No wonder Mama never remarried, Bonnie thought. Vivien’s words came back to her in a flash. Men are impossible to live with for any length of time. You just have a good time with ’em and then shove ’em out the door and go find another one. The thrill and excitement don’t last long. Ezra Malloy proved that to me, and I ain’t never forgot that lesson.
Bonnie had heard that speech so many times when she and her mother were together that it was branded on her brain. She might not agree with her mama, but it had been a long time since she’d talked to her, so she made a mental note to give Vivien a call later that day.
“I’m thinking about leaving. If you aren’t going to sell me the place when you inherit, I need to get some feelers out there for another job. Cooper already has a foreman, but he said he’d hire me as a hand, and so did Jackson.”
“No! You can’t do that!” Bonnie gasped.
“Yes, I can and yes, I will. No use in waiting around, and then bein’ jobless. Ranchers don’t need many hands in the dead of winter. It would be easier to get one now and get settled into a place by Christmas,” Rusty said.
Bonnie laid her toast down and picked up her coffee. If Rusty left, she’d be lost. She’d learned a lot in the last six months, but sweet Jesus, she couldn’t run the ranch without him, not even with the summer help arriving in the next few days.
“Please don’t do that,” she whispered.
“I like you,” he said, “a lot. When y’all first arrived here, I could see that you had spunk and determination. You’ve worked hard to learn this business. But with your decision to leave and sell out, it’s time for me to take my dogs and move on to another job.”
Bonnie set her coffee down and shook her finger at him. “You’re not taking the dogs. They belong on this ranch.”
“Those dogs were left to me in the will, so they’re mine,” Rusty told her. “Get serious. Whoever buys the place will bring in their own dogs, and they probably will fight with Vivien, Polly, and Martha. And, honey,” he dragged out the endearment to at least six syllables, “those dogs go with me. They’re mine.” He pushed back from the table. “I’m going out to the field to rake the hay. I’ll see you this evening.”
“Will you be here tomorrow?” she asked.
“Will you?” he shot over his shoulder as he settled his straw hat on his head and slammed the screen door.
Vivien’s drunk voice popped into her head again. Men! Can’t live with ’em, and it’s against the law to shoot ’em.
“Why is it against the law to shoot them?” Bonnie muttered as she picked up a second piece of toast. “We could have a season on them, say once every five years. One day only, women could buy a tag like when I hunted deer in Kentucky. Red tag could be shoot to kill for cheaters and beaters. Blue tag could be a grazing shot for drunks and—”
Her mother’s special ring tone interrupted her. “Hello, Mama, I was going to call you after breakfast.”
“Great minds and all that crap,” Vivien chuckled. “So how are things there? Looks like you’re going to own a ranch before too many months, don’t it?”
“Not if I leave,” she said.
“Holy smokin’ shit!” Vivien gasped. “You just made me spew coffee all over the table. You’ve beat both your half-sisters out for the ranch. You’d be a fool to give up now. You deserve that place after the way Ezra did me and you.”
“I didn’t earn it, Mama, but if I’m honest with myself, Rusty really should have it. He put up with Ezra for years and took care of him when he was sick,” Bonnie said.
“You did earn it. You’ve done without things other girls had, and you’ve had to work for everything you needed—and so did I,” Vivien told her.
“Why’d you marry him?” Bonnie asked. “Did you love him? Was he charming? Did he make you feel good about yourself? What drew you two together?”
There was a long silence before Vivien answered. “I was in one of my phases when I thought I wanted to live in the wilds. Ezra was not charming. He was crude and downright salty, but he had a ranch, and at that time I didn’t want to go back to Texas or Kentucky. I wanted to settle down and have a family, and Ezra wanted a son. I didn’t love him, but we tolerated each other fairly well until you were born. I never went back to the ranch after I gave birth to you. He packed up all my personal things and had them shipped back to where my mother was living at the time. I left the hospital with you in my arms, a bus ticket, and a checkbook with a deposit equal to the prenup agreement, which was ten thousand dollars.”
“Did you know I had two half-sisters?” she asked.
“Of course, I did,” Vivien sighed. “He never mentioned them, but that’s a small community down there in the canyon, so I knew.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bonnie could feel anger rising up from her toes. “I had a right to know that, don’t you think?”
“What good would it have done? I didn’t know where they were living or even what their names were,” Vivien answered. “And I damn sure didn’t want to know their mothers. From what I heard, they were both on the hoity-toity side.”
“Why didn’t you ask for half the ranch?” Bonnie tried to push the anger down, but it didn’t work.
“I signed a prenup. If I didn’t produce a son, then I got ten grand and a bus ticket out of the canyon,” she answered. “Figured I had a fifty-fifty chance, and I lost the bet.”
“So I’m just the by-product of a bet?” Bonnie’s voice went all high and squeaky.
“I know that tone, and I don’t like it, so goodbye.” Vivien ended the call.
Bonnie wanted to throw the phone at the wall, but she shoved it into her hip pocket and stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair over. She stomped across the kitchen floor to the back door, didn’t even look back at the chair or the remainder of the toast and her half-empty cup of coffee on the table.
She’d wanted to talk to her mother about these feelings she had for Rusty, but the conversation had sure enough taken a different path. “So, Mama, the ultimate love ’em and leave ’em married Ezra for money and security, not love,” she fumed as she got into her old truck and drove out to the hay field. “She hasn’t changed much, except she’s given up on security, and now it’s a good time she looks for. Even at her age now, she’s always looking out for thrills, and when she gets bored with whoever is providing her with drama and fun, she goes on the prowl for another one.”
Rusty was in the adjoining field, and although she couldn’t see his face, she wondered if he was as angry as she was. Or maybe he was using his man powers and simply putting it out of his mind, like brushing a piece of lint from the shoulder of his jacket. Sweet Jesus! She had to persuade him to stay throughout the summer and fall at the very least.
Bonnie parked her truck, rolled down the windows, and was still mumbling to herself when she opened the door to the cab of the tractor. A blast of heat that had the faint aroma of sweat and the smell of dogs hit her in the face. She hopped up into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and adjusted the air conditioner.