To Believe

by Carolyn Brown

  He laid his sunglasses in his lap. “Now what kind of business are you in? I think you said something about being a police officer, but my jaw was aching so bad my ears were ringing. I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not a hooker.”

  She laughed. Not a chuckle but a full-fledged, honest laugh, and something fluttered in his heart. The women in his circles never laughed like that and his heart strings were pulled with the same primitive impulse as when she hit him. Not one of his friends would ever think about doing something so bohemian. She had long, shapely legs and he liked that. She knew how to dress, simply but elegantly, and that appealed to him. And she could really enjoy a good laugh.

  “You got that right, Mr. Trey Fields. We both should’ve taken Buddy down right there on the spot and whooped him. That rascal. I told him if he ever pulled a stunt like that again I was going to shoot him between the eyes and tack his sorry hide to the smoke house door,” she said.

  Butterflies the size of Texas buzzards fluttered around in her stomach but she was careful to keep her composure. She sipped the icy water and wondered how many women he’d sent thousands of dollars worth of roses to and how many had ridden in the airplane to Galveston to eat at some little seafood restaurant? Or how many he’d flown all over the world for dinner and then couldn’t even remember their name the next day?

  Well, I’m going to do my best to see to it that he won’t forget this night. He may never call me again, but by golly, he won’t forget me either. When he’s old and gray he’ll remember the night he took Rosy Cahill to dinner and I hope it makes him pant just thinking my name, because I’ll sure skip a breath when I think about him, even when I’m eighty years old.

  He wasn’t prepared for the extra beat in his heart. The evening was supposed to be one date to let her know he wasn’t a country bumpkin from some dinky little town like Sulphur. That he was a sophisticated, well-mannered fellow who made amends when he offended a lady—even if she was just a farmer’s daughter. That’s what she was, even if she did look more like a super model than a country singer when she slid out of the limo. He’d been surprised to see those long, silky legs and high-heeled shoes. When she stood up, he was glad she couldn’t see his eyes. He was doubly glad that she introduced herself first and gave him a moment to regain his composure because the minute he laid eyes on her, his mouth felt like it had been swabbed out with a cotton ball.

  “And you really do wear a uniform and work on the police force?” He asked.

  “That’s right. Actually, I’m a tracker for the department but when I’m not working in that capacity, I’m just a plain old police officer. Sulphur isn’t a big town and it couldn’t afford a full time detective so I work at what ever needs to be done. I graduated from Sulphur High School five years ago and got my degree in criminal justice and went to work last year.”

  “I see. We can probably take these safety belts off now and move around a bit. It’s only an hour flight.…”

  “What were you doing at Buddy’s place, anyway? You were about as out of place as a Yankee in a rebel outhouse.”

  He chuckled. She certainly had an earthy way with words. “Sam and I were driving from Durant back to Tulsa. Normally, we would have taken a different route, but I had business in Oklahoma City the next morning. My grandfather gives the college in Durant an endowment each year and either he or my father attends the graduation ceremony. Grandfather and Grandmother are in Boston. They plan to be gone several weeks. Father and Mother are in Europe for the next eight weeks, and I’m stuck in Tulsa. Actually the family lives in California now. I can’t wait until either Father or Grandfather can find a CEO for the Tulsa office so I can go back to California.”

  “Must be one big business,” she commented.

  He didn’t like the crazy way his insides continued to jump around like a sophomore on his first date. He’d always valued his ability to stay cool in any touchy situation. Yet, he wanted to grab the excitement and never let go. “Yes, it is. What do you do other than police work? I understand you live on a farm or a ranch. Do you ride horses?” he asked.

  “Sometimes. I own my own horse. Daddy’s got a stable and Jodie, that’s my sister just a year older than me, makes the rodeo rounds and rides bulls,” she answered.

  She wondered if he was naturally nervous or if she made him that way. She hoped it was the latter, because the effect he had on her heart was enough to make her want to sigh and swoon.

  “You are kidding me. That big man in the pink shirt said something about her riding bulls, but I thought he was joking, just like the bartender,” he said.

  “Nope, swear it on my granny’s black Bible, cross my heart and the whole nine yards. She’s been riding since she could walk. Started out busting mutton at the county fair and then moved up to horses and barrel racing. She just won the national finals Friday night on the biggest, meanest bull this side of the Rio Grande. I told her before she left she’d better super glue her butt to his hide so she’d hang on for eight seconds. Don’t seem like a long time, but when you’re sitting on top of a ton of pure mean hell, eight seconds lasts about an hour. But she won and now she can go back to doing her own singing, and honey, you’d better be glad it was me who Buddy coerced you into pulling a joke on, because if Jodie hit you, you wouldn’t be awake, yet.” She shook her forefinger like she was preaching a Sunday sermon.

  “What does this woman look like?” He expected her to say Jodie weighed three hundred pounds, dipped snuff and was at least eight feet tall.

  “Oh, a lot like me, only she’s about five inches taller. The Cahills and the Westons are both tall folks. Weston is Momma’s maiden name. She’s only about five eight, like me. I’m the shortest one of the girls. There’s four of us. Melanie and Lisa are both six feet tall and Jodie is six-one. Melanie and Lisa are girly girls. Frills and fancy duds. Jodie ranches and rides bulls, sings on the side. Daddy wanted a boy every time Momma had a baby. By the time I was born, he’d given up but decided I could be his son. I hunt and fish with him and he taught me to track.”

  He put her empty glass in the sink. “Sounds like an interesting family.”

  She stood up and stretched. “Just home folks.”

  He’d never seen a woman lace her arms behind her head and wriggle all the way to her toes.

  “I’m not used to sitting still this long,” she said.

  “You’re quite beautiful. What do you mean by tracking?”

  “Well, thank you for the compliment. You know … tracking. When someone is lost, a little kid or anyone, they send me to head up the rescue party. I can read sign. Daddy has some Indian blood and he taught me from the time I could walk.”

  Seeing disbelief in his eyes, she changed the subject. “How long until this big bird sets down and we can eat. I’m starving to death. And that means they’d better put lots of food on my plate, because I’m not one bit backward when it comes to eating. I can set right up to the table and eat like a field hand when I’m this hungry.”

  Half an hour later, their limo stopped in front of Guido’s Restaurant and the driver opened the door for Trey who held it for Roseanna. She could smell the salt air flowing across the road from the Gulf of Mexico and yearned to wade in the water, but she figured Trey would frown on that. Without a word he took her elbow and started toward the pedestrian walkway across the highway to the beach. When they reached the sea wall she could see the table, covered with a white linen cloth. A hurricane lamp flickered in the middle of it and the edges of the cloth moved gently in the breeze.

  She stopped at the bottom of the concrete steps and unfastened her shoes. “I can’t walk in sand in these things. If you’d told me we were eating outside, I’d have worn something else.”

  She was sure the legs of the chair would sink in the soft white sand and she’d tumble backward in a heap of long legs and dark hair when Trey seated her. But the chair was secure and when she chanced a peek to see just how that could be, she saw they were sitting on a concrete pad
covered with a fine sifting of sand.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Shall I order for both of us?”

  Her fickle heart carried on like it was going to bounce right out of her chest. “Of course not. I can order for myself.”

  She studied the menu by the flickering light of the lamp, a nice full moon and a thousand twinkling stars. “I’ll have the appetizer tray, then a cup of gumbo while I wait on a double order of boiled shrimp and a dinner salad with pecan, honey mustard dressing. I’d like the salad with my dinner instead of before, please,” she told the waiter.

  He handed the waiter the menu. “Make that two. Tell your sommelier to choose a bottle of wine with each course.”

  She sighed. “This is so beautiful and the breeze is absolutely delicious. In a few weeks we’d probably kill for a breeze like this in Southern Oklahoma. It gets so hot the lizards carry canteens. How did you ever talk a restaurant into doing this?”

  He shrugged. “It’s all money.”

  “I see,” she said. Lord, she’d be kissing his feet before the night was over if she didn’t get control of her crazy emotions.

  “That shocks you?”

  “Not so much as you saying it like that,” she admitted. “You bring many women down here to eat?”

  “Not often. I really don’t like Oklahoma or Texas. I’ve been here several times for a few weeks in the summer to work and a friend of mine introduced me to this place. It reminds me of California. I’m here for a year or two, against my will, but very necessary. When it’s finished I’ll go home and believe me I will rejoice when that day arrives. Mostly, I just want the time to pass so I work very hard. I get up in the morning and have a light breakfast, work at the office until noon, send out for lunch, and work until seven or eight, then go home and work until bedtime.”

  “All work and no play will make Trey a dull boy,” she teased.

  “Yes, it does. But, I play a little more when I’m in my own familiar surroundings in California.”

  “I see. Well, this is beautiful and I do appreciate you bringing me here for dinner,” she said.

  “You are quite welcome, Miss Cahill.”

  “Roseanna or even Rosy.”

  “Roseanna, then.”

  She could have gazed at his green eyes until hell froze over. She could have lost herself in those little golden flecks, highlighted by the glow of the hurricane lamp. But, suddenly, just before he blinked, it felt as if he could see to the very bottom of her soul. The feeling it turned loose inside her made her want to run like the wind. She didn’t want anyone looking that deep into her heart—especially someone she would never see again.

  So much for this idea of making Kyle jealous and going home to forget all about Trey. She would remember the evening for the rest of her life and maybe right into eternity. Someday in the far distant future, she would tell her great granddaughter about the night she felt like Cinderella. It wasn’t going to have a happy ending like the story book because in the real world, this kind of thing didn’t happen. Besides she wasn’t wearing glass slippers and she’d bet dollars to donuts that big airplane wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight while it was flying through the skies over Texas.

  The next morning at seven o’clock she’d be in the station and the fairy tale would be over—rich people and country people didn’t mix in the real world, and even beautiful fantasies only lasted for a little while.

  He was amazed that they could sit comfortably in silence. Most of the women he knew chattered about nothing at all. Roseanna was one of a dying breed, even if she did come from a horrid state where everyone had an ego bigger than their belt buckles. She was open, straightforward and delightful. Not at all like Laura, who no doubt wondered why he hadn’t called her the past couple of days. They’d become a comfortable old couple this past year and their friends were hinting about when they might make an announcement concerning a long term engagement.

  Trey put Laura and the friends he had made in Tulsa out of his mind. He thought about what it would be like to look deeply into Roseanna’s crystal clear blue eyes and kiss her until they were both weak.

  He shook his head like he was discouraging an insect. It would never happen. She’d convinced him in a very definite way when she rocked his jaw that she wasn’t interested in his propositions. She was a farmer’s daughter. His mother would drop dead with a heart attack if he married a tracker from Southern Oklahoma. And his father would probably disown him if he didn’t take into consideration all the available women who had a name and fortune which could further the business.

  He could hear his father’s booming voice as clearly as if it really was coming across the water. “You can fall in love with a powerful, influential woman as well as a poor one. Julia would be a good match. The Bustroms have a shipping enterprise worth thinking about. But Laura Ashblood is the ideal match. Her father is my best friend and he’s bailed us out of financial problems many times. You have wealth and power, Trey. Don’t throw it all away on a pair of long legs.”

  He shivered just thinking about a lifetime with Julia. He’d rather spend his life married to a Texas rattlesnake than to that woman. Julia would have a giggling fit if he brought a country bumpkin from the back side of Oklahoma to California with him. He didn’t even have to shut his eyes to see the look on her face when she found out that he stepped down the social ladder and married someone beneath him. She would laugh her stupid fool head off and that was enough to make him wake up and face reality. All her snippy women friends would have a hay day with that kind of gossip and he might even end up on the front page of the tabloids before it was all said and finished.

  So he would enjoy this evening and then Sam could drive this sexy, delightful creature home and he would dive right into business tomorrow morning and never look back on the experience again. He’d call Laura tomorrow morning and arrange a dinner date. His father was right. Laura would make a lovely corporate wife and it wouldn’t be so very hard to fall in love with her.

  The final course of chocolate dipped strawberries and thin slices of white cheese arrived but Roseanna was so stuffed she could only nibble on one of the strawberries. What she really wanted to do was strip out of her hose, hitch her dress tail up and wade in the water, but she didn’t want Trey to take that kind of memory home with him.

  That idea terrified her. She’d never cared what anyone thought about her until that moment.

  It’s nothing more than a fatal attraction with absolutely no future. Trey doesn’t feel a thing for me and I’m just all agog with the attention, the environment and his handsome face. It’s a one night date. He’s just apologizing in a rich way. I’m here to make Kyle mad whether I want him back or not. So what if it’s all childish.

  Four weeks later they eloped.

  Four years later they divorced.

  Chapter Four

  The promise of spring was in the air but Roseanna’s heart was as cold as it had been six weeks before when she walked out of the big fancy Tulsa pent house apartment and came back home to Sulphur. The police force wasn’t hiring and her grandmother, Etta, needed help running the lodge so Rosy had fallen into the job of cooking, cleaning, serving and smiling. It was good honest work that a one eyed monkey could have been trained to do, at least all but the smiling.

  That morning Granny Etta had gone to visit her friend, Roxie Hooper. There were no guests on the books for two weeks and Roseanna wondered what she’d do to keep from going stark raving mad. She needed mind numbing work and lots of it. Maybe her dad could use some help on the ranch. She might not be as swift on the job as her sister, Jodie, but she could work cattle or drive a tractor.

  She had just poured her third cup of coffee when the door bell rang. She carried her coffee with her, hoping that there would be a whole family standing on the porch. One who needed six rooms for two weeks so she’d have something to keep her busy and her mind off Trey and his betrayal. The bell rang twice again in quick succession before she swung open the door and came c
lose to dropping hot coffee on her bare toes.

  “Greta?” She whispered.

  “Roseanna, can I come in?” Trey’s sister asked.

  Roseanna opened the door and stood back. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s complicated. Mind if I sit down?”

  Roseanna motioned toward a sofa in the front office-living room-lobby of the lodge.

  “It’s about Trey,” Greta sat.

  Roseanna’s heart fell.

  “He’s been kidnapped and the ransom is one million dollars,” Greta said bluntly.

  Roseanna smiled, a very slight giggle escaping her lips. She’d been prepared to hear that he was dead and even though she could have gladly strangled him a few weeks ago, she wasn’t ready to hear that he was really, truly dead. Especially by someone else’s hands.

  Greta bowed up. “Don’t you dare laugh at this.”

  Roseanna’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I’m not laughing. I’m relieved. From the look on your face, I was afraid you were here to tell me he was dead. So pay the ransom, get your sorry brother back and take it off your taxes.”

  “That’s where it gets complicated. We don’t have a million dollars. Laura’s father, Cyrus, won’t pay the ransom because they aren’t married. He ran out on her once when he married you. They were practically engaged, you know. Cyrus is afraid he’ll do it again so there’s no money until the license is signed, sealed and delivered and the prenup has already been drawn up. Besides if he doesn’t marry her, our whole company is going down the tubes,” Greta said.

  Roseanna’s eyes popped so far open they ached. “What?”

  “He should have never married you to begin with. It was Laura who had been hand picked to be his wife. It would have been the merging of two great powers and we wouldn’t be in the financial mess we’re in right now if he’d listened to his family rather than his heart.”