Daisies in the Canyon (23 page)

“Abby, my God,” he said just as he took her over the edge and into the most intense climax she’d ever known.

“Yes,” she whispered as her legs relaxed and unwound from around his body.

He rolled to the side, keeping her in his arms, and for the first time Abby Malloy experienced that thing she’d read about in romance books called an afterglow. So it was real and not just a figment of an author’s imagination—and it was beautiful and warm and made things right.

They slept.

Until midnight they slept in each other’s arms. Happy, contented, and life was good. And then they awoke at the same time, laughed about her missing curfew as they got dressed, and Cooper took her home.

She was so glad that her sisters were asleep so she could keep that warm, sweet afterglow a little longer.

Chapter Eighteen

A
bby sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, her mother’s two-page letter in front of her. She’d made up her mind to stay in the canyon somewhere between the drive between the Lucky Seven and the Malloy Ranch at way past midnight. And that morning when she awoke, she thought about it but hadn’t had time to read it. The day had passed and it had stayed on her mind until evening, when she’d taken it from the accordion file of her important papers and removed it from the envelope. The first time she read it had been the day after her mother’s funeral, when the lawyer had given her the key to the safe-deposit box and told her that she was now the owner of a prime piece of property on the strip.

“I was eighteen, Mama, and in the army.” Tears flowed down Abby’s cheeks. “I was too young to be alone in the world.”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks and reread the portion of the letter she’d never understood until that moment:

My dearest daughter,

I’m writing this because it dawned on me when we said good-bye that if something happened to me . . . well, I don’t want things to end without you knowing what I want you to do. Your kiss is still warm on my cheek and you are off to your military training. I’m so proud of you and what you are doing, Abby.

If you are reading this letter, then I’m gone. Don’t throw my ashes out in the Gulf where we had so many good times. Don’t let them sift through your fingers onto the sand where we built castles and watched the sunset. Those places should always come to your mind as good memories, not final ones. I want you to wait until the right moment and the right place. Don’t fret about it, Abby. When the place and the time are right, you will know. It might be in ten years and it might be tomorrow, but you won’t have a single doubt in your mind.

As I write this letter, I’m thinking of the day you were born. When they put you in my arms, I lost my heart to you that very moment. I loved Ezra Malloy that year we were together, but I truly believe now that he was only put into my life so that I would have you. So there’s no hatred or bitterness in my heart for him or the decisions that he made. There is a degree of pity, though, because he never knew the lovely daughter who would have brought him so much joy. Death is final, but it’s not the end. My love and memories will go with you throughout your entire life.

There was more, but Abby stopped there and hugged the paper to her chest. Martha raised her head from the rocking chair and growled down deep in her throat. She cocked her head to one side as if listening and then she jumped down and started toward the living room.

Abby didn’t care if there was another stampede or two old tomcats fighting out in the yard. She wanted to sit on the bed with memories of her mother flooding through her mind and remember the good times.

Martha barked once and then there were the sounds of boots on wood before a gentle knock. The front door opened. Martha nosed her way out of Abby’s bedroom, her body pushing the door all the way open, and disappeared up the hallway toward the living room.

Abby swiped at her eyes with her shirtsleeve and laid the letter down on her pillow. She could hear Shiloh whistling in the bathroom where the shower had been running moments before. Soft laughter came from Bonnie’s room, which meant she was talking to her Kentucky friends on the phone.

“Rusty? Is that you?” she called out.

She slung her legs off the bed and Cooper’s shadow filled the doorway to her bedroom. Her breath caught in her chest, still tight from crying so hard.

“I missed you today,” he said softly.

She put her hands over her face and sobbed so hard that there was a whooshing sound in her ears. Suddenly his strong arms slipped under her knees and around her back. He lifted her from the bed and carried her to the rocking chair. He sat down with her in his lap and she sobbed until only sniffles were left.

“What brought this on?” Cooper asked.

“Mama’s letter,” she whispered.

“Is that it on the bed?”

She nodded.

“And you’ve never read it before now?”

She shook her head. “One time before, but I was eighteen and still in shock and it didn’t make as much sense then as it does now. After last night, I was drawn to get it out again. Now I understand it better.”

“Abby, about last night,” he said.

She put a finger on his lips. “Don’t say it.”

“Why?”

“I can’t bear to hear that it was another mistake,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t going to tell you that, Abby. Last night was amazing. I was going to call you, but I wanted to hold you and kiss you tonight, not just hear your voice.” He traced her jawline with his forefinger and tilted her chin up.

His brown eyes fluttered shut and then his mouth was on hers, sweet at first and then deepening into something that chased all the sadness from her body and soul. She leaned into the kiss, wanting it to last forever, wanting him to simply hold her.

Martha cold nosed her bare foot and she jumped. Abby dropped her hand to pet the dog at the same time Cooper did. He wrapped his big hand around hers and brought her knuckles to his lips. Slowly, he kissed each one before he laced his fingers through hers and held her hand against his chest.

“I didn’t want last night to be a mistake,” she said.

“Neither did I, and I was so afraid you’d tell me that it was. Guess we both have to learn to trust a little more and worry a lot less. I’ll see you or call tomorrow. Good night, darlin’.” He carried her back to the bed and set her down where he’d found her. After a kiss on the forehead he was gone.

“Good night, Cooper.”

The next morning she awoke on her bed, the quilt from the living room thrown over her. Her mother’s letter rested on the pillow beside her. For the first time Martha had left the rocking chair and was sound asleep on the foot of the bed, her chin lying on Abby’s knees. She sat up, pulling her legs away from the dog, who gave her the old stink eye for waking her up.

“Good morning to you, too.” Abby laughed, her spirits as high as the clouds she’d dreamed about the night before. “Look at that gorgeous sunrise. It’s going to be a nice day.”

Martha wagged her tail and did a belly crawl up closer to the pillows.

“Lord, girl, you smell like a dog. I’ll have to give you a regular bath if you’re going to get on the bed,” Abby said.

“You let that mutt sleep with you?” Shiloh said from the open door.

“You don’t let Polly sleep in your bed?” Abby threw back at her.

“Not in a million years. She can have the rug beside the bed but she’s not getting up on my bedspread after she’s wallowed in the dirt and walked through pig shit.” Shiloh shivered. “You slept in your clothes?”

“I guess I did,” Abby said. “One fewer thing I have to do before chores this morning. Is Bonnie up yet?”

“In the bathroom. Shall we start breakfast?” Shiloh asked.

Abby bounded out of bed. “You make the biscuits and I’ll do sausage gravy.”

“You sure are happy this morning, and you haven’t even had coffee yet.”

“I figured out that I’m supposed to live in this canyon, maybe even longer than spring,” Abby said.

“Well, good for you. I figured that out the first time I drove down that windy road into it.”

Bonnie joined them in the hallway. Her face was scrubbed clean. She was dressed in work jeans for the day and her blonde hair hung in two ropy braids down her back.

“Good for her for what?” she asked.

“Deciding that she belongs in the canyon,” Shiloh answered.

“I never had a doubt that I belonged here. You must be slow,” Bonnie teased.

“Cooper have anything to do with that decision?” Shiloh grinned.

“Hell if I know anything where Cooper is concerned. Like you said, Bonnie, life is full of surprises. I just now figured out that I’m not leaving.”

“That’s a damn fine start,” Bonnie said.

Friday started out as a Murphy’s Law type of day. If it could go wrong it did; if there was no way for it to go wrong, it found one. Abby was reminded of Haley’s grandmother’s saying:
What will be, will be; what won’t be, might be anyway.

The first thing that happened was the coyote in the henhouse.

Abby had just finished feeding the hogs when she saw Shiloh tearing off toward the house at a dead run. Abby went from a walk to a run to see what had happened, hoping the whole time that Shiloh hadn’t cut herself on a piece of the rusty sheet iron covering the chicken coop.

“Are you all right?” Abby yelled when she was in the house.

“A damned rotten old coyote,” Shiloh shouted.

“Where?” Bonnie had just set the bucket of milk on the cabinet and reached for the straining cloth.

“In my henhouse,” Shiloh hollered.

“Want me to kill it?” Abby asked.

“It’s my henhouse. I’ll take care of it.”

Abby didn’t know just how Shiloh intended to kill the coyote. Maybe she was going to asphyxiate him with nail polish remover. But her doubts in Shiloh’s ability to take care of matters disappeared completely when she came back through the kitchen holding a purple Ruger pistol.

“This I’ve got to see,” Abby mumbled.

“Me, too,” Bonnie said.

They followed Shiloh out of the house, across the yard, and through the gate. When he saw people, the coyote dropped a dead chicken and started pacing around the pen, trying to find his way back out. Feathers floated on the morning breeze and chickens huddled together in the corners. The rooster, minus most of his tail feathers, was on top of the henhouse, but he wasn’t crowing about anything that morning. He looked downright pitiful sitting up there with fear written all over his cocky little face.

“Rotten coyotes. Noah should have forgotten to take the miserable things on that big gopher-wood boat, if you ask me,” Shiloh fussed.

“Where’d you get that gun?” Abby asked.

“I bought it, along with a pump shotgun, a twenty-two rifle for hunting squirrel, and several others I left in my gun safe in Arkansas.”

“Ownin’ firepower doesn’t mean much if you can’t shoot straight,” Bonnie told her.

Shiloh muttered something, popped a hand on her hip, brought the gun up from hip level, and fired. The coyote dropped on the spot and the rooster let out a squawk that was louder than the blast.

“Mama doesn’t like it when I waste ammo,” Shiloh said. “Hold this for me.” She handed the gun to Abby.

“Sweet little gun,” Abby said.

“It caught my eye at a gun show. I wanted it so I bought it. It doesn’t have as much recoil as some of the other nine mils and I liked the color,” Shiloh threw over her shoulder on the way to the henhouse.

She picked up the coyote by the tail, dragged him outside the pen, and the three dogs circled the carcass, growling and biting at it as if they’d killed the critter. “Okay, ladies, that’s enough. The whole bunch of you shouldn’t be sleeping inside the house. If you’d been out here doing your job, you could have run him off and I wouldn’t have lost two of my best layin’ hens and the rest of my chickens wouldn’t be scared out of their minds. I bet we don’t get an egg for a week.”