Daisies in the Canyon Read online

  “My mama talked about him. She cussed him every time she got drunk and every time she got a divorce or threw a boyfriend out of the trailer. Everything from a bad hair day to a flat tire was Ezra Malloy’s fault.” Bonnie brought out ham, cheese, and mayonnaise for a sandwich as she spoke. She set a pitcher of sweet tea on the counter and frowned at Abby’s beer.

  “What?” Abby raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t like the smell of beer.”

  “Well, I don’t like mayonnaise, so we’re even.”

  Shiloh poured a glass of milk and went straight for the dessert table. “My mama said it was best to let sleeping dogs alone. She told me that he didn’t want a daughter and gave her enough money so she could buy a small bed-and-breakfast place in Jefferson, Texas. After I graduated she sold it and went into partnership with her sister, Audrey, on a convenience store outside of Lewisville, Arkansas. I tried a few more questions, but she told me to forget the past and move on to the future.”

  “So what the hell did three different women see in that man who was in the casket and why in the hell did we put daisies in there with him? I’ve never seen that done before,” Bonnie asked.

  “Good questions. I have been to a couple of funerals where they laid roses on the top of the casket, but I’ve never seen daisies put inside.” Abby carried her beer back to her room, leaving the other two to bond over conversation. She felt like she had the first time she was deployed to Afghanistan. Everything was so unexplainably different there, with everyone a stranger even though they all served the same country. She dug her phone from the cargo pocket on the side of her pants and hit the speed dial for Haley. She almost wept when her friend answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, what did you decide about the ranch? Are you coming home? Tell me about the foreman.” Haley asked questions until she had to stop for breath again. That was Haley to a tee. Hearing her voice put a smile on Abby’s face.

  “I’m staying. Did I tell you about the daisies at the funeral?” Abby went on to tell her about it, leaving out nothing.

  “Did I just hear you right? You put them in the casket with him like roses?” Haley asked.

  “That’s right. Only his daughters had them. No casket piece or potted plants or wreaths around the casket. The place where they buried him is bare—it was strange. But hell, my sisters are strangers, Haley. I don’t feel any kind of love, hate, or even indifference for them. It’s like they are people I saw one time in a shopping mall.”

  “Tell me your first impression of them.”

  “Shiloh is kind of prissy and Bonnie is tough as nails. That much I’ve figured out so far,” Abby said.

  “The foreman?” Haley asked.

  “Isn’t my type, but the sheriff could be if I was going to stay here forever. Which I won’t. I have decided not to leave until spring, but after that is a day-to-day decision. I’m so confused and rattled. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “The sheriff? When did you meet him? Did you get stopped for speeding?”

  “No, I did not. The sheriff was at the funeral and he came to dinner. Rusty, that’s the foreman, invited him.”

  “And what does this sheriff look like and what is his name?” Haley asked.

  “Looks like Travis Tritt and name is Cooper Wilson,” Abby answered.

  “Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus. You are doomed. Lookin’ like your favorite singer and with a cowboy name like Cooper. You are going to grow roots right there in that canyon. I can feel it in my bones.” Haley laughed.

  “Your bones have been wrong lots of times before,” Abby said.

  “You’ve run from settling a long time, Abby. A year in a remote place outside of the army is just what you need to get your head on straight. And my bones are not wrong this time. Got to go. The kids are fighting over a stupid board game. Keep me posted. Open up your laptop and send pictures. I want to see what these other two women look like. And pictures of the sheriff, too. I want to see them all. Big hugs,” Haley said.

  “Big hugs back to you.” Abby hit the “End” button.

  Haley had married right out of high school and had two kids by the time she was twenty-five. That was her whole family—a boy and a girl—and she’d declared she was finished until two years ago, when she and her husband had been surprised with a set of twin girls. Tonight was one of those times that Abby envied her friend the family, even when the older two fought over board games.

  “I’m not ready to grow roots,” she argued out loud with herself as she pushed out of the chair. “And Cooper Wilson probably has every available woman in the canyon out after him. It’s the stress of all this that had me fantasizing about him. It’s either sneak candy or let my mind wander into the gutter when I’m worried.”

  A set of sheets and pillowcases had been placed on the antique four-poster bed. Had she been conceived in that bed?

  She pushed the unanswered questions out of her mind and quickly stretched the sheets over the mattress, tucking in the corners and leaving no wrinkles. Then she started on the unpacking business—duffel bags first and then the suitcases.

  The first thing she pulled up out of the biggest duffel bag was her CD player. Music took her to another place when she was worried or mulling over something. She set it on the chest of drawers beside her mother’s ashes, but there was no place to plug the cord in. She went looking and found that the room only had one outlet with two receptacles, and that was behind the recliner. She moved the player to the table beside the recliner and the cord was too short. She moved the recliner over six inches, then did the same with the table and it worked.

  The next thing that came out of the duffel bag was an oversized case of CDs. She flipped through them until she found the ones by Travis Tritt and started to take one out. She stopped and stared at the picture that reminded her so much of Cooper.

  “No! Not these. Not today,” she said. Instead she chose Blake Shelton. She wiggled her shoulders to the music when it started and wondered if Cooper Wilson liked country music. What kind of dancer would he be? She imagined herself with those big strong arms around her. One around her waist, maybe dipping down lower until it rested on her butt; the other with his fingers laced with hers as they swayed to the music. She inhaled deeply and imagined looking deeply into his eyes.

  “Dammit!” She stomped her foot and swore. She didn’t need to be thinking of anyone. Especially not the sheriff, who was also the neighbor, and she damn sure didn’t care what kind of music he liked. A vision of his swagger as he walked away from her in the cemetery appeared in spite of her determination to forget all about him.

  “Stop it right now. He’s too damned sexy not to have a girlfriend or maybe . . .” She stopped unpacking and blinked several times to get rid of the image.

  Wife? The voice in her head asked.

  She shook her head. “There’s no ring, so there is no wife. Dammit again! What am I doing? Get a hold of yourself, Malloy! Put a bullet in that biological clock that starts ticking every time you talk to Haley.”

  She hit the “Forward” button on the CD player again and sang along with several songs while she hung her meager supply of clothing in the closet. Two pairs of camo pants and three pairs of jeans occupied one end. A couple of sweaters and a long skirt on the other. Two or three shirts and a little black dress with a jacket, just in case she had to go somewhere important. Her combat boots would have to be cleaned up and polished before she set them on the floor beside her cowboy boots and one pair of high-heeled shoes.

  She picked up a long, hard plastic case and very gently put it on the bed. She didn’t need to open it to see what was inside, but she did anyway. There was her history right there in the gun case. Her mother’s pump shotgun, all cleaned and ready for use, not that it had done a damn bit of good when those three drug addicts came into the doughnut shop and killed her when there was only $110 and change in the cash register.<
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  The .22 rifle was a perfect match to Haley’s. The two girls had gotten the smart idea that they wanted to be hunters in their early teenage tomboy days. They’d asked for .22 rifles and for Haley’s dad and brothers to take them squirrel hunting with them. Haley was a natural just like her brothers and her father. She could aim, shoot, and a squirrel fell out of the tree every time. Not Abby. She could aim, but she couldn’t pull the trigger any more than she could eat the squirrels that Haley’s dad fixed on the grill.

  The Glock was hers and she fully intended to find a site at the back of the ranch, maybe up against the canyon wall, for target practice at least once a week when spring came. She’d finally learned to shoot in the army and had scored so high on target they’d thought about sending her to sniper training. But that had fallen through when she took the psych exam. She had found out early on that it was easy to shoot someone coming toward her with a pistol in one hand and a grenade in the other, but she had never been able to shake the nightmares when that had happened.

  When Blake started the last song on the CD, she sat down in the rocking chair and stared out the window. He sang about his granddaddy’s gun. She’d never known any of her grandparents. Her maternal ones had been gone before she was born. Cancer took them and her mother had always feared she’d contract it early and not live to see Abby raised.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and left wet spots on her shirt. Did Ezra have guns or had he given them to Rusty? He’d probably loved his foreman more than any of his own blood daughters. She didn’t weep for Ezra or for his guns, but for what could have been, for the father she’d never known.

  Cooper stretched out on the brown leather sofa and rested his head on a throw pillow when he got home that afternoon. His dog did a low belly crawl from in front of the fireplace to lie on the floor beside him. Instinctively, he dropped his hand and scratched her ears.

  “It’s been a long day, Delores.”

  Her tail thumped against the leg of the heavy wood coffee table.

  Cooper continued to pet the dog as he replayed the day, scene after scene. It had all started when they brought Ezra’s body to the cemetery. He and Rusty were the only ones there at that time and it had reminded him of the sad day they’d buried his grandfather. That day he’d said good-bye to his last living family member. But his grandfather had been more than just family. The old guy had been his best friend, his confidant, his mentor on the ranch, and his support when he ran for sheriff. His parents had died when he was just a little boy and his grandfather and grandmother had raised him from that point on. She’d died several years before his grandfather and for those next few years it had just been him and Grandpa on the ranch. Funerals reminded him of the fact that he was totally alone in the world except for friends and neighbors.

  His mind shifted back to today when the neighbors and friends had begun to arrive. They’d gathered round close together, making a semicircle around the three empty chairs. A lump had formed in Cooper’s throat as he’d looked at those chairs. What if not a single one of Ezra’s daughters showed up? He couldn’t blame them if they didn’t, not after Ezra sending them away at birth, but still, to have that final moment on earth with no family?

  “But they did, even if Abby was almost too late,” Cooper told Delores. “I wonder what Grandpa would make of Ezra’s daughters? He’d have something to say about each of them, for sure. Bonnie with her nose ring. Abby in her camouflage and Shiloh with her better-than-thou attitude. I’m surprised Ezra didn’t raise up out of that casket when they filed past it. Especially Abby, decked out in that army stuff. In Ezra’s world, women stayed in the house where they belonged. They damn sure didn’t join the army.”

  It must have been the funeral, but Cooper really missed his grandfather that night. Or maybe it was because he wanted to talk to him about the sparks that flew when he was around Abby. Ezra’s other two daughters didn’t affect him like that, not one bit, but that oldest daughter? Dammit, but she got under his skin from the time she’d sat down in the last chair. He’d thought his reaction to her touch might be a fluke, but then the same thing had happened at the cemetery. The feeling had been so damned strong that he’d wanted to take her in his arms, kiss those full lips, and hold her forever.

  He’d have to kick the physical attraction out in the cold, because there was no way she’d stay in the canyon. And to Cooper’s way of thinking, there was no use starting something he couldn’t finish. Folks said that more babies were born nine months after a funeral than any other time because people needed to feel alive. Maybe that’s what he’d experienced with Abby . . . the desire to feel a woman in his arms as proof he was alive.

  “What do you think, Delores? Is it time for me to start getting serious about finding someone to share this big old ranch and my life? It just can’t be that particular woman, even if she did throw a couple of extra beats into this old heart of mine. There’s no way she’ll stick around for the long haul. She’ll take her third of the money and be gone by spring.”

  Delores didn’t answer.

  Chapter Four

  Unpacking was done, boxes cut up and put into the trash, duffel bags inside the suitcases and stored on the closet shelf. Boots were brushed off and set beside the rocking chair so she could put them on first thing in the morning. No fancy purple running shoes for Abby. She ran in combat boots. All she needed before she fell into bed was a quick shower, but first she wanted a breath of fresh air. The house wasn’t too warm, but the walls were closing in on her. She felt Rusty’s presence on the porch before he spoke, which gave her back the confidence that she hadn’t completely lost her skills.

  “Good evening. I was just feeding the dogs,” Rusty said.

  One nosed her hand and she sat down in one of the three rocking chairs and scratched the animal’s ears. “What kind are they and what are their names?”

  “Mongrels mostly. Some Catahoula with some bluetick hound thrown in. Ezra said that their mama was a bluetick over on Lonesome Canyon. That one that you’re petting is Martha. The one with floppy ears beside the food pan is Vivien and that lazy old gal scratching her ribs is Polly,” Rusty said.

  Abby quickly put her hand in her lap. “Are you shittin’ me? Tell me the other two aren’t named after Shiloh and Bonnie’s mamas.”

  “He told me that he named them after his ex-wives and had them spayed before they had any puppies, because he figured all they’d throw would be more bitches. No offense meant. I’m just repeatin’ what he said.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Five or six years old, near as he could remember. Jackson offered to give away the mixed-breed pups and all that was left was females when Ezra got around to making a trip over to Lonesome Canyon to look at them. He took them all and he trained them himself. They’re fine cattle dogs and fair huntin’ critters.”

  “Does Martha take up with everyone?”

  “Pretty much. She’s the friendliest one of the lot, but she’s also the best cow dog of the three. I save her for the last if the other two can’t run a rangy old bull out of the mesquite,” Rusty said.

  “Why?”

  “She goes for the lip and she don’t let go. They know her, and when I turn her loose, believe me, they don’t want what she’s about to bring to the fight. If you’ve a mind to learn ranchin’, then you can start tomorrow. It’s Sunday, so all we’ll do is chores. Other than that Ezra always said it was a day that God made for restin’, so that’s what we do. I’ll be takin’ care of feedin’ chores and I’ll be leaving right after six from that barn out there.” He pointed to the south. “Good night, Abby.”

  He was gone before she could say another word. Martha slipped her big head into Abby’s lap and whined. Abby rubbed the dog’s ears and said, “Next January, your name is changing to Spot or Jane or Fluff Butt, anything but my mother’s name. Ezra might have thought it was funny to name you dogs after his ex-wive
s, but I don’t see a damn thing amusing in it.”

  Vivien and Polly ignored her, but Martha wagged her tail and whined for more petting. The door opened and Shiloh came out, sat down in a rocking chair, and propped her feet on the porch railing. Her slippers were those oversized things with Tweety Bird’s head on the toes. Martha eyed them for a few seconds before she decided that they weren’t dangerous, then she went straight to Shiloh. Fickle bitch. She didn’t deserve her name and it would be changed. Fluff Butt was looking better by the moment.

  “Wonder what their names are.” Shiloh rubbed the dog from head to tail several times.

  “Martha, Vivien, and Polly. Which one was your mother?” Abby gripped the arms of the rocker so hard that her knuckles ached. Shit fire! She hadn’t meant to ask questions. She didn’t want to get to know either of them.

  “Polly is my mother. She’s still livin’ and you are shittin’ me, right?”

  Abby shook her head. “Rusty just now told me and I don’t think he’d make that up. So your mama’s namesake is the one over there scratching her ears.”

  “What about ears?” Bonnie stepped out on the porch. She wore a stained work coat over her mismatched pajama pants and flannel shirt and cowboy boots on her feet.

  “Your mama is the bitch over there eating the last of the dog food,” Shiloh said.

  “My mama might not be a saint, but you ain’t got no right to be callin’ her a bitch,” Bonnie said stiffly.

  “I’m not. Ezra named his three dogs after our mothers. Mine is Polly. That would be the lazy old gal who’s now curling up on the rug in front of the door. Vivien is eating and this one who wants to be petted is Martha, Abby’s mama.”

  “The old bastard.” Bonnie sucked in a lungful of air and went back into the house.

  Abby followed her without saying another word and Martha tagged along behind her all the way into the bedroom, where she curled up in the recliner and went to sleep. Abby grabbed her bathroom gear with the intention of taking a shower, but the tub looked so good that she turned on the water and adjusted the temperature. She shucked her clothing, leaving them hanging on the nail beside the door, and slid into the warm, steamy water.