Trey followed Roseanna up a short flight of steps to a bedroom. Amanda was screaming and squirming in a crib set up beside an old bed which reminded him of one he’d seen in a museum.
“This is my old room,” Roseanna explained. “Come here sugar bear,” she picked the baby up.
“You are good at that. Do you want kids?” Trey asked.
“Yes, I do someday, but I’m not raising a child in a pent house and I’m not leaving my child with a sitter every night so I can go to dinner on a yacht or to some fancy thing, either, Trey. You always said you didn’t ever want kids, remember?”
“Did you ever even ask me?” He frowned trying to remember a conversation about children.
“A couple of times.”
Trey laid his sandwich on the dresser. “I don’t remember talking about children but I guess I did. And to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, I didn’t want children back then. But I’ve changed my mind since I’ve been in this part of the country. Things are slower here, more family oriented. Can I hold her?”
Roseanna handed the baby to him and nodded toward the rocker. “She likes to be rocked.”
She sat down in the recliner and folded her long legs under her, sitting Indian style. “Ever held a baby before? How does that affect your passion hunting?”
“I only held one when I absolutely couldn’t get out of it. Lots of my friends have children, and I’ve always thought they were kind of messy and too noisy. But this baby is soft, smells good and there’s something touching my heart. I’m not sure how it affects my passion hunting but it’s kind of nice to have her look up at me with those big green eyes like that.”
“Trey, I’m going to ask you one more time,” her eye brows knitted together, “What are you doing here? You can’t change and I won’t. We are at an impasse and things didn’t work the first time so why try again?”
Trey breathed in the fresh smell of baby lotion and sweetness. He snuggled his face down into the baby’s hair and began to hum as he rocked.
“Where did you hear ‘Paper Roses’?” She almost choked.
“Someone left a CD in my room. It was in one of the bureau drawers. Floyd Cramer is really good, you know. He could be playing Mozart,” Trey said between hums. “I think she likes it. Her eyes are closing.”
“Of course she likes it. We all listen to country music and sing it too,” she said testily. She eased the baby out of Trey’s arms and put her back in the crib. Amanda found her thumb and sucked loudly. Trey slipped his arm around Roseanna’s waist. They stood beside the crib, gazing down at the three month old baby, as if they had just brought her home, together, from the hospital.
That crazy, warm feeling started in her toes and spread all the way to her ears, before she realized that she could not let him touch her, not even casually. One more whiff of his cologne and one more touch of his hand on her back, and she’d be tumbling into the bed and dragging him in with her.
There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to just nuzzle the inside of her neck and feel the shudder it always produced. He wondered what she’d look like pregnant. Who would they hire for a nanny? He imagined the two of them back in their old lifestyle while a nanny took care of their child in the nursery. The vision faded in the wake of her words declaring she didn’t want that for her children. And since he was being absolutely honest these days in his hunt for a passionate life, he had to admit he didn’t either. He wanted what Bob and Joann had. That thought brought him up short. How could he have changed in such a short time? It had to be the aftershocks of the kidnapping. No, it was fate. Looking back, a higher power had caused him and Roseanna to divorce because they were headed down the wrong path. Now they had their feet firmly on the right path, he had to convince her of that.
She pulled away from him. “I think she’ll stay asleep now. We’d best get on back downstairs before …”
“… before Jodie comes tearing up the stairs with a loaded machine gun, ready to fill my hide up with holes,” he mimicked her accent perfectly.
She did that deep, throaty laugh he liked so much. “Now, we’d really better go or Jodie will get it in her head that we’re up here making up. Trey, she really, really doesn’t have an ounce of respect or love for you, so don’t push your luck. You’re lucky the rest of the family is being civil.”
“Why are they? I thought they’d all be cold as icicles,” he whispered, his breath reaching her neck and making little delightful shivers down her spine. She remembered the nights in his arms and wished for the impossible. She yearned for his kisses, to cuddle with him on the couch, anything to touch him.
Jim, one of the brothers-in-law, dropped his newspaper and looked out over the top when they came down stairs. “Women are in the kitchen. Melanie and the rest of the girls went with Bob to the corral to ride their horses. Me and Matt are going to fall asleep and let this good food settle so we’ll be ready for a real supper.”
Roseanna nodded toward the kitchen. “You can join them for a nap or go out to the pasture with Daddy and the girls. I doubt if you want to stay in the kitchen with Jodie.”
“Can I stay with you? Maybe Jodie won’t shoot me if she thinks she might hit you instead of me.”
“If that girl wanted to shoot you I wouldn’t be a hindrance. You could be hugged up to me so tight we looked like one person and she could put a bullet right between your eyes. Jodie could shoot the middle of the “o” in the word ‘Coke’ on a seven ounce Coke bottle when she was ten and that was with a .22 pistol. By the time she was twelve she could do it at fifty yards. That double barrel shotgun is in the lodge in case I see a snake or a bobcat. I can’t shoot straight, but Jodie packs a little .22 pistol when she goes rattlesnake hunting and she doesn’t ever waste ammunition. If she aims at it, it better be saying prayers.”
“I hate to be the man she sets her sights on. He’ll have to be some kind of mountain man who’s ten feet tall and bullet proof to ever take on the job of being her husband.”
Roseanna nodded, glad to be talking about something other than his great hunt for the passion grail. “She is the son Daddy didn’t have when it comes to ranchin’ and shootin’. I was the one he didn’t have when it came to fishin’ and trackin’. Well, looks like the kitchen is clean and Momma, Vicky and Jodie have meandered out to the stables. You get to live a little while longer. What do you want to do the rest of the afternoon? I don’t want to wander far from the house in case Amanda wakes up.”
“I want to go upstairs and lay claim to one of those beds with you right beside me.” He sat down at the kitchen table and cut his eyes around to see what she would say.
She pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. “Impossible. Been there. Done that. It didn’t work. Next choice?”
“Can we go back up there and stare at Amanda?” he asked.
“Sounds like a winner to me. Long as you don’t touch me, and I mean it: not even an arm around me. I’m adult enough to admit I’m physically attracted to you and probably always will be. But that didn’t keep us together in the first place, Trey, and it won’t now either.”
Trey could have danced a jig right there in the middle of the kitchen floor.
He stuck out his hand. “Deal.”
“Nope. Not even to touch me with a friendly handshake. We can talk all afternoon. I can read that new romance book I’ve got upstairs, or you can stretch out on the bed and take a nap, but I don’t want you to touch me.”
“Still a deal,” he nodded seriously.
She had to make him understand from the beginning that she really wasn’t going to be begged, kissed, cussed or bedded into leaving her way of life again. As much as she loved this man, she wasn’t falling for his charms again like she did the last time. Like she’d told him: he couldn’t change and she wouldn’t. He’d looked death in the face with the kidnapping, or at least that’s what was engraved into his mind. When he finally awoke and figured things out, he’d be out of Murray County like a scalded hound dog.<
br />
She hadn’t expected him to arrive today. She’d been shocked almost speechless when he stepped off the porch and opened the pick-up door for her. And when her family was actually halfway civil to him, someone could have knocked her down with a rooster tail feather. But it would all come to an end. He’d be gone. She’d still be on the ranch and be danged if she was going to be there with another broken heart.
She knew how charismatic and persuasive Trey could be. So if he wanted to spend the day in a bedroom with her, so be it, just so long as he didn’t touch her. It wouldn’t be easy to keep her hands off him. Already she wanted to feel the soft black hair on his chest, to run her palms over the muscles on his back and fall asleep in his arms.
They’d spend the rest of the summer together. Then he could go back to his way of life. In a few years they’d both look back on the summer they’d shared and realize everything happens for the best, even weird situations like this one.
“I’m so full, I don’t think I’ll be able to eat supper. Did you really mean it when you said I could stretch out on that bed up there?”
“I did,” she nodded.
“Lead me to it, lady. My eyes are drooping. Maybe when Amanda wakes up, I’ll have had my nap and be ready to play with her until supper time. Why do you call it supper? We’ve always referred to the evening meal as dinner.”
“Because we’re country folks and you’re a city slicker.”
“What is this big supper thing anyway? Everyone keeps talking about fries,” he asked at the same time Jodie opened the back door.
“Calf fries?” Jodie lit up. This fool didn’t know what he was about to eat for supper. Talk about something even better than shooting him. She’d wait until he had a big bite in his mouth and then tell him what he was eating and he’d choke to death. Then she’d haul his sorry hide to the back forty acres and let the lizards and fire ants have him. In a few weeks he’d be nothing but bleached bones.
“What are calf fries?” He asked innocently.
Roseanna raised an eyebrow. “Jodie?”
“Ah, dang it, Rosy, do I have to tell him now?” She whined.
“Jodie?” Roseanna said again.
“Oh, all right, you party pooper. Calf fries are what we take out of the calves when we neuter them. We cut their little testicles out and throw them in a bucket. We clean them up and freeze them, and when we get enough Momma rolls them in beer batter and deep fat fries them ’til they’re crispy brown, then we fight over who gets the most.” She loved the look on his face and would have bet dollars to donuts he would never put one in his mouth without someone holding a gun to his head and then he might take death over eating them.
“Oh, you mean mountain oysters. I’ve eaten them at a little side cafe in Tulsa with my grandfather. Tasty little devils, I must admit. Grandfather let me eat a whole plate full when I was sixteen before he told me what they were. Had I known before, I would have never touched them. Now this nap is calling out to me. Roseanna, where’s this bed you mentioned?” he turned, ignoring Jodie, and giving Roseanna his sexiest grin.
“You going to remember the deal?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
Except for the place, everything felt the same as the first time Trey met Roseanna at the Arbuckle Ballroom all those years ago. That night he was there because he had no choice and the music reverberated off the walls as the dancers swayed and boogied in a big building. Tonight he was there because he’d chosen to be and the affair was outside in the middle of town rather than in the Ballroom. The musicians were set up on the back of a flat bed trailer instead of a stage. The moon was full; stars were beginning to pop out like tiny little diamonds in the sky. Roseanna was singing something about boots made for walking. He sipped a diet Coke and leaned against a light pole. The street had been roped off and people were thicker than fleas on one of Bob Cahill’s hound dogs.
“You don’t belong here. Why don’t you go home?” Jodie said at his elbow.
“I’ll stay.” He’d been entertaining notions of leaving early; telling Roseanna that he was tired and would see her the next morning at breakfast. But Jodie just nixed that idea with two sentences. He found a folding chair leaning against the brick wall of a building, flipped it open and sat down. He’d be there until the last dance and he’d even help pack up the band’s equipment. Jodie might have threatened him and eaten more calf fries than he had, but she had met her match tonight. When it came to patience he could whip her with both hands tied behind his back.
Bob popped open a chair and sat down beside Trey. “She does a fine job of entertaining doesn’t she? I always wondered if she’d be the one who went to Nashville. She still might someday.”
“You think that would make her happy?” Trey asked.
“Don’t know, son. She’s got to find herself before she knows what’ll make her happy. Same as you.”
Roseanna finished the song and went right into another. When the last drum beat died, she turned the mike over to Jodie and hopped down from the edge of the flat bed trailer. Someone handed her a Coke and she downed half of it before she came up for air and scanned the crowd for Trey.
“How about a little team effort tonight folks?” Jodie smiled at the audience. “Couple of the band members are going to join me and we’ll see if we can sound like Rascal Flatts. Put your hands together for ‘Broken Roads’.”
Jodie worked the crowd better than Roseanna but she didn’t sing a bit better in Trey’s estimation.
Roseanna held out her hand to Trey. “Hey, city slicker, you want to dance?”
He shook his head. “I can’t dance like that.”
“You can waltz to this song, I promise.”
Before he could answer a tall policeman appeared beside Roseanna.
The policeman slipped an arm around her waist. “Rosy, could I have this dance?”
Trey was on his feet in a split second and leading Roseanna out to the middle of the street. “Sorry, man, she’s already promised it to me.”
“Who was that?” He asked.
“Kyle Parsons.”
“The fellow you dated before me?”
“That’s the one.”
He drew her closer and in a few seconds had the beat of the song in his feet. The gist of the song seemed to be that the singer was blessing the broken road that led him home to the love of his life. It made perfect sense to Trey even if he didn’t like country music.
When the last guitar twang sounded, Kyle was right there beside them, holding out his hand to Roseanna. She took it and they began a graceful two step, keeping in perfect time with the harmony of the music. Trey scarcely had time to find his seat when Joann sat beside him.
She fanned her face with her hand. “Whew! That Bob could two step the toes right off me. The whole Cahill family loves dancing. Bob has six brothers and every one of them would party every week if there was a chance they could dance. Strange, ain’t it? Most women I know say their husbands have to be hog tied and dragged out to the floor, kicking and screaming all the way. Well, would you look at that? Kyle is making a play for Roseanna again. They dated a while just before she met you. I thought they were sure to be a couple but he crossed her one night. Called Jodie a hussy and tried to boss Rosy around more than she was willin’ for.”
Before he could answer a man claimed Joann for another dance and Roseanna was suddenly sitting beside him. “Looks like it’s going to be a good benefit. The jars we put out are filling up. Bet we make five hundred dollars for the family.”
“Tell me again, what’s this for?” He asked.
“Local family lost their home in a fire. Remember I told you about it last week. Jodie and the band practice on Saturday night anyway so we all figured we could have a jam session and call it a benefit. Folks donate what ever they feel they can afford. You put anything in the jar yet?”
“Not yet. Where are they?”
She motioned in that direction. “At all
four corners of the band stand.”
He dug out a twenty dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to her.
“That’s generous. Twenty dollars is a good donation. It will be appreciated.” She headed toward the bandstand.
Kyle caught her by the arm after she’d dropped his donation into the jar and spun her around to his chest. Trey’s nostrils flared and his eyebrows knit together in a single line. Kyle leaned close to her ear and said something that made her laugh. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they began a slow dance. Trey burned with jealousy but he couldn’t force himself to look away. Kyle was a country boy at heart, the same as Roseanna. He loved country music; so did she. They were compatible and most likely would have already been married if it hadn’t been for that one big fight.
Jodie slipped into the chair beside him. “They look good together don’t they? I figure it’ll take about six weeks for him to sweep her off her feet and they’ll be looking at gold bands.”
Trey didn’t answer.
“They should have been together all along. He’s her type. Hard working. Policeman as well as youth director at the church. They’ll be the ones to make it to the golden anniversary. Give up and go home, Trey. You two are as compatible as hound dogs and rabbits.”
Trey’s jaws worked in anger but he didn’t say a word.
She kept it up. “So how does that make you feel?”
“How does it make you feel, Jodie? You and I didn’t get along but I never called you names and treated you like dirt,” he said between teeth clenched so tight his jaws hurt.
She slapped him on the arm with a giggle and headed back to the bandstand to once again take up the microphone. “Touché, Trey. You handled that one pretty good for a city boy. We might learn to be civil to each other after all.”
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