The next song was “Down to the Honkytonk” by Jake Owen. One of the lines said something about him having a girl that went bat shit crazy on tequila.
“Do you get silly on tequila?” Lake asked as he kept Bonnie on the dance floor.
“Honey, I could drink you under the table any day of the week,” she answered.
Before Lake could disagree with her, Rusty tapped him on the shoulder and took his place with Bonnie.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked.
“He’s a player,” Rusty said. “You don’t want to get mixed up with him. He’s only interested in one-night stands.”
Rusty was by far the smoothest cowboy she’d ever two-stepped with. When that song ended, he took her by the hand and led her back to the bar. Having her hand in his caused little shots of desire to run through her body, but that didn’t surprise her so much. Dancing with him was one more thing she’d have to be careful about.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she protested.
“Nope, I’m not,” he said. “But I will warn you of danger when it’s right under your nose.”
“Like a big brother?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he chuckled.
* * *
Rusty wondered if Bonnie felt the heat between them like he did. He’d been attracted to her wild, free spirit from the first time he saw her, and that had grown through the months. He’d never let her know that though—not when he had to run her off to even get a chance at the ranch.
She was staring right into his eyes and then a woman touched him on the arm. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Rusty Dawson. You snuck out of the house without even tellin’ me goodbye last month, and you never called me. I’m not just a one-night stand. I’m a good woman, and you’re a bastard. I’ve waited four whole weeks to hear from you.”
“You’re drunk, Sandy,” he said.
“Yeah, but I’ll be sober tomorrow, and you’ll still be a bastard.” She turned her attention toward Bonnie. “You’re one of Ezra’s daughters, ain’t you? Well, honey,” she draped an arm around Bonnie’s shoulders, “Rusty is just like Ezra, bastard to the bone. Don’t let yourself get mixed up with him.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Rusty said.
“I agree,” Bonnie said.
“You’ll wish you’d listened to me”—Sandy slurred her words—“because I know what I’m talkin’ about. He might marry you, but it’ll only be to get the ranch. He’ll never be faithful. Every time your turn your back, he’ll be lookin’ to get some on the side. You mark my words.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” Rusty said as he walked across the parking lot with her. “She was drunk off her ass. I took her home, put her to bed, and left. She got the impression that we’d slept together, but we didn’t.”
“Hey, you don’t owe me any apologies,” Bonnie told him. “We all make mistakes.”
“Tell me about yours.” He grinned.
“I would if we had some of Ezra’s moonshine, but that’s all gone, so…” She shrugged.
“It’s not Ezra’s, but I’ve got a pint of blackberry ’shine in the bunkhouse. Want to share a few shots with me, and talk about all our mistakes?” He caged her with an arm on each side of her against the door of her truck.
“Are you flirtin’ with me?” she asked bluntly.
He removed his hands and shook his head. “Nope. With all the noise around us, I had to lean in real close so you could hear me.”
“You really think gettin’ me drunk would make me tell all my secrets?” she giggled. “Honey, I’m not one of them sad drunks who talks about how the world’s not treating her right. I’m a happy drunk, one who don’t give a damn what she says or does.” She was remembering the night that she and her two sisters had gotten drunk on the last of Ezra’s ’shine. Or at least Shiloh and Abby Joy did—she herself had enough ’shine sense to take a few sips and leave it alone, being as how she’d made the stuff herself back in Kentucky, and she knew what a kick it had.
“I like a happy drunk.” Rusty smiled.
“Well, then, let’s just get to it.” She ducked under his arm and came up on the other side. “I’ll follow you to the bunkhouse. In the morning, if you can make it to the house, I’ll sure enough brew up my hangover cure for you.”
“Who says I’ll have a hangover?” he teased.
“You will have one like you’ve never had before when I get finished making you a couple of real blackberry bombs.” She got into her truck and slammed the door shut.
When they arrived at the ranch, all three dogs followed their vehicles to the bunkhouse. Once inside, Martha flopped down on the cool floor in front of the sofa. Vivien followed Rusty into the kitchen, and Polly headed for the rug in front of the fireplace.
“I guess they’re our chaperones.” Bonnie followed Rusty into the kitchen.
He got the blackberry moonshine and two shot glasses down from the cabinet, set them on the table, and started to pour.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She hip-bumped him out of the way. “If we’re going to have a real drink, then I’ll do the mixin’.” She reached for a bottle of tequila. “Looks like you’re about out of this.”
“That and this pint of ’shine and six beers in the refrigerator is all that’s left in the bunkhouse. I don’t keep any alcohol in here when the summer help arrives. They’re mostly underage, and I sure don’t want to get tossed in jail for giving liquor to a minor,” Rusty said.
“Then let’s do this up right.” Bonnie poured a cup of moonshine into a blender, added all of the tequila, and a twist of lemon. She put a few cubes of ice into the blender and punched chop, then hit stop when its contents were smoothie texture. She carried the blender and the two glasses into the living room.
“We were going to talk about mistakes. You go first.” She settled down right in the middle of the well-worn sofa, set the blender on the coffee table, and poured two shots.
He took one of the glasses from her, threw back its contents like a shot of whiskey, and held out his glass to be refilled. “I ran away from the last foster home when I was fourteen and went to work on a ranch. I wish I’d finished high school and taken some business courses. Ezra took care of the finances, and it’s been a struggle for me to learn how to operate the computer and do all that. Your turn.”
She drank her bomb and said, “I got in with a bad group in eastern Kentucky. We got caught growing pot.”
“Did you do jail time?” he asked.
“No, it was worse than that,” she told him.
“I’m listening.” He refilled her glass.
“In the county I was living in at the time, one family owned the pot business, and no one cultivated marijuana without their permission—and they didn’t give it to kids. They caught us harvesting it, took it all from us, and went to our parents. We didn’t get taken to jail, but our folks had to pay them the equivalent of a fine. Mama had to cough up five hundred dollars, and I had to work as a waitress all summer to pay her back.”
She’d downed that bomb, so he made her another one. “Surely you made more than that in three months.”
Bonnie threw back the drink and held out her glass for more. Memories were stirred up in her mind that she thought she’d buried too deep to ever surface, and they brought about the same hurt feelings as they had all those years ago. If her mother could get her hands on a dollar, she’d figure out a way to rationalize taking it. Bonnie’s feelings or needs seldom if ever played into the grand scheme of anything. “Yep, and she called the rest of the money I made the interest and the lesson—depending on whether she was drunk or high herself. Your turn.”
They switched back and forth with their tales of woe until finally Bonnie leaned her head back on the sofa and began to snore. Rusty gently carried her to his bedroom, laid her on the bed, and covered her with a quilt. She roused up, moaned and threw her hand over her eyes.
He stretched out beside her and whispered, “Shhh…just sleep.”
* * *
Bonnie was jerked awake the next morning when Vivien licked her hand that was dangling over the side of the bed. She opened her eyes wide, looked around, and didn’t recognize a single thing other than the dog that was named for her mother. The light stung her eyes. Her head pounded so hard that she could hear every heartbeat in it.
“Good mornin’.” Rusty brought in a tray with pancakes and coffee. “We’ve overslept. It’s too late to go to church, so evidently we won’t be able to ask forgiveness for our sins.”
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe I did anything I have to repent for.” She sat up in bed, checked to be sure she was wearing clothes, and threw back the quilt. “I only had a few sips from a shot of blackberry bomb.”
“I had about three of those wicked bombs you brewed up. You drank the rest of that blender full.” He put the tray over her lap and sat down beside her.
“Well, at least you didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night and leave me like you did that Sandy woman. Are you going to call me?” Her tone was saccharine.
He poured syrup on the pancakes, cut into them, and took a bite.
“I thought this was my breakfast,” she said.
“It’s ours to share, like we did all our mistakes last night.” He handed her the fork and his hand brushed against hers. His gentle touch sent sensations coursing through her body that made her want to throw off the sheet and drag him right back into bed with her.
She took a bite and wondered what in the hell she’d shared with him? Did she tell him about the sorry sucker who’d talked her out of her virginity and then told everyone in high school about it the next day? Did she tell him that she’d never been so glad to go home that evening and find her mother packing the car to move again?
“So, what did I share?” she asked.
“I know about you trying to grow pot.” Compared to all the other scrapes she’d been in, that wasn’t so bad.
“So, we exchanged a few stories, got drunk, and now we’re sharing pancakes. That doesn’t change jack crap about this ranch,” she said.
“Nope, it sure doesn’t. I might make breakfast, but I’m still going to do my best to make you hate this place and leave before Christmas,” he said.
“Give it your best shot, cowboy,” she told him.
Chapter Four
Bonnie was on her way out the door when her phone rang. The noise startled her so badly she fumbled when she tried to fetch it from her hip pocket and dropped it on the floor. Breathless, she finally answered it on the fourth ring.
“Hello, Shiloh,” she said.
“Why weren’t you in church this morning?” Shiloh asked.
“Overslept,” Bonnie answered.
“You’re out of breath. What were you doing?”
I got drunk and had a hangover and woke up in Rusty’s bed, she thought and smiled. But she said, “I was on my way outside when the phone rang. It startled me.”
“Abby Joy and I are going to Amarillo this afternoon. Want to go with us? We’re leaving in about half an hour.”
Rusty walked up behind her. “I’m going out to check the hay we cut yesterday. Want to go with me?”
“Did I hear someone say something in the background?” Shiloh asked.
“Rusty came in the back door and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the pasture with him, but I’d rather go shopping. I’ll see you in thirty,” Bonnie said.
“Hello to him. See you in thirty. Oh, and tell Rusty, the guys are watching the bull riding on television at Abby Joy’s if he wants to go over there.” Shiloh ended the call.
Bonnie turned around to find him so close that his warm breath tickled the side of her cheek. “You’re invited to Cooper’s to watch bull riding.”
All those damned moonshine bombs had to be the reason he affected her the way he did that morning. Sure, she’d had a little secret crush on him, but she’d never had to fight against the desire to take a step forward and kiss him. “I’m going shopping with my sisters.”
He brushed a sweet kiss across her cheek. “Thanks for the evening and the night.”
Her legs felt like they had no bones. Her pulse began to race, and her heart thumped against her ribs. “You can sweet-talk me, feed me breakfast, or get me drunk and I’m still not going to let you have this ranch unless you’re the highest bidder.”
He chuckled. “But I will keep trying until the very last second. Bring home a couple of steaks, and I’ll grill them for us tonight.”
“There are two in the fridge”—she waved over her shoulder—“that I bought in Claude last evening.”
“Y’all have fun,” he called out just as she slammed the door of her truck.
She gave him a thumbs-up sign.
“What in the hell have I done?” she moaned as she drove the short distance from the bunkhouse to the ranch house. “I haven’t been that drunk in years. It’s a wonder I didn’t do something totally stupid, like have sex with him.”
She took a quick shower and washed her hair, dried off in a hurry, and threw on a pair of clean jeans and a shirt. She usually let her hair dry naturally, but that afternoon she used a blow dryer before she whipped it up in a ponytail. Her phone rang just as she picked up her lipstick.
“Where are you?” she asked when she saw Abby Joy’s name pop up on the screen. “I thought y’all said thirty minutes. I’ve been ready for a while now.”
“We just passed the cemetery,” Abby Joy said.
“I’m headed out now. You don’t even have to honk.” She ended the call and hurriedly put on her lipstick.
She’d just picked up her purse when she remembered that she hadn’t fed the dogs, so she hurried back inside and filled their bowl with dry food. She thought her head would explode when she bent over and hoped that she’d remembered to refill the aspirin bottle that she carried in her purse. She took her time crossing the yard, but her head was still pounding when she got into the backseat of her sister’s van.
“You’re flushed like you’ve been runnin’ around in circles,” Shiloh said.
“I don’t think it’s from runnin’.” Abby Joy shook her head as she backed the van out of the driveway. “She wasn’t in church this morning, and she’s glowing. I heard someone say that she was at the Sugar Shack last night and got into a little catfight with Sandy Hamilton. I betcha they were arguing over some good-lookin’ cowboy, and our sister won. That look on her face”—Abby Joy looked up at her in the rearview—“tells me she brought that cowboy home with her, and the two of them had sex.”
Shiloh turned around in her seat as far as the seat belt would allow and stared at her youngest sister. “Is that true? Who was it? Is he still in the house? What is Rusty goin’ to think of that?” She fired off questions too fast for anyone to keep up with.
Bonnie shook her head and then grabbed it with both hands. “I don’t kiss and tell. No one is in the house or was last night. I don’t think I need Rusty’s permission to bring a man home if I want to. After all, in six months the ranch will belong to me, and he’ll be working for me if I decide to keep it.”
What was the matter with her anyway? She had no intentions of keeping the ranch. The moment it was in her hands, she planned to have a Realtor put a sign out beside the road announcing that it was for sale.
“What makes you think he’ll stick around? If you decide to stick around, you’d better be putting out some feelers for a new foreman,” Shiloh said.
While Bonnie was mulling that over in her head, Abby Joy spoke up. “You went home with someone, didn’t you? No one glows like you are right now if they haven’t had sex for the first time since Christmas.” She glanced up at her youngest sister in the rearview mirror again.
“Or unless they’re pregnant,” Shiloh said. “The both of you are glowing. I’m beginning to feel left out. Y’all are going to have babies that will grow up together, and my poor little children will be so much younger that they’ll get picked on by their older cous
ins.”
Bonnie wanted children someday, but not right now. She had some heavy decisions to make about her life, and a pregnancy at this point would complicate the hell out of things. Her upbringing had taught her that when she got ready to have kids she would settle down in one place. She damn sure wouldn’t jerk them out of school in the middle of a semester. Bonnie had lost count after twenty at how many schools she’d attended from kindergarten through graduation.
“You got something to tell us, little sister?” Abby Joy asked.
“I am not pregnant, and I’m glowing because I just got out of a hot shower, and y’all are making me blush,” Bonnie said.
“Good God!” Shiloh gasped. “Bonnie blushing? I didn’t think she had it in her to do that.”
“Don’t make me laugh.” Abby Joy giggled. “With this baby lyin’ heavy on my bladder, if I laugh too hard we’ll be turning around and goin’ back home to get me a pair of dry underwear.”
Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest. “Y’all are bad sisters today.”
“We wouldn’t be if you’d tell us who you went home with last night,” Shiloh told her.
“I left the Sugar Shack and came home. End of story,” Bonnie said.
“Well, dammit!” Shiloh sighed. “I wanted to hear a more exciting story than that on the way to the mall.”
“Three sassy sisters livin’ on a ranch, one got married and went away. Two sassy sisters livin’ on a ranch, one got married and went away. One sassy sister livin’ on a ranch, she’s all confused and don’t know what to do…” Bonnie said. “Is that story good enough for you?”
“Double dammit!” Abby Joy swore. “Now I’ve got that worm in my head about the little monkeys.”
“Good.” Bonnie smiled. “Serves y’all right. I hope that song haunts you all day.”
“Seriously,” Shiloh said, “have you given some thought to what you intend to do about the ranch.”
Cowboy Strong - Includes a bonus novella Page 28