Signs are popping up all around me,Clara thought.
Nash took a hymnal from the back pocket of the pew in front of them, opened it to the right page, and shared it with Clara. Darlene beamed and Hoot’s smile lit up the whole church. Even in the place where she attended services with her family, sharing a songbook with a guy meant they were a couple.
Nash had a lovely deep voice. Darlene made a joyful noise all right, but she couldn’t have carried a tune in a galvanized milk bucket. Other than in the shower, Clara had not sung in so long that she wasn’t sure where she stood in the mix. And it wasn’t an easy job to sit so close to Nash that their shoulders and hips touched and think about Jesus at the same time.
Clara heard the first few words of the sermon—something about the love of God in the heart could and would change a person for the better, and how forgiveness encouraged that love. She disagreed with that statement. She had no doubt that her grandmother loved God, but it sure hadn’t sweetened up her spirit. She refused to dwell on her family, but instead thought about Nash, Bernie, and even Pepper.
She came back to the present when the preacher asked Hoot to give the benediction and then all but tiptoed to the back of the church so he could shake hands with the folks as they left. Hoot stood up, bowed his head, and said a short prayer, followed by a loud “Amen” that everyone in the congregation echoed.
Then all chaos broke loose again. Folks seemed to make a determined effort to shake hands with Nash, who in turn introduced them to Clara. Not a single one of them threatened to haul her outside and tar and feather her when they found out she was Bernie’s great-niece. Instead, most of them sent greetings to her.
“I’m starving,” Nash finally said. “Let’s sneak out theside door like Granny and Grandpa did a few minutes ago. She made pot roast for dinner, and she’s got a big pan of hot rolls risin’ to go with it.”
“I might have gained five pounds from thinking about all that,” Clara said.
Nash tucked her hand in his and led her through the thinning crowd to a side door. She giggled when she realized his truck wasn’t twenty feet away.
“What’s so funny? Haven’t you ever slipped out of church without shaking the preacher’s hand?” he asked.
“Yes, I have, but my car was never parked this close. I feel kind of like I’ve robbed a bank and that’s the getaway truck,” she said.
“Did you listen to every word of the sermon?” Nash picked up speed and hurried her over to the passenger’s side of the vehicle.
She hopped up on the seat and shook her head. “No, I did not. I tuned out right after he started talking about the love of God in our hearts. Does that mean I robbed the Lord, and this really is a getaway truck?”
“Depends on what you were thinking about instead of listening,” Nash declared. “Want to share your thoughts?”
“That, darlin’,”—she dragged the last word out into several syllables—“is between me and the good Lord.”
Maybe it’s not between you and God at all,the voice in her head said.As hot as your thoughts were, they might have been between you and Mister Lucifer.
Chapter 14
The dark clouds that had been blowing up from the southwest had thrown a shadow over the backyard that Sunday morning when Bernie went outside with Pepper. A gentle breeze cooled the area and shook the leaves of the pecan and oak trees. Bernie sucked in the aroma of honeysuckle blooming somewhere out there in the wooded area. She sat down in a lawn chair and sipped her coffee that had a little kick of Jameson added to it. Had it been possible, she would have patted herself on the back. Whether they called it a date or not, Clara and Nash were together, and that was the first step in falling in love. Church had let out at precisely eleven thirty. That meant her niece was in one of those vehicles that Bernie could hear driving down the road and hopefully on her way to a happy-ever-after.
The crunching sound of gravel in the bar parking lot told her that someone had forgotten something at the church and was turning around to go back for whatever it was. She chuckled when she thought about a little kid leaving behind one of their tablet things. Back whenshe and Vernie Sue were little girls, they did not get to take a coloring book or anything to entertain them to church. They were expected to sit still on a hard pew for what seemed like three days past eternity. Their mother preached that children should learn to listen to the preacher’s sermon, and if they did, they would grow up to be good girls. Evidently all that holiness danced right past Bernie and landed on Vernie Sue.
She laughed so loud that Pepper forgot about the squirrel he had been chasing and ran back to sit in front of her. “I’m giggling, not crying,” she told him.
He cocked his head to one side and growled down deep in his throat.
“You’ve already put the fear of a Chihuahua into more than one squirrel,” she said. “You don’t have to convince him that you are as big and mean as King Kong.”
The hair on his back stood straight up and he barked several times.
“You’ve scared them all away,” Bernie reminded him, and then saw the shadow of a couple of folks coming around the end of the building. Her first notion was that the church service did not go well, and Clara had refused to go to Sunday dinner with Nash. She hoped that Nash didn’t feel obligated to walk Clara all the way to the door, even though they were arguing. He didn’t need to see Bernie in herI love Jesus but I drink a littleT-shirt and pajama pants with Betty Boop all over them.
“Dammit anyway,” she swore. She had been so readyfor some good results for her efforts of leaving them together in the bar so many nights.
Then she saw that neither of the two women was Clara. She frowned and sucked air between her teeth when she recognized Vernie Sue and Marsha in their high-heeled shoes, gingerly picking their way around the gopher holes in the yard.
“What the hell? Why are you coming around here ruining my Sunday? It’s my only day to do whatever I want,” she grumbled and then glared at Pepper. “Why couldn’t you be the size of a mountain lion and scare them away?”
He took refuge under her chair and kept a low growl.
“Did y’all get lost on your way to church this mornin’?” she called out.
“No, we spent the night in Duncan last night and attended an early morning service before we came over here. I’m going to ask our pastor if he could start having two on Sunday to give us who want to prepare dinner more time,” Vernie Sue said as she sat down beside Bernie without even asking. “You look like hell, and I hate that shirt.”
