Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(34)

“You look really gorgeous this morning,” Grady whispered when the song ended.

His breath was warm and it was supposed to be seductive, but Allie wanted to brush it away like a fly that had lit on her earlobe after visiting a fresh cow pile. If she inhaled deeply, she could even smell the cow shit.

“I’m looking forward to dinner,” Grady said.

“Shhhh,” Granny said. “No talkin’ in church.”

The preacher opened his Bible, cleared his throat, and said, “Good morning. We have a newcomer back there on the back row. Welcome to Dry Creek, Blake Dawson. We all know that you’ve bought the Lucky Penny and we welcome you to our church. Now, this morning my sermon is from the verses that say that God will not lay more upon a person than they can endure and he will always provide a way of escape.”

Irene tapped Allie on the knee and said in a very loud whisper, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom and I don’t know where it is.” She frantically looked around everywhere, from the ceiling to the windows.

Allie laced her fingers in her grandmother’s and they stood up together. The preacher read verses straight from the Bible to support his opening statement as the two ladies, one in fear of wetting herself and the other giving thanks that God had provided an escape, made their way to the back of the church.

The ladies’ room was located off the nursery and two elderly ladies looked up from worn old rockers where they each held a baby in their arms.

“Good morning, Dorothy and Janet. Looks like you’ve got your hands full today,” Allie said quickly so that her grandmother would know who the ladies were.

“We love babies. Hello, Irene. It’s good to see you again,” Dorothy said.

“I don’t know you so how can you say that you ever saw me in the first place?” She leaned toward Allie and whispered in her ear, “You’ll wait for me, right?”

“I’ll be right here, Granny. I’m not going anywhere.”

Irene closed the door behind her and Allie slumped down in a third rocking chair.

“She’s not going to get any better, is she?” Dorothy said.

Allie shook her head. “The doctors say that this puzzle stage will get worse until she finally settles into one phase of her life. Probably when she was the happiest and that she might not know us most of the time, especially if she stops when she was a young girl and we weren’t even in her life then. We keep hoping one of the medications they are trying will work.”

“I’m so sorry,” Janet said. “We used to love having her help us here in the nursery and we were all good friends. The three of us and Hilda, but Hilda’s been gone now for years. Died with cancer back when she wasn’t much more than forty.”

Evidently Irene overheard the name Hilda, because when she came out of the bathroom with her skirt tail tucked up in the back of her white granny panties, the first words out of her mouth were, “Hilda, something ain’t right with my clothes. Help me, please.”

Allie didn’t mind being Hilda if she didn’t have to sit beside Grady anymore that day. “You want to stay in here or go back out into the church?” She stood up and put her grandmother to rights. “The preacher has another twenty minutes at the least before he winds down.”

“Are we having fried chicken? Is that mean man coming to dinner?” Irene asked.

“What mean man?” Allie asked.

She popped one hand on her hip. “You know who I’m talking about. I’m not sitting on the same pew with him. I hate him.”

“Then you do want to stay in here? And Mama put a pot roast in the oven for dinner so we aren’t having fried chicken.” Allie sat back down in the rocking chair. The church was small with two sets of pews, a center aisle, and just enough room on the sides for folks to get out of church single file. She didn’t want to follow Granny but then she didn’t want to lead the way, either, because there was no telling what she’d do if Allie didn’t keep a hand on her arm.

She shook her head. “I’m not a baby. We’re both ten years old and we don’t belong in the nursery anymore. I’m going to listen to the preacher but I’m not sitting on that pew.” She marched out of the nursery like a little girl in a royal snit.

Allie jumped up and followed her right down the center aisle, which meant she’d have to skinny past Grady to get to the end of their pew. Irene made it to the back pew and stopped. She frowned as if trying to remember where in the hell she was and what she was supposed to do next and then cocked her head to one side.

“I’m sitting right here and if you don’t talk in church, you can sit beside me, Hilda. And I think I will go home with you today for dinner. Your mama makes good fried chicken,” Irene said loudly.

The preacher never missed a single beat, but Allie did hear a few snickers in the crowd. That brought out her protective nature and she would have marched forward and sat on the altar with her grandmother if Irene had wanted to do that. But instead Irene pushed past Blake and sat on his left. “You can sit on the other side of Everett. If he pulls your hair, kick him in the shins.”

Allie slid in beside Blake. He was freshly shaved and the smell of something woodsy, mixed with his soap, sent her senses reeling. She waited until Irene was settled and whispered softly, “Sorry, it’s not a good day. It started off good but it’s gone to hell in a handbasket.”