Daisies in the Canyon(11)

“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.

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.