Becca yawned and poured a full cup of the thick, black stuff her grandmother called coffee. Without a little cream and sugar, it was strong enough to melt the silver plating off the spoon, but that morning, she needed an extra boost, so she took it straight up.
“Muffins are on the table, and we’ll be heading to church soon. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! You can’t be goin’ to church wired to the moon,” Grammie said as she slathered butter on a blueberry muffin and handed it to Becca.
Poppa McKay had died when Becca was eight years old, and Grammie had left Ireland to live closer to her only son who lived in Ringgold, Texas. In the past twenty years, she’d left some of her Irish slang behind, but when she blasphemed, she did it with the whole family, and wired to the moon was another way of saying that Becca was hungover.
“I only had three beers all night,” Becca argued and then bit into the muffin.
“Your eyes are tellin’ me a different story, but I’m not fussin’ at you. I remember when I was a young woman and spent my Saturday nights at the local pub.” Grammie’s eyes went slightly dreamy. “I met my Seamus at that pub, and we had fifty good years together.” She blinked and sat down at the table. “My mam didn’t let me miss church just because I was still sleepy. No, ma’am. Not one single time. So, eat your breakfast and get all prettied up. We’ll sit on the front pew, so you won’t be fallin’ asleep.”
“Grammie!” Becca gasped.
Greta giggled. “I’m just funnin’ you. We’ll sit on our regular pew about halfway back in the church. I figure that’s a safe place for you. The devil can’t drag you through the back door with all those folks around you.”
Becca reached for a second muffin. “What makes you think the devil even wants me?”
“Honey, he wants all of us. We just got to outsmart him, kind of like I did my Seamus back in the day.” Greta stood up and headed out of the kitchen. “I’ll be waitin’ by the door with my purse and Bible in my hand at a quarter of eleven.”
“Yes, ma’am, but that’s two hours from now,” Becca said.
Greta stopped in the doorway. “Us older ladies take a little longer to get beautified than you young’uns. What gravity ain’t got a hold of, wrinkles have. Finish your coffee and then go make yourself pretty for that cowboy you been runnin’ from since Christmas. If you run hard enough, you’ll catch him.” She giggled as she disappeared down the hallway toward her bedroom.
“I’m not sure I want to catch him,” Becca muttered as she finished off the last of her coffee and then pushed back her chair. She put the dirty plates and cups in the dishwasher and went to her room. Six outfits later, she finally decided on a sundress the color of her eyes and a pair of strappy high heels that matched it. She was sitting on a ladder-back chair in the foyer when her grandmother appeared with her white patent-leather purse slung over her arm.
Greta pointed at Becca’s feet. “I’m pea green with jealousy over those shoes, darlin’ girl. You might be named after me, but you got those long legs from your mama. I bet Dalton’s old heart throws in an extra beat this morning when he sees you walk past him.”
Becca stood up and slung an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders and tried to veer her away from Dalton. “Grammie, I’ve seen pictures of you when you were my age. You were stunning.”
“Don’t you be tryin’ to butter me up so I won’t talk about Dalton Wilson.” Greta shook a finger toward her. “I might be old, but I ain’t stupid.”
The old folks around town kept saying that they were in for one hot summer, and Becca believed every word of it when she opened the door and a blast of hot air rushed across the porch to meet them. Hot summer. Hot cowboy. Hot everything—or so it seemed.
Nothing in Terral was more than ten minutes away, not even the new casino that had been built out at the edge of the Red River. To go from the ranch and watermelon farm to the only restaurant on Main Street, the churches, or the convenience store up on the corner of Apache Avenue—the street most folks called Main—and Highway 81 took half that time. Driving the four blocks from her grandmother’s place to the church took about three minutes. Becca’s little compact car wasn’t even cooled down when she turned into the gravel parking lot. That old saying that if you blinked while driving through the two blocks that were downtown, you’d miss it was the unadulterated, guaranteed truth.
As luck would have it, Dalton arrived at the same time as Becca and her grandmother, and he rushed over to be the perfect gentleman and help Greta out of the car. Becca opened her door, slung her long legs out, and turned to look over the top of the car—and locked eyes with Dalton.
“I just asked this handsome young man to sit with us,” Greta said.
He arched an eyebrow toward Becca.
“And what did he say?” Becca’s eyes didn’t leave his.
“That he’d be glad to attend church with us this mornin’.” Greta flashed her brightest grin, deepening the wrinkles around her mouth. “If you two kids are real nice and sing pretty, maybe he can even go home with us for Sunday dinner. I put a pot roast in the oven, and it will be done by the time services are over.”
“I can be the best cowboy in the whole state for a Sunday dinner like that.” Dalton grinned. “Here, Miz Greta, take my arm. Those
