“I have twenty-twenty vision, and I call it like I see it.” He looped her arm into his and slowed his stride to match hers.
The parking lot seemed empty with Nash’s truck parked beside her old car with bald tires and maybe half a cup of gas left in the tank. On the other side was Bernie’s old truck beside the brand-new one. She looked back over her shoulder at her car and Nash’s vehicle. They were a testimony to their backgrounds that could easilybecome an insurmountable obstacle. She tried to brush away the comparison between the two. But the omen in the sky didn’t help. One second the sun shone brightly down upon Ratliff City; the next, dark clouds darkened the whole place. Two signs right there that she and Nash came from completely different worlds that more than likely could never find common ground.
Stop thinking negatively,the niggling voice in her head scolded.Enjoy the day instead of fretting about what might happen in the future.
Nash opened the truck door for her and helped settle her into the soft leather seat. She watched him circle around the front of the vehicle. He looked like he could be a model for the cover of a cowboy romance book in those jeans, pearl snap shirt, and polished boots. The only thing missing was a hat, but if he’d had one on, she wouldn’t be able to imagine tangling her fingers in his mop of silver hair.
“Granny and Grandpa are meeting us there,” he said as he slid behind the steering wheel. “She teaches the five- and six-year-old kids’ Sunday school class. She says she isn’t going to retire until I get married and give her some great-grandkids. Grandpa likes to attend the senior citizens’ class with his old buddies. I’m not sure if they talk about Jesus, fishing, or how much hay they got off of their acreage, but he’s fired up and ready to go every Sunday morning.”
“Is that the reason they want you to buy the bar?”she asked. “So that you’ll be close by when you have a family?”
“I suppose it is.” He chuckled and turned the truck around. “But they have always said that they’ll sell the ranch and move to wherever I’m living as long as it’s not in a big city.”
“Won’t your father inherit the place?” Clara asked.
“He’s made his millions.” Nash pulled out onto the highway and headed west. “He hated ranching and often said the best day of his life was when he saw cows and hay in his rearview mirror as he left Ratliff City.”
“That leaves you,” Clara said. “Would you quit the bar to be a rancher?”
“Someday I would like to do both.” He slowed down and turned into the church parking lot. “Kids could learn a lot by living in the country and having a big place to run and play. Did you grow up in town?”
“Yep, right in the middle of Fritch, Texas. Daddy works in the oil fields and is gone a lot. Mama worked for the government in data processing. I stayed with my grandma a lot of time until Mama retired. That would be the summer before I started to first grade.”
“Did you go to college after high school?” he asked.
“Mama wanted me to like my brother and sister did, but I was sick of school, so Daddy made a phone call, and I went to work in Amarillo for an oil company. I thought he would give me a job like he did Luke, but that didn’t happen. It was supposed to be for the summeronly, but when fall came, I told my folks I needed a year away from books and tests. That stretched into another year and another,” Clara answered. “I kept making bad decisions that landed me on the black sheep list, and my brother and sister made wonderful ones.”
“Well, darlin’,” he drawled, “you are the prettiest black sheep I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that your newest pickup line?”
“Nope, just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” He wiggled his eyebrows, opened the truck door, and hurried around the front side to help her.
She took his hand and slid off the seat, landed on her feet wrong, and fell right onto his chest. That vision she had of running her hands through his hair became reality when he gazed into her eyes, cupped her face with his big hands, and kissed her right there in the church parking lot. A streak of lightning zigzagged through the sky at the same time she closed her eyes and tangled her fingers in his hair.
He took a step back and wiped his forehead in a dramatic gesture. “I guess we aren’t supposed to be making out in this place.”
“Probably not,” she panted.
Folks were milling around visiting with each other when she and Nash entered the sanctuary. The children ran helter-skelter around the pews, and the whole place had the feel of a family reunion rather than a serious church service. The menfolks wore cowboy hats or capswith a John Deere logo or with something about a feed and seed store or being a Vietnam vet, but not a single woman had donned a fancy hat to match her outfit.
She was reminded of the lyrics in Miranda Lambert’s song that said that it wasn’t her mama’s broken heart. “Only instead of a broken heart, this sure ain’t my mama’s church,” she muttered and then looked around to be sure that Nash had not heard her.
Clara had been told her whole life not to compare one person with another. Not that her mother or grandmother stuck to their own advice. But that notion left her mind when she thought of Nana Vernie Sue and her mother attending services that morning in their cute little hats that matched their straight skirts and matching jackets, it sure wasn’t an easy rule to follow. Not when the women around her were mostly dressed in jeans and T-shirts.
“Hello, I’m Nash’s grandmother, Darlene,” a woman said and laid her hand on Clara’s shoulder. The woman was short like Clara, had lots of gray in her dark hair, and eyes that seemed to look right into Clara’s soul. “We are so glad you came with Nash this morning and that you’re going home with us for dinner afterwards. Come with me, and I’ll show you where we sit. Hoot will keep Nash talking until the bell rings.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Clara said and let go of Nash’s hand.
He glanced down at her and smiled. “Be there in just a minute.”
She nodded and followed Darlene to the third pew on the right side. She wasn’t sure what the bell ringing had to do with anything. In the Fritch church, everyone went inside after Sunday school, sat down, and waited quietly for the song director to tell them what page to turn their hymnals to. Then the preacher delivered his sermon. After the benediction, the folks stood up and began to visit somewhat like they were doing right then.
Dark clouds and sunshine, she thought as she sat down beside Darlene, and Nash squeezed into the end space right beside her. Clara jumped when a lady picked up a small brass bell and rang it several times.
“That’s just calling the folks to their seats and telling them to be quiet,” Nash whispered.
“The Bible tells us to make a joyful noise,” the lady who was evidently the song leader said when everyone had taken a seat and gotten quiet. “It doesn’t say that we have to sing on key or carry a tune. God is looking for happy people with a good spirit, so let’s raise the roof this morning as we sing number three hundred in the hymnal, ‘Love Lifted Me.’”
