Ezra had won. All three girls had lost. Plain and simple.
She couldn’t let him win. She just couldn’t.
In the second dream, there was snow on the ground, and both sisters, Abby Joy and Shiloh, stood on the porch as she drove away. She watched them in the mirror and realized that they would grow closer and closer to each other, while she’d just be a stranger who dropped in every few months or years to say hello.
Ezra had won a second time. He’d put the sisters together only to split them up again.
Bonnie punched her pillow several times. She couldn’t let him win, and she damn sure couldn’t leave her sisters behind. What if they needed her? What if she needed them like she had several times in the past months?
“Dammit!” she muttered as she wiped even more tears away with the edge of the bedsheet. “When did I put down such deep roots?”
About half angry with herself for letting herself become so vulnerable that she’d let other people deep into her heart, she threw back the covers and crawled out of bed.
She spent the entire day going back and forth from trying to convince herself that she was crazy for letting two dreams affect her whole life, to being honest with herself and admitting that they had been signs. She wasn’t a lot closer to making a final decision when the day ended, and she went back to the ranch house that evening. She took a long shower, dressed in clean jeans and a sleeveless shirt, and carried her baked beans out to the truck. The vehicle looked like crap on the outside, but it had new tires, bought with her first couple of weeks’ paychecks back in the winter. “You’ve been a faithful old friend. No way I’m goin’ to turn my back on you now.” She set her big bowl of baked beans on the seat beside her and put the pecan pie she’d whipped up the night before on the floorboard on the passenger side. “If you could talk, would you tell me to tell Rusty to get on down the road and not let the door hit him in the ass? Or would you tell me to settle down and call this place home.”
She shot a dirty look through the gate of the small family cemetery where Ezra was buried and drove on across the road to her sister’s place. She discovered that she had a choice—park right beside Rusty’s truck or go all the way to the end of the line of cars and trucks. No way was she going to let him think that he’d intimidated her. She pulled in beside his vehicle, got out, and circled around behind the bed of her truck. She opened the passenger door, and suddenly both Waylon and Cooper were right there to help. One picked up the pie and the other the beans.
She caught a quick glimpse of Rusty sitting in the shadows when she mounted the porch steps, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Hello, everyone.”
“Miz Bonnie.” A few of the hired hands tipped their hats.
“Howdy.” A couple more raised a beer bottle.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Rusty didn’t do either one, which told her that he was still every bit as angry as she was. She passed Waylon and Cooper coming through the kitchen door on their way back out to the porch. Abby Joy and Shiloh were busy at the stove, so Bonnie grabbed an apron from a hook, slipped it over her head, and asked what she could do to help.
“The corn bread should be done.” Shiloh pointed at the stove. “If you’ll get it out of the oven and cut it into squares, we should be ready to put it on the table and call everyone in for supper. The pie looks amazing. Thanks for bringing it. Abby Joy made a cobbler, and I whipped up a cream puff cake, so we should have plenty.”
“I’ll get a few glasses of tea poured up,” Abby Joy said.
“I assume we’re doing this buffet style?” Bonnie shoved her hands into two oven mitts and pulled the big pan of corn bread from the oven.
“Yep, and before all those guys get in our way, tell me what’s going on with you and Rusty. He’s pouting and you’ve got that look on your face that you had right after Ezra’s funeral,” Abby Joy said.
“Waylon said they’re fighting,” Shiloh informed her older sister.
“Over what?” Abby Joy asked.
“The dogs,” Bonnie answered.
“Why would you fight over the dogs? Didn’t Ezra leave them to Rusty in his will?” Abby Joy clamped a hand over her mouth. “Is he moving off the ranch? Good God, girl, what will you do?”
“She’s tough.” Shiloh picked up a knife and cut the pie into ten pieces. “She’ll hire a new foreman and keep runnin’ the place. Waylon said he offered him a job, so if he leaves, the dogs will just be across the road.”
“That’s not why we’re really fighting.” Bonnie sighed. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it all day long while I sat in a tractor. It’s just something to fight about because neither of us will face our feelings.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Shiloh asked.
“That we’re attracted to each other and have been for months,” Bonnie blurted out.
Shiloh winked at Abby Joy.
“What’s the winking all about?” Bonnie cut the corn bread and made a pyramid of it on a platter with the squares.
“We saw the attraction between the two of you the first week we were at the ranch,” Abby Joy told her.
“We’ve just been waiting for y’all to figure it out for yourselves,” Shiloh added. “So, give us the short version of what caused the fight.” She carried a bowl of coleslaw to the dining room table.
“We’ve been arguing about me selling the ranch for a week now. And now he’s saying that he might as well leave, since it’ll be hard to find a job on a ranch in the wintertime. Then he said he was taking the dogs. I don’t want him to leave, and I’m terrified about putting down roots. What if I got my mama’s genes and after six months me and Rusty got ourselves in a relationship, and then I decided that I wanted to sell out and leave. He was good to teach us and help us learn, and Ezra was a sumbitch for going back on his word about leavin’ the ranch to Rusty.”
“Then why are you arguing with yourself about selling it to him?” Shiloh asked.
“Hell, if I know.” Bonnie shrugged. “I’m so damned confused I don’t know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch as my mama used to say.” She went on to tell them about the two dreams.
“The dogs just gave you something to argue about when you’re really angry with yourselves because you can’t figure out what it is you want to do and why. And, honey, I believe in dreams. Mama used to tell me that God has visited folks in dreams since the beginning of time, and when He speaks, we should listen,” Abby Joy said.
Cooper came into the kitchen, walked up behind Abby Joy, and slipped his arms around her. “It sure smells good in here. Is it about time to call in the hungry guys?”
Abby Joy turned around and kissed him on the cheek. “Bonnie will have the corn bread on the table in about five seconds, so go on and tell them it’s ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Cooper bent and brushed a kiss across his wife’s lips. “And thanks to all three of you ladies for all you’ve done.”
Bonnie had barely set the platter of corn bread on the table when the men started filing inside the house. Rusty was the last one in the line, and he stood back against the wall. Waylon removed his cowboy hat and bowed his head. The rest of the cowboys did the same.