“Oh. My. God!” she muttered, leaning on the sloped back and sinking down until nothing but her head was sticking up. The only thing better would be a Jacuzzi in a hotel suite with a cowboy like Cooper.
She opened her eyes wide and focused on the water faucets. She was not going to think about Cooper anymore. She’d gone for a whole hour without letting him into her mind so it wouldn’t be that difficult.
She closed her eyes again, and as if on cue, a picture of him at the cemetery with that black hat pulled down over his eyes popped into her mind. She let her eyes drop to the way his butt filled out the jeans as he walked away from her in that sexy swagger. Mentally she brought him into the bathroom with her and watched him undress slowly, then slide into the bathtub with her.
She blinked several times and then swore when the visual refused to leave. “Dammit to hell on a rusty poker. I can control this. I can and I will.”
She banished every thought or picture from her mind and dozed, dreaming of a little girl peeking out of an upstairs window of a building. The child waved shyly a split second before the whole building went up in smoke and crumbled to the ground. Abby had given the command for the soldiers in her company to paint the building. The planes flying away had bombed it on her command and now that sweet little girl was dead. If she’d had a drop of parental instinct in her body, she would have sent someone inside to check for civilians, especially kids, before she gave the signal to light it up.
She awoke with a start. The water had gone lukewarm, so she pulled the plug and crawled out, goose bumps dancing down her back as she tucked a towel around her body. Shiloh stepped out into the hallway and closed her door softly, nodded at Abby, and carried her own supplies into the bathroom. In seconds, the shower was running. More country music came from Bonnie’s room; this time it was Conway singing, “Goodbye Time.” No wait a minute—that was Blake Shelton’s voice, not Conway’s.
Abby had watched the video of that song so many times it was burned in her memories. Be damned if Bonnie didn’t look like the girl in the video. Kind of rough and yet innocent at the same time when she looked up with those blue eyes. When the song ended, it started all over again. Had Bonnie said good-bye to some old boy back in Harlan, Kentucky, to come to Texas? Would he follow her?
She shut the door to her room as the song started over for the third time. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought. If Bonnie had given up a man for this dream of having her own ranch, she wouldn’t budge as quickly as Abby had figured. One thing for sure—it was past time for her to say that it was good-bye time to those crazy feelings that Cooper had stirred up, so maybe the song was as much to her as it was to Bonnie.
Sleep was slow to come to Abby and then it was fitful, the nightmares returning to haunt her. At midnight she sat straight up in bed, eyes wide-open, pulse and heartbeat in competition to see which one could pound the loudest in her ears. She couldn’t remember what she was dreaming about, only that it was terrifying. She envied the soldiers who went home to a spouse who could comfort them in times like this.
She flopped back down on her pillow and shut her eyes. Martha whined from the recliner, crossed the floor, and jumped up on the bed with Abby. She licked her face and then curled up on the foot of the bed, her head lying on Abby’s feet. That time Abby slept until five minutes before her alarm sounded; she hit the button and swung her legs out of the bed. Time for a morning run to clear her head and get her ready for the day. Run, eat, and then it would be day one of chores with Rusty.
The house was still quiet as she eased out the door. Martha dashed out the moment she opened the door and barely made it off the porch before she squatted. Abby bit back the laughter and said, “At least you were polite enough not to do that on my bed or on the carpet.”
She did a few stretches using the porch rail as a bar, and then started a slow jog down the lane. She’d run to the main road, which by her calculations was about two miles, and back. It would be a short run, but she didn’t want to miss Rusty and she didn’t think he’d wait for her. Why should he? If they all left, he inherited the ranch.
She’d barely left the yard fence behind when she realized that she had a running companion. Martha was right beside her, step for step, not getting ahead, not lagging behind, but keeping up without even letting her tongue hang out.
“At least she has manners, Mama.” Abby grinned.
They made it to the road and Abby ran in place for a minute before turning around and starting back. She didn’t plan on turning left and running down the fence line separating Malloy Ranch from Cooper’s place, but Martha herded her that way. She’d only gone fifty yards at most when suddenly Cooper was on the other side of the barbed-wire fence, jogging along with her.
“Early riser, are you?” he asked.
“Always have been. Mama had a doughnut shop that opened at five. She rousted me out of bed at three to go to work with her.” Dammit! Why did she feel compelled to tell him anything?
She focused on his shoulder nearest to her as they ran. Surely to God there wasn’t anything sexy about a shoulder, was there? Then she imagined cuddling with him on one of the porch rocking chairs, his arms around her, his lips on that tender part of her neck as her head rested on that strong shoulder.
“Me, too, only it wasn’t a doughnut shop, it was plain old ranchin’. My grandfather left this little spread to me when he passed on. He was about Ezra’s age and I grew up right here working beside him my whole life,” Cooper said.
Not many men could run and talk at the same time. She had to give him kudos for being in shape.
“Where were your parents?” Hopefully if he talked about something like his parents she’d lose this crazy infatuation.
“Right here until I was four. I don’t remember much about them. The smell of Mama’s perfume brings back a comforting feeling and sometimes it’s like I know my dad is proud of me for bein’ sheriff and keepin’ the Lucky Seven runnin’ at the same time, but other than what I see in pictures, I can’t bring them up in my mind. They were killed when the brakes on their truck gave way as they came down into the canyon from Claude,” he said.
She stopped when she could see the house against the canyon wall. He went on, but then turned and came back, running in place.
“You quittin’?” he asked.
“Time’s up. Lights are on in the house and I want to help with feeding this morning. Have a good run. Martha and I are going home now,” she said.
He nodded and took off again. Martha flopped down close to her feet to rest while she watched Cooper’s backside keep going. Lord have mercy! That cowboy even strutted when he was jogging. She might as well quit trying to erase every thought she had of him and simply realize, even though they kept returning, she wasn’t going to do anything about them.
“Okay, girl, let’s go home and get some breakfast. I’m having another helping of cold fried chicken and some more cake. You’ve been a good runnin’ buddy. You want me to save you the bones?”
Martha wagged her tail and stood up as if she understood every word. They walked back to the house, woman and black-and-brown brindled dog with one blue eye and one brown one. When they got there, Martha flopped down on the porch under a rocking chair and shut her eyes.
“Had enough of that, have you? Well, I’ll bring you some bones anyway.” Abby went inside with a lighter heart than she’d had since she’d left Galveston.
Bonnie was sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl full of peach cobbler topped with a double scoop of ice cream in front of her. Shiloh had something that looked green and horrible in a tall glass, sipping on it while she watched the Weather Channel on television. They were both dressed in faded jeans and work shirts. Shiloh’s dark hair was braided and Bonnie’s was pulled up in a ratty-looking ponytail.
One of Bonnie’s shoulders raised slightly. “Guess you intend to go with Rusty to feed, too.
I thought you were still in your room.”
“I’ve already had a four-mile run like I do every morning,” Abby said. “Where’s the rest of the chicken?”
“Rusty ate it for breakfast. There’s plenty of other things in there, including bacon if you want to cook,” Bonnie told her.
“Well, shit! I told Martha I’d give her the chicken bones for running with me.”
Bonnie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “You ain’t never had a dog, have you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“You don’t give chicken bones to a dog. They ain’t good for them. They splinter,” Bonnie said.
“And what makes you so smart when it comes to dogs?”
“Mama gathers up strays like cats gather fleas. Ain’t never been a time there wasn’t half a dozen sleepin’ up under the trailer porch and there has always been enough cats in the house to clog up the vacuum brushes every time I cleaned,” Bonnie said.
“Does she work as a vet’s helper or something?” Abby asked.
“Hell, no! She’s a bartender. She owned the bar at one time, but she lost it when she mortgaged it to get one of her boyfriends out of jail. He skipped bail and the bank foreclosed, but the man who bought it kept her on as the bartender. Better get something to eat. Rusty said he ain’t waitin’ on none of us,” Bonnie said. “And he showed me where the dog food is. I’ll take on the job of feeding them a can in the morning and one at night and keeping their automatic feeder full out in their pens.”
It aggravated Abby to have Bonnie tell her what to do and to know more about dogs than she did. Truth was, the youngest Malloy daughter had probably had a much rougher life than Abby or Shiloh. That meant she had more reason to work hard and try to stick out the year.
Shiloh finished her ugly smoothie, put on her coat, and headed out the kitchen door toward the barn, setting off toward the fence line separating the Lucky Seven and the Malloy Ranch. Bonnie scraped every single bite of the cobbler and ice cream up out of the bowl and rinsed it before she grabbed her coat and followed behind Shiloh. That left Abby, who still hadn’t eaten. She grabbed two pieces of ham and cheese, rolled them up together like a pencil and ate them on the way, taking time to pinch off a bite for Martha when she cleared the porch.
“Okay, ladies, there’s room for one person in the front seat of the truck. The other two have to sit in the back,” Rusty said. “You want to draw straws?”
“Who was here first?” Abby asked.
Shiloh held up her hand.
“Then she should go first today. Are we ready?” Abby asked.
“Not hardly. We’ll need about twenty bales of hay stacked on the back of the truck. You and Bonnie can ride on top of it or leave a little legroom between a couple of bales and sit on the side,” Rusty said. “If you didn’t bring work gloves, there’s extra in the tack room. Ezra bought a dozen pair at a time. But you do not get a new pair every day. A pair should last six months at the very least. If you lose them, the price of new ones comes out of your weekly paycheck.”
The cowboy had leadership qualities. She could have whipped him up into a good soldier in no time. He pointed toward a room toward the back of the barn with a window in the door. It was the only one that had light shining, so she figured that was the tack room.
“Ezra was partial to these small traditional bales. I wanted to go to the big round ones so we would only have to feed two or three times a week, but he wouldn’t have any part of it. Stubborn as a mule, he was. Guess he passed it on to y’all,” Rusty said.
Abby bit back a sarcastic remark. If this was ever her ranch, she’d have big round bales like she saw scattered over the pastures on her way from South Texas. Especially if it meant only feeding cows three times a week.
Rusty sat down on a bale of hay and motioned toward the left where the hay was stacked from dirt floor to the rafters of the barn. “To make it fair, we’ll take twenty-one bales. That’s seven for each of you. We had a damn fine hay season last year, which means if it’s scant this year, we won’t be hurting next winter. Ezra believed in keeping the barns full. Never knew him to buy hay, but he said back in 1990 he ran plumb out and had to get fifty bales from Lonesome Canyon. It aggravated him so bad that he cleared off another forty acres that next spring and put in more alfalfa.
“After you get the feeding done, there’s eggs to be gathered, a cow to milk, and the pigs to feed. In a few weeks, we’ll plow up the garden behind the house and put in the potatoes and onions. Ezra said if we don’t produce it here, we don’t eat it.”
“Cannin’?” Bonnie asked.
“Every day in the summer, but that’s in the evenings after the work is done.”
Abby pulled the suede work gloves on her hands and picked up the first bale of hay by the wire holding it together. It weighed a little less than the fifty-pound plates in the gym but still, heaving it up over the end of the truck and sliding it forward wasn’t an easy feat.
“So how many cows are we feeding?” she asked.
“We’re running about a hundred and fifty head right now. Ten pounds of hay per cow, twice a day. Ezra liked to spread it out over two feedings rather than putting twenty pounds per cow out there in the morning.”
Shiloh was huffing after her first bale. “Why should we do it the way he did?”
“He might have been a son of a bitch in y’all’s eyes, but he knew ranchin’ and he knew cattle. I learned a lot from him that I’m passin’ on, because I told him I would. You can like it or stay at the house. It doesn’t make me a bit of difference.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and for a minute there Abby thought he might cry.
She picked up another bale and threw it over the side of the truck. Bonnie wasn’t even breathing heavily. That scrawny woman must have worked hard her whole life. With that work ethic, she could have made a fine army officer, too.
“We should be completely done with everything by nine thirty with so many hands to help out,” Rusty said. “I go to church on Sunday morning. Any of you want to follow me, be ready by ten forty-five. You can drive your own vehicles or ride with me if you want. I have a double cab truck, and I don’t mind haulin’ you to church, since I’m going anyway.”
Well, wasn’t that nice of him, but no, thank you. Abby would rather stay on the ranch than go meet the neighbors this week. By her calculations, when they got this truckload of hay unloaded, there’d be another one to do. Then late that evening it started all over again. Forget the running in the morning. She’d be getting plenty of exercise with ranching and she could get an extra hour of sleep—provided that the nightmares stayed away.
“I’ll go to church with you,” Bonnie said. “I’d like to meet the people here in the canyon and get acquainted since I’m plannin’ on bein’ here a long, long time.”
“I’ll honk one time. If you don’t come out the door at the count of five, you can find your own way,” Rusty said.
“Hard-ass, ain’t you?” Abby smarted off.
“Darlin’, he’s just protecting his interests. He promised to teach us. He didn’t promise to like it or to baby us. He and Ezra are cut from the same cloth. He’d probably drown his girl babies,” Shiloh said.
Rusty chuckled. “Naw, I’d sell them to the gypsies that come through here in the spring every year. Ain’t no use in drownin’ something that could bring in a few dollars.”
Abby decided right then that she liked Rusty. He had a sense of humor. He didn’t turn her insides to mush like Cooper. She damn sure didn’t have visions of stripping his clothes off and having wild passionate sex with him. And that was a good thing.
Shiloh threw her last bale on the truck and crawled over the side to get it situated right on the top of the others. “Don’t want y’all bitchin’ at me because I didn’t do the job right.”
“Are you ready to go back to Arkansas?” Abby asked.
“Hell, no! I might not be superwomen like you two but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to throw in the towel the first day,” she said.
“All right ladies, time to move this wagon train out so we can come back and do it again. Who’s going to milk the cow and who’s going to feed the hogs and gather the eggs? I figure there’s a job for each of you. You can keep that job every day, or you can switch off. They’re minor jobs, but when it comes to working cows or deliverin’ baby pigs, you’ll all have to learn that part.”
Abby raised her hand. “I’ll take care of the hog feeding.”
There was no way in hell she was going to admit that she hated chickens and didn’t know jack shit about milking a damn cow.
“I’ll take the milking every morning. I’ve done it many, many times,” Bonnie said.
“Your trailer on a farm?” Abby asked.
Bonnie’s head bobbed once. “My grandparents had a little bit of land and they deeded an acre over to Mama. They’re gone now, but they did some small-time ranchin’ and farmin’. After they were gone, one of Mama’s boyfriends fancied himself a rancher. He had a milk cow and a pen full of goats. He didn’t like to take care of them, so the job fell on me.”
“That leaves me with chickens. I can do that,” Shiloh said. “My grandmother had a henhouse when I was a little girl. I used to gather eggs. I guess it’s like riding a bicycle. You never unlearn the art once you get it down.”
Abby paced from the living room through the kitchen to her bedroom and back to the living room. The house was empty with both Shiloh and Bonnie taking Rusty up on his offer to go to church. Finally she stretched out on the sofa, leaned her head back on the arm, and shut her eyes.
Daisies in the Canyon Page 5