“I’m always excited to see Momma and Daddy and all my friends and family. A couple of years ago about this time we had a big party over at Liz and Raylen’s place. It was before they got married and her carnie family had a gig in Bowie. So they parked at Liz’s place and she had Christmas right before Thanksgiving.”
“And?”
“And I wish it was Christmas, Trace. I wish this was all over and we didn’t have it hanging over our heads.”
“Why?”
The smile that broke out of a serious face was devilish. “So Momma could put my biggest shamrock on the lucky horseshoe, and me and Holly could dance around a real Christmas tree.”
He parked the truck. “But what if you don’t win?”
“Honey, there is not a doubt in my mind that I’m going to be a winner that night,” she said.
“I wish to hell I had that kind of confidence.”
She reached over and kissed him on the cheek. And then the passenger door flew open and Raylen gave her a big bear hug.
“You did it, Sister. You made the finals and we’re all coming and Momma is throwing a fit so you’d best get in the house. Is this the new baby? She’s so pretty. Can I carry her inside? Liz swears she’s going to be the first one to hold her and that she’ll put a spell on her so she’ll like her Aunt Liz better than anyone else. But if you let me hold her first, she’ll like me best. And you must be Trace. I’m glad to meet you, but I want to hold this baby more than I want to shake your hand.”
Trace chuckled.
Gemma nodded.
Raylen unfastened the baby seat and picked Holly up. “Look at that. She likes me. I tell you, I’ve got a way with babies. Remember how Rachel liked me better than Dewar?”
“Hey, now!” Dewar said right behind his younger brother. “She did not. She’s always liked me better, but she didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Let me look at this girl. Trace, you’d best polish up the shotgun when she’s sixteen.”
“Why’s that? She’s not dating until she’s twenty-five and then only if I’m with her. Maybe she can go on car or pickup dates alone when she’s thirty.” Trace laughed.
Raylen did not get into the house before the door opened and he was surrounded with women: Liz, Colleen, Maddie, Granny, Jasmine, Pearl, and Austin.
“Oh my Lord, Jasmine!” Gemma gasped. “Are you going to have that baby today?”
“I wish I could. I’m ready for her to be here, but doc says a couple more weeks at least. She’s going to come out big enough to drive a tractor, I swear.” Jasmine laughed. “Look at what you done brought home. She’s gorgeous. I hope my daughter has hair like that, but with Ace for a daddy, she’ll probably be bald as a cue ball.”
“Hey, you two, come on in the house. We’re as glad to see you as this baby,” Granny yelled.
“Yeah, right!” Gemma said.
“Parents always take a backseat when there’s a new baby,” Trace said.
Gemma felt like he’d just handed her the moon, the stars, and a big chunk of the sun.
Maddie went straight for Gemma, held her out at arm’s length, hugged her, and then whispered, “I don’t like it, but I’m not going to fight it. I’d rather see you happy than living in Ringgold and miserable. Sell your beauty shop to Noreen and propose to that cowboy, girl. He’s the one.”
“Thank you, Momma.” Gemma hugged Maddie tightly.
“Now, give me that baby. She needs to get to know her grandma.”
***
Gemma dressed in her signature pink boots, pink shirt, and pink hat with the gold lucky horseshoe hat pin. She ate a hamburger from the rodeo grounds that afternoon. She cheered from the sidelines when Trace rode and scored higher than any of the other riders. Now it was her turn, the last bronc rider in the PRCA Finals. The crowd was already on their feet whistling and screaming. She swore she heard her mother’s voice above all the others. She felt the bronc’s muscles protest when she dropped down into the saddle.
“Give it all you got, boy. Trace has eighty-two points and I need one more than that.” She jammed her boots down into the stirrups, measured the rein, touched her hat pin, got ready for the mark out, and nodded.
The time had come.
Rein in hand.
Determination in her heart.
“Go get ’em, darling!” Trace yelled from the bottom of the chute.
She smiled and remembered the first time he’d said that. That night she’d been ready to make coyote food out of him. Tonight, she could have kissed him.
Everything stopped and she was in a vacuum again. Even the dust out in the arena was afraid to succumb to gravity and fall back to earth. Like always, the noise of crowd hung above the arena like a layer of foggy smoke in a cheap honky-tonk, but Gemma couldn’t hear it.
Three rodeo clowns stepped away from the gate. The chute opened and a blur of white topped with snatches of hot pink whirled around the arena whipping up dust devils in its wake.
Time moved in slow motion. She could hear the crowd going wild and the announcer’s excitement, but the roar of blood racing through her veins kept all of it at bay. And then the eight seconds were done. The rescue rider slipped an arm around her waist and she slid off the side of the bronc with grace. They rounded up the horse and she stood in the middle of the arena, waving at the fans all on their feet giving her a standing ovation.
“And that brings the bronc riding to a close. Gemma O’Donnell from Ringgold, Texas, had just shown that mean bronc who is boss. The judges are tallying up the scores and Gemma has to have eighty-three to beat Trace Coleman. One more judge and we’ll have the winner of the Million Dollar PRCA saddle bronc riding event of the year. And here it is, in my hand, cowboys and cowgirls. Let’s give it up one more time for Gemma O’Donnell, the only woman contestant in tonight’s PRCA finals,” the announcer said.
Gemma’s knees were weak, but she stiffened them up and kept waving at the crowd.
“The total score for Miss Gemma O’Donnell is eighty-one points. Trace Coleman is our winner, but that’s one cowboy who’d best be wiping his brow because he almost did not beat this little lady. Gemma, please stay right where you are. We will pause for a few minutes before the bull riding because we have a special event right now. Mr. George Strait couldn’t be here in person, but I’ve got his CD so he’s going to sing and our brand-new bronc busting champion would like to dance with you in this very arena.”
A hush fell over the crowd as “I Cross My Heart” played over the loudspeakers. Trace came out from the side of the arena and held out a hand to Gemma.
“May I have this dance please, ma’am?” he asked.
She melted into his arms as George sang that she’d always be the miracle that made his life complete; that as they looked into the future, that they would make each tomorrow be the best that it could be. And that if along the way they found that it began to storm, that she had the promise of his love to keep her warm.
Gemma let the dam loose and the tears flowed. The song ended, but the background music kept playing. Trace stepped back and dropped down on one knee right there in front of thousands of people and said, “Gemma O’Donnell, I love you with my whole heart. Will you marry me?” He popped open a red velvet box that held a sparkling diamond ring right in the center.
She said, “What if I had beat you?’
“Song was ready. George was going to sing. I was going to propose no matter who won,” he said.
She nodded and said, “I love you, Trace. Yes, I will marry you!”
“She said yes,” the announcer said. “Let’s hear it for the newly engaged couple!”
They could have heard the applause all the way to Ringgold, Texas, when he put the ring on her hand, stood up, and bent her so far back for the kiss that she lost her hat. George Strait began singing the song all over again as he picked up her hat, settled it on her head, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to the sidelines where he sat down with her in his lap.
All she could hear
was the whoosh in her ears that she heard when she put everything else out and rode out of the chute on the back of a wild bronc. She laid her head on Trace’s chest and the steady heartbeat brought her back to reality, one beat at a time.
“When?” she asked.
“When what?”
“When do we get married?”
“That’s up to you. Tomorrow. It’s all just paperwork. We’re already joined by heartstrings, darlin’.”
“Well, we are in Vegas and the whole family is here.”
“Really?” he asked. “One question first. Did you let me win?”
“Hell, no! I gave it all I had. I was going to win and buy Teamer’s ranch and propose to you,” she said.
***
There was enough family, friends, and rodeo folks to fill Cupid’s Wedding Chapel where Jasmine and Ace had gotten married. Cash walked Gemma down the aisle. She wore a white velvet dress and a white hat with illusion streamers flowing down her back from a bow at the back of the brim. Her lucky horseshoe was pinned on the ribbon twined around a pink and white rosebud bouquet, and her lucky pink boots had been shined.
“Trace is a good man. I just wish you’d buy a ranch closer to Ringgold,” Cash whispered as he led his daughter down the short aisle.
“I love him, and Daddy, home is Goodnight, Texas,” she whispered.
“I know, baby. You’ll just have to come home to Ringgold real often or your momma will have me hauling her to your place every other week. She’s fallen in love with that baby girl.”
“Haul away.” Gemma laughed.
“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” the preacher asked when they reached the front of the chapel.
“Her mother and I do,” Cash said.
In fifteen minutes the preacher pronounced them husband and wife.
“You may kiss your bride,” he said.
Trace did a Hollywood kiss that rivaled the one in the arena. “I love you, Mrs. Coleman.”
“I love you,” she said.
Cash stepped up to the microphone and said, “Thank you all for attending. The reception is at the Bellagio and starts in one hour. There’s food and dancing and I understand there’ll be lots and lots of pictures taken. I’m supposed to tell you all that Jasmine had a nine-pound baby girl this morning. She tried to get Ace to charter a plane so she could be here and he’ll probably be in hot water for weeks because he said no.”
***
One week before Christmas, Trace brought a six-foot cedar tree and set it up in the corner of the living room. He looped the lights around his arms and walked around the tree while Gemma placed them in just the right spot. Holly had just that week learned to sit up all by herself, so she watched wide-eyed from her quilt pallet, and when the lights were plugged in and blinking she giggled like only a delighted baby can.
Then Trace looped the tinsel around his arms and Gemma worked it over and under the tree limbs. Next came the ornaments and then the silver tinsel icicles. Gemma stepped back and looked at it with a critical eye.
“I’m becoming my mother. I’ve seen her do this dozens of times,” she said.
“What next?” Trace asked.
“The topper,” she said.
“It’s still in the box,” Trace said.
Gemma shook her head. “Not that one.”
“Why?” Trace asked. “It’s only been used one year. Is there something wrong with it?”
“Yes, there is.”
She opened a shoebox and took out a homemade gold construction paper horseshoe with The Coleman Family written in red glitter.
“Put this up there. I told you when we went to Vegas I had no doubt in my mind that I would be a winner. And I am. You got the title and the ranch. I got you and Holly, so I won the best prize of all.”
Trace wrapped his arms around her and tipped her chin up with his forefinger.
“I’m amazed by you, Mrs. Coleman.”
She pointed to a huge ball of mistletoe with hundreds of berries hanging right above his head. “I’m the winner, cowboy, and my Christmas wish is for Santa Claus to bring me another child by next Christmas.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Trace drawled. “I’m not Santa Claus. I’m just a cowboy, but I’ll be glad to do my best to make that happen.”
New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown
makes her first foray into women’s fiction in
The Blue-Ribbon
Jalapeño Society Jubilee
Available March 2013 from Sourcebooks Landmark
Read on for a sneak peek!
If Prissy Parnell hadn’t married Buster Jones and left Cadillac, Texas, for Pasadena, California, Marty wouldn’t have gotten the speeding ticket. It was all Prissy’s damn fault that Marty was in such a hurry to get to the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society monthly meeting that night, so Prissy ought to have to shell out the almost two hundred dollars for that ticket.
They were already passing around the crystal bowl to take up the voting ballots when Marty slung open the door to Violet Prescott’s sunroom and yelled, “Don’t count ’em without my vote.”
Twenty faces turned to look at her and not a one of them, not even her twin sister, Cathy, was smiling. Hells bells, who had done pissed on their cucumber sandwiches before she got there, anyway? A person didn’t drop dead from lack of punctuality, did they?
One wall of the sunroom was glass and looked out over lush green lawns and flower gardens. The other three were covered with shadow boxes housing the blue ribbons that the members had won at the Texas State Fair for their jalapeño pepper entries. More than forty shadow boxes all reminding the members of their history and their responsibility for the upcoming year. Bless Cathy’s heart for doing her part. She had a little garden of jalapeños on the east side of the lawn and nurtured them like children. The newest shadow box held ribbons that she’d earned for the club with her pepper jelly and picante. It was the soil, or maybe she told them bedtime stories, but she, like her momma and grandma, grew the hottest jalapeños in the state.
“It appears that Martha has decided to grace us with her presence once again when it is time to vote for someone to take our dear Prissy’s place in the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society. We really should amend our charter to state that a member has to attend more than one meeting every two years. You could appreciate the fact that we did amend it once to include you in the membership with your sister, who, by the way, has a spotless attendance record,” Violet said.
Violet, the queen of the club, as most of the members called it, was up near eighty years old, built like Sponge Bob Square Pants, and had stovepipe jet-black hair right out of the bottle. Few people had the balls or the nerve to cross her, and those who did were put on her shit list right under Martha, a.k.a. Marty, Andrews’s name, which was always on the top.
Back in the beginning of the club days, before Marty was even born, the mayor’s wife held the top position on the shit list. When they’d formed the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society, Loretta Massey and Violet almost went to war over the name of the new club. Loretta insisted that it be called a society, and Violet wanted to be called a club. Belonging to a club just sounded so much fancier than saying that one belonged to a society. Loretta won when the vote came in, but Violet called it club anyway and that’s what stuck. Rumor had it that Violet was instrumental in getting the mayor ousted just so they’d have to leave Grayson County and Loretta would have to quit club.
Marty hated it when people called her Martha. It sounded like an old woman’s name. What was her mother thinking anyway when she looked down at two little identical twin baby daughters and named them after her mother and aunt—Martha and Catherine? Thank God she’d at least shortened their names to Marty and Cathy.
Marty shrugged, and Violet snorted. Granted, it was a lady-like snort, but it still went right along with her round face and three-layered neck. Hell, if they wanted to write forty amendments to the charter, Marty would still do only the bare necessities to keep her in v
oting standing. She hadn’t even wanted to be in the damned club and had only done it because if she didn’t, then Cathy couldn’t.
Marty slid into a seat beside her sister and held up her ballot.
Beulah had the bowl in hand and was ready to hand it off to Violet to read off the votes. But she passed it to the lady on the other side of her and it went back around the circle to Marty who tossed in her folded piece of paper. If she’d done her homework and gotten the numbers right, that one vote should swing the favor for Anna Ruth to be the new member of the club. She didn’t like Anna Ruth, especially since she’d broken up her best friend’s marriage. But hey, Marty had made a deathbed promise to her momma, and that carried more weight than the name of a hussy on a piece of paper.
The bowl went back to Violet and she put it in her lap like the coveted jeweled crown of a reigning queen. “Our amended charter states that only twenty-one women can belong to the Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society at any one time, and the only time we vote a new member in is when someone moves or dies. Since Prissy Parnell got married this past week and moved away from Grayson County, we are open for one new member. The four names on the ballet are: Agnes Flynn, Trixie Matthews, Anna Ruth Williams, and Gloria Rawlings.”
The charter also said that when attending a meeting, the members should dress for the occasion, which meant panty hose and heels, even though that wasn’t in the fine print. Marty could feel nineteen pairs of eyes on her. It would have been twenty, but Violet was busy fishing the first ballot from the fancy bowl.
Marty threw one long leg over the other one and let the bright red three-inch high heel shoe dangle on her toe. They could frown all they wanted. She was wearing a dress, even if it only reached mid-thigh and had black spandex leggings under it. If they wanted her to wear panty hose, they’d better put a second amendment on that charter and make it in big print.
God Almighty, but she’d be glad when her great-aunt died and she could quit the club. But it looked like Agnes was going to last forever, which was no surprise. God sure didn’t want her in heaven, and the devil wouldn’t have her in hell.
Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) Page 27
