Chapter Eleven
All 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.
“I bet there’s fifty head out there and best I can see, they’ve all got the Lucky Seven brand.”
“What happened?” Shiloh asked.
Bonnie took a deep breath. “Scared me, I’ll admit it. I don’t know for sure, but my guess would be that a streak of lightning spooked the shit out of them and caused a stampede. They’re not our cows, girls. They belong to the Lucky Seven, which means there’s a busted barbed-wire fence between our property and Cooper’s. So much for staying in the house. We’ve got to round them up and get them back on his side of the fence.”
“Shit! Shit! Shit! My coat isn’t near dry and Abby’s is still soppin’ wet,” Shiloh said.
“That must’ve scared you.” Abby finally smiled. “I haven’t heard you cuss like that before.”
“Yes, it scared me, and it’s days like this I want to pack my bags and head back to Arkansas,” she said.
Bonnie started for her room. “I guess these dogs will get to show us how good they are. Thank God I know how to mend a barbed-wire fence. I’ll get the things from the tack room and we’ll herd cattle with the truck and the dogs.”
“And Rusty’s four-wheelers,” Abby said.
“He didn’t say we couldn’t use them. Keys are on the rack,” Bonnie said.
“I have no idea how to drive a four-wheeler,” Shiloh said.
“Then you can drive the truck,” Abby told her. “We can get this done in a couple of hours and still have the afternoon to rest.”
The dogs did a fine job of herding the cows back through the broken fence, but then the cattle decided to veer off seven ways to Sunday. Shiloh kept the biggest part of the herd moving across the pasture toward the fence a mile away with the help of Martha on one side and the other two dogs on the other.
Bonnie rode one of the four-wheelers on the west side of the main herd, cussing loud enough to blister the hides of any heifers that strayed.
Abby manned her post on the east side and the area behind the truck with enough swearing to earn her a thumbs-up from Bonnie a couple of times. Using the torn-up ground as a guide to drive them toward where she hoped they’d find the broken fence, Shiloh drove with the window down, screaming at the cows as loud as both her sisters.
They were making progress until the truck got stuck in the mud about halfway across the pasture. Shiloh turned off the engine, motioned toward her sisters to keep moving, and started herding cows on foot.
“Where in the hell is a burst of thunder when we need it?” Abby yelled over her shoulder at her sister.
Shiloh, bless her heart, looked miserable with her hair hanging in her face. Abby was glad she couldn’t see herself, because she probably looked even worse.
As if answering her prayers, lightning sliced through the rain, hit a mesquite tree dead-on and set it on fire. The blaze didn’t last long, but the crack of the hit echoed through the canyon like a kid yelling down into a deep well. Then the thunder rolled right over their heads. The lead bull rolled his eyes and doubled his speed, the cows following right behind him. At the fence line, he tried to turn and go back the other way, but Martha nipped his heels and made him keep going.
“Good dog,” Abby said.
That’s when the front tire of the four-wheeler hit a gopher hole. The engine stalled out and Abby went flying over the handlebars to land in a nice mushy pile of cow shit. Instinctively, she tried to get rid of it by wiping her hand on the leg of her pants but all that did was smear it. Shiloh ran over to make sure she was all right, only to slip in the mud and go sliding a good five feet on her belly before coming to rest at the four-wheeler’s back tire. When Abby extended her clean hand to help her up, she took it, but the ground was so greasy that Abby lost her footing again. One minute she was looking at her sister, trying her damnedest to keep from laughing; the next she was staring up at gray skies with rain beating down on her face and a black cow the size of a barn running toward them.
At the last minute, Martha got between them and the cow and steered her off in the opposite direction. Abby’s heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her ears. Her pulse throbbed behind her eyes and the cows were breaking from the herd faster than Bonnie could take care of it on her own.
“Help me get this damn thing pushed out of the hole and you can ride on the back with me. You’re not doing a bit of good out there on foot anyway,” Abby said.
“If y’all are through horsin’ around, I could use some help,” Bonnie yelled.
Abby couldn’t believe her eyes when Shiloh flipped her off.
Lightning took out another mesquite tree and the rain came down even harder. It slowed the herd down, but kept them together better than before. The dogs were able to keep the rest of them headed toward Cooper’s fence and the four-wheelers on each side deterred any straying.
They marched right through the busted fence and huddled up not far into the Lucky Seven property like a bunch of football players on Friday night. Bonnie pulled out a roll of barbed wire, a pair of cutters, and a stretcher from the saddlebag on the back of the four-wheeler and headed for the fence.
She barked orders and Abby and Shiloh followed them without arguing. “Y’all keep the cows from coming back through or any of ours from going over into Cooper’s pasture while I get the first strand up. Then y’all can help me with the last two strands.”
Abby was sure glad that Bonnie knew something about everything because she didn’t know jack shit about how to fix a barbed-wire fence. She could probably blow one up, but putting one back together was a whole different ball game.
At the end of the repair job, Abby had a barbed-wire scratch on her wrist, her camo jacket was torn, and she was standing ankle-deep in water. Bonnie had a scratch across her cheek where the barbed wire had popped back and bit her and Abby’s loaned jacket had a long slit down one arm. Shiloh’s jeans had a tear in the thigh with a red bloodstain outlining it and the tennis shoes she wore were completely covered in cold water.
“If we don’t have pneumonia or gangrene tomorrow morning, it will be a miracle . . . oh, no! No! No! No!” Abby stomped, sending a splash all the way to Bonnie’s eyes.
Bonnie wiped at her eyes and pushed limp strands of soaking-wet hair behind her ears. “What the hell? If there is another damn Lucky Seven cow on Malloy land, Cooper can take care of it later.”
“Look. I’m counting at least four head of Malloy cows over there and we’ve already fixed the fence.” Abby pointed.
“So much for Rusty and Cooper not knowing that we had trouble.” Shiloh brushed fresh blood from her leg and wiped her hand on the seat of her jeans.
“I’m not cutting this fence. Cooper and Rusty can take a cattle trailer over there later and get them,” Bonnie said.
“Let’s go get that truck unstuck and go home,” Abby said.
“Let’s just go home and forget the truck,” Shiloh said.
“And let Rusty think we can’t function without him on the place?” Bonnie asked.
“Okay, okay, we’re already wet anyway,” Shiloh groaned.
“And the lightning hasn’t struck us yet, so that makes us lucky,” Abby said.
Shiloh pointed a long slender finger at Abby. “You can shut up. You said this wouldn’t take long and it’s already past dinnertime. I’m tired. I’m wet. I’m hungry and I’m cold. And besides that my leg is cut open, so don’t you say anything or else lightning is liable to flash out of the sky and set my hair on fire.”
“Fate is a hormonal bitch on steroids. And honey, it was me that said it wouldn’t take long, not Abby.” Bonnie laughed.
“Bonnie is a prophet with that saying about fate. Get her one of them gold chest plates and a fez with a tassel on it,” Shiloh said.
“You did a good job, Bonnie. I wouldn’t have had any idea how to fix that fence. Does Rusty carry tools in the four-wheeler all the time?” Abby asked.
“I doubt it, but most ranchers keep tools in their truck. When Shiloh got stuck, I grabbed the tools and shoved them into the four-wheeler’s saddlebag,” Bonnie answered. “We’re standing here in the rain, ladies, when we could be talkin’ in front of a nice fire. Mount up and let’s go.”
Abby threw a leg over the four-wheeler and Shiloh climbed on behind her. Bonnie led the way back to the truck and looked at the situation. She might have experience with fixing a fence but Abby had gotten more trucks out of sandpits than she could count. Surely getting one up out of a mud puddle couldn’t be a bit more difficult; however, she wasn’t saying a word. Shiloh looked like she was about to cry or throw a hissy, and she was the mildest-tempered one of the three. Abby had learned long ago that the quiet ones were deadly when they’d had enough.
“Bonnie, can you go back to the house and either get some chain or one of those boards the cows broke on the fence?” she asked.
“Sure thing,” Bonnie said. “Hey, Shiloh, crawl up here behind me. You can go on and get cleaned up. This only takes two people, anyway.”
Shiloh did not argue. She moved from one vehicle to the other and they left Abby standing in the rain. She quickly crawled inside the truck and slammed the door.
Abby pushed her blonde hair from her face and envied Shiloh that warm dry robe. In minutes she heard the roar of the four-wheeler coming back and thought about the fact they would have three vehicles and two drivers when they got the truck back on the road.
“Shit fire!” She shook her fist at the sky when she was out of the truck.
“What now?” Bonnie asked.
“Two drivers. Three vehicles.”
“We can’t get no wetter. Shiloh looked like she was about to blow a gasket, though, so I thought she’d best go on to the house.”
“Who died and made you boss?” Abby asked.
“Ezra died and right now we are all three the bosses. You got a problem with that?” Bonnie asked.
Abby smiled and then chuckled. That turned into laughter that floated out across the canyon through the driving rain. “This is what that old fart wanted.”
“Have you gone crazy? Did lightning strike you while I was gone?” Bonnie asked.
“No, can’t you see it? Ezra wanted us to get into a situation where we disagreed and fought so we’d leave one by one and Rusty could have the ranch.”
“Bullshit! This is my ranch,” Bonnie said.
“It’s our ranch right now. We needed Shiloh, but if you thought she’d wimp out and leave, then you did the right thing. We can manage and Ezra loses.”
A smile covered Bonnie’s face. “Then let’s get to it and go home while he turns over again in his grave.”
“We’ll have to drive the truck and one four-wheeler back to the barn and both ride back through the muddy fields.”
“We’re tough.” Bonnie smiled.
A length of fence, ragged on both ends, stretched out across on the handlebars in front of Bonnie. Abby grabbed the board.
Bonnie yelled over noise of the storm. “Got another problem in the yard. A Lucky Seven bull has parked his fat ass on the porch. He’s lying there like he owns the house and all that’s in it. Reminds me of those fancy places that has a big concrete lion out by the fence.”
“Well, dammit!” Abby said. “We’ll have to keep him penned up to be sure he doesn’t breed any of our cows.”
“How are we going to do that? All three of us together can’t budge him off the porch. It’s like he’s found a refuge, I tell you.”
“I’ve got an idea if we can get this truck to moving. We’ll use the truck to block the part of the yard fence where the cattle broke the wood down and came through. It doesn’t have to fill all the hole, just enough that the bull can’t get out.”
“The dogs are having a fit, but he’s ignoring them,” Bonnie reported. “Shiloh let them in the house. She’s going to wipe them down and get them warmed up by the fire.”
Abby nodded. “Okay, you get in the truck. When I give you the signal, back it out slowly.”
Bonnie nodded.
Abby shoved the board into the wet earth and gave Bonnie the thumbs-up sign. The tire spun a couple of times and then it caught and jerked backward with so much force that the board went flying. Abby fell backward again and more mud splattered all over her.
Bonnie applied the brakes and Abby waved at her to take the truck on to the ranch and block the hole in the fence with it. She didn’t even try to wipe her face clean but climbed on the four-wheeler and followed Bonnie, who must be pretty damned good at parallel parking because she maneuvered that truck right into the hole. Abby would bet there was less than six inches of space on either end.
When she finished, Bonnie trotted out and settled in behind Abby. In twenty minutes both four-wheelers were parked back in the barn. They looked like shit, but then they’d been run through mud and manure and dodged lightning bolts. If Rusty didn’t like it, he could damn sure wash them down all by himself.
They jogged through the cold rain to the house and the minute they were inside they started undressing, throwing coats and socks in a pile together. Shiloh had put another log on the fire so they were greeted with a toasty-warm and, more importantly, dry house.
“Does the leg need stitches?” Bonnie asked Shiloh.
“I’m accident-prone, so I carry a first-aid kit with me. I just cleaned it and bandaged it,” Shiloh answered. She’d put her cute little pajama top back on, but now she wore plaid boxer shorts with it and the scratch on her leg had been covered with gauze and tape.
“You go first,” Abby told Bonnie when they were inside. “I’ll get dried off, throw the jackets and socks in the washer, and change into dry clothes. Then I’ll start some dinner. Hamburgers all right with everyone?”
Bonnie padded down the hall in her bare feet. With no makeup and her hair hanging in strings, she looked young enough to be carded at any bar. The only thing old about her was her eyes, and they left no doubt that her life had been the roughest one of the three.
Abby loaded the washer, started it, and headed down the hall to her room, where she stripped naked and dried off. She grabbed a pair of flannel pajama pants from the dresser drawer along with underpants, a bra, and an oversized T-shirt. She dressed in record time and carried a pair of socks to the living room, where she flopped down in Ezra’s chair. Clean, dry clothing had never felt so soft or good.
“So, hamburgers?” she asked Shiloh.
“I’m so hungry, I’ll take a knife and carve a chunk out of that son of a bitch on the porch if we don’t have enough hamburger thawed out,” Shiloh said.
Abby couldn’t hold back the laughter. She wiped at her eyes and said between hiccups, “I can’t believe that just came out of your mouth. I can see Bonnie doing that, but not you.”
“Oh, sister, you’ve got a lot to learn about me. I’m tough as nails on the inside even if I’m not brave enough to sit in that chair,” Shiloh said.
The conviction in her voice told Abby that she could definitely be a force to be reckoned with even if she hadn’t helped get the vehicles out of the muddy fields.
“We can have ice cream sundaes for dessert and you can make cookies later for our nighttime snacks,” Shiloh said.
“Thank you. I’ll put the burgers in the skillet, so I can make the cookies while they’re cooking. We can eat them warm with the ice cream.” Abby left the chair and padded to the kitchen in her socks.
She peeled an onion, sliced it thin, and laid it on one side of a plate while the burger patties cooked. Then she chopped lettuce and sliced a tomato. When she finished that job she took the pickles, mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup from the refrigerator and set everything on the cabinet. Her stomach growled loudly and she looked at the clock. Two thirty! That meant they had to go back out into the weather in two hours and feed the cows again. And they’d have to use her truck since the work truck was now serving as a barricade.
The cookies were in the oven. The hamburger patties were about done and everything else was ready, so Abby went to the living room and leaned on the back of the sofa. The blaze in the fireplace licked at the logs, consuming them to make heat. Was that what love did? Those flames would fade and die like Ezra’s love for his three wives?
Bonnie came out of the bathroom decked out in mismatched pajama pants and a shirt. She took one look at the chair and, after sucking in a long lungful of air, sat down on it.
“That rain and all that work made you brave enough to sit in Ezra’s chair?” Abby asked.
“Not brave at all,” Bonnie said. “But Ezra is not going to have power over me where this chair is concerned.”
Vivien left the fire and curled up at her feet. Martha stretched to take up the room Vivien left behind.
“Kind of funny how they know which woman they should take up with, isn’t it?” Bonnie rubbed Vivien’s ear between her thumb and forefinger. “Strange thing is that I like this old hound more than I do my mama most days. Don’t get me wrong, I’d fight to the death with anyone who said a word against her, but some days I don’t like her too well.”
“I understand,” Shiloh said.
“You? I thought you had a perfect life with your mama and aunt,” Bonnie said.
“There’s no such thing as perfect. My mama said that when you live with someone twenty-four-seven, you will fight occasionally. It doesn’t matter if it’s a parent-kid relationship or a husband-wife one, because nobody agrees every minute of every day on everything. Take this stupid carpet. I think it should be taken out and some kind of tile put in here,” Abby said.
“We do need new carpet, but it should be a nice neutral color that doesn’t show dirt or dog hair,” Shiloh said.
“I think it should be bright orange to liven up the room,” Bonnie said.
“Point proven,” Abby said at the same time the oven timer dinged. “Cookies are done. Meat should be cooked, so let’s eat.”
Poor sisters! They looked like they were about to cave in. Bonnie had done 90 percent of the actual work, but Shiloh had given it her all and couldn’t be faulted one single bit. Abby had lived in horrible situations for days on end but her sisters hadn’t. They deserved a break.
“I’m doing the feed by myself tonight, ladies. My truck only seats two people. It’s still raining and neither of you are riding in the back and I damn sure don’t want my passenger seat to get wet, either,” she said.
“No argument from me, but why don’t one of us go?” Shiloh asked.
“And get my passenger seat wet? No, thank you,” Abby said.
“What about the driver’s seat?” Bonnie asked.
“I intend to take that quilt you are using and pad it really well,” she told Shiloh.
“If I don’t have to go back out there, you are welcome to it. There’s a brand-new shower curtain still in the package in the linen closet. You could put it down first and then the quilt,” Shiloh answered.
“I’ll get all the towels washed up and put away after dinner,” Bonnie said.
“I know where Ezra hid the whiskey and tequila. I’ll have drinks ready when you get back,” Shiloh said.
Abby nodded. “I’ll be ready for a dry towel and a drink.”
“Hamburgers have never looked so good,” Bonnie smiled.
She still had an hour after dinner to go to her room, sit in the old gold rocking chair, and relax. She leaned her head back and had dozed off when she heard Bonnie and Shiloh arguing.
“What?” she asked.
Bonnie was in front of the fireplace, arms folded over her chest, glaring at Shiloh. Her book had been tossed to the end of the sofa and Shiloh was firing back dirty looks at Bonnie.
“I think we should call Rusty,” Shiloh said.
“I don’t. We took care of the problem. It’s our ranch anyway,” Bonnie shot back.
“Not for a year,” Abby told them.
Their mean looks took a ninety-degree turn and landed on Abby.
“You are going to cast the deciding vote. Yes if we call him. No if we don’t,” Shiloh said.
“I don’t give a shit either way.” Abby would love to hear Cooper’s voice, but she really could care less whether they told Rusty about the stampede or not.
Bonnie shifted her gaze back to Shiloh. “You’re just wanting to brag that we took care of it on our own.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Abby fished her phone from her pajama pants and dialed Rusty’s number. She hit the button for speakerphone and laid the phone on the coffee table.
“Hello to you. Is it still raining?” Rusty asked.
“Cats and dogs and baby elephants,” Abby said.
“Well, sunshine is on the way. We’ve outrun it and I heard on the radio that it’s moving out of the canyon in the next couple of hours. Everything going all right?”
“We’ve got it under control. This is on speakerphone and we’re all here,” she answered.
“Good. Coop wants to talk to you, so I’ll put this one on speaker, too.”
“Hey, it’s come a real toad strangler, hasn’t it?” Cooper said.
“Something like that. Y’all got the prisoner delivered?”
“Just now did and now we’re on the way to the hotel.”
“So you can go drinkin’ and flirtin’ with the pretty ladies?” she asked.
“We’re both exhausted. We’ve decided to buy a six-pack of beer and a pizza and watch hotel movies in between naps,” Cooper said. “What have y’all been doin’ all afternoon? Paintin’ your fingernails and readin’ romance books?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, but it hasn’t involved pizza and naps,” she said.
“Okay, now you’ve got my curiosity workin’ double time. What did you do?” Cooper asked.
“Well, there was a stampede and we had to put most of the cows back where they belonged, and then we had a busted-up fence and then there was a big old bull lyin’ up on the porch like he owned it, so the dogs had to come in the house,” Shiloh said. “And tell Rusty that his four-wheelers look like shit.”
Cooper chuckled. “And then the aliens landed in their flat little spacecraft and carried you all away to examine your brains. I know it’s been raining like hell up there and y’all couldn’t even get out of the house, so don’t spin yarns to me.”
“The real story is that we laid up in front of the television, got drunk on Ezra’s moonshine we found hidden in the pantry, and painted our toenails, just like you said,” Abby said.
“Are you mad? You sound angry,” Cooper asked.
“Just how drunk are y’all to call me with a cock-and-bull story like this?” Rusty asked.
“Nope, just hurt that you don’t believe our story. I was going to ask you to show me how to fix barbed-wire fence, but now I don’t have to. Bonnie gave us a lesson and I can do it underwater,” Abby answered. “Hell, I might join the navy so I can be a SEAL when I leave the canyon.”
Cooper laughed again. “See you tomorrow. Don’t forget we’re going to the Sugar Shack on Saturday night.”
“Come rain, shine, or snow, we—as in Abby, Shiloh, and I—are going to Amarillo tomorrow for dinner and to shop. If we’re not back by evening, Rusty, the cows and feeding belong to you,” Bonnie said.
Rusty laughed. “Your hangover should be gone by evening, but I’ll take care of things for you since you want to get away from the ranch. Maybe you’ll all be gone for good.”
“Not in your wildest dreams,” Shiloh said.
“And you can get the bull off the porch if he’s still there when you get here,” Bonnie said.
“I sure will and I’ll shoo all those aliens away, too,” Cooper said. “Y’all might want to stop drinkin’ now, or you are going to hurt tomorrow. Good night, ladies.”
Abby picked up the phone and shoved it back in her pocket.
“Well, we’ve told him,” Shiloh said.
“And a hell of a lot of good it did. Neither one of them believed us,” Bonnie said.
“They will tomorrow. I’m going to go stretch out on my bed and get a twenty-minute power nap. You both going to be here when I come back?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Bonnie said.
Shiloh picked up her book. “Wild horses couldn’t drive me away.”
“Good,” Abby said.
Martha followed her into the bedroom and settled down on the rocking chair. Abby plopped down on the bed and pulled the side of the spread up over her feet, but instead of falling asleep instantly, the back of her eyelids became a never-ending slideshow, all of Cooper. There he was at the funeral, jumping over the barbed-wire fence, feeding her pecan pie, sitting beside her in the truck on the way to Silverton. And the one that she settled on at the end of the show was the one of his naked backside that Sunday when they’d had sex.
“Dammit,” she said without opening her eyes. “Not a bad picture in the whole lot.”