“Bullshit!” Bonnie smarted off. “You don’t know me at all, and it would take more than six months to figure out a damn thing about me. I’ll tell you this much, though, when and if I do sell this ranch, you better have more than five dollars in your pocket.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been saving for a few years, and I’ve got good credit.”
Bonnie glared at him for several seconds and then smiled. “Maybe I won’t sell it at all. It will be mine to do with whatever I damn well please, and since it adjoins Abby Joy’s place, and is right across the road from Shiloh’s, I may divide it between the two of them.”
Let Mr. Smarty-Cowboy roll that idea around in his brain. Bonnie had no intentions of doing such a thing, but if Rusty wanted to play hard ball, she’d get out the bat and catcher’s mitt.
“I’ll talk to Cooper and Waylon, and buy it from them,” Rusty said.
“I may look like I don’t know anything to you, but, honey, I do know how to hire a lawyer that will put it in writing that my sisters can’t sell it to anyone, and especially not you.” She flashed an even meaner look at him.
Rusty grinned and smiled at her in a condescending way that she’d never seen before. “I figure you’ll be gone long before you have to make those decisions. I’ve seen the antsy in you lately. You won’t last six more months. I’m going to bed. You better be up early in the morning. We’re going to be in the hay field when the sun comes up. With the spring rain we had, it looks like it might be a good one.”
“Not me.” She yawned. “Ezra’s rules said that I don’t have to do one thing but be here. I get a paycheck every week whether I lift a finger or not. Remember what the will said? So tomorrow morning I plan to sleep in as long as I want, and then maybe do my toenails. Oh, and you can get your own breakfast, too. I’ll have a bowl of cereal when I decide to get up.”
Chapter Two
Ezra hadn’t believed in spending money on what he called frivolous things, so the old ranch house did not have central heat and air. A fireplace provided warmth in the winter, and a couple of window units worked well enough to keep the temperature out of the triple digits in the summer. The small bunkhouse where Rusty stayed was about the same, but it only had one window unit, and it only cooled his bedroom.
He paced the floor from the living room with bunk beds lining three of the walls, to the kitchen, through his bedroom, going from hot to cool several times. He was so angry with himself for letting Bonnie get under his skin. If her mother was anything at all like her then he couldn’t blame Ezra for sending her away. Damned women—all of the species anyway—and damn Ezra for not letting him have the ranch like he’d said he would.
You want it, work for it. Ezra’s gruff old voice popped back into his head.
“I did,” Rusty growled.
Rusty hadn’t grown up in the lap of luxury. He’d worked hard for everything he ever had. He’d gone into foster care when he was so little that he didn’t even remember his parents. He was told that they both went to prison on drug charges and had died before he was in school. He ran away from the last one when he was fourteen, lied about his age, and got a job on a ranch. He’d been doing that kind of work ever since. Ezra had lured him away from Jackson Bailey after Rusty had been working over at the Lonesome Canyon Ranch a couple of years.
“We even had central air and heat in the bunkhouse over there, but Ezra paid better, and he hinted that since he didn’t have a son to leave his ranch to, that I would inherit this place someday.” He opened the ancient and rusted refrigerator and took out a gallon of milk.
He poured a glassful and continued to talk to himself. “Ezra demanded more hours out of me, but I didn’t mind the work, since I was getting a paycheck and got plenty of food, and I had the run of the bunkhouse. He even let me decide who to hire for summer help, and…” He sighed. “Malloy Ranch would be mine when Ezra passed on.”
He stared out the kitchen window after he finished drinking his milk. A huge moon hung in the sky right over the bunkhouse. Stars danced around it, and a few clouds shifted from one side to the other, blocking out a little light some of the time. All three dogs had rushed inside the second they had the opportunity, and Martha nosed his bare foot.
“One of you should stay at the house and protect Bonnie,” he scolded them and then laughed. “Though she’s tough enough that she don’t need anyone to take care of her. What do you think, Vivien? Can she chew up railroad spikes and spit out staples? That’s what Ezra said about her mama.” He stooped down and scratched the ears of the part Catahoula dog that had been named for Bonnie’s mother. The dog yipped and went to stretch out on the cool hardwood floor with Martha right behind her. Polly, the dog named for Shiloh’s mother, stuck around begging for doggy treats.
“Lot of help you are,” Rusty muttered as he gave her a Milk-Bone.
* * *
When the alarm went off the next morning, he rolled over to see three sets of eyes peering up at him over the side of the bed. “How’d it get to be morning so quick?”
All the dogs turned around and raced toward the door. He pushed back the covers and hurried across the large living room to let them out. In another week, there would be ten hired hands living here, mostly teenage boys he’d have to shake out of the bunk beds lining the walls every morning. When the boys arrived, the dogs would be perfectly happy to sleep outside.
Rusty dressed in work jeans, a faded chambray shirt that he left open at the throat, a faded T-shirt showing underneath, and a pair of tan work boots. He made himself a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, poured a thermos full of coffee and filled a large cooler with sweet tea and ice. Then he put together three bologna sandwiches and shoved them into a plastic bag.
When he reached the field that morning, the sun was just rising over the eastern crest of the canyon.
“Sunrise Ranch,” he muttered. “I’m going to own this ranch if I have to mortgage my soul and all three of those dogs to get it, and I’m going to rename the place Sunrise Ranch. It has a good ring to it, and Ezra can just weep and moan about it. He should’ve done right by me.”
Don’t you dare change the name of this place. Ezra’s gruff old voice scolded him. It started off as Malloy Ranch back at Texas statehood days, and by damn, it will stay that way until the crack of doom.
Rusty knotted his hands into fists. He’d worked hard for Ezra, had given him an honest day’s work for what he got paid. Ezra was dead. He could name the ranch whatever he pleased. When Ezra got sick and barely had the energy to go from his recliner to the kitchen, Rusty had run both the ranch and the house for the old guy. Then a week or so before he died, he’d called in the lawyer and changed his will. Rusty had been disappointed, but Ezra assured him that his daughters were like their worthless mothers and wouldn’t last a week on the ranch.
Guess who was wrong, he thought as he crawled up into the tractor, ate his peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, and waited for good daylight to begin his day.
* * *
Bonnie planned on keeping her word and sleeping until noon, but she had a restless night and was more than ready to crawl out of bed at five o’clock that morning. She ate a bowl of cereal and two muffins, then packed a lunch to take to the field. If she was honest, she missed Rusty coming in to eat with her that morning, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still mad at him for his arrogance the night before.
What about your stubborn pride? Shiloh’s voice whispered in her head. Y’all are just alike. Neither one of you will give an inch.
“I’m up, and I’m going to the field. That’s giving a mile, not an inch,” Bonnie said as she grabbed her sack and jug of sweet tea. “Stay on your side of the barbed wire, sister. I don’t need your advice. I can take care of myself.”
From day one, Bonnie had never given a damn what Ezra wanted done. He hadn’t even cared enough to take a look at her when she was born her mother had told her, and he hadn’t been around to see one single solitary accomplishme
nt in her life, so he didn’t deserve the right to call her daughter after he was dead.
As she crawled up into the driver’s seat of the tractor that she usually drove, she remembered that Loretta, Jackson Bailey’s wife from the adjoining ranch to the north, had welcomed them to the canyon, and said, “It’s kind of bare right now, but in a few weeks, when the wildflowers pop up, it will be lovely. Bluebonnets, wild daisies, coreopsis, and flowering cactus sure give it a different look. And trust me when I say it grows on you. The sunsets and sunrises are beautiful, and pretty soon, you’ll wonder why you ever wanted to live anywhere else.”
Bonnie had admired Loretta’s flaming red hair and her sweet smile, but she’d thought that the woman had rocks for brains. There was no way this barren place would ever grow on her. She would stick around for a year just to prove those two bitchy half-sisters who were looking down on her that she could hold her own. But Loretta had been right. The place might not have grown on her, but it did have a kind of beauty in the spring and early summer, and she’d come to love her sisters.
“Damn it to hell!” She slapped the steering wheel and then started up the tractor’s engine. “I promised myself that I wouldn’t stay six months ago, and I never go back on a promise I make to myself, but now a part of me wants to stay here, and that would mean being tied down.”
Her mind went back to that first day she’d been in the canyon. Ezra’s funeral was over and the neighbor, Jackson, had brought a copy of Ezra’s will for each of the sisters to keep, and one for Rusty. He had cut past the legal jargon and told them that Rusty would pay each of them on Friday evening for forty hours of work at minimum wage. Room and board would be provided free of charge. Rusty would bring in staples once a week, but if they wanted anything other than what he had bought, they would have to buy it themselves.
Bonnie hadn’t been expecting a salary, so that had made her happy. No way would she ever let either of her sisters know that she’d spent her last dollar on enough gas to get her to the funeral. She kept her mouth shut and listened as Jackson went on to tell them that they would get their salary whether they sat on the porch and did nothing or whether they pitched in and learned the business of ranching. It made no difference and was their decision.
“I should be doing that today just to prove to Rusty that I can,” she muttered, “but it sounded too boring, and besides if I’m going to get a good price for this place, it should be kept up. God only knows that Rusty can’t do it by himself.”
Jackson had said that Rusty would teach them the ranching business, if they had a mind to learn. Then he’d told them that whichever daughter was still on the ranch one year from that day would inherit the whole place. If anyone left before the year was up, they got a one-time, lump sum payment from Ezra’s estate, but they would relinquish any and all rights to the ranch. Abby Joy and Shiloh hadn’t been allowed to disclose what their inheritance was when they’d left. For all Bonnie knew, it was anywhere from $500 to $50,000.
At noon she parked the tractor and got out of the cab. After doing a few stretching exercises and rolling the kinks out of her neck, she picked up her sack lunch and sat down under a shade tree. She’d only taken the first bite when Rusty joined her.
“What are you thinkin’ about?” he asked. “You look like you’re ready to fight a wild bull with nothing but a willow switch.”
“Just going over in my mind what Jackson told us that first day I was here,” she said honestly, but she didn’t tell Rusty that she’d fought against an attraction for him since day one. No way was she going to admit that, not when they had crossed horns over the ranch like a couple of rangy old bulls. She admired his work ethic—getting up at the crack of dawn seven days a week to take care of things—but she also liked his kindness. Add that to his eyes and the way he filled out his jeans, and it was dang hard to fight the feelings that had grown for him.
“That was a strange time for sure,” Rusty said.
“You didn’t like any of us so well, did you?” she asked.
“I didn’t figure any of you would last a week. Abby Joy would get tired of it, and Shiloh was way too prissy for ranchin’. I was wrong about all of you. I figured you’d sit on the porch and draw your pay. Never figured you’d pitch in and learn a damned thing, but y’all got out there doing your best,” he chuckled. “But I could also see that the other two were determined to learn, and you were just passing time. You don’t give a damn about this place.”
“Nope, I don’t,” she admitted. “Only reason I learned anything at all was out of sheer boredom and to show my sisters that they weren’t better than me. Why’d you come over here anyway? I thought we were mad at each other.”
“Only shade tree around here,” he replied.
“I was here first,” she protested.
“Too bad.” He shrugged.
She tipped up her chin and looked down her nose at him. “I’m going to take a lot of pleasure in getting out of this place.”
“Then I’ll get the whole shade tree to myself,” he smarted off.
There weren’t many times she’d been alone with Rusty. She stole a glance over at him. Bulging biceps, a flat tummy under a chambray work shirt that was wet with sweat. That some woman hadn’t snatched him up already was a miracle. She’d have to be very careful in the next months to not let anyone know about the little flutters in her heart whenever he was around.
“You’ve gone all quiet again,” Rusty said.
“Was Ezra a controlling person?” she asked.
“Where’d that question come from?”
“You probably knew him better than anyone, so tell me more about him?” she said.
“Oh, hell, yeah, and mean as a rattlesnake,” Rusty said. “I mean, he named the dogs after your mothers, so that ought to tell you something. He always told me he was leaving the ranch to me. Then a week before he died, he called the lawyer and changed his will.”
“He called you the son he never had,” Bonnie said. “Was that to make us feel less worthy of the Malloy name? I just can’t wrap my mind around why he changed his will and brought us here. If I could figure out why, then maybe I’d find some peace before I leave Texas. Seems like every time I think of him, all I feel is anger, and a little bit of fear that I might be like him in some way. Most of the time I don’t even like my mother, but I love her. I can’t imagine even liking Ezra.”
Rusty shrugged. “That old fart had his own ways. He was good to me, and for that I loved him, but what he did to you girls was wrong. I’m mad at him this morning, so I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Why?” Bonnie was stunned.
Rusty never had anything but praise for Ezra.
“He popped into my head and fussed at me when I said I might change the name of the ranch, and it made me even madder when he changed his will,” Rusty said.
“What were you going to change the name to?” she asked, “And how would Ezra feel about that? I thought y’all were best buddies.”
“Sunrise Ranch,” Rusty answered. “I love the way the sun comes up over the crest of the canyon every morning.” Rusty paused. “Sometimes I can hear his voice in my head, and it’s good advice, but he was on one of his mean streaks this morning.”
Bonnie pulled a banana from her sack and peeled it. “My mama does that all the time. Out of nowhere, she pops into my head and has something to say about what I’m doin’. Most of the time it’s to tell me that I’m not smart enough to do something. It makes me so mad that I make it my mission to prove her wrong. I’m glad you stood up to him, even if he’s dead and just a voice in your head. Sunrise Ranch has a nice sound to it. Maybe you’ll come up with the highest bid after all, since you said you’d change the name to something nice.”
“One more cup of tea, and then I’m going to work. You have a choice in what you do. I don’t,” he said.
“You could move off the ranch. I bet I could kick any mesquite bush between here and Silverton and a dozen foremen would come run
ning out lookin’ for a job,” she said.
“And wouldn’t a one of them be as good as I am.” He settled his dusty old straw hat on his head and left without even looking back.
“Little egotistical there,” she called out.
He waved over his shoulder but still didn’t turn around.
You’ve met your match. Her mother was in her head again, and this time she was laughing out loud. Bonnie heaved a long sigh and wondered if he’d felt the same attraction and little shocks of desire that she did when they were together. If so, why was he holding back? Should she talk to her sisters about the way she felt?
She shook her head as she finished off the last sip of her tea. No, she wouldn’t talk to anyone about anything until she sorted it all out herself. She might find that the old saying about being out of sight, out of mind worked in this instance.
Chapter Three
Rusty had no intentions of going to the Sugar Shack on Saturday night, not after spending the whole day sitting in a tractor seat. He was dog-tired and ready to throw back in Ezra’s old recliner and watch Longmire on television. Ezra had bought the DVDs of both that and Justified, and Rusty had watched them many times. But neither show held his attention, and he was bored. He’d gotten soft in the past six months. Any old time he wanted company he could go up to the ranch house and visit with the sisters.
He went into the bathroom where he stared at his reflection in the mirror. Light brown hair that needed cutting, a couple of days’ worth of scruff on his face. “I am a loner,” he whispered. “I don’t need a gaggle of women around me to keep me company.”
He picked up his razor and shaved, then took a shower and put on a pair of pajama pants. He opened a can of chili, poured it into a bowl, and warmed it in the microwave. Once that was done, he poured himself a glass of sweet tea, and carried both to the living room. He set it on the end table beside his recliner and settled in to watch something on Netflix. At the end of the first episode of The Ranch, he realized he hadn’t been paying enough attention to it to even know what had happened, so he got up and turned off the television.
Sunrise Ranch--A Daisies in the Canyon Novella Page 2