Sunrise Ranch--A Daisies in the Canyon Novella

by Carolyn Brown

  “What good would it have done? I didn’t know where they were living or even what their names were,” Vivien answered. “And I damn sure didn’t want to know their mothers. From what I heard, they were both on the hoity-toity side.”

  “Why didn’t you ask for half the ranch?” Bonnie tried to push the anger down, but it didn’t work.

  “I signed a prenup. If I didn’t produce a son, then I got ten grand and a bus ticket out of the canyon,” she answered. “Figured I had a fifty-fifty chance, and I lost the bet.”

  “So I’m just the by-product of a bet?” Bonnie’s voice went all high and squeaky.

  “I know that tone, and I don’t like it, so goodbye.” Vivien ended the call.

  Bonnie wanted to throw the phone at the wall, but she shoved it into her hip pocket and stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair over. She stomped across the kitchen floor to the back door, didn’t even look back at the chair or the remainder of the toast and her half-empty cup of coffee on the table.

  She’d wanted to talk to her mother about these feelings she had for Rusty, but the conversation had sure enough taken a different path. “So, Mama, the ultimate love ’em and leave ’em married Ezra for money and security, not love,” she fumed as she got into her old truck and drove out to the hay field. “She hasn’t changed much, except she’s given up on security, and now it’s a good time she looks for. Even at her age now, she’s always looking out for thrills, and when she gets bored with whoever is providing her with drama and fun, she goes on the prowl for another one.”

  Rusty was in the adjoining field, and although she couldn’t see his face, she wondered if he was as angry as she was. Or maybe he was using his man powers and simply putting it out of his mind, like brushing a piece of lint from the shoulder of his jacket. Sweet Jesus! She had to persuade him to stay throughout the summer and fall at the very least.

  Bonnie parked her truck, rolled down the windows, and was still mumbling to herself when she opened the door to the cab of the tractor. A blast of heat that had the faint aroma of sweat and the smell of dogs hit her in the face. She hopped up into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and adjusted the air conditioner.

  “He can go if he wants to. I can hire another foreman and the summer help will be here next week, but he’s damn sure not takin’ the dogs,” she declared as she put the tractor in gear and started raking the hay into windrows. She wiped tears from her cheeks. She didn’t want him to leave, and it had a helluva lot more to do with her feelings for him than it did with finding another foreman. There she’d admitted it—she wanted more out of the cowboy than just having him as a foreman or even as a friend.

  * * *

  When Bonnie stormed across the distance between her truck and the tractor, Rusty could tell by her body language that the woman was still angry. Women were such strange critters. He thought she’d be happy that he was leaving the ranch.

  All of the sisters had been fast learners, but Bonnie had been the one who’d caught on to everything the fastest. Maybe it was because she’d had a hardscrabble life, and hadn’t ever been handed everything. Abby Joy had showed up with her stuff in duffel bags, and Shiloh with monogrammed luggage. Bonnie had arrived with her things packed in plastic Walmart bags, and not once had she let her older half-sisters intimidate her.

  She could run the ranch standing on her head in ashes, Rusty thought, and do a fine job of it. She don’t need me anymore. In the last six months she’s learned plenty enough to do the job until she can get a foreman.

  His phone rang, and he grabbed it without even looking at the name on the screen. “Hello, you ready to talk this through?” he asked.

  “No, but maybe we should,” Waylon chuckled.

  “Sorry, I thought you were Bonnie. We had an argument this morning,” Rusty told him.

  “Over what, if you don’t mind me asking?” Waylon asked.

  “Me leaving the ranch in the next few weeks,” Rusty replied.

  “I’ll gladly give you a job and pay you more than you’re making over there. I could use an extra foreman with all the new property,” Waylon said.

  “Thanks for the offer. The idea just came to me this morning that I should probably leave the place, and I want to think on it a couple of weeks,” Rusty said.

  “Don’t jump into anything without sleeping on it would be my advice, but I’d hire you in a minute if you make that decision,” Waylon said. “But the reason I called is that Shiloh and I are having a little barbecue for our hired hands tomorrow evening. We wanted to invite you and Bonnie. Cooper and Abby Joy are coming for sure. She’s been craving barbecued ribs.”

  “I never turn down ribs,” Rusty said. “What time and what can I bring?”

  “You can bring a six-pack of beer. Shiloh says she’s asking Bonnie to bring baked beans.” Waylon chuckled again.

  “What’s so funny?” Rusty snapped.

  “Just thinking about the arguments Shiloh and I had before we admitted we were in love. It was a tough time, but seems like we all have to go through it until we admit to our feelings. That’s what Shiloh told me later when we talked about those days. I’m thinkin’ maybe you and Bonnie might be fighting over more than that ranch,” Waylon answered.

  “Me and Bonnie in love,” Rusty sputtered. “That’s not damn likely.”

  “Just tellin’ you about me and Shiloh. I’m putting you down for a six-pack of beer, but if y’all are still fightin’, then maybe you should bring a pint of something harder.” This time Waylon laughed out loud.

  “I’ll bring a damned twelve-pack,” Rusty growled. “And you better make extra ribs because I eat a lot when I’m aggravated.”

  “I’ll get another rack, then. See you tomorrow night.” Waylon ended the call.

  Rusty tossed the phone over on the passenger’s seat. He had the offer of a really good job, and he would still be in the area with all his friends. Maybe whoever bought Malloy Ranch would hate the place, and he’d have the opportunity to buy it again sometime on down the road. All he had to do was load up his truck, move across the road, and settle into Waylon’s new bunkhouse. He wouldn’t have a room all to himself, but he’d have a place to lay his head at night.

  At noon, he parked the tractor and noticed that Bonnie had done the same. They each got into their vehicles without even a simple wave, like they always did when they were heading back to the house for dinner.

  If that was the way she wanted to be, then Rusty would give her enough space to cool off. He didn’t even slow down when he passed the house but drove straight to the bunkhouse. All three dogs waited on the porch, and he bent down to pet each one of them. When he straightened up and went inside, they followed him.

  He headed straight to the refrigerator, took out a gallon of sweet tea, and drank at least a pint straight from the container. He could almost hear Ezra laughing and telling him that a woman wasn’t worth forgetting to take water or tea to the field with him. He put the voice out of his head while he made himself a ham and cheese sandwich. When he’d gotten out potato chips and pickles, he sat down at the table and bowed his head, but he was too agitated to pray.

  Finally, he looked up at the ceiling and said, “God, why did you make women so damned stubborn? Pardon the cuss word. And by the way, thanks for the food.”

  No booming voice came down to answer his question, but one of the dogs cold-nosed his hand and made him almost jump out of his chair. “Are you trying to tell me something, Vivien?” he asked the mutt.

  She whimpered and wagged her tail on the floor.

  “Is the woman you’re named after as bullheaded as her daughter?” He took another long drink of tea and then picked up his sandwich. “I’d rather be eating with her, you know. I’ve always looked forward to an hour in the middle of the day when we could talk about anything and everything. She’s always been the easiest one for me to visit with.”

  Vivien laid a paw on his foot and yipped.

  “Why is she bein’ so dam
ned hard to get along with? Is it because she misses her sisters? Or maybe because she’s been havin’ to work so hard? Well, that’s ranchin’ in a nutshell, and if she don’t like it, maybe she should sell out,” he said between bites.

  He finished his meal and headed back to the field, driving slowly because all three dogs were running along beside the truck. Dust floated across and through the barbed wire fence from where Bonnie was already back at work. When he got out of his vehicle, he sneezed twice on the way to the tractor, but the dogs stayed right with him. He opened the cab door, and they all three got inside. Two shared the passenger’s seat, and Vivien curled up in the floorboard.

  “Hmmmph!” Rusty said as he started the engine. “She’s got rocks for brains if she thinks I’m leaving a single one of you behind. We’ll go to court if we have to.”

  Chapter Six

  Any other time, Bonnie would have suggested that she and Rusty ride over to the Wildflower Ranch together, but not that Tuesday evening. They hadn’t even spoken to each other since the day before, and she wasn’t going to take the first step toward reconciliation. Not when he threatened her with the dogs.

  She had spent a restless night, and that morning when she awoke, she had trouble separating reality from the visions she’d had in her sleep. Tears ran down her cheeks as she sat up in bed and wondered if she’d gotten the sign she’d asked for in the form of dreams. In the first one she’d crammed all her clothing into one big black garbage bag and the other small things she’d accumulated since she’d been on the Malloy Ranch into a box. She’d put them in the back of her truck and was driving past the cemetery when she saw Ezra sitting on the top of his tombstone. With a big grin on his face, a wicked mean look in his eyes, he waved goodbye to her.

  Ezra had won. All three girls had lost. Plain and simple.

  She couldn’t let him win. She just couldn’t.

  In the second dream, there was snow on the ground, and both sisters, Abby Joy and Shiloh, stood on the porch as she drove away. She watched them in the mirror and realized that they would grow closer and closer to each other, while she’d just be a stranger who dropped in every few months or years to say hello.

  Ezra had won a second time. He’d put the sisters together only to split them up again.

  Bonnie punched her pillow several times. She couldn’t let him win, and she damn sure couldn’t leave her sisters behind. What if they needed her? What if she needed them like she had several times in the past months?

  “Dammit!” she muttered as she wiped even more tears away with the edge of the bedsheet. “When did I put down such deep roots?”

  About half angry with herself for letting herself become so vulnerable that she’d let other people deep into her heart, she threw back the covers and crawled out of bed.

  She spent the entire day going back and forth from trying to convince herself that she was crazy for letting two dreams affect her whole life, to being honest with herself and admitting that they had been signs. She wasn’t a lot closer to making a final decision when the day ended, and she went back to the ranch house that evening. She took a long shower, dressed in clean jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and carried her baked beans out to the truck. The vehicle looked like crap on the outside, but it had new tires, bought with her first couple of weeks’ paychecks back in the winter. “You’ve been a faithful old friend. No way I’m goin’ to turn my back on you now.” She set her big bowl of baked beans on the seat beside her and put the pecan pie she’d whipped up the night before on the floorboard on the passenger side. “If you could talk, would you tell me to tell Rusty to get on down the road and not let the door hit him in the ass? Or would you tell me to settle down and call this place home.”

  She shot a dirty look through the gate of the small family cemetery where Ezra was buried and drove on across the road to her sister’s place. She discovered that she had a choice—park right beside Rusty’s truck or go all the way to the end of the line of cars and trucks. No way was she going to let him think that he’d intimidated her. She pulled in beside his vehicle, got out, and circled around behind the bed of her truck. She opened the passenger door, and suddenly both Waylon and Cooper were right there to help. One picked up the pie and the other the beans.

  She caught a quick glimpse of Rusty sitting in the shadows when she mounted the porch steps, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Hello, everyone.”

  “Miz Bonnie.” A few of the hired hands tipped their hats.

  “Howdy.” A couple more raised a beer bottle.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Rusty didn’t do either one, which told her that he was still every bit as angry as she was. She passed Waylon and Cooper coming through the kitchen door on their way back out to the porch. Abby Joy and Shiloh were busy at the stove, so Bonnie grabbed an apron from a hook, slipped it over her head, and asked what she could do to help.

  “The corn bread should be done.” Shiloh pointed at the stove. “If you’ll get it out of the oven and cut it into squares, we should be ready to put it on the table and call everyone in for supper. The pie looks amazing. Thanks for bringing it. Abby Joy made a cobbler, and I whipped up a cream puff cake, so we should have plenty.”

  “I’ll get a few glasses of tea poured up,” Abby Joy said.

  “I assume we’re doing this buffet style?” Bonnie shoved her hands into two oven mitts and pulled the big pan of corn bread from the oven.

  “Yep, and before all those guys get in our way, tell me what’s going on with you and Rusty. He’s pouting and you’ve got that look on your face that you had right after Ezra’s funeral,” Abby Joy said.

  “Waylon said they’re fighting,” Shiloh informed her older sister.

  “Over what?” Abby Joy asked.

  “The dogs,” Bonnie answered.

  “Why would you fight over the dogs? Didn’t Ezra leave them to Rusty in his will?” Abby Joy clamped a hand over her mouth. “Is he moving off the ranch? Good God, girl, what will you do?”

  “She’s tough.” Shiloh picked up a knife and cut the pie into ten pieces. “She’ll hire a new foreman and keep runnin’ the place. Waylon said he offered him a job, so if he leaves, the dogs will just be across the road.”

  “That’s not why we’re really fighting.” Bonnie sighed. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it all day long while I sat in a tractor. It’s just something to fight about because neither of us will face our feelings.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Shiloh asked.

  “That we’re attracted to each other and have been for months,” Bonnie blurted out.

  Shiloh winked at Abby Joy.

  “What’s the winking all about?” Bonnie cut the corn bread and made a pyramid of it on a platter with the squares.

  “We saw the attraction between the two of you the first week we were at the ranch,” Abby Joy told her.

  “We’ve just been waiting for y’all to figure it out for yourselves,” Shiloh added. “So, give us the short version of what caused the fight.” She carried a bowl of coleslaw to the dining room table.

  “We’ve been arguing about me selling the ranch for a week now. And now he’s saying that he might as well leave, since it’ll be hard to find a job on a ranch in the wintertime. Then he said he was taking the dogs. I don’t want him to leave, and I’m terrified about putting down roots. What if I got my mama’s genes and after six months me and Rusty got ourselves in a relationship, and then I decided that I wanted to sell out and leave. He was good to teach us and help us learn, and Ezra was a sumbitch for going back on his word about leavin’ the ranch to Rusty.”

  “Then why are you arguing with yourself about selling it to him?” Shiloh asked.

  “Hell, if I know.” Bonnie shrugged. “I’m so damned confused I don’t know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch as my mama used to say.” She went on to tell them about the two dreams.

  “The dogs just gave you something to argue about when you’re really angry with y
ourselves because you can’t figure out what it is you want to do and why. And, honey, I believe in dreams. Mama used to tell me that God has visited folks in dreams since the beginning of time, and when He speaks, we should listen,” Abby Joy said.

  Cooper came into the kitchen, walked up behind Abby Joy, and slipped his arms around her. “It sure smells good in here. Is it about time to call in the hungry guys?”

  Abby Joy turned around and kissed him on the cheek. “Bonnie will have the corn bread on the table in about five seconds, so go on and tell them it’s ready.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Cooper bent and brushed a kiss across his wife’s lips. “And thanks to all three of you ladies for all you’ve done.”

  Bonnie had barely set the platter of corn bread on the table when the men started filing inside the house. Rusty was the last one in the line, and he stood back against the wall. Waylon removed his cowboy hat and bowed his head. The rest of the cowboys did the same.

  When he’d said “Amen” at the end of the very short grace, Shiloh kissed him on the cheek.

  In that moment, Bonnie began to doubt whether she really wanted to sell the ranch and travel or if she wanted what her sisters both had, roots and someone to love them.

  “We don’t have room for everyone to sit down in the house, but we’ve set up a couple of long tables out in the backyard,” Shiloh said. “The silverware and napkins are already out there.”

  “Man, this looks good,” Cooper said.

  “Smells good too. I haven’t had anything but sandwiches for two days.” Rusty stepped forward, picked up a plate, and began to load it.

  Bonnie shot a mean look across the table at him, but his eyes were on the food and the evil glare was wasted. Fixing her own plate, she wondered if he’d missed coming to the ranch house to eat with her as much as she’d missed having him there.

  How on earth Rusty got behind her was a mystery, but suddenly, he was there, and he whispered softly in her ear, “We need to talk, don’t you think?”