“Who told you that I’m selling out when I inherit the ranch?” She frowned.
“Of all y’all, you are the one who’d never make a rancher. You’re the hardest working of the three and you soaked up what I’ve taught you, but I can see it in your eyes…” He took a deep breath.
“You can’t see anything in my eyes,” she argued. “I’m the best damn poker player among all of us. Get out the cards, and I’ll prove it to you.”
“No, thanks. I’m going to hold on to the five bucks I won tonight,” Rusty said. “But, honey, you’ll light a shuck out of here so fast at the end of this year that your sisters will wonder if you were ever even here. You never intended on staying any longer than you have to.”
“Bullshit!” Bonnie smarted off. “You don’t know me at all, and it would take more than six months to figure out a damn thing about me. I’ll tell you this much, though, when and if I do sell this ranch, you better have more than five dollars in your pocket.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been saving for a few years, and I’ve got good credit.”
Bonnie glared at him for several seconds and then smiled. “Maybe I won’t sell it at all. It will be mine to do with whatever I damn well please, and since it adjoins Abby Joy’s place, and is right across the road from Shiloh’s, I may divide it between the two of them.”
Let Mr. Smarty-Cowboy roll that idea around in his brain. Bonnie had no intentions of doing such a thing, but if Rusty wanted to play hard ball, she’d get out the bat and catcher’s mitt.
“I’ll talk to Cooper and Waylon, and buy it from them,” Rusty said.
“I may look like I don’t know anything to you, but, honey, I do know how to hire a lawyer that will put it in writing that my sisters can’t sell it to anyone, and especially not you.” She flashed an even meaner look at him.
Rusty grinned and smiled at her in a condescending way that she’d never seen before. “I figure you’ll be gone long before you have to make those decisions. I’ve seen the antsy in you lately. You won’t last six more months. I’m going to bed. You better be up early in the morning. We’re going to be in the hay field when the sun comes up. With the spring rain we had, it looks like it might be a good one.”
“Not me.” She yawned. “Ezra’s rules said that I don’t have to do one thing but be here. I get a paycheck every week whether I lift a finger or not. Remember what the will said? So tomorrow morning I plan to sleep in as long as I want, and then maybe do my toenails. Oh, and you can get your own breakfast, too. I’ll have a bowl of cereal when I decide to get up.”
Chapter Two
Ezra hadn’t believed in spending money on what he called frivolous things, so the old ranch house did not have central heat and air. A fireplace provided warmth in the winter, and a couple of window units worked well enough to keep the temperature out of the triple digits in the summer. The small bunkhouse where Rusty stayed was about the same, but it only had one window unit, and it only cooled his bedroom.
He paced the floor from the living room with bunk beds lining three of the walls, to the kitchen, through his bedroom, going from hot to cool several times. He was so angry with himself for letting Bonnie get under his skin. If her mother was anything at all like her then he couldn’t blame Ezra for sending her away. Damned women—all of the species anyway—and damn Ezra for not letting him have the ranch like he’d said he would.
You want it, work for it. Ezra’s gruff old voice popped back into his head.
“I did,” Rusty growled.
Rusty hadn’t grown up in the lap of luxury. He’d worked hard for everything he ever had. He’d gone into foster care when he was so little that he didn’t even remember his parents. He was told that they both went to prison on drug charges and had died before he was in school. He ran away from the last one when he was fourteen, lied about his age, and got a job on a ranch. He’d been doing that kind of work ever since. Ezra had lured him away from Jackson Bailey after Rusty had been working over at the Lonesome Canyon Ranch a couple of years.
“We even had central air and heat in the bunkhouse over there, but Ezra paid better, and he hinted that since he didn’t have a son to leave his ranch to, that I would inherit this place someday.” He opened the ancient and rusted refrigerator and took out a gallon of milk.
He poured a glassful and continued to talk to himself. “Ezra demanded more hours out of me, but I didn’t mind the work, since I was getting a paycheck and got plenty of food, and I had the run of the bunkhouse. He even let me decide who to hire for summer help, and…” He sighed. “Malloy Ranch would be mine when Ezra passed on.”
He stared out the kitchen window after he finished drinking his milk. A huge moon hung in the sky right over the bunkhouse. Stars danced around it, and a few clouds shifted from one side to the other, blocking out a little light some of the time. All three dogs had rushed inside the second they had the opportunity, and Martha nosed his bare foot.
“One of you should stay at the house and protect Bonnie,” he scolded them and then laughed. “Though she’s tough enough that she don’t need anyone to take care of her. What do you think, Vivien? Can she chew up railroad spikes and spit out staples? That’s what Ezra said about her mama.” He stooped down and scratched the ears of the part Catahoula dog that had been named for Bonnie’s mother. The dog yipped and went to stretch out on the cool hardwood floor with Martha right behind her. Polly, the dog named for Shiloh’s mother, stuck around begging for doggy treats.
“Lot of help you are,” Rusty muttered as he gave her a Milk-Bone.
* * *
When the alarm went off the next morning, he rolled over to see three sets of eyes peering up at him over the side of the bed. “How’d it get to be morning so quick?”
All the dogs turned around and raced toward the door. He pushed back the covers and hurried across the large living room to let them out. In another week, there would be ten hired hands living here, mostly teenage boys he’d have to shake out of the bunk beds lining the walls every morning. When the boys arrived, the dogs would be perfectly happy to sleep outside.
Rusty dressed in work jeans, a faded chambray shirt that he left open at the throat, a faded T-shirt showing underneath, and a pair of tan work boots. He made himself a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, poured a thermos full of coffee and filled a large cooler with sweet tea and ice. Then he put together three bologna sandwiches and shoved them into a plastic bag.
When he reached the field that morning, the sun was just rising over the eastern crest of the canyon.
“Sunrise Ranch,” he muttered. “I’m going to own this ranch if I have to mortgage my soul and all three of those dogs to get it, and I’m going to rename the place Sunrise Ranch. It has a good ring to it, and Ezra can just weep and moan about it. He should’ve done right by me.”
Don’t you dare change the name of this place. Ezra’s gruff old voice scolded him. It started off as Malloy Ranch back at Texas statehood days, and by damn, it will stay that way until the crack of doom.