ONE HOT COWBOY WEDDING (April, 2012)
Shhhh! It's a secret!
That line had run around in Jasmine's mind all day on a continuous loop. She imagined two little girls playing out on the grassy lawn with their Barbie dolls, and it was a secret where Barbie and Ken were going for supper. Then two middle school girls in her bedroom gossiping about boys, and it was a secret.
Oh, the secrets she and Pearl had shared through the years, and now she had one that she couldn't share with anyone, not even Pearl.
"No one in Texas is ever going to know. Not even Pearl. I'll go home and everything will be the same. I'll wake up Monday morning, open the Chicken Fried Café, and business will go on as usual and by then I'll forget all about this wedding. It'll be a secret, alright, but between me and Ace, and no one else will ever know." She talked to herself as she flopped her suitcase on the hotel bed and unzipped it. Her hands were shaking. A fine bead of moisture covered her upper lip, and second thoughts were about to smother her plumb to death.
She and Ace had taken different flights. He'd flown out of Dallas on Friday and gotten their rooms. She'd arrived late Saturday afternoon and caught a taxi to the hotel. It was down to the wire, swim or drown time, red light or green light. Her hands were clammy and sweat was pooling up around the band of her bra. Nervously, she looked at the clock. The hands whipped around so fast that it made her dizzy. Where had the time gone?
She took a quick shower, washed and dried her long, dark hair, and applied makeup. Then it was time to dress. Thank God the plane had been on time or she would have been rushed. She couldn't have stood a dose of nervous and one of hurry-up at the same time.
The white satin dress fit tightly to the waist with a hem that stopped right above her knee. Filmy illusion was attached to a white Stetson hat in a big bow with the streamers hanging to her waist. It was sprinkled with pearls and edged with lace. The shoes were white satin with beadwork on the high heels. But Jasmine didn't feel like a bride. She felt like an imposter.
A rapid rat-a-tat-tat on the door said the time was up. She opened the door to find Ace smiling from ear to ear and holding a black Stetson. He was damn sexy in his black Western-cut jacket, creased black Wranglers, and white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. His blond curls were almost tamed with a healthy dose of gel, but a few still escaped to float playfully on his forehead. But then it was common knowledge that Ace Riley was a player, so he would know exactly how to dress, how to swagger, how to use that Texas drawl, and how to smile to attract the women.
He braced an arm against the doorjamb and let his gray-blue eyes slowly scan her from high heels to Stetson. That didn't surprise Jasmine either. Flirting came as natural to Ace as breathing. The first thing he did when he walked into the café was scope it out for new skirt tails; the second was turn on the charm.
"Whew! You clean up pretty damn good, Jazzy." His sexy Texas drawl was deep, and his words came out slow. Most women melted when he walked through the door and swooned when he opened his mouth. He'd never affected Jasmine that way, not until that moment.
She'd seen him before in dress jeans and crisply ironed shirts but never as fancy as he was that day. Most of the time he came into the café in his scuffed work boots, faded jeans, and shirts with the sleeves cut out; the barbed wire tat around his arm was a constant reminder that he never intended to let a woman anywhere near his heart. A motel bed or her bed, yes, but never his heart or his bedroom.
"Those are two places I'm saving for the love of my life if I ever meet her," he'd told Jasmine once while he was eating hamburgers in her kitchen.
Jasmine struck a pose for him. "Do I look like a blushing bride? You know you shouldn't be seeing me before the wedding. It's bad luck."
He fanned his face with his black Stetson and whistled through his teeth. "Oh, darlin', you look every bit the part, and don't worry about bad luck. We're in Vegas and no one knows what we're up to. You know what they say: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! We ain't got a thing to worry about. Shall we go get married?"
She looped her arm into his and pulled the door shut.
The elevator was right across from her room and opened immediately when he pushed the down button. "See, it's an omen. Nothing bad is going to happen because I saw you in that cute little dress. Besides, the rules are different in Vegas."
"Oh yeah?" She looked up at him.
"Sure they are. Didn't you read the rule book in the drawer right beside the Gideon Bible? God, Jazzy, this ain't your first time in Vegas, is it?"
"Hell, no! I've been here before and you are full of shit! There is no rule book in the drawer." She giggled.
"Did you look? Tell me, did you look in the drawer since you've been here this time?"
"Yes, I did," she lied.
"Well, shit! Someone stole your rule book. Well, on page five, paragraph six, it says that the groom can see the bride on the wedding day and that it will bring them good luck. Paragraph seven says that the only thing they have to be careful with is the blackjack tables. If the bride is wearing her wedding dress, they will lose their money there. So all we have to do is stay away from the blackjack tables. Besides, what bride and groom would spend their time gambling anyway? They'd be rufflin' up the sheets with some hot-as-hell sex," Ace said.
"You are full of bullshit, Ace," she laughed.
The elevator doors slid open and he strutted out with her on his arm. Heads turned as they walked past the blackjack tables, the roulette wheels, and the slot machines. Jasmine saw one woman fan herself with the back of her hand, another licked her lips as if she could taste his kisses, and at least two wiggled as if they needed to make a dash to the bathroom and change their underpants.
Ace noticed men with hungry eyes ogling Jazzy as if they'd like to lay her down on satin sheets and peel that tight-fittin' dress off her slow and easy. Truth was that he was thinking about how those full lips would taste; if that long hair would feel like silk as he tangled it up in his fingers; or how slick those legs would be wrapped around him in a Jacuzzi. He shook his head to knock out the vision and another kinky blond curl fell down on his forehead. He didn't bother pushing it back. After the wedding he would settle his black Stetson on his head and that would keep the pesky curls away from his eyes.
At the curb, he raised his hand and a taxi pulled right up. "See, more good luck. Elevator right there waiting for us and now a taxi is Johnny-on-the-spot. I tell you this is our night, Miz Jazzy."
"Okay, I believe you, Ace. Nothing can go wrong, and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Shhh, it's a secret." She held one finger to her lips.
He opened the door and held the streamers from her hat while Jasmine crawled into the backseat and then he followed her.
"Yes, it is a secret. Our secret and we'll leave it right here, so don't worry, darlin'," he whispered.
His warm breath started something boiling down deep in her stomach. But that shouldn't come as a surprise. She had dated four men in the past year and a half. One of them got past the second date. None of them got further than a good-night kiss.
"Cupid's Wedding Chapel," he told the driver.
"I'll have you there in twenty minutes. Traffic is pretty bad this time of night," he said.
"We need to be there at seven." Ace checked his watch. They had fifteen minutes. Dammit! He'd forgotten to figure in traffic. He'd just figured on getting there right at the time, doing the deed, and getting back to the hotel where he would play the slots for a couple of hours and go to bed.
"Then we'll take a short cut. Hang on to your hats."
"What happens at the chapel?" Jazzy asked.
"I bought a package deal. Pictures. Bouquet for you. License in a cute little folder with a seal on the front and the ceremony. The lawyer said to bring him a valid marriage license, but I'm taking pictures so Cole can see it was a real wedding. I appreciate you getting all dressed up, Jazzy," he said softly.
She punched his arm playfully. "What are friends for?"
He grinned. "God knows I don't want you to back out, but I wouldn't blame you, and we'd still be friends if you are about to change your mind."
She shook her head emphatically. "Hell, no! That sumbitch Cole isn't getting the farm. But I do have one question, Ace. How is it that he won't be tellin' the whole family anyway?"
Ace graced her with his brightest smile. "Ranch, darlin'. Not farm."
"Okay, let's put it this way: That sumbitch Cole ain't gettin' your Texas dirt whether you grow potatoes or Angus calves," she said.
He chuckled. "I like the part about sumbitch Cole, and I'll stick to Angus. And I'll explain the Cole situation to you after the wedding. Don't worry. He won't tell a soul about the ranch if he doesn't get it."
The taxi pulled up in front of a sweet little white chapel and parked behind a long, white limo with a driver standing at attention beside it. Ace gave the driver a bill. Jasmine scooted out of the taxi. She hadn't planned on moving so much in the tight-fitting dress when she bought it the previous spring. It was supposed to be worn to a personal shower for a friend, but they'd changed their minds, decided to have the shower at a honky tonk, and everyone wore jeans. It had hung in her closet until that morning when she went looking for something to wear to her wedding.
Ace tucked her arm into his again. "Love the hat thing," he said.
"Spur of the moment. Pearl was going to use it for her wedding and Tess pitched a fit, so she told me to do something with it. It's my something borrowed," she said.
"What's blue?"
She hooked a finger under her skirt tail, raised it a notch, and showed him a blue garter.
DARN GOOD COWBOY CHRISTMAS (Oct. 1, 2011)
It was just a white frame house at the end of a long lane.
But it did not have wheels.
Liz squinted against the sun sinking in the west and imagined it with multicolored Christmas lights strung all around the porch, the windows, even in the cedar tree off to the left side. In her vision, it was a Griswold house from The National Lampoon’s Christmas that lit up the whole state of Texas. She hoped that when she flipped the switch she didn’t cause a major blackout because in a few weeks it was going to look like the house on that old movie that she loved.
Now where was the cowboy to complete the package?
Christmas lights on a house without wheels and a cowboy in tight fittin’ jeans and in boots—that’s what she asked for every year when her mother asked for her Christmas list. She didn’t remember the place being so big when she visited her uncle those two times. Once when she was ten and then again when she was fourteen. But both of those times she’d been quite taken with the young cowboy next door and didn’t pay much attention to the house itself. The brisk Texas wind whipped around ferociously as if saying that it could send her right back to east Texas if she didn’t change her mind about the house.
“I don’t think so,” she giggled. “I know a thing or two about Texas wind, and it’d take more than a class five tornado to get rid of me. This is what I’ve wanted all my life, and I think it’s the prettiest house in Montague County. It’s sittin’ on a foundation, and oh, my god, he’s left Hooter and Blister for me. Uncle Haskell, I could kiss you!”
The wind pushed its way into the truck, bringing a few fall leaves with it when she opened the truck door. Aunt Tressa would say that was an omen; the place was welcoming her into its arms. Her mother would say that the wind was blowing her back to the carnival where she belonged.
The old dog, Hooter, slowly came down off the porch, head down, wagging his tail. Blister, the black and white cat, eyed her suspiciously from the ladder-back chair on the tiny porch.
Her high heels sunk into the soft earth, leaving holes as she rushed across the yard toward the yellow dog. She squatted down, hugged the big yellow mutt, and scratched his ears. “You beautiful old boy. You are the icing on the cake. Now I’ve got animals and a house. This is a damn fine night.”
The key was under the chair, tucked away in a faded ceramic frog, just where her Uncle Haskell said it would be when she talked to him earlier that afternoon. But he hadn’t mentioned leaving the two animals. She’d thank him for that surprise when she called him later on.
She opened the wooden screen door and was about to put the key in the lock when the door swung open. And there he was! Raylen O’Donnell, all grown up and even sexier than she remembered. Her heart thumped so hard she could feel it pushing against her bra. Her hands were shaky and her knees weak, but she took a deep breath, willed her hands to be still, and locked her knees in place.
“If it’s religion you’re sellin’ or anything else, we’re not interested,” Raylen said in a deep Texas drawl. He’d been pouring a glass of tea in the kitchen when he heard a noise. Hooter hadn’t barked, so he figured it was just the wind, but when he opened the door he’d been more shocked than the woman standing there with wide eyes and a spooked expression on her face.
She wore skin-tight black jeans that looked like they’d been spray painted on her slim frame. Without those spike heels she would’ve barely come to his shoulder, and Raylen was the shortest of the three O’Donnell brothers, tipping the chart at five feet ten inches. Her jet-black hair had been twisted up and clipped, but strands had escaped the shiny silver clasp and found their way to her shoulder. Her eyes were so dark brown that they looked ebony.
“Raylen?” she said.
Her voice was husky, with a touch of gravel, adding to her exotic looks. It made Raylen think of rye whiskey with a teaspoon of honey and a twist of lemon. He’d heard that voice before. It had been branded on his brain for eleven years, but she couldn’t be Haskell’s niece. Liz wasn’t supposed to be there until the first of the week at the earliest.
“That’s right. Who are you?” he asked cautiously.
“I happen to own this place,” she said with a flick of her hand.
“Liz?” Raylen started at her toes and let his gaze travel slowly all the way to her eyebrows. She’d been a pretty teenager, but now she was a stunning woman.
“Surprise! I guess this chunk of Texas dirt now belongs to me. What are you doing here?” she asked.
Could Raylen really be the cowboy Santa was going to leave under her Christmas tree? He’d sure enough been the one she had in mind when she asked for a cowboy. She’d visualized him in tight fittin’ jeans and boots when she was younger. Lately, she’d changed it to nothing but a Santa hat and the boots.
His hair was still a rich dark brown, almost black until the sunlight lit up the deep chestnut color. His eyes were exactly as she remembered: pale icy blue rimmed with dark brown lashes. It all added up to a heady combination, enough to make her want to tangle her hands up in all that dark hair and kiss him until she swooned like a heroine in one of those old castle romances she’d read since she was a teenager. Speaking of kissing, where in the hell was the mistletoe when a woman needed it, anyway?
Cowboys have roots, not wings. Don’t get involved with one or you’ll smother to death in a remote backwoods farm or else die of boredom. Her mother’s voice whispered so close to her ear that she turned to make sure Marva Jo Hanson hadn’t followed her to Ringgold, Texas.
Raylen stood to one side. “I came to feed and water Hooter and Blister. Haskell asked me to do that until you got here. We met when we were kids, remember?”
“I do,” she said. How could she forget? She’d been in love with Raylen O’Donnell since she was fourteen years old.
“Haskell said that if you didn’t like it here, he’d sell me your twenty acres.” Now that was a helluva thing to blurt out, but he couldn’t very well say that she’d grown up to be the most exotic creature he’d ever laid eyes on. That he’d thought she was cuter than any girl he’d ever seen when she was about fourteen or fifteen, but he hadn’t realized that she’d only been the bud of the rose. The full-blown flower was standing before him right then, making him fidget like a little boy.
“I’m going to live here. Uncle Haskell said if I like it he’ll deed the place over to me in the spring. The place isn’t for sale and won’t be,” she said.
“And do what? Ringgold isn’t very big.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Pet the cat. Feed the dog.”
“That won’t make a living, lady,” Raylen said.
She popped both hands on her hips. “I don’t reckon what I do for a living is one damn bit of your business, cowboy. Do you intend to let me come into my house?”
Why in the hell was he arguing with her? Never in all the scenarios that she’d imagined did he cross her. He’d kissed her. He’d swept her off her feet and carried her to a big white pickup truck and they’d driven off into the sunset. He’d smiled and said that he remembered her well and she’d grown up into a beautiful woman. But he hadn’t argued.
Raylen motioned her into the house with a wave of his hand. She brushed across his chest as she entered the house and was acutely aware of the sparks dancing all over the room but attributed it to anger or disappointment, maybe even a bitter dose of both. She’d had Raylen on a pedestal for more than a decade and he didn’t even recognize her. He was probably married and had three or four kids too. That was just her luck!
When she fanned past him he got a whiff of a sensuous perfume that went with her dark, gypsy looks, and he wanted to follow after her like a lost puppy dog.
THE LADIES ROOM (Oct. 10, 2011)
If I wiggled again Great Aunt Gert was going to sit straight up in that pale pink coffin and give me an evil glare like she used to do when I was a child and couldn’t sit still in church. Not even in death would she abide wiggling at a funeral, especially when it was hers. She’d been an outspoken, caustic old girl the whole time she was alive and there was no doubt she could resurrect at the faintest whisper of queen sized panty hose rubbing together as I crossed and uncrossed my legs.
I should have gone to the ladies room before the services began. But four cups and a thirty-two ounce Coke on the way didn’t make it to my bladder until the preacher cleared his throat and began a eulogy that looked as if it would go on until six days past eternity. If the poor man was trying to preach Aunt Gert through the Pearly Gates we’d all starve to death before he finished. Thank goodness there was a Snicker’s candy bar and a bag of barbecued chips in my purse and twenty extra pounds of pure cellulite on my thighs. At least I wouldn’t be the next one knocking on Heaven’s door.
I crossed my legs. I concentrated on what the preacher was saying to take my mind off the pressing matter. Nothing worked after two minutes. The space between the far end of the pew and the wall was just barely passable for an anorexic teenager so I had to walk sideways. It was unforgivable enough that I was leaving in the middle of the funeral sermon but to trouble ten members of the congregation to get to the center aisle would have had Aunt Gert doing more than sitting up. The tirade she’d have produced would’ve withered my poor bladder into a dried out raisin.
I trotted all the way to the ladies room. By the time I was inside one of the two stalls, I already my tight black skirt jerked up. I grabbed the top of the ultra-control panty hose and tugged hard enough to push my thumbnail through the fabric. I thought that stuff was made with the same thing used to construct space shuttles and blistering fire couldn’t destroy it.
I was carefully pulling up my ruined hose when the door opened and Marty and Betsy, my cousins, rushed into the small room. I recognized them the minute they began to talk. They’ve smoked since they had to hide behind the barn to do it and their voices proved it plus they smelled like they’d walked through the fires of Hades and kept the smoke on them.
“We’ll just blend in when the service is over like we got there late and sat on the back pew,” Marty said.
How stupid was that? Everyone would know they weren’t at the service. Of course, they’d also know I’d left in the middle of the sermon but at least I’d been there though part of it. I wished I had the nerve to really fuss at them for being late and hiding out in the bathroom but I couldn’t. Not at a funeral. Not even in the ladies room. It wasn’t the place or the time. I had my hand on the stall lock when I heard my name mentioned. I quietly put the lid down on the toilet and sat down.
“Did Trudy come to this thing?” Betsy asked.
“Of course Trudy is here. God knows she’ll do what’s right. Good old dependable Trudy. She’s never rebelled and never will. She’ll be the good child to her dying day. Only reason I’m here is to hear the will.” Marty said.
“What if Aunt Gert leaves that house to you? What are you going to do with it?” Betsy asked.
“I’ll hire a bulldozer to raze the thing and sell the lot to pay the bill. I wouldn’t go through all that old junk in that house for a one night stand with Brad Pitt.”
Betsy giggled. “If she leaves it to me, I’m callin’ an auction company. They take a healthy cut of the money but they do all the work. I’m going to auction everything off in one day. Then when I get my share, I’m going on a cruise.”
I heard the flicker of a cigarette lighter before Marty commented. Thank goodness there were no windows in the bathroom or lightning would have zig-zagged in and zapped her dead for smoking in the church house.
“That place won’t bring enough for a cruise anywhere unless you want to hire fishing boat on Lake Texoma. But it’ll either be me or you or Trudy. We’re the living heirs, except for Trudy’s mother. And she’s got Alzheimer’s so Gert wouldn’t leave it to her.”
“Poor Trudy. Bless her heart,” Betsy said.
I leaned forward and strained my ears until my head hurt. It would be too awkward to open the door now. There would definitely be a confrontation and I hate that kind of thing. Besides I wanted to know just what I’d done to be poor and blessed.
“It’s sad, isn’t it? But she’s always been that way. Even when we were kids we could convince her of anything. She’s so blind. She’s like an ostrich with her head in the sand and that big bubble butt in the air,” Marty said.
A lump caught in my throat. I swallowed a dozen times before it went down. If they hadn’t been so intent on talking about me they’d have heard the gulps.
Betsy giggled. “Maybe not blind. Just naïve. Hasn’t got a clue as to what really goes on around her. She actually liked Gert.”
“Anyone who liked that salty old witch deserves to be running around in the dark. Let her live in ignorance. They say it is bliss. Besides Trudy always had it all and I’ve been jealous. She deserves to have to get her hands dirty. If she gets the place she’ll work her chubby little rear end off getting it all organized. There won’t be a doily or an ugly knick knack that she doesn’t categorize,” Marty said.
My face burned because that’s exactly what I’d been thinking since I heard she was dead. It might not bring much but it could be given to a good charity.
“That’s Trudy. Her head so far into good deeds she doesn’t see what’s right before her eyes.” Betsy chuckled. “Give me a drag off that. Does God strike people dead for smoking in a church? We’ll have to go out and blend in with the crowd in a minute and it’ll be an hour before we can smoke again.
My skin prickled with hives. Was I that predictable?
“God won’t strike me dead for smoking but Gert would have. Maybe Drew will talk sense to Trudy and make her bull doze the place,” Marty said. “He’s a smart lawyer. Guess Trudy don’t care what she has to put up with for that fancy house and all that money.”
Cigarette smoke drifted under the toilet stall door. I clamped my hand tightly over my mouth to keep from coughing. Talk about a disaster. It would be the beginning of a family war for sure if I got caught now. Aunt Gert would rise up out of that coffin if we got into it in the bathroom while her funeral was going on.
“Do you think she knows about Drew and Crystal or has her head been in the sand so long she’s never coming up for air?” Betsy asked.
“If she doesn’t know, she’s dumb not blind. Everyone knows about Drew,” Marty answered. “How could she not? It’s been goin’ ever since the week after he married her.”
My eyebrows drew down so tight I felt the birthing of a dozen new wrinkles on my forehead. What was it that everyone except poor Trudy, bless her heart knew about Drew?
Marty lowered her voice slightly. “Remember when Trudy did the overnight sleepover in Dallas with Crystal and her little friends on what was it? Her seventh birthday so they could go to the see Disney on ice? Lori Lou came over to my house and borrowed my casserole recipe for hot chicken salad. I caught her coming out of his house the next morning when I delivered the morning paper.”
My stomach did thirty-nine flip-flops before it settled down to plain old nausea. If I got sick they’d hear me and then I’d have to endure a gazillion apologies with excuses about how they should have told me but really thought I knew and was ignoring it to keep my marriage intact. Hearing the words was so much worse than the niggling little suspicions I’d had through the years. My two cousins had turned on the lights and showed me exactly what Drew was and now I had to deal with it.
I wished I had that little twenty-two pistol from my nightstand. When they came to clean the church bathrooms after the funeral dinner there would be my two female cousins, one bullet for each. If only I’d had the good sense to carry a gun in my purse instead of candy bars.
