Daisies in the Canyon(80)

Don’t use that damned cell phone. Go see her face-to-face and have a long talk. I bet she’s as miserable as you are. His grandfather’s voice was plain and clear in his head.

He nodded in agreement. As soon as he finished taking care of the situation at the jail this morning, he would do just that. He’d show up with his hat in his hand and hopefully she wouldn’t slam the door in his face.

It was well past noon when he finally got away from the courthouse and drove back to the Lucky Seven. A dozen scenarios played through his head as he rehearsed what he’d say to her, and what she might say back to him.

“What the hell?” he mumbled when he saw her truck out in front of the barn. He wasn’t ready to face her, not yet. He still didn’t have the words all down just right to let her know exactly what was in his heart. He parked and his heart thumped around in his chest as he entered the barn.

“Abby,” he called out, but got no answer. “Abby,” he yelled louder.

Then he realized that one of the tractors was missing. He could hear the tractor engine running to the west and remembered telling Rusty that he had one more pasture to plow before spring. Trouble was the field that needed to be plowed under was to the south of the ranch house, not to the west.

“Dammit!” he muttered as he ran to his truck and left in a cloud of dust.

He could see the tractor before he got to the field where he’d just sown seed for a stand of grass a few days before. That seed had cost a fortune and little green shoots would be coming up any day. Yet there was Abby turning it all under. Was this his punishment?

She’s trying to help. Which is more important? A few dollars or her gift of labor?

He parked the truck and leaned against the fender as he waited for her to finish the very last round. The rows were straight, and not once when she turned the tractor did she grind the gears. And the pasture was all ready to be replanted. The Lord or fate or whoever it was had a damn strange sense of humor.




Cooper was supposed to be at church and then at dinner with Loretta and Jackson. But there he was waving at her and there was no way to get home without talking to him. Her hands went clammy and her eyes misted. She’d thought about him the whole time she was driving but hadn’t come up with a single way to approach the problem. Now she had to wing it and Abby hated not being prepared.

Life doesn’t come with a manual. You have to listen to your heart, Abby.

“You’ve been busy,” Cooper said when she stepped down to the running board and then to the ground.

She nodded. “It’s been a profitable morning.”

“I don’t like this feeling,” Cooper said.

“Me, either,” she said honestly.

“Can we talk?”

“Right now?”

She nodded, the lump in her throat getting bigger by the second. Abby covered the distance between the tractor and the truck and leaned on the rear fender, leaving a couple of feet between her and Cooper. Those old familiar sparks flitted around like butterflies in the spring. And that equally familiar ache in the pit of her stomach started the moment he gazed into her eyes. Then he moved around her and put down the tailgate. His hands went around her waist and he picked her up. He set her on the tailgate and sat down beside her, close enough she could smell his aftershave.

Desire twisted her insides into a pretzel and the temperature went from a chilly forty-something degrees to something so warm that she removed her stocking hat.

Cooper reached up and smoothed down her blonde hair.

“Static,” he said.

“Everywhere,” she answered.

“In the air. With us. I don’t like it,” he whispered.

That which does not kill you will make you stronger, the voice in her head said clearly.

Then I should be able to bench-press a damn Cadillac, she argued.

His hand covered hers and he squeezed as if he understood her thoughts. Five minutes passed before he said anything.

“You going first, or am I?” he finally asked.

“If you’re going to tell me this is over, then don’t. Just get in your truck and leave and I’ll take the tractor back to the barn and we’ll pretend what we had never happened,” she said.

“And if I’m not going to tell you that?” he asked.

“Then you can go first.”

“I sat in Grandpa’s bedroom all night and thought about how to say this. I thought if I was in his room, maybe he would give me some advice. He didn’t, so I’m having to wing it on my own. It was the most miserable night I ever spent in my life. So here goes, and I hope it don’t send you running like a jackrabbit with a coyote right on its heels. I’m going to marry you. It might not be this year or even next year, but eventually you will figure out that I’m in love with you and that you love me, too.”

“If I run?” she asked.

“Then I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth. That’s how much I believe in us. I realize it’s only been about a month since the funeral, but looking back, I knew then that you were the woman for me.”

She scooted across the bench until their sides were touching. “How?”

“I felt it in my heart, but I didn’t want to admit it. After all, I like red-haired women, not brunettes or blondes.”

“Like that one trying to undo your pants last night?”