“Well, then, go have a look and then come home where you belong. Call me from the first hotel you stop at and we’ll talk then. Hugs,” Haley said.
“Hugs back,” Abby said.
Good-bye was something they didn’t say anymore. The last time Abby told someone good-bye, she’d finished basic training and had a week at home before going to Georgia for training school. Tears hung on her eyelashes as she remembered that last moment with her mother. Martha wore a tan-colored knit shirt with the Martha’s Donut logo on the back. Khaki shorts peeked out from the bottom of a white-bibbed apron that the wind whipped to one side.
“ ’Bye, Mama,” she’d yelled as she pulled away from the curb. She watched through the rearview mirror as her mother waved until the road made a curve and she couldn’t see her anymore.
She’d planned another trip home at the end of her training in Georgia, but it was only a week later that she got the call that Martha had been killed in a robbery. She’d vowed she’d never tell anyone good-bye again.
She slid the phone back into her pocket and pulled a ski mask from a pocket on her cargo pants. After she tugged it over her head and tucked it under her collar, she stuck her gloved hands into her pockets and trudged on down the gravel lane toward the Malloy Ranch sign. On the positive side, she was sweating so much inside her clothing that her whole body was damp. On the negative side, she hadn’t seen a damn thing to keep her from unpacking.
Black cattle, with a brand that looked like a capital M with an R sharing the last leg of the M, huddled up under the trees to her left. If she stayed on, that brand would be redone even if she had to get rid of every cow on the place and start with fresh stock. Everything that had Ezra’s name, brand, or idea behind it would be erased. It would have a strong name like its neighbor, Lonesome Canyon, but warm and inviting.
“Malloy Ranch sounds as bitter cold as this weather. I don’t blame Bonnie a bit for wanting to change it,” she mumbled from behind the ski mask.
She knew nothing about ranching. She was aware that the black ones were Angus. She made a mental note to ask Rusty if there was another breed that would grow as well in the canyon. Maybe she’d replace them with those brown ones with white faces she’d noticed in the pastures when she drove up through Texas.
“Or maybe even Texas longhorns. I’ll have to do some research on them,” she said.
How in the hell did this place produce enough grass to feed cattle anyway? All around her were crazy-looking formations shooting up from the ground, some a hundred feet or more, in varying colors of orange, burnt umber, and brown. One looked like a chimney; another like a giant sand castle kids might build on a beach.
The bits of snow collecting on the fence posts reminded her of daisies, which happened to be her favorite flower. They were wild, hearty enough to grow in rock, and were some of the first flowers to bloom in the spring. Were they Ezra’s favorite flowers, too? Was that why they’d been given them to put in his casket at the service?
“I hope not,” she murmured. “If they are, I may change my mind about them.”
A movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and she followed it until she focused on an eagle with something in its claws. It soared toward the sky and finally lit on one of the formations that shot up from the ground. The majestic sight took her breath for an instant. Was it an omen for her to stay and get above the problems of the past before she made a decision to kiss Texas good-bye? Abby didn’t believe in omens, fate, or any of that superstitious mumbo-jumbo shit. She always said that folks made their own decisions and lived with the consequences of them.
“You best enjoy your last year,” she told the sign above the cattle guard. “If I’m here next year on this day, you are coming down and that’s a promise. And if I’m not here, Bonnie is going to change your name.”
The bumpy gravel road went on east, but she couldn’t see the highway from where she stood. Why in the hell hadn’t Ezra extended the ranch to the road? If she stayed, she intended to use the money she’d gotten when she sold the doughnut shop in Galveston to buy that land and haul in gravel to fix the potholes in the road.
She turned north and followed the barbed-wire fence. The wind whistled through bare mesquite limbs, and the winter mix, as the weatherman called it, turned into more sleet than snow. Refusing to let the strong blasts hitting her right side keep her from her mission, she hunched her shoulders and kept walking.
Over there on the other side of the fence was Lonesome Canyon. She liked that name for a ranch and she’d liked Jackson and Loretta in the short time she’d met them. They looked a little old to be having another child, but if Abby decided to have kids, she could possibly be as old as Loretta when she started a family.
Thinking of that sent her back to Cooper sitting beside her at the dinner table. When his strong thigh touched hers, fire had shot through her veins. Then when her knee bumped his, it happened all over again. He’d sat there as cool as an icy-cold beer, but her pulse had raced and her gut had twisted up into a knot. What would he be like in bed? She shivered at the mental pictures that popped up in her head.
“Shut up!” she mumbled. “Stop it. There’s a hard year ahead of you, Abby. And this is going to be your home if you decide to stay on for the long haul. Don’t shit where you eat.” She cracked a smile against the yarn of her ski mask. “Talk about awkward.”
A dog barked and she looked to her left. It wagged its tail and took a couple of steps toward her, then ran back to the cemetery gate. She recognized it as one of the three dogs that had met them when they arrived at the house. Surrounded with an old iron fence with lots of ornate scrollwork, the gate groaned when she pushed it open. Another thing on her list was to give the whole fence a fresh coat of paint and to oil the gate hinges.
The dog ambled on toward the back of the cemetery and stopped at the tombstone in front of the fresh mound of dirt. Abby propped a hip on the cold gray granite and pulled another candy from her pocket to dispel the thoughts of the little girl in Afghanistan that came to mind whenever she thought about parenthood. “I’d share, but all I’ve got is hard candy, and I don’t suppose you should be eating that.”
The mutt put its paws on her leg and wagged its tail.
She squatted down and scratched the dog’s ears. “You and I could be friends. What’s your name? I always wanted a pet, but we lived above the doughnut shop, and Mama said that the health department would pitch a fit over anything that had hair and wasn’t human.”
Abby had never been to a private family cemetery before that day. It must be a rural custom or maybe it was just a Malloy custom to bury their dead right there on the ranch. Whatever it was, she did not intend to bury her mother’s ashes in that place. She’d take them back to Galveston and throw them out into the ocean before she put them anywhere near Ezra.
She stood back up and started to leave, when she glanced back over her shoulder at the tombstone. Ezra Malloy, born November 5, 1933. The death date had yet to be added, but it would say January 1.
Start off the New Year with a death, end with a birth. She remembered the old wives’ tale Granny Spencer had related. She hadn’t really been her granny, but she’d always been thankful that Haley had shared her family with Abby. They’d spent so much time either at the doughnut shop, in the apartment above it, on the beach, or out at the farm where Haley lived that most folks thought they were sisters or cousins at least. It had been Haley who’d insisted that she go to Ezra’s funeral and that she make the trip to the canyon even if it was just to meet her siblings.
She cocked her head to one side and frowned, studying the dates until finally it hit her. “Holy shit, Mama! He was more than fifty years old when I was born. You were only thirty-two that year. What in the hell were you thinking? Was he good-looking back then or did he have some kind of charisma when he was young? All I saw was an old, withered-up guy wearing overalls.”
“You think you’ll get any answers by staring at that chunk of rock?” The deep Texas drawl startled her so bad that she automatically reached for the pistol strapped to her leg, but it wasn’t there. Heart thumping in her chest and pulse racing, she spun around to come face-to-face with Cooper. Only he wasn’t a sheriff anymore. He was a full-fledged cowboy, in a mustard-colored work coat, a black cowboy hat shading his brown eyes, scuffed-up work boots, and a plaid shirt showing beneath his coat.
Her eyes met his and the same feeling she’d gotten at the dinner table came rushing back. If all the sparks flittering around inside her were set loose, the bare trees surrounding the cemetery would go up in flames.
“I’m not so sure I’m even interested in answers. What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Hiram, the guy who owns the funeral home, left one of the tent poles. I told him I’d pick it up and bring it into town tomorrow. What are you doing here? Is that butterscotch I smell?” He took a couple of steps closer to her.
She crammed her hands deeper into her pockets to keep from reaching across the short distance separating them and brushing away that little bit of white sleet sticking to his facial hair.
“I’m making a mental list of everything I want to fix or change if this place is mine and yes, it’s butterscotch. Do you want one?” She held out her hand with one in it.
“No, thank you. I’m plenty full from dinner. Where are your two sisters?”
“I wouldn’t know where they are. Probably unpacking or filing their fingernails,” she answered.
“Sounds like you don’t like them too much.”
She removed her ski mask and with her fingertips combed blonde hair full of static back away from her face. “Don’t know if I like them or not. We are all strangers who will share quarters until one by one we get tired of this shit and leave. I don’t see either of them lasting a month.”
“That youngest one seems pretty determined.”
Her right shoulder popped up slightly. “Right now, she does. But I hear that ranchin’ is hard business.”
He bent from the waist and petted the dog. “I see you’ve made one friend.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Could be that she’d follow anyone around the ranch, not just me. Maybe she’s lonely since Ezra died.”
He rose and nodded. “I imagine so. He did love his dogs. You said that ranchin’ isn’t easy. How do you know that? Weren’t you in the army for the last decade? How would you know anything about how hard ranchin’ is? Or about life on the outside anyway?”
“Yes, I was in the army. The rest is need to know.”
Cooper chuckled. “Well, maybe someday I’ll get upgraded to that level of classification, Sergeant Malloy. Looks like you’ve got a bodyguard there whether you want one or not.”
“She wanted inside the cemetery, so I opened the gate. I expect she’ll go on back home now,” Abby said.
His arm grazed hers as he headed toward the tent pole, and there it was again. Sparks. Sizzle. Steam. It was a wonder that it didn’t create a warm fog right there beside Ezra’s grave.
He retracted the pole until it was only about four feet long and headed out of the cemetery. She looked for a truck, berating herself for letting anyone sneak up on her like that. In the war zone, it could have meant instant death. His whistling grew fainter as he disappeared behind a herd of cattle. So he liked to walk, too, did he? But wait, how did he know she was a sergeant? She looked at the patches on the sleeve of her jacket, smiled, and put the ski mask back on. If he knew that much about the army, maybe someday he would get his classification moved up a notch.
When she finished her walk, with the dog right beside her the whole way, she sat down on the porch for a few minutes but the cold began to seep in so she went on inside the house. Shiloh was in the living room, curled up on the sofa with a thick romance book in her hands. The cover picture was a half-naked cowboy, and although Abby shared her taste in books, her half sister was crazy as bat shit if she thought she could learn about ranching by reading about hunky cowboys.
Abby made a trip through the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and took out the chicken and potato salad. It wasn’t really suppertime but she’d worked up an appetite with her long walk around the ranch. She rolled off two paper towels and tucked them into her jacket pocket, picked up a paper plate, and loaded it with cold fried chicken, coleslaw, and potato salad, leaving one section empty for a piece of the chocolate cake. She stuck a plastic fork in her jacket pocket and carried all of it to her room, where she set it on the nightstand beside the bed, then pulled off her jacket and hung it in the closet.
Then she sat down in the worn harvest-gold recliner facing the window and unlaced her boots. When her toes were freed from socks and boots alike, she padded barefoot to the bathroom right next door to her room. The female soldiers she’d shared a bathroom with in her last duty post in Kuwait would have fought the war with nothing more than their bare hands to get a chance to soak in a deep, claw-footed tub like that. The shower was basic, with a white plastic curtain keeping the water off the linoleum floor. The toilet had crazed marks on the water tank, but it was clean. What had started off as a wall-hung sink now had a crude cabinet built around it: no doors, just shelving holding towels and extra rolls of toilet paper. It might not be five-star-hotel quality, but it sure as hell beat the showers in the army barracks. And the towels under the counter were big, thick, and fluffy. Evidently, Ezra had liked a few luxuries.
Abby could make do with sharing with the other two. On her way back to her room, she caught the strains of country music coming from the bedroom across the hallway. So Bonnie liked country music, did she?
She leaned against the doorjamb into her room for a minute and recognized Miranda Lambert’s voice as she and the Pistol Annies sang “Hell on Heels.” That particular CD had kept Abby awake on the long trip from South Texas. The next song, “Lemon Drop,” was one of Abby’s favorites. The lyrics said that her life was like a lemon drop and that she was sucking on the bitter to get to the sweet.
That’s the way she felt as she went into her room and realized in that moment she was going to unpack everything and wait until spring, when the daisies bloomed, to make a definite decision about leaving. She’d take a few months of the bitter to find out if there was a sweet middle in the lemon drop.
“Well, shit!” she exclaimed when she shut the door and remembered that she had a half bath all of her own. She went to the door and opened it to be sure she hadn’t imagined Rusty telling her that Ezra’s room came with her own private bathroom.
One of those old metal medicine cabinets with a mirror door had been hung above the sink to the left. The toilet sat right beside it with only enough room for a toilet paper hanger between it and the wall. A tall man’s knees would have hit the other wall, but she wasn’t tall, so it was fine. And it was hers and she didn’t have to share it with the other two.
She settled into the recliner and took a deep breath. The faint scent of cigarettes still lingered in the velvet, reminding her of her mother. Martha was a pack-a-day smoker right up until she died, although she never smoked in the house or the doughnut shop. But hugs with a little smoke smell in them always reminded her of her mother’s love and care.
She’d learned to eat fast, often on the run, and sometimes not even finishing what she did have before her, but that evening she forced herself to eat slowly as she looked out the window toward the south. If the gray clouds hadn’t covered the sun, she could have seen it setting.
Something her mother said one time when they were sitting on the beach at the end of the day, watching the brilliant yellows and oranges of the sunset over the water, came to her mind. It was one of the very few times that Martha Malloy had mentioned the past, and all she’d said was that as beautiful as it was, that sunset couldn’t compare to the ones in the Palo Duro Canyon. Her eyes had misted, but
she’d quickly smiled and the moment had passed, though her eyes had held a haunted look the rest of that evening.
There would be lots of sunsets in the next year and Abby vowed to remember her mother every time she saw one, but right now she couldn’t focus on that or she’d start crying. It had only been two days since she’d cleared out the bank box in Galveston and tucked her important papers and her mother’s ashes in the suitcase with all her candy and snack food.
“I should have tossed them out in the Gulf. That’s where we had such good times,” she said. “But I couldn’t, not after I found that letter tucked away in the bank box when I went to store your ashes there. I’ll pick an evening when the sun is setting and the daisies are blooming to scatter the ashes. Maybe in the spring. Not on a cold day like this, and definitely not the day that Ezra was buried. I want to remember it with a smile.”
Bonnie was the only one in the kitchen when Abby carried her empty plate out to throw it away. Her youngest sister looked less hippieish in faded blue-and-black plaid pajama bottoms and a lime-green knit shirt under a shirt of red-and-yellow flannel with sleeves that had been rolled up to her elbows. Their blue eyes locked across the bar and neither of them blinked for several seconds.
Finally, Bonnie moved toward the refrigerator and said, “My eyes are like my mama’s. Yours and Shiloh’s can be like Ezra’s.”
“Abby can have that honor. I got my eyes and my dark hair from my maternal grandmother,” Shiloh said from the doorway.
Abby jumped like a little girl with her hand in the cookie jar. Twice now someone had managed to sneak up on her blind side—in the cemetery when Cooper had appeared out of nowhere, and now in the kitchen when Shiloh had done the same thing. That aggravated her more than any genetic traits from Ezra Malloy.
She gritted her teeth so hard that her jaws ached. “What difference does it make? He’s dead and we’ll never know him.”
“Did your mama ever talk about him?” Shiloh asked.
Abby removed a can of beer from the refrigerator and pulled the tab off the top. “Once, when I was a teenager and pressed her for the story.”
Daisies in the Canyon Page 3