Your Cheatin Heart mr-1

by Nancy Bartholomew

  Your Cheatin Heart

  ( Maggie Reid - 1 )

  Nancy Bartholomew

  Once upon a time Maggie Reid had a nice home, a rich husaband, and an adoring daughter. But that fairy-tale life hit the skids when her no-good man left her for a busty bottle blonde, and her rebellious teenage daughter went with him. Maggie's mama didn't raise no fool, though. Wide-awake and smelling the Starbucks, Maggie decides to follow her heart and becomes a country-western singer at the Golden Stallion Club.

  There, she glimpses her destiny--a lanky cowboy in steel-tipped boots and tight jeans. Though she's determined to meet Marshall Weathers, she sure isn't desperate enough to kill her pesky ex-brother-in-law, Jimmy, to do it. As fate would have it, Weathers is the detective investigating Jimmy's murder, and Maggie is his leading suspect. Unless she wants to sing the prison blues, Maggie's got to do some fancy two-stepping to expose Jimmy's true killer--and find her true love.

  Nancy Bartholomew

  Your Cheatin' Heart

  Copyright © 2000 by Nancy Bartholomew

  Cover illustration © 1999 by Barbara Gordon

  For Grandma Alice, who held me close,

  loved me unconditionally, and always said,

  "Life ain't hard, honey. You make it hard."

  And for Papa Lee and Mama Becky,

  who believed in family and believed in me.

  Chapter One

  The day I married Vernell Spivey, it rained. I should've taken that as an omen. When his brother, Jimmy, pinched me on the ass as I was headed for the vestibule of the church, I should've seen that for what it was, too. However, I was young and pregnant and too tenderhearted to start a war between brothers on what was allegedly the best day of our young lives. I figured it was Jimmy's way of welcoming me to the family.

  But then, when I was nine months pregnant with Sheila, too big to do more than waddle to the kitchen table and sit, Jimmy professed his undying love for me. He came over when he knew for certain Vernell would be at work, and gave me a speech that had obviously been rehearsed.

  "Maggie," he said, "it ain't no use us denying it. I have wanted you since the day I met you, and I can tell by the look in your eyes that the feeling is mutual."

  What I was really feeling was a sudden gas pain brought on by Sheila flipping over inside my womb. Tears flooded my eyes, and for a moment I was bent over, clutching the edge of the table for support. I was speechless.

  "Let it out, honey," he said. "It'll be for the best."

  Somehow I didn't think so.

  There was a kernel of truth in what Jimmy was saying. As I sat at the kitchen table, clutching my belly and wishing like hell for a swig of Alka-Seltzer, I had to admit I found Jimmy attractive in a good-old-boy sort of way. He was tall and dark, with deep brown eyes that always looked lonely and left out. I'm a sucker for men like that.

  "Maggie," he said, reaching out to touch my stomach tenderly. "I'll love your baby like it was my own. We can tell Vernell together." I cried out as Sheila kicked again, and Jimmy took it for a shriek of fear. "Aw, he'll be upset for awhile, but he'll get by. Vernell's always got an eye for the ladies." Didn't I know it. Already Vernell had shown his ass, chasing women that worked with him.

  I tried to straighten up, if only for a moment, and give Jimmy the true picture. "You just want me 'cause I'm Vernell's wife, Jimmy," I said. "That's how it's always been with you and him." Jimmy started to protest. "And honest to Pete, you aren't my type."

  In addition to being in Vernell's family, which was one strike against him, Jimmy had no ambition in life. He wanted it all handed to him. If we'd run off, it wouldn't have taken any time at all before I was the breadwinner and Jimmy was out bass fishing.

  "Aw, come on, sugar," he said, his deep voice dropping almost to a whisper, "you know that ain't it." He reached his hand out again, letting it rest on my forearm briefly before he started gently stroking it. I had to admit that between his soothing voice and warm touch, I was starting to feel sleepy and maybe a little sexy. Nobody'd made me feel that way in months.

  Vernell picked that moment to suddenly appear for lunch, bursting through the back door, letting the screen slam loudly behind him, and staring at the two of us.

  "What?" he said, his voice pitched to a high, anxious squeak. "It ain't time, is it?"

  Jimmy jumped like a scalded yard dog, and I favored Vernell with a withering glare. Vernell had not asked out of concern; he'd asked because his chief aim at this point in our lives was to avoid the labor and delivery room at all costs. He'd increased his hours at the mobile home lot, volunteering to deliver every home he sold, personally, no matter what the distance. He couldn't fool me.

  "No, Vernell," I said. "Jimmy here was just professing his undying love and asking me to run off with him."

  Vernell laughed, not noticing that Jimmy had turned heart-attack red and started gasping for breath.

  "Yep, Vernell," I said, "strange as it may seem, pregnancy has not lessened my desirability to some men."

  Vernell laughed again, but this time it had a strained quality as he took a quick glance over at his brother.

  "Aw, don't worry, boys," I said, "I'm not about to take either one of you too seriously." I stood up and headed for the refrigerator. Then it happened. My water broke. Vernell's worst fear was realized and Jimmy's declaration of love forgotten.

  From that day forward, Jimmy continued to wage his campaign of love, but from a safe distance. He'd pop up unexpectedly, sit in my kitchen like a lost soul, sighing and hoping I'd take pity on him and ask what was wrong. I never did. I knew that if I waited long enough, Jimmy'd tell me.

  "Vernell's on my back again," he'd moan. "He wants me to take over the mobile home business so's he can start a satellite dish company. You ever, hear tell of such a ridiculous speculation?"

  Famous last words. Jimmy got forty-nine percent of the mobile home business and Vernell got the gold mine. I have to admit, Vernell did work like a dog to get the satellite business off the ground. I can't help but wonder how much quicker his rise to the top would've been if he hadn't been pursuing and sleeping with the lovely Dish Girl, Jolene.

  Jimmy finally married, but he didn't see that as cause to leave me alone. "Well, hell, sugar, you're married, too."

  When his wife, Roxanne, turned out to be the queen bitch of the universe, content to lay on the sofa all day, watching soaps and eating Cheetos, I felt sorry for him. Even Jimmy didn't deserve the treatment she gave him. Always yelling, calling and checking on him all over town if he was two minutes late. No wonder I sometimes found him sitting at my kitchen table, even with no one home.

  Of course, now that would all change. Jimmy'd played on my sympathies and irritated me for the very last time. Thanks to him, I was sitting in the Greensboro Police Department, staring at a possible charge of murder one and ruing the day I'd ever met up with the Spivey clan.

  Chapter Two

  On Vernell's fortieth birthday, he came home drunk and announced he didn't love me anymore. He went on to say that he had to be alone to find himself and that he knew he was put on this earth for a purpose.

  "What's her name?" I asked.

  "Aw, now ain't it just like you to think this is about a woman!"

  One year later, he married Jolene Hayes, the Dish Girl from his Satellite Kingdom commercials. Blond, twenty-six, and stacked. I figured Vernell, North Carolina's self-proclaimed King of the Satellite Dish, had found his higher calling.

  Then my sixteen-year-old, Sheila, pitched a fit because I took her driver's license away on account of her bad grades and a certain long-haired, nineteen-year-old, dope-dealing musician she'd been sneaking behind my back to see.

  "I'm going to live with Daddy," s
he stormed, "and you can't stop me. He won't be so mean tome!"

  I packed her bags. I drove her to Vernell's New Irving Park mansion, pulled up in the circular drive, and said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out! You're here for the rest of the school year. We'll just see how lovely life is with Daddy!"

  Then I went home to my College Hills bungalow, marched inside, and went to bed for three days. Even though I'd done the right thing by calling Sheila's hand, it hurt so bad I could scarcely catch my breath. I cried for my baby and the fifteen years I'd lost to Vernell Spivey.

  I called in to the beauty shop I co-owned and told Bonnie to open without me and cancel all my appointments, even with the regulars. Then I ate, everything in the house that had a hint of chocolate, every french fry and greasy chip, and every chemical-laden snack cake that didn't have mold on it. I was pitiful.

  On the third day, I got up out of bed, staggered into the bathroom, and addressed myself in the mirror.

  "Maggie," I told myself, "you are a pitiful waste of God-given talent and womanhood." I stared back at myself. "Look at you! Going all to pieces because your daughter decides to go try life with Daddy! She ain't dead, and frankly, she's been a royal pain in the derriere these past few months." I leaned in closer to the mirror, staring at the woman I'd become. My curly red hair hung in a sleep-tangled mat, my green eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and I was getting pimples from eating chocolate and grease.

  "Girl, Mama didn't raise no fools and she certainly didn't raise a whiner. It is time to take the bull by the horns and get a life!" I remembered something else Mama used to say, too: If you tarry on fate's highway, you'll become life's roadkill.

  Mama was right. My future was awaiting me, and somehow I knew it would mean a big change. I just didn't know that it would also mean big trouble.

  Six months later, I found myself. I turned the day-to-day management of the beauty shop over to my partner, Bonnie. I told her I'd still come in and do my regulars, but she was in charge. Then I took half of the money Vernell reluctantly forked over in the divorce settlement, and claimed what I knew was my rightful place in the world.

  Ever since I'd gotten pregnant with Sheila and had to marry Vernell, I'd been pretty much playing it by the rules. My crayon never strayed outside of the lines. But I decided that taking the bull by the horns meant pursuing the one dream that I'd always kept buried in the back of my head. Maggie Reid, thirty-six-year-old divorcee and mother of one, co-owner of the Curly-Que Beauty Salon was about to become Maggie Reid, girl singer for the Drivin' Wheel, the house band at Greensboro's leading country and western bar, the Golden Stallion Club.

  I was born to sing. But like Mama always told me, a caged bird can't sing if it's living with a gilded lily. With Vernell across town shacked up with a Barbie doll and Sheila going for the Miss Spoiled Rotten Award, I figured there wasn't much I had to lose.

  It's not like I had no experience. I'd sung all my life, one way or another. That's how me and Vernell met. He was dancing with some girl right by the stage at a high school dance. When he swung her around, he looked up at me as I was singing in my little band, and he winked. The rest was history. Bad history.

  So, I thought, go for it, girl. What've you got to lose? All my life I'd stood by and watched the parade. It was finally my turn. And that's how I wound up on stage at the Golden Stallion, standing in front of a microphone, ready to make my mark on the world of country music.

  I won't ever forget that first night. The auditions were open to the public, with every drunk, bouncer, deejay, and wanna-be cowgirl putting in their two cents worth about who the new lead singer in the house band ought to be.

  I remember hearing them call my name over the P.A. system, and someone giving me a little shove. Next thing I knew, I was under the bright lights, walking across that stage like I owned the place, and praying I didn't make a fool of myself by tripping over the cables and wires that criss-crossed the floor.

  The band members looked at me. The lead guitar player, a cute fella with a small black beard, nodded and said, "Count it off and we'll come in behind you." He could've said, "Hey, my name's Jethro and we're the Beverly Hillbillies," for all I heard. I was too nervous to think.

  I stepped up to the mike, my heart somewhere up around my ears, and looked back at the band. "Fake it 'til you make it," I whispered to myself. "One, two, one, two, three, four." I gave them the count, the pedal steel started to whine, and the rhythm guitar slipped in underneath as I began to sing "Your Cheatin' Heart."

  I spent the first verse just trying not to wet my pants with fear, wishing my knees would quit knocking. On the second verse, I began to look out past the lights into the audience and sing to the house. After all, I was going to be a Country Legend. I had to act like a Somebody.

  I sang my heart out and as I did, something started to change in me. For the first time in maybe ever, I felt strong deep down inside. I made eye contact with every lonely-looking man I saw, even the cute ones. I unhooked the mike from the stand and started walking and singing. By the start of the third verse, they were mine.

  Somewhere in the middle of the third verse, I fell in love. A tall, lanky man was moving through the throng of dancers, his eyes locking onto mine and pulling me to him. He kept right on coming until he stood at the edge of the rail that rimmed the dance floor. He wore a white straw western hat and tight, faded blue jeans. His face was deeply tanned and laugh-lined, like he worked outside for a living. And he had a thick, cowboy mustache, the kind that makes women think about kissing.

  He stood there, arms folded, smiling up at me like we were old friends, sharing a secret, an intimate, under-the-covers secret. I looked straight back at him, smiled, and let the music tell this man we had a common destiny. When the song ended, I had a new job and a future.

  There was only one casualty that evening. By the time I'd finished singing and talking with the band, my blue-eyed cowboy had disappeared. I looked for him, not in an obvious way, but short of going into the men's room, I was pretty thorough. He was gone, but the gift he'd given me remained. I knew now there was life after Vernell Spivey. I had a new job and prospects on the horizon.

  For the next five months it no longer mattered that Vernell was basking in the artificial sunlight of TV cameras, hawking satellite dishes and becoming rich. It even stung a little less that Sheila was now attending the Irving Park Country Day School and hanging out with girls whose first names always sounded like somebody's last name. Life had dealt me an inside straight, and I was happy.

  That is, up until the day when fate, in the form of the Greensboro Police Department and Jimmy Spivey, conspired to ruin my fife and take away my newfound happiness.

  Chapter Three

  Maybe it wasn't entirely Jimmy's fault that I was sitting in a little eight by six cubicle, counting the cracks in the linoleum. After all, I was the one who had mouthed off to those cops. But they deserved it. They came busting in and interrupted me at a very crucial point in my tribute to Tammy Wynette.

  Cletus, the Golden Stallion's doorman, tried to stop them. See, he ain't afraid of nothing or nobody. He spread his big, beefy legs, folded his two-by-four arms across his chest, and glared at them with his black, beady eyes. That look'll stop an overnight trucker lit up on speed and spoiling for a fight. But it didn't faze the Greensboro Police Department's finest.

  I could tell from the way they were staring and pointing in my direction that it was me they were after, and they weren't looking for autographs. What in the world did they want?

  "No," Cletus said, still trying to stop them.

  "Step aside," the older one seemed to say. The younger one, hungry for his nightstick, started fingering his belt. Cletus bristled and the older one shot his partner a look.

  "We ain't after making no trouble," the older cop said, or something like it. He raised his hands as if placating Cletus and gestured toward me. "We just want Ms. Reid."

  "She's singing," Cletus must've said.
>
  "Cain't help that," the cop said, and pushed right on by him.

  I saw them coming and it ticked me off. Jake the Snake, local to the Pagan Motorcycle Club, and known to tip big-time when he's loaded, was just about to approach me when he saw the cops and scuttled away like a frightened crab. Any other night, the cops would've been glad to find him, but these two were looking straight at me and they didn't look happy.

  The younger one walked right to the bottom of the stage where I was singing "Stand By Your Man," and started yapping like a terrier.

  "We need to talk to you," he said.

  I ignored him and kept right on.

  Sparks, the pedal steel player, was eating the whole scene up with a spoon. That's 'cause he's only five-feet-two with his boots on. He has an authority problem. Sometimes short men are like that. Sugar Bear, on rhythm guitar, was about to pass out. He figured the cops were after him and the ounce of pot he had stashed in his guitar case. Harmonica Jack was tracking a cutie at twenty paces and never even stopped blowing his harp to acknowledge the law's presence.

  Cheryl, the waitress with the fewest brain cells and the largest cup size, actually wandered up to the cops and asked if she could take their order. When they said no, she got all miffed and said, "Well, there's a two drink minimum, ya know!"

  I was laughing, but couldn't nobody tell. I'd turned my back and dropped my head down like Tammy Wynette used to do right before she'd turn back around with a tear rolling down her cheek. It's all in the timing. In the world of country music, not a teardrop falls without it bein' planned for maximum effect.

  I held the last note until the audience started hooting and whooping. That's when the two cops rushed the stage.

  "Ms. Reid?" the older one said, as if he didn't already know.