Between Heaven and Texas Read Free Page A

female children after fabric, in homage to the Tudmore tradition of producing women who were experts with a needle, even though she personally had no talent for sewing. But her husband, Dutch, objected.
    â€œHell, no!” he exclaimed. “You’re not doing it, Taffy. All the good names are gone. Your cousin got the last one—though I’m not crazy about Organza. But it’s sure better than Corduroy. Or Hopsack. Or Flannel! That’s about all that’s left.”
    â€œI was thinking of naming them after Momma and Aunt Velvet,” Taffy countered.
    â€œSilky and Velvet Templeton?” Dutch spread his boot-shod feet and crossed his arms over his chest, aping the bronze resolve of Flagadine Tudmore. “Do that and these will be the last babies you have a chance of getting off me. I mean it.”
    Dutch was not a man inclined to making proclamations and even less inclined to follow through with them, but Taffy sensed that he was serious. Only hours before, in the agony of childbirth, she had sworn never to allow Dutch to touch her again. But now, as her eyes traveled from his handsome head, his sandy hair streaked with sunlight streaming through the hospital room window, to his wide shoulders, to his trim waist encircled by a dark leather belt and the largest of silver belt buckles, then down his long, lean legs, clad in jeans so tight they might have been denim skin, her resolve melted like ice on a hot skillet.
    â€œAll right, Dutch. You pick the names,” she said as she passed the pink bundles into her husband’s arms.
    â€œI was thinking about Mary Dell and Lydia Dale. Should sound real good together, you know? Dell and Dale? But,” he said with a frown, “which name for which baby?”
    Taffy shrugged. “Does it matter? They’re just as alike as two peas in a pod.”
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    Taffy’s observation was accurate, at least regarding the twins’ appearance. Though they were fraternal twins, knit together in the same womb but from two separate eggs, at birth Mary Dell and Lydia Dale were almost identical in appearance, sharing their mother’s bluebonnet eyes and their father’s full lips and blond hair. They were undeniably pretty, even a little bit beautiful. Taffy had been pretty too, once, prettier even than her daughters.
    Taffy was one of the most popular girls in her high school—at least as popularity was measured among the boys. She was not loose, but she was a tremendous flirt, able to keep any number of boys angling for her attentions without them ever realizing that she was the one who had set the hook and held the line. It was all a game to her, one she relished and played recklessly, honing her skills through multiple readings of her favorite book, Gone with the Wind, as well as assiduous study and emulation of the heroine. In the process, she ended up repeating many of Scarlett’s mistakes. It was not until after her marriage that she realized that no one man, however handsome and doting he may be, can take the place of a brace of admirers. A married woman needs friends, and Taffy had none. Her careless antics had earned her the enmity of nearly every woman in town. And though she tried her best to make amends, it was too late. The ladies of Too Much, especially Marlena Benton, had long memories.
    Marlena Benton, née Pickens, could not forget the humiliation of spending the night of the senior prom sobbing in her room because her date, Noodie Benton, canceled on her, enticed by a last-minute promise to serve as Taffy’s escort. Noodie was miffed when he got to the dance and realized that he was one of three young men who had been offered this privilege. But when Taffy chose him as her partner for the first slow dance, he forgave her. Marlena never would.
    And though Noodie proposed to her not long after Dutch and Taffy’s wedding, Marlena never entirely forgave him either. Some in town posited (but never within