Daisies in the Canyon (14 page)

She turned toward him and nodded. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do my best.”

She was in the tractor cab making the first round exactly like Cooper told her when she realized what he’d said about the weather on Saturday. He and Rusty would be in a patrol car transporting a prisoner to San Antonio. She and her sisters—when did she start thinking of them as sisters, anyway—would be doing chores. If it was raining all that hard, there was no way they’d be able to plow or plant that last field that Rusty mentioned. That meant a day off and she planned dozens of ways to use the time as she drove the tractor up and down the field by the scanty moonlight.

All the light disappeared behind clouds after a couple of hours and she had to depend on the headlights, instinct, and hope. She could see the lights of Cooper’s tractor across the fence from where she worked and he seemed to be going faster than she was. Afraid that she’d mess up, she kept her speed steady. She’d seen the cost of the seed they’d planted on Malloy Ranch and there was no way she’d waste that much money by not doing the job right.

Besides, you want to please him, right?
It was Haley’s voice in her head that time and Abby’s eyes were too heavy to even argue with her friend.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a ziplock bag full of candy, opened it with one hand, and dumped all the pieces on the seat beside her. The sugar rush woke her up, but talking to Cooper on the phone for an hour was what really helped.

“So what is your favorite kind of music?” he asked.

“Country.”

“I’m shocked. I figured you for a hard rock girl like Bonnie.”

She laughed. “Then prepared to be double shocked. Bonnie listens to country music, too.”

“Your favorite artist?”

“Travis Tritt and Blake Shelton. It’s a toss-up,” she answered.

“And female artist?”

“Miranda Lambert and or the Pistol Annies. How about you?”

“Male artist is George Strait. Female would be a tie between Martina McBride and Patsy Cline.”

“Did your grandpa introduce you to Patsy?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. He loved her and Loretta Lynn. We’ve still got a turntable in the living room and dozens of vinyl records that I play sometimes.”

His roots really did go way, way down into the ground.

“Favorite food?” he asked.

“Don’t laugh at me, but I love good old greasy hamburgers made on a charcoal grill. Not one of those gas ones, but real charcoal,” she said. “Your turn.”

“Steaks on a charcoal grill.”

A few rain sprinkles dotted the windshield, but they didn’t last long. Maybe the weatherman had been wrong or perhaps the storm blew right over the top of the canyon and went on its merry way.

“Got to take this call. If I lose you, I’ll call back,” he said.

She waited a couple of minutes before his voice returned. “That was the dispatcher. She knows that I’m plowing and wanted me to know that the bad weather is comin’ in the next twenty minutes. If we want to get out of here before it hits, we’ll have to stop now. It’s pouring down in Silverton and we could get stuck in the mud if we don’t leave. We’ll leave the old truck and take the tractors back to the barn. Just follow me.”

“I’m on my last round. Let me finish it first,” she said.

“Hurry. The dispatcher said it’s got some power behind it. They are blowing the sirens to warn folks in town to take shelter,” he told her.

She finished that round, whipped around the corner, and saw red taillights coming across the end of her field. The lights stopped and Cooper was suddenly out of his tractor running to open the gate for them to pass through. When both tractors had cleared enough space, he stopped and jogged back to shut the gate, waving at her on the way.

Lightning split the dark sky and thunder rolled off the edges of the canyon. The old work truck would be stuck out there until the mud cleared up, but there was no way they could drive three vehicles back to the ranch.

She pulled in beside where he’d parked and could see him coming toward her. In the semidarkness, with the eerie aura of a storm surrounding him, his swagger was even more pronounced than usual. He’d removed his coat and the plaid shirt he’d worn over an oatmeal-colored thermal undershirt was unbuttoned, flapping in the wind like Superman’s cape. The sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and his broad chest stretched the knit shirt so tight that she could see the ripples of stomach muscles.

“Thank you, Abby. You are a lifesaver.” He threw an arm around her shoulders and together they walked the short distance to her truck.

The big rolling black clouds brought more bursts of lightning and deafening thunder, but she felt safe with his arm around her. She shivered and he drew her near as he opened her door.

“Cold?”

“I hate storms. The static in the air reminds me of a hurricane.”

He drew her closer. “We don’t get hurricanes in this part of Texas. Maybe a tornado, but never a hurricane. You seen many?”

“Not a lot. I was deployed when that big one hit several years ago, but the one I do remember hit us when I was about fourteen. We lived on the strip above the store in an apartment. The wind damaged our roof and the water got into the shop, but it didn’t ruin any of the equipment. After the power was restored we were able to get opened up in a couple of weeks, but it was pretty scary.”

“At that age, you probably thought the sky was falling.”

“You’ll laugh, but I thought the ocean was coming to get us,” she said.

Actually, a hurricane hadn’t been a lot different than the feeling she had when he touched her or kissed her, or even shared pecan pie with her. Different circumstances arranged the nerves in different ways, but when it was all said and done, it took her breath away and made her heart race.

“Good night, Cooper.”

He leaned into the truck and cupped her face in his hands. Thumbs rested on her jawbones. One of his pinky fingers traced her lips, sending jolts of electricity far greater than the lightning through her body. His eyes closed slowly as if he wanted to look at her and kiss her at the same time, and then his lips touched hers, gentle at first. His hands moved to the back of her head to hold her steady as he deepened the kiss. Ripples went from her scalp to her toes and, defying gravity, traveled right back up her legs to her spine and right up to her lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and moved closer to him, biting back a moan the whole time.

“Good night, Abby,” he said hoarsely when he broke the kiss. “See you Sunday when we get home. I’ll call you over the weekend.”

He slammed the door and the first drop of rain hit the windshield. She slapped the steering wheel and fussed at herself for not stopping this thing in the beginning. Now it would be ten times—no, a thousand times—harder to end.

“Friends, my ass. Friends don’t kiss like that,” she said.

Years ago, with raging teenage emotions and desires, she had known the excitement of that first kiss, that first sexual experience with the boy she’d thought she’d marry someday, and the misery of the first major breakup. On her first deployment, afraid of being killed in a foreign country, there had been a tall, dark soldier whom she’d thought she was in love with for a brief time. The sex had been better; the breakup hadn’t been as devastating. But the sex with Cooper was a thousand times hotter.

She started the engine and turned the truck around. When she reached the end of the lane and turned north, the rain got more serious. As she drove under the Malloy Ranch sign, the wind picked up and a streak of lightning split the pregnant clouds wide-open. Forget about raining cats and dogs or even baby elephants, this was hurricane-quality wind right there in the middle of the canyon.

Visibility was so limited that she slid to a greasy stop mere inches from the yard fence. There was no doubt she would get wet from truck to house, so she opted to go through the back door. She could leave her wet boots and clothes in the utility room and not track mud all over the living room carpet.

The cold rain, blown with gale-force winds, stung her eyes and face and even her underpants were soaked by the time she grabbed the doorknob—only to find it locked.

“Well, shit!” She turned to jog around the house to the front door. The porch would offer some protection while she picked that lock. The stoop at the back didn’t stop a bit of the rain from pelting the hell out of her.

A sudden burst of light blinded Abby and the door flew open. She blinked several times before she could focus.

“Shiloh?”

“You look like a drowned rat. Surely you’ve got enough sense to come in out of the rain. There’s clean towels in the dryer. See you in the morning.”

Standing on the rug just inside the door, Abby shucked out of her coat and hung it on one of a line of nails. “Did you wait up for me?”

“I did not! A clap of thunder woke me and then I saw a couple of headlights through the rain. Looked like aliens. I got up to be sure we weren’t about to be abducted,” she yawned. “You do look a little like E.T. Are you sure you are Abby Malloy?”

“Right now I’m not sure about a damn thing, but thank you for opening the door,” Abby said.

Shiloh waved off the comment with a flick of her wrist. “See you in the morning for chores. It’s going to be so much fun in the rain.”

Martha was lying in the hallway beside her door when Abby reached her bedroom. The dog wagged her tail and stood, meandered inside the room as soon as Abby opened the door, and went straight for the gold rocking chair, where she curled up.

“Do you want a blanket?” Abby laughed.

Martha laid her head down and shut her eyes.

Abby pulled a small throw from the back of the chair and wrapped it around Martha’s body. Then she dropped down on her knees and scratched her ears. “I’m going to take a quick shower. He kissed me again, Martha, and I’m not sure what to do with all these emotions,” she whispered.

Chapter Eleven

A
ll three Malloy sisters crowded into the front seat of the work truck the next morning. Abby drove over the muddy pathway in steady rain to where the cattle waited for breakfast. The hay would be like soggy shredded wheat, but it would be one of those eat-it-or-leave-it situations.

“Okay, are we ready to get wet?” Abby parked the truck and the cattle started coming toward it.

“Might as well be. The clouds aren’t parting,” Shiloh said.

“Next July we’ll be praying for this kind of weather. When it’s so dry the lizards start carrying canteens,” Bonnie said.

Abby was slow to get out in the cold rain. “How do you know?”

“Mama talked about the summer she was pregnant with me. When she got really good and drunk, she’d tell me about that miserable summer and how hard she worked only to have fall come late that year. I was born the third of November and she said the first frost hadn’t even hit the canyon.”

“Your mama drank?” Shiloh asked.

“No, my mama drinks. Might as well get this work over with.” Bonnie threw open the door, scrambled up over the fender, and tossed thee bales out on the ground before the other two could get the clippers out of their hip pockets.

Abby snipped wire as fast as she could and Shiloh crawled into the truck bed to help Bonnie toss the bales out. The lightning bolt that ripped through the sky at the top of the canyon wall was behind them so they didn’t see it. But all three women ducked and covered their heads when the thunder sounded like the whole canyon was falling in on itself.

“Holy shit!” Abby yelled. “Where did that come from?”

“My heart almost jumped out of my chest,” Shiloh said. “I hate storms.”

“Me, too. Let’s get these chores done and go home,” Bonnie said.

“One more load of hay, then you’d better drive the truck to and from the barn so you can get the milk to the house. The hens might get mad at getting wet when Shiloh gets the eggs, but the hogs won’t care if their feed is a little soupier than normal,” Abby said.

If someone had told her a month ago that she’d be working on a ranch with her sisters and enjoying it, she would have thought they were batshit crazy. But there she was, in the middle of a canyon, in the winter, doing chores with siblings and hoping to hell neither of them left.

“And then we get to stay in the rest of the day until chores tonight, right?” Shiloh asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Can’t plow mud, and the barn is clean and ready for whatever happens. Let’s hope we don’t have a problem with a pregnant cow. Either of y’all ever pulled a calf?” Bonnie asked.

“Have you?” Shiloh asked.

“Couple of times, but it’s been a while.”

“You might have to show us if that happens,” Abby said.

Instead of being jealous that her younger sister knew so much more than she did, Abby breathed a sigh of pure, unadulterated relief. Shiloh might throw in the towel after a day like this, but hopefully Bonnie would stick around long enough that Abby could learn from her.

A deep sense of loss hit Abby in the gut at the idea of Shiloh leaving. It was a new feeling and she analyzed it carefully as they finished up the chores the next hour. It had to be blood calling to blood, because she hadn’t felt that way when she left Haley behind every time she went home from a deployment. Similar and yet very different from the loss of her mother, the feeling still caused her to reach inside her pocket for a miniature candy bar. She brought out a handful and offered Shiloh and Bonnie one.

“Thank you,” Shiloh smiled.

“I love plain old chocolate without any nuts or caramel to mess it up,” Bonnie said.

“I just love candy.” Abby laughed.

An hour later, Bonnie took the keys from her oldest sister and slid into the driver’s seat. Abby went straight to the hog shed, loaded two big buckets with feed. Pigs were a grunting and snorting lot when they ate or when they knew the food was on the way.

“The whole bunch of you will look better to me when you are wrapped up in the freezer as pork chops and bacon,” she said as she poured the food into the troughs. Her nose curled at the scent. “You guys could use some heavy-duty deodorant. Shiloh better be glad that I hate chickens. She’d have run the first day we were here if she’d landed a job with y’all.”

Martha yipped at her feet and she reached down to rub the dog’s ears with her gloved hand. “What are you doing here? I figured you’d go on home after helping us feed the cows.”

She made a mental note to ask Rusty if Ezra had cured his own pork or if he’d had it done. Maybe there was a smokehouse somewhere on the property. “I bet you Bonnie will know how to process the bacon and hams. She can teach me how to do it, so next year . . .”

Whoa.
She quickly stopped the thought process.
When did you start thinking about next year instead of spring and one day at a time?

Martha wagged her tail and trailed along behind Abby, both of them soaked to the skin when they reached the house, and Abby still hadn’t figured out how she’d even begun to think about staying at the ranch.

Shiloh was busy putting her clothing in the washer when Abby pushed into the utility room and stopped to drip on a rug. The smell of laundry soap, the sweet scent of shower gel, and warmth met her, but it all quickly disappeared when Martha shook from head to toe. Eau de wet dog blanketed the room.

“Use this to get her dried off.” Shiloh pitched a towel toward her. “I already took care of Vivien and Polly. Thank goodness I came in the back door and they didn’t do that on the living room carpet. Tile can be wiped up, but I’m not sure I’d ever get the smell out of the carpet.”

“It would give us a good excuse to get it replaced,” Abby said.

“But could we ever agree on what color?” A towel was twisted around Shiloh’s head and she wore a thick terry robe, belted at the waist.

Right then, at that moment, Abby envied her that robe more than anything because it looked so warm. She peeled off her wet, muddy clothing and tossed it in a pile on the floor. Wearing only her bra and underpants, she shivered and headed through the kitchen to the hallway.

“You can have the washer next,” Shiloh said. “I only brought two pair of old work jeans, so it’s a tough job keeping them clean.”

Abby stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Me, too.”

“I tossed what was just wet in the dryer and put my muddy jeans and coat in the washer. I’ll put your stuff in next. This rain is so cold that I feel like I fell into a frozen lake even yet. I’m making hot chocolate and starting a fire. Shall I make three cups? I feel sorry for Bonnie. That little leather jacket is all she’s got.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ve got an extra camo jacket. Think she’d like to wear it?” Abby asked.

“You could ask her. Hey, what’s for dinner?” Shiloh asked.

Abby had forgotten all about it being her day to cook. “I was planning on meatloaf, but since it took twice as long to get the feeding done in this weather, how about vegetable soup and cornbread and maybe a pan of chocolate chip bar cookies for dessert?”

“Sounds wonderful. I’m going to my room and catch up on e-mails. My friends in Arkansas probably think I’ve died,” Shiloh said.

Abby finished undressing and tossed the pile of wet clothing toward the washing machine. Shiloh had piled her things on top of the dryer, so Abby grabbed them and headed toward her bedroom. She tossed them onto the bed; picked up her shower kit, a pair of pajama pants, an oversized T-shirt, and underwear; and headed toward the bathroom. If she hurried, she could be finished by the time Bonnie arrived. Martha curled up in the rocking chair and shut her eyes.

“Kind of nice being in out of the rain, isn’t it, old girl?” Abby said. “You just stay right there. You don’t need to protect me in the shower.”

She could have let the water beat down on her back for an hour, but the minute she felt warm blood flowing through her veins instead of ice water she turned off the faucets and threw back the curtain. Steam had fogged the mirror and hung above her head like smoke in a cheap honky-tonk. It felt so good that she would have sat down on the edge of the tub and soaked more of it in, but she heard Bonnie talking out in the hallway. Abby hurriedly threw a towel around her body and motioned Bonnie inside when she stepped out into the hallway.

“I left the steam,” she said.

Bonnie smiled. “Milk is strained and in the refrigerator. Poor old cow probably thought my hands had been dipped in ice water. I hope this is the last of winter.”

“Shiloh is building a fire and making us all a cup of good hot chocolate. I’m making vegetable soup for dinner. You’ll feel better in a little bit.”

“Thank God we don’t have to go back out until evening,” Bonnie said.

Abby found Shiloh curled up on one end of the sofa with a quilt thrown over her legs. She wore a pair of dark blue knit pajamas printed with bright red high-heeled shoes and had a book in her hands.

Martha, Vivien, and Polly were sprawled out in front of the fireplace. Abby eyed the old, worn leather recliner. No one had touched Ezra’s chair since they’d first arrived. It was just a chair, for heaven’s sake.

Shiloh drew her legs up to make room. “You can sit here beside me. Your chocolate is right there on the end table.”

Abby shook her head. “No, I’m sitting in this chair.”

“You are a braver woman than I am. I’ve avoided that chair because it smelled like smoke until I used a whole bottle of leather cleaner on it last week and then sprayed underneath it with disinfectant. At least that’s the story I kept telling myself until now. I’m actually afraid the chair will make me more like him.”

Abby picked up the plush throw from the back of the chair and plopped down before she lost her courage. “It’s just a chair.”

“Maybe it is to you, but you’ve fought wars. I haven’t. Do you ever fear that you’ll be the kind of parent that would turn your back on your child like Ezra did?” Shiloh asked.

“It scares the shit out of me,” Abby said.

“Me, too,” Shiloh said. “And that fear gives me severe commitment issues. I get close to a man, then I create a problem so either he breaks up with me or else he gets angry and that gives me reason to break it off with him.”

“Never thought of it like that, but I guess I’m in the same boat with you.”

“Not a very pleasant boat, is it?” Shiloh said.

“No, but at least we know why we are the way we are,” Abby said.

“Why we are what?” Bonnie joined them, worming her way through the dogs until she could pull the extra rocking chair up to the fire and hold her hands out to warm them. Her chambray shirt was faded and her flannel pajama pants were two sizes too big. “Lord, I hate bein’ wet and cold both. A nice summer rain with a sexy cowboy under a big old cottonwood tree can be nice. But feeding cows in mud and milking in a cold barn is miserable. Now what was it that we were talkin’ about?”

“Afraid of commitment. Afraid we’ll be sorry mothers,” Shiloh said.

“I just figured that all came from my mama, but I guess I got a double dose with the Ezra genes,” she said. “So y’all have the same feelings.”

Both Shiloh and Abby nodded.

Martha and Polly sat up at the same time, growling and eyes darting around the room. Vivien slowly went into a crouch and did a belly crawl across the floor.

“It’s just thunder and it’s a long way off,” Shiloh said.

Martha barked loudly and Polly ran to the back door. Vivien put her paws on the doorknob and whined.

“What’s gotten into them? It thundered . . . oh, my God! Why is the house shaking?” Shiloh covered her ears.

“It’s an earthquake in the middle of a rainstorm,” Abby yelled.

Bonnie shook her head and rushed to the kitchen window overlooking the backyard. “That’s not an earthquake. It’s a stampede. They just broke down the back fence and here they come. They’re splittin’ around the house, so that should slow them down.”

Shiloh and Abby raced to the window. Three women watched a black sea of cattle break when they saw a house in front of them. The ground trembled beneath so many hooves and the thundering got louder the closer they got. The fence hadn’t even slowed them down. They’d come right through it and they didn’t come to a screeching halt until they reached the back porch.

“Whew. For a minute there I thought they might plow right through the window,” Bonnie said. “Y’all okay?”

“That was wild. It was like a car wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off it but I knew I should run for cover,” Shiloh answered.

Abby just nodded in agreement. A dozen thoughts went through her mind, beginning with hoping that Bonnie knew how to repair fences and herd cattle in hard rain.

“Abby?” Bonnie asked.

“We’ve got lightning, rain, and scared cows,” Shiloh groaned.

“The key word is
we
. We might not know everything about runnin’ a ranch, but if we stick together, we can take care of this.” Abby’s tone sounded a hell of a lot more confident than she felt, but she had faith in her sisters.

In a few minutes the yard was completely full of bawling cattle stomping over every blade of grass and breaking down all the rosebushes. Their rolling eyes and heaving sides said they were still spooked, but one section of fence was all that was destroyed . . . if the yard and flowers weren’t counted.