Daisies in the Canyon(50)

“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.”





Chapter Twelve

We have half a bottle of tequila, a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s, three beers, and whatever the hell is in this pint jar. If we open it, it’ll be like we’re inviting Ezra to the party.” Shiloh set it all in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Do we need to take a vote?” Bonnie asked.

“If Ezra wants to come to our party, I’ll even let him have his chair. I bet he won’t stay long when we all tell him exactly how we feel,” Abby said.

A deep-throated mooing sounded right outside the kitchen window.

“The bull has spoken. We will toast the three of us getting through this day with Ezra’s stump liquor. Women doing a tough job and drinking his liquor. I’d say he won’t even show his face,” Bonnie said.

Shiloh twisted the ring from the jar and set it beside the rest of their meager bar. “Maybe the bull was calling out to his heifers rather than expressing an opinion.”

It started as a chuckle, grew into a giggle, and exploded into laughter, with Abby wiping tears with the tail of her dark brown T-shirt.

“What the hell is so funny?” Shiloh frowned.

“Think about it. The rangy old bull calling out to his heifers. Ezra leaving half a pint of moonshine and naming his bitches after his ex-wives. Was he calling out to his women like that lonesome old bull?”

“I still don’t think it’s that funny, but then after what I found under my bed this afternoon, I’m not sure anything is funny,” Bonnie said.

“Three boxes with your initials on the ends?” Shiloh asked.

Bonnie nodded. “Kind of creepy, isn’t it? How’d you know about it?”

Abby felt their gazes turn to her. Suddenly, the moonshine and the lonesome old bull were not humorous. A chill that had nothing to do with the north wind whistling around outside on a moonless night chased down her spine.

“I found the same thing under my bed,” she said. “I suppose that’s why Rusty more or less assigned our rooms when we first got here.”

“Seems like a year ago, doesn’t it?” Bonnie whispered.

“How did going through those things make y’all feel?” Abby asked.

Shiloh poured whiskey into three glasses. “Angry, violated in a strange sense of the word, and empty at the same time.” She threw hers back like an old cowboy in a Western movie.

Bonnie picked up the whiskey and sipped it. “Just mad as hell. He knew what was happening to me and he didn’t give a shit. This drink is my one for the night. I’ve lived with it my whole life and seen what it can do to a woman. I’ll see to it you two make it from living room to your bedrooms, but I do not clean up if you get sick.”