Daisies in the Canyon (24 page)

“What are you going to do with him?” Bonnie asked.

“Take him to the back of the ranch and hang him on a fence as a warning to the rest of the coyotes,” Shiloh said. “When we go to feed this morning, I’ll toss him in the back of the truck.”

“That’s what we’d do with him in Kentucky.” Bonnie’s head bobbed up and down.

“If they had coyotes in Kuwait, we probably would have eaten it,” Abby said.

“Yuck!” Shiloh’s nose snarled. “I don’t mind squirrel, especially made with dumplings, or venison or elk, but I’m not eating coyote or possum.”

“Rabbit?” Bonnie asked as they started back toward the house.

The dogs wouldn’t leave the coyote alone, so Shiloh picked it up by the tail and dragged it along behind her. “Fried rabbit with sawmill gravy is almost as good as frog legs,” she answered.

Shiloh threw the carcass into the back of the work truck just as Rusty’s truck came to a stop outside the yard fence. He bailed out and yelled, “What is that and why are you putting it in the truck?”

“It’s a dead coyote. The dogs won’t leave it alone and we’re taking it out to the back of the property for the buzzards,” Shiloh said.

“It wreaked havoc in the henhouse,” Bonnie told him.

Rusty stopped and ran his fingers through his hair. “Abby kill it?”

“She did not! I did. It’s my chickens and my gun,” Shiloh told him.

Rusty’s eyes widened when he glanced over into the bed of the truck. “Right between the eyes.”

“With one shot,” Bonnie said proudly.

“Remind me not to ever mess with her chickens.” Rusty laughed.

Abby filled two buckets with hog pellets and started toward the pens when she noticed the hole in the fence and three of the biggest hogs rooting around outside their pen. This was a day for disaster for sure.

The hogs recognized the feed buckets and ambled toward her, grunting and squealing the whole way. She felt like the Pied Piper as she led them into the pen without a problem and watched them belly up to the feed trough like cowboys up to a bar.

“Thank God Bonnie programmed her number into my phone,” she said as she hit the button to call her.

“What?” Bonnie answered.

“Are you finished milking?”

“Yes, and I’m in the kitchen. It’s my day to make dinner.”

“I need help.” Abby told her about the pigs.

“Be right there. I swear this is the day for it,” Bonnie said.

Abby followed Bonnie’s orders as they fixed the fence so the pigs couldn’t get out again. Then the two of them carried a couple of cement blocks from the hog shed feed room and secured the area.

“One of them bastards probably dug his way under the fence and the others tore it when they were too big to get through the hole,” Bonnie said. “But this will fix it so they can’t do it again.”

“Thanks,” Abby said. “You said this was the day for it. What else happened?”

“I had finished milking the cow and be damned if a honeybee didn’t spook her and she kicked the milk bucket over. Lost every drop of the milk. I hope you weren’t planning on using the cream for something tomorrow,” Bonnie said.

“I wasn’t.” This must be the big test to see if she would really stay when the going got tough. Well, she’d made up her mind and she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Good. Shiloh is already on a tractor. You’re supposed to call Rusty when you get back to the house. He said that he’s sending you to the feed store in Silverton for a load of pig and chicken feed,” Bonnie said.

The gears in Abby’s head started turning so fast it made her dizzy. She’d be in Silverton. Maybe Cooper would have time for a coffee break. She’d wanted tell him how much it meant to her to see him last night. She called Rusty as she walked toward the house and told him she’d take her own truck so he didn’t have to bring the work truck in from the field. She was downright giddy until Bonnie sniffed the air.

“What? Don’t tell me the house is burning down,” Abby said.

“No, but you smell like hog shit. I’d take a quick shower if I was you, and put on them jeans with the fancy stitchin’ on the butt. And it wouldn’t hurt to spray a little perfume on your hair,” Bonnie said.

“I’m going to the feed store,” Abby protested.

“I’m not stupid. You’re picking up pig and chicken pellets at the feed store. You’re going to see Cooper in his place of work for the first time. You want everyone in the courthouse to smell you like this?” Bonnie asked.

“How did you know that?” Abby asked.

“You had the Cooper look on your face.”

“You are full of shit.”

Bonnie pointed right at her. “You are fighting an attraction, which is worse than bein’ full of shit.”

It was the fastest shower Abby had ever taken in her life. She dried her hair in record time and followed Bonnie’s advice about the perfume. She applied a touch of makeup and hit her hair with a curling iron, all in thirty minutes.

It was eleven o’clock when she reached the feed store. The guys there couldn’t have been prodded into action by a stun gun. They moved so slow that she wished she’d offered to load the feed herself. Finally, a baldheaded fellow in bibbed overalls handed her a bill fastened to a clipboard. She signed it and headed straight for the courthouse.

She parked the truck, checked her reflection in the mirror, and suddenly had second thoughts about even going inside. He’d never invited her to stop by, and it was his place of work. Maybe she should call first. Surprises weren’t always welcome.

She opened the truck door, but couldn’t make herself get out, not without calling first. Even that would put him in an awkward situation. She reversed the situation and thought about how she’d feel if he suddenly showed up at her office in the army unexpectedly.

“Complicated deluxe,” she mumbled.

“Good mornin’. Could I help you? You look a little bit lost. Hey, didn’t I see you at Ezra Malloy’s funeral? You are the oldest daughter, right?” An elderly man extended his hand. “I’m Everett Talley. Knew Ezra his whole life.”

“I’m Abby and yes, I’m the oldest,” she said.

“Well, I’m right pleased to meet you.” He dropped her hand after a firm shake. “Hope y’all are gettin’ along all right on the ranch. You here to see Coop? I heard y’all had been steppin’ out some. If you are, you done missed him. He pulled out in the sheriff car ’bout the time I drove up. See, his space is empty.” Everett pointed toward the reserved spot a couple of parking spaces down from her. “Got to get on down the road. The wife has already called three times. She’s ready to go to Amarillo to do some shoppin’ and I don’t want to be in no more trouble than I already am.”

“Thank you. Nice meeting you,” she said.

She shut the truck door and started the engine. “What now?”

That’s when her phone rang. She fished the phone from her purse and Bonnie’s name came up on the front. “Hello.”

“Where are you?”

“On my way home. You need something before I leave town?”

“How did it go at the courthouse?”

“Do you believe in fate?” Abby asked. “Cooper isn’t here.”

“Yes, I do. My grandparents were very superstitious. There’s a reason you weren’t supposed to see him today. You might never know what it is, but it’s there, so don’t doubt it.”

“Thank you, sis,” Abby said.

“Imagine that.”

“What?” Abby asked.

“You called me sis.”

“I guess I did,” Abby said.

Cooper didn’t get home until almost dark, and then he had to take care of the ranching part of his life. When he finally called Abby, it was near ten o’clock. He’d wanted to talk to her all day, but his deputy had been with him from near noon until quittin’ time, and by then his phone battery was dead.

But finally the stars lined up—the phone was charged and work was done. He sat down on the porch steps and called her.

“Hello, Cooper. How was your day?” she asked.

“Gettin’ better now that I can hear your voice.” He grinned. “How was yours?”

“Shiloh killed a coyote. The cow kicked over Bonnie’s milk bucket. My hogs got out of the pen and it had to be fixed. I came to see you and you were gone,” she answered.

“At the office?”

“Yes. A sweet little feller named Everett said you’d just left.”

“I’d love to see you right now, but it’s late.”

“Got any rocky road left?”

His heart threw in an extra beat. “Yes, ma’am. You hungry for rocky road?”

“Have been all day.”

“The door is open.”

“See you in a few minutes,” she said.

Holy shit! She had lost her mind. She had just agreed to a booty call. Her actions since she’d gotten to the canyon had been pretty sketchy, but she wasn’t that kind of woman.

What kind is that?
her conscience decided to pipe up as she tied her combat boots.

“The kind that stalks a man,” Abby answered in a whisper.

Looks like it to me.

“Go away. I just want to talk to him. No sex tonight. Ice cream with him, a little conversation, and then I will leave. Plain and simple.”

She drove down the lane, past the cemetery, onto the paved road, and to the Lucky Seven, arguing with the voice in her head the whole time. If he hadn’t been standing on the porch when she drove into the yard, she might have turned the truck around and never gotten out.

He waved and opened his arms. She got out of the truck and walked into them.

“I thought about you all day,” he said.

“Cooper, we should talk.”

“I don’t like that line. It usually means that things are over.”

She sat down on the porch steps and he sat down beside her, his arm around her shoulders. His thumb made lazy little circles on her bare skin, causing her pulse to race and her resolve to just talk to fade away into the darkness.

“This is not a booty call,” she said bluntly.

“You think I’m that kind of man?” The thumb stopped moving and his whole body stiffened. “I can get sex anytime or anywhere. I thought we had more than that.”

“I’m scared,” she said.

He moved his arm from around her. “Of me?”

“Of us.”

“Me, too. This is all overwhelming.”

“What do we do?”

He wrapped his big hand around hers. “Trust.”

“That’s all. Just trust.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “It covers a lot of territory.”

“What if . . .” she started.

He put a finger over her lips. “Trust doesn’t have doubts.
What if
s are doubts.”

“Why doesn’t life let us see just a little into the future?”

He kissed her on the forehead. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Bonnie said that when we were talking. I could stand a little less fun and a lot more settled.”

“Couldn’t we all. Still want that ice cream?” She nodded. “You sit right here and I’ll bring it out.”

She pulled her coat tighter across her chest and waited. Two words kept circling through her mind:
trust
and
overwhelmed
.

“Cold?” He startled her when he sat back down beside her.

“A little, but a little cold clears the mind.”

“We talkin’ literally?”

“Maybe both literally and figuratively, Cooper. We need to go slow.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid to go slow for fear you’ll leave again.”