Daisies in the Canyon (13 page)

“Why don’t you ask your living relatives in Galveston?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Don’t have any. Mama was adopted at birth by an older couple who died before I was born. Mama didn’t marry until she was past thirty and then she married Ezra, who was even older.”

His truck drove on, coming out of the canyon north of Silverton. Land reached out to touch a sky full of twinkling stars with a big round moon taking center stage. “Ezra said once that he met his first wife at a wedding, the second one at a church picnic, and the third one was a waitress in a truck stop between Claude and Amarillo. Does that help?” Cooper asked as he drove down Silverton’s wide Main Street.

Abby slapped her knee. “Georgia!”

“This doesn’t look a thing like Georgia,” Cooper said.

“No, Georgia was Mama’s best friend when she was a kid. She had a picture of Georgia on the bookcase in the living room. It was taken on Georgia’s wedding day and Mama was in the wedding party. She told me about the wedding in the little white church that was in the background and how beautiful it had been with all the poinsettias and Christmas decorations. That must have been where she met Ezra, but that means they got married a month later. Holy shit!”

“Georgia who?” Cooper asked.

“Mama never told me her last name. She married a soldier and after the wedding they went to England. Their friendship had faded with the distance. I found Mama crying one day and she said Georgia had died,” Abby said.

Cooper laid a hand on her shoulder without a word. She reached up and squeezed it and then her hand went back to her lap. He moved his to the steering wheel and turned into a parking spot beside the courthouse.

“This is where my day job is located,” he said.

“That’s one big courthouse for such a little town.”

“It takes care of the whole spread-out county. Want something to drink now?”

“I thought I wanted a beer when we left home, but I’ve changed my mind. What I really want is a pint of ice cream—rocky road or praline—if there’s a place still open. I’d even share it.”

“Happy to.” He grinned. A rooster crowed, cutting off further comment about her ice cream habits, and she cocked her head to one side.

“That’s Rusty’s ringtone,” he said. “I’ll only be a minute . . . Hello, don’t tell me you are backing out of our trip.”

“No, this is a business call. Abby never came back from her walk. Her truck is here, and her sisters are on the verge of hysteria. Would you come over here and help us locate her?”

“She’s right here in the truck with me. We drove up to Silverton for ice cream,” Cooper said.

“I’m not hysterical,” Shiloh said in the background.

“Here.” Cooper handed the phone to Abby.

“Hello,” she said cautiously.

“Give me that phone,” Shiloh said.

“Oh, shit!” Abby whispered.

“Abby Malloy, we were worried about you,” she said.

Cooper could hear every high-pitched word coming through the phone. Shiloh was not a happy woman right then and Abby would have some explaining to do.

“I’m a big girl. I can leave the house without telling either one of you,” she protested. “Don’t wait up for me. And don’t bother to lock the back door. I could open that thing in ten seconds with nothing but a hairpin.”

She hit the “End” button and handed the phone back to Cooper. “Maybe you’d better make it two pints of ice cream.”

Chapter Ten

Y
ou think Bonnie and Shiloh will get out a shotgun and make me marry you?” Cooper teased as he parked the truck near the yard gate.

“I haven’t reported to anyone since I was eighteen years old. I’m not starting now. Good night, Cooper, and thank you for the drive and the ice cream. But most of all for talking to me about Ezra.”

He leaned across the console and brushed a soft kiss across her forehead. She would have liked very much for the next one to hit her lips square on, but the living room curtain pulled aside, framing two faces peering out, and she was glad she and Cooper were both sitting upright in the truck cab.

“Please don’t walk me to the door. They’ll think it’s a date,” she groaned.

“And that’s bad?”

“No, but it is personal. And after less than a week, I’m not ready to share any more of my personal life with them,” she said.

“I understand.” He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Got any idea what’s on the dinner menu?”

“It’s Shiloh’s day to cook and I have no idea what she’s planning. She likes the kitchen better than outside, but I got to hand it to her, she’s pulls her fair share on the ranch as well as in the kitchen,” Abby said.

“And you?” Cooper asked.

“I don’t mind cooking or cleaning, but I’d rather be outside. I’d best get on inside or they’re liable to come out here,” she said.

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Good night, Abby.”

“Good night, Cooper.”

Martha’s old head popped up from Ezra’s chair where she’d been sleeping and she hopped down to the floor with a fluid movement, ambled across the living room, and stuck her cold nose into Abby’s open hand. Her tail wagged and Abby could’ve sworn the dog grinned when she dropped down on her knees to pet her.

Bonnie held out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

Abby shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m thirty years old. That’s too damn old to get my phone taken away because Cooper took me to Silverton for ice cream.”

“I’m not taking it away from you. I’m programming your number into my phone and then I’m putting mine into yours.”

“And”—Shiloh piped up from the sofa—“Rusty went through the roof when I said that about him killing us off to get the ranch. I might have given him an idea, though, so we have to watch out for each other.”

Abby handed the phone to Bonnie. “Y’all are paranoid. Rusty isn’t capable of murder.”

“But Cooper might be, or maybe Jackson. I can see them coveting this place, and what better way than to offer Rusty a big price after we all disappear,” Shiloh said.

“I thought you read romance books,” Abby said.

Bonnie put the phone back in Abby’s hand. “What’s that got to do with anything? I read romance, too.”

“It sounds like you’ve been reading murder mysteries. I’m going to bed now and FYI, ladies, I will not tell you I’m leaving every time I step out the door. We are grown adults, not teenagers, and I do not answer to either of you.”

Martha followed Abby as she started toward her room.

“No attention for Vivien and Polly?” Shiloh asked.

“No,” Abby answered.

“Why?”

“I like Martha better, and those two dogs belong to y’all, not me. Martha is mine. You want them to have attention, then it’s your job to provide it. I’m going to take a long, warm bath. Y’all have permission to use my half bath if you need it while I’m in the big bathroom. Just don’t knock on the bathroom door.”

“The queen gives orders but we can’t,” Bonnie said.

“Oldest child rights,” Abby said.

“And we get permission to enter the holy quarters.” Sarcasm dripped from Shiloh’s tone.

“Don’t get bitchy. Neither of you have invited me into your rooms,” Abby threw over her shoulder on the way down the hallway.

Ranching was never done.

Period.

No one ever said,
If we get this fence fixed, it will be done for a week.
Not once had she heard someone yell,
And we finished plowing half the state of Texas, so we get to sleep until noon tomorrow.

But
didn’t exist in ranching, not even for a nice excuse like,
but I broke my fingernail and I have blisters on my toes.
And no one ever uttered the words
when I get the barn cleaned and the cows milked and the eggs gathered, I can read for the rest of the afternoon.

Thursday and Friday were long, exhausting days on Malloy Ranch. Two forty-acre fields were now planted in ryegrass and by spring the cattle would be eating green grass rather than hay. Two more fields were planted in winter wheat and next week the place where they’d burned the brush would be planted in a different kind of rye.

Cooper had been so busy with the sheriff’s job that he missed dinner on Friday and that made her cranky.

You are acting like a hormonal teenager
, she fussed at herself.

Abby and her sisters had finished the evening chores and she’d sat down on the porch with Martha at her side when her phone rang. Haley started in the minute she answered it.

“Sorry I haven’t called sooner but the twins had a stomach bug and all I’ve gotten done for the past three days is change stinky diapers and rock them. Tell me what’s going on and don’t stutter around. I feel something in my bones,” Haley said.

“And your bones never lie?” Abby laughed.

“Not when it comes to you they don’t,” Haley answered. “Trust me. Well, shit! Got a baby waking up. I’ll call later and we’ll talk some more about it. Big hugs,” Haley said.

Abby shoved the phone back into her pocket and said, “Well, Martha, at least I don’t have to change your stinky diapers.”

She reached out to pet the dog and the phone rang again. “That didn’t take long,” she said.

“What?” Cooper asked.

Just hearing his voice put a smile on her face. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh, got another boyfriend who calls often?”

“Another?” she said slowly.

He chuckled. “I called to tell you that I missed you at dinner, but I had to forget the lunch break if I was going to get through by five and get this pasture seeded.”

“Bonnie made fried chicken.”

He groaned. “I’d just about kill for good homemade fried chicken.”

“Then you should have taken a lunch break,” she said.

“Is your other boyfriend there now?”

“No, he is not and no, I do not have a boyfriend. How about you, Cooper? How many girlfriends have you got who are just your friends?” she said.

“I haven’t done a head count lately, but I will tell you that not a single one is here right now offering to help me plow until midnight when the rain is supposed to reach the canyon.”

“How many tractors do you own?” she asked.

“Two big ones and a little one that Grandpa bought for Granny to use when she got the urge to help. It hasn’t been driven in years, but I can’t bear to sell it.”

“Since you were good enough to teach me how to drive a tractor, I’ll drive one of them for you tonight. Tell me how to drive to your place. I don’t have any idea how to get there except over the fence. But why don’t you ask Rusty to help you?”

“I’m not attracted to him,” Cooper said.

“And you are to me?” she asked.

“Honey, that question doesn’t even need an answer. I’ll pay you if you’re serious about plowin’,” he said.

“I’ll take it in ice cream instead of dollars.”

He told her exactly how to get from Malloy Ranch to the Lucky Seven. She pulled her boots back on, tucked the laces into the tops, and then braided her hair into two ropes that hung down the sides of her shoulders.

“What are you doing? Going for another walk?” Shiloh came out of the bathroom with a towel around her head and a long terry bathrobe belted around her waist.

“Actually, I’m going for a drive, and I won’t be back until midnight or after, so don’t wait up for me. And if my phone rings, somebody better be dead.”

“Surely to God you aren’t going on an ice cream date looking and smelling like you do. Don’t you own anything other than camouflage?” Shiloh asked.

“I don’t think I smell bad enough to fog the inside of a tractor cab. The rest is none of your business,” she answered.

Bonnie came out of her room and stopped in her tracks. “Where are you going?”

“She hasn’t had enough of tractors. She’s going to go plow up something until after midnight,” Shiloh answered.

“And I’m taking the leftover fried chicken with me,” Abby said.

“Sounds like a midnight picnic to me.” Bonnie smiled.

“Sounds like a woman who’s lost her mind to me. Not even Cooper Wilson would be able to talk me into getting back into a tractor cab, especially at night,” Shiloh said.

“Maybe I want to get that field ready where we cleared off the mesquite. Or maybe”—she wiggled her eyebrows—“I’m on my way to the bunkhouse to seduce Rusty.”

Shiloh popped her hands on her hips. “I’m not blind. I can see the way Cooper looks at you and you aren’t doing one thing to discourage it. Yes, he’s interested in you, Abby, but have you ever stopped and considered maybe he’s even more interested in this ranch? It would sure be a nice addition to his place, now wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not having this conversation right now. Good night, girls,” Abby said.

Bonnie stepped around them and said, “Take the rest of the cookies if you want to. Tomorrow you have to cook and you can make more.”

Shiloh set her full mouth in a firm line and shook her head slowly, muttering the whole way into her bedroom. “Don’t you dare take all those cookies. I’m having a few for a bedtime snack.”

“Nosy little shits. Can’t even sneak out without telling them,” Abby told Martha as she slipped out the front door.

Abby had been raised in a tiny apartment with her mother; Ezra had lived like a king. She figured Cooper must have a similar setup on Lucky Seven, but when the big two-story white house came into sight, she gasped. Several turned porch posts supported a sleeping porch that wrapped around three sides of the house, with doors that opened out of bedrooms on the second floor. Several cats lazed against the railings.

Cooper was sitting in the first of a line of rocking chairs lined up on the wide porch. He waved and said, “Welcome to this side of the barbed-wire fence.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” she said breathlessly. “I figured you’d be in the field and I’d have to call you to tell me how to get there.”

He chuckled. “Sorry about that. I waited on you so we could take my old farm truck. Come on with me and we’ll drive out to the back of the ranch. It’s on the southwest corner of the property and I’d hate for you to drive your good vehicle down the rutted path.”

She held out a paper bag. “Chicken, cookies, and half a dozen leftover biscuits stuffed with strawberry jelly.”

“You are an angel straight from heaven,” he groaned.

“You might have trouble convincing Shiloh and Bonnie of that.” She laughed. “Show me the way. I’m still a rookie, but I’ll do my best.”

“Long as the seed gets in the ground, I’m not complainin’.” He helped her into the old truck with a blanket thrown over the wide bench seat. No console between them. No fancy dash or CD player. It looked like it might fall apart any minute, but when he started the engine, it purred like a kitten.

“Radio doesn’t work, either,” he said when he caught her scanning the inside. “Grandpa bought it used in the sixties. It’s like an old mule. Still got a lot of good in it, if you baby it just a little and don’t use it like a hot rod. And Abby, you don’t have to work until midnight. When you get tired, just call me and I’ll drive you back to the house. Weatherman says it’s going to rain cats, dogs, and baby elephants tomorrow, so I wanted to get the seed in the ground. It’ll be too muddy to get the tractors in the fields if it does rain.”

“A wise man I know told me once that friends help friends. I think his initials are CW.” She smiled.

“Imagine that,” Cooper said.

They were both quiet on the way to where the moonlight lit up two big green tractors sitting at the edge of a freshly plowed field. With darkness surrounding them, they looked like monsters instead of machinery.

“Here we are. We’ve got about five hours and that should get the job done with both of us working,” he said.