“What did your mama do there?”
“She owned a doughnut shop and café from the time I was born until about six months after I graduated from high school.”
“Then she sold it?” Nona asked.
“No, then a robbery went bad and she was shot during it.”
Nona’s hand went over her mouth and her eyes misted. “I’m so, so sorry, Abby. I can’t imagine life without my mama. And you were so young.”
Abby nodded. “I was and it was very hard. Her lawyer gave me some good advice about the café, and one year faded into another. I reenlisted for another six years then with the intentions of making it a career, but after twelve I was burned out.”
“What about Ezra’s other two daughters? Where did they live before coming here? Their mamas are still living, aren’t they? I don’t want to bring up any more bad memories.”
“I’ll let them tell you at dinner. I hear truck doors slamming right now. And Nona, it’s okay. It’s been long enough now that I’ve only got good memories of my mama. I wish she was here, but I still hear her in my head when I need advice.”
Nona cocked her head to one side and nodded. “My mama would be like that, but I don’t want to even think about not having her here.”
“The door is opening. Would you get the salad from the refrigerator? And there’s a plate of cranberry sauce. I’ll take the casserole from the oven,” Abby said.
Nona opened the refrigerator and whistled through her teeth. “Is that chocolate silk pie?”
“Made from scratch. Even the pie shell,” Abby said.
“I see why Cooper comes for dinner every chance he gets.”
The longer Abby wielded a hammer that afternoon, the more she had doubts about staying on the ranch. It wasn’t the job or the fact that she’d hit her thumb twice, but Cooper. If she left right now, it would be over and she wouldn’t have to make those difficult decisions later, like telling him good-bye and then having to see him in church or out on his morning run around the Lucky Seven.
When the day was done and Rusty drove them back to the house, she sat on the porch with Martha at her side for half an hour, trying to talk herself into staying, but it didn’t work. She took a quick shower, packed a few things in a duffel, and tossed it in her truck.
She hated good-byes, so if she decided to stay gone, she wouldn’t even have to come back. She had her mother’s ashes and the most important things of her life in the duffel bag. The boxes under the bed could stay there, but everything else was going with her.
Driving down the pathway she’d seen Rusty take seemed to take hours, but in reality it was only about a five-minute drive. The little bunkhouse sat deep in the shadows of a pecan grove. When the leaves were on the trees, it would be completely hidden.
He opened the door with a worried expression when she knocked. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing on the ranch. A lot inside of me.”
“Humph!” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I figured you’d be the last one standing.”
“I may be, but I need some time. What does the will say about taking a day off?”
“It says you can sit on the porch and drink sweet tea or beer or stay drunk on moonshine, or you can take your third of the money and go anytime you want. But if you leave for more than twenty-four hours, then you are declared officially out of the runnin’ for the ranch. And you only get one twenty-four-hour leave.”
“I’m taking mine now. If I’m not back at six tomorrow evening, I’ll call you with a bank number where you can wire my money,” she said.
“You’ll be back,” he said.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I just am, Abby. You are not a quitter; you are a fighter.”
“We’ll see,” she said. She started to walk away and turned back. “One more thing, Rusty. In case I don’t come back, why daisies?”
“Daisies?” he asked.
“At the funeral. Why did you give us daisies and why did you tell us to put them in the casket with him?”
“It was my idea. He said no flowers, but it didn’t seem right. And I felt like he should take something from his daughters with him. I went to get roses since he cultivated beautiful roses all summer. Unfortunately, the florist didn’t have any roses, so I bought three daisies,” Rusty said.
“Thank you. I wondered why he’d want us to do that when he didn’t give a shit about us while we were growing up,” Abby said.
The knowledge of the daisies left her feeling flat. In the back of her mind, she’d thought maybe he knew that daisies were tough little flowers, and had been telling them that he appreciated their strength. But Ezra hadn’t even known about them, so it hadn’t been any seal of approval on the three girls he’d fathered.
She got back into her truck, turned off her phone, and shoved it into the glove compartment. She didn’t even want to talk to Haley or her sisters and especially not Cooper until she had this figured out. It was dark when she parked her truck in a motel parking spot, picked up her duffel bag, and carried it into the lobby.
She paid for a room and told herself in the elevator on the way up that she could figure things out now. At the ranch house, a memory of Cooper popped up every which way she turned. At the dinner table, she could feel his presence even though the chair beside her was empty. Out in the pasture, she could visualize him hopping over the fence if she looked up. Even the cemetery contained memories of all those kisses they’d shared on the bench under the bare oak trees.
Here she wouldn’t have a single distraction and she could make up her mind, once and for all, about her future.
The sun was setting when Cooper finally finished his work in Lubbock and stopped in at Fuzzy’s Tacos for a couple of fish tacos. It had taken a hell of a lot longer than he’d expected, but he’d gotten a late start and then there had been an accident that held up traffic for a solid hour. Then there was the transfer paperwork.
He’d tried to call Abby a couple of times but it went straight to voice mail. He figured she’d left her phone in the bedroom and couldn’t hear it, so he sent a couple of text messages.
The waitress was a tall redhead with brilliant green eyes and the way she winked and smiled, he had no doubt that she would give him her phone number if he asked. The woman was exactly his type, including the green eyes and sassy attitude. Two weeks ago he would have flirted with the lady, but he missed Abby, plain and simple.
He inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. His vibrating phone said he had a text message. Hoping it was from Abby, he hurriedly unbuttoned his pocket to get at it, but the picture that came up was Rusty.
Come by the bunkhouse when you get home.
Cooper replied: At Fuzzy’s eating tacos. What’s up?
The reply: We need to talk in person. See you in a couple of hours.
Chapter Sixteen
Abby opened the door with a key card, tossed it on the top of the television stand, dropped her duffel bag on a chair, and stretched out on the bed.
“Talk to me, Mama,” she said, offering free access to her conscience.
Not tonight. You don’t believe in fate or omens. And you are not superstitious, remember?
That was it. There were no more voices inside her head that cold, blustery evening. Nothing to help her decide if she should go back to Galveston, walk into the recruiting office, and reenlist. She had thirty days to put her name on the line and not lose any of her rank, and she could request a duty station. Hawaii might be nice after the past few days.
When her eyes grew heavy, she removed her boots and pulled the side of the duvet up over her body and went to sleep. It was a deep sleep that produced a dream that played like a miniseries, lasting all night. In the first part, they were young and he was chasing her through a field of wild daisies. She giggled like a little girl, her blonde hair flying behind her as she
ran through the soft red dirt in her bare feet. In the second scene, they were at his house at the Lucky Seven, alone and working the ranch with him teaching her something new every day. In the third part, there were children, but were they her children? A little dark-haired girl watched her from a window in the house and a B-2 bomber plane flew overhead.
She awoke with a start and sat up in bed, trembling, sweating, and a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard she swallowed. She looked up into the pitch-black darkness.
“What are you telling me? That I’d be a horrible mother?”
She went to the bathroom, washed her face, removed all her clothing except for her underwear, and this time turned down the bed and slipped between the cool sheets. The dream picked up where it had left off. The little girl in the window waved and Abby waved back. In a minute she ran out the front door and into Abby’s arms. In the fourth part of the dream, she and Cooper had gray in their hair. They were walking hand in hand across a plowed field.
She awoke at four thirty in the morning, made a pot of coffee, and paced back and forth while it dripped. The hotel cup was one of those paper kinds without a sleeve so she’d take a sip, set it down, make a trip from the door to the window and then take another sip on her way back across the floor.
“Why couldn’t it be clear? All of it? I came for answers and all I get is more questions,” she asked the blank screen on the television as she passed it.
She flung the curtains open and looked out at the darkness. “You are going to have to spell it out to me, Mama. I dreamed about Cooper. Does that mean I’m not supposed to reenlist?”
Nothing. Not a damn thing. No voices in her head. Not even a shooting star. She made another trip across the floor and drank some more coffee.
She shook her fist at the moon that time. “I hate for things to be unsettled.”
Falling back into the chair beside the window, she threw her hand over her eyes and the pieces began to fall together. She was supposed to stay at the ranch until spring, when she would scatter her mother’s ashes somewhere symbolic. She was not supposed to reenlist and the part about Cooper, well, that was always going to be a day at a time. Some things were hers to know and brought a modicum of peace. Others, evidently, were not—and Cooper fell into the latter part.
She dressed, picked up her duffel bag and room key, and checked out of the motel.
Cooper tried to watch a movie on television, but he couldn’t stay focused enough to keep up with the story line. He picked up a mystery book, but that couldn’t keep his attention either. He made a trip to the refrigerator and stared at the contents for five minutes before he realized he couldn’t eat if he wanted to. Finally, he poured a double shot of whiskey and carried it to the living room. He sipped it slowly and picked up his phone to call Abby to ask her to rethink leaving for good. But she needed to make the decision on her own. If anyone influenced her, she might have regrets later. Still, it was a long restless night of dozing a few minutes on the sofa and awakening to check the time. Then falling back asleep only to wake again in fifteen or twenty minutes.
At four thirty he gave up even trying and let Delores out, made a pot of coffee, let Delores back inside, and sat down on the sofa with her at his side. Two hours later he awoke to Delores whining and cold nosing his hand. Delores wagged her tail.
“Do you think she’ll come home?”
Her tail wagged faster.
“I hope that is a yes.”
Abby parked her truck and walked into the house with Martha right on her heels. It felt different now, even with her two sisters staring at her like she had two heads or maybe three eyes.
“Where have you been all night?” Bonnie asked.
“Was it good?” Shiloh asked.
“What?” Abby’s eyebrow shot up.
“The sex?”
“I didn’t have sex,” she said.
“Don’t lie to us. You are coming in at daybreak with a duffel bag in your hands. Where were you?” Bonnie asked.
“At a hotel, alone,” Abby said. “Y’all want to help me bring all my stuff back inside?”
“Why’d you take everything with you? Oh! Oh! You were leaving, weren’t you?” Shiloh gasped.
“I didn’t know, but I do hate good-byes, so if I had decided to leave, I might have called, but I wouldn’t have told either of you good-bye,” she said.
“I’ll help you unload your things, but first I want to know why,” Bonnie said.
“Everything. The ranch. The work. Having two sisters. Cooper. It all came crashing down on me yesterday and I needed to get out of the forest to see the trees.”
“So did you get it settled?” Shiloh asked.
“Some of it. I’ve got my mind made up firmly not to reenlist and to stay here until spring. I have my mother’s ashes and I intend to do something with them when spring comes and the flowers are blooming in the canyon. The thing with Cooper? I have no idea what is going on there.”
“You aren’t supposed to,” Bonnie said.
“But why?”
“Where’s the fun in knowing everything? Life has to have some surprises to make it interesting.”
“I talked to Rusty. It was his idea to put the daisies in Ezra’s casket,” she said bluntly.
“I’m not surprised. Were you?” Shiloh asked.
“I think I wanted it to be in the will. I wanted him to think we were strong and that at the end he wanted a little of each of us to go with him into eternity.” Abby sank down into the recliner and got a whiff of cigarette smoke. “Something, anything that would say we were something to him. I guess that’s what I wanted.”
“Let go of the past. Live today and look forward to the future,” Bonnie said.
“Who said that?” Abby asked.
“I did. It’s what I tell myself every morning. Now let’s go unload your things and make breakfast. We’ve got a corral to finish today. I’ll make sausage gravy and biscuits,” she said. “And Abby, I’m glad you came home.”
“Me, too,” Shiloh said.
“Thank you both. It is home, isn’t it.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s our home and it might take all three of us, but we’ll make it work,” Bonnie said.
Cooper alternated between whistling and worrying all day. Abby had sent him a text that morning just before daylight asking: Ice cream at six tonight, or are you too busy?
The answer he sent back was: Never. I’ll pick you up at six.
Had she come back to stay or to pack the rest of her things, tell everyone good-bye, and leave for good? It was a good sign that she was back and wanted to go out for ice cream. But he hoped it wasn’t only to explain to him her reasons or excuses for leaving.
“Got a date?” his deputy asked when Cooper looked at the clock again for the tenth time in less than five minutes.
Cooper nodded.
“I heard you were hot on the trail after Ezra Malloy’s oldest daughter. That old man was a pistol. Be careful you don’t get a feminine version of him.” The deputy chuckled. “Maybe if you take her a rose, it’ll help.”
“Maybe so,” Cooper said.
Abby was not a pink rose girl or even a red rose one. She struck him more as a wild daisy. With that in mind, he didn’t go straight home when he left the office. He went to the tiny little flower shop in Silverton and barely made it inside before the lady flipped the open sign over to closed.
“Do you have daisies?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, we sure do. I’ll get them out of the cooler. You almost didn’t catch me this late in the day.” She brought out a vase full of bright-colored flowers.
“I want a dozen of those right there.” He pointed at the bright yellow ones with yellow centers. “And tie up some sky-blue paper around them with a blue ribbon.”
“You sure about that? Yellow or white might
make them more pleasant to the eye,” she asked.
“I’m sure,” he said.
“How long until you intend to give them to someone?”
He checked the time on his phone. “Less than an hour.”
“They’ll be fine for that long. I’ll just put them in a box. Why blue ribbon?” she asked as she rang up the charge.
“She’s a blonde with blue eyes.” He smiled.
“Well, then, that does make sense. Birthday?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then pick out a blank card from the assortment there and sign it.”
“Don’t need a card. I’ll be taking them to her directly.”
He set the box in the backseat of the car and started the engine. Singing along with the radio, Cooper wondered what his grandpa would think of Abby.
You could be falling in love. The voice in his head sounded a lot like his grandfather’s. She could be your soul mate.
“Whoa! Grandpa, I’m not sure I’m ready to admit that much.” Cooper said.
He hurried through a shower and left his uniform in a pile on the bedroom floor. He jerked on jeans and a T-shirt and his boots and was out the door at ten minutes until six. When he rang the doorbell, he remembered that he’d left the daisies in the truck, so he jogged back out across the yard, jumped over the fence rather than opening the gate, and grabbed them. Abby was standing at the door with a smile on her face when he returned.
His mouth went dry at the sight before him. Her blonde hair hung in wavy curls to her shoulders and she wore a pair of jeans that hugged her curves, a cute little light blue sweater, and a denim jacket with shiny rhinestones scattered on it. When he talked his eyes into leaving her face and traveling down, he noticed the boots on her feet.
“Wow! You are gorgeous,” he said hoarsely.
“Well, thank you, Cooper. When you took off toward your truck, I figured you didn’t like what you saw,” she said.
“I forgot something.” He put the box of daisies in her hands.
“If this is flowers, you’d best come on in here so I can put them in water before we go,” she said.
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