called the Cahill Lodge for years. Rosy is a policeman … I mean police officer … in Sulphur. Four of them girls. Two are married. Jodie and her band play up here about once a month. Now, this’ll be safe for a couple of hundred miles but you’ll pro’ly need to have it looked at ’fore long.”

  “Thank you. How much do I owe you?”

  “Not a dime. Carry that stop leak stuff with me all the time. Got a radiator in my pickup stays on the blink, too,” Joe Bob put him off with a wave of the hand and disappeared into the smoky atmosphere under the red plastic awning and behind the metal doors.

  Laughter and music drifted out the door and Colin Vance Fields, III, heard Roseanna singing, “Yeah, you left me blue and you left me cryin’ … you know that it’s true; there’s no denyin’ … but sure as you’re lovin’, your heartache’s coming, taking its own time, strolling ‘long hummin’, and baby, you’re gonna find out what hurtin’ is all about, it’s just a matter of time.”

  Chapter Two

  Roseanna dropped her clothes in a heap just inside the bedroom door and padded naked and barefoot to the bathroom where she stepped into the shower and washed away the smoky cigarette smell, which was the one thing she truly did not like about playing in the honky tonks.

  She wrapped a big fluffy white towel around her wet hair and another around her body. It was three o’clock, just two hours before dawn, but she was still so keyed up she could hardly shut her eyes. Winding down was never easy after a gig, but that night it was especially hard. The handsome man’s face when she slapped him kept popping up in her mind. Maybe he was a minor movie star—he certainly had the looks for it, and he did have a chauffeur driving him around. She put a slow Floyd Cramer CD in the machine and leaned back in the blue velvet recliner to unwind.

  She wondered if Jodie stayed on the bull the full eight seconds. She thought about her relationship with Kyle and what tomorrow would bring. Would he call with an apology or stew a couple of days then show up at the front door like nothing had happened? She didn’t care if he came around or stayed away. If she was honest, and that was her biggest failure … complete honesty … there never had been sparks between them except when they fought.

  Surely, somewhere there was a man who would make her knees go weak when he kissed her. Even though Kyle was good looking and he was certainly well-practiced in the art of kissing, he didn’t make her insides turn to jelly. Right at that moment she was still too mad to want one of his kisses or even think about that special smoldering look in his eyes. More than likely he practiced the look in the mirror every day. She giggled when she thought of him making faces in the mirror right after he shaved every morning.

  The smile didn’t last long as the look on the fancy dude’s face came back to haunt her. Where did he come from and what the devil was he doing riding in a limousine in Davis, Oklahoma? But those questions would never be answered because Joe Bob fixed his big car and he had already gone on his merry way by the time she left a couple of hours later. She might find Kyle waiting on the steps tomorrow evening but she’d never know who the handsome man was with a red hand print on his cheek. He was a very lucky man. If she’d popped him with her fist he’d be sporting a black eye for weeks. And Buddy better watch out, because she owed him something really ornery. To think he convinced that sorry sucker to pretend she was a hooker. She sighed deeply. At least the night hadn’t been a slow burner. The crowd was lively and even the fiasco with the Mafia Don was humorous now that she looked back on it. Wait until Jodie got home and she told her about it.

  Cramer started a slow ballad and her eye lids drooped. All the tension eased out of her tired shoulders. She wiggled her toes and the ache in her feet began to relax. She was glad Jodie didn’t need her to stand in as lead singer very often. Even a grueling double shift on the force didn’t make her feet ache like a gig. She should get up and find a nightshirt. At least unwind the towel from her head. But it felt so good just to lay there and let the music calm her frayed nerves as she softly whispered the words to the tune.

  Before the last chord fell she was asleep.

  “Wake up, Rosie,” her sister said. “I did it. Come on, sister, open your eyes. Lord, if I can drive all night to get home and show you this, you can dang sure wake up and look at it.”

  Roseanna shook the sleep from her eyes and focused in on the biggest gold belt buckle she’d ever seen. “You won!” She screamed and grabbed her sister in a hug. “I fell asleep before I could get dressed, let me throw on some underwear and a T-shirt—can I hold it? How’d you do? Was it a tough ride …” She talked nonstop.

  Jodie sat down on the floor with a thud and pulled off her burgundy boots. “It was one mean, tough old bull. I thought he was going to land me up in the stands on my head before it was done. I was wishing I’d taken your advice and super-glued my butt to his sorry old scraggly hide, but I made it. I’m so tired I could sleep for a week but I’m so hungry I could eat a bushel basket of biscuits and five dozen eggs, so let’s have breakfast before I fall into the bed. How’d the gig go? Joe Bob dance with anything that had two legs all night long?”

  “Yep, and Buddy got back at me for all the teasing I’ve done. He got this Mafia lookin’ dude to pretend he thought I was a hooker and the man actually propositioned me. I thought he was sending a request for a song to the stage but he wanted to know how much for the whole night if he provided the motel room. Kyle made me mad enough to cuss before I went, then I got mad at that stupid fool. He actually wrote it on a napkin and had his chauffeur deliver it to the stage. Honest, Jodie, he looked like someone right out of The Godfather. I expected to see him grab up a violin case full of machine guns at any moment.” Roseanna unwrapped the towel from her head and shook out a mane of chestnut brown hair. “I slapped him hard enough to rock his jaw into next week and Buddy laughed until I thought he’d wet his jeans.”

  Jodie drew her arched eyebrows into a fine line. “Did the man apologize for being a part of such a nasty joke? I’ll get even with Buddy for embarrassing you, but did that fool say he was sorry?”

  Before Roseanna could answer, Joann called from the bottom of the stairs. “You girls better get on down here. The truck from the flower shop is out here. I guess Jodie’s got roses from Chris and there might be a peace offering from Kyle for you, Rosy. You’d better hurry up and see this. There’re four trucks circling the driveway. Somebody has bought out the flower shops in Sulphur and Davis, looks like to me.”

  The girls looked at each other, giggled and raced down the steps like two third graders instead of full grown women. “They’re from my fans for winning the finals.” Jodie shoved Roseanna aside good naturedly.

  “You must have a whole helluva a lot of fans,” Roseanna teased. “Does Chris know about all these men fans? They’re bringing in more flowers than Mary Beth had at her wedding last week. Good lord, Jodie, I’ve never seen so many roses!”

  “Can you believe it?” Joann asked. “Look at that. Did Chris hit an oil well last week and you didn’t tell us, Jodie?”

  Delivery vans from three different shops in Murray County were parked on the oval drive at the front of the house. Two women opened the back doors of the first van, gathered up arrangements and started up the front steps. One carried a crystal vase full of daisies, roses, ivy and freesia, the other one toted two huge baskets of red roses.

  “This is for Jodie,” the first one handed Joann the crystal vase, and went back to the truck.

  “Th
ese are for Roseanna,” the second one set the baskets on the floor just inside the door.

  Bob wandered in from the kitchen to see what all the excitement was about. “Looks like Chris and Kyle know the way to a woman’s heart.”

  Jodie set the roses on the antique sideboard and ripped open the card. She blushed and nodded. The bouquet was from Chris, all right. He’d cheered her on from the stands when she won the women’s bull riding finals, and driven home with her through the early morning hours.

  Roseanna tore into the card with the first basket on the floor at her feet. A rose for each apology for my inexcusable behavior last night. It was a mean joke and I’m sorry I was a part of it. Colin Vance Fields III … Trey. For a minute she thought someone had the wrong address. She didn’t know anyone with such an elaborate name, and with three Roman numerals behind it, until she remembered the proposition on the napkin and the distinctive handwriting.

  Two men from the second truck each brought in two baskets filled to the brim with red roses. Then two women from the third truck brought in a basket on each arm … three times, until the entire living room was filled with the scent of fresh roses. By the time they were finished, a man in a fourth van toted in two more baskets. Then they all left as if every day of their lives they delivered more than three hundred roses to a single person.

  Bob Cahill scratched his head. Kyle didn’t make that kind of money even if he wasn’t listed on the four hundred poorest folks in Murray County, Oklahoma. Bob wasn’t sure he wanted his daughter mixed up with a man that irresponsible. Joann shook her head in disbelief. Evidently, she’d misjudged the man. He did know how to tame a woman and not break her spirit.

  Jodie’s blue eyes were dancing with excitement. “What did you do last night? You musta sang almighty good to someone, or else Kyle’s afraid of the two of us teaming up together against him for acting like a horse’s rear end. I just won the national rodeo finals for bull riding. And that’s a huge thing. I get a big bouquet and you get all the roses in the state. Explain girl!”