Sunrise Ranch - Carolyn Brown
Chapter One
Three little monkeys jumping on a bed.
The song echoed through Bonnie’s head, but it brought about a good memory. Her mother had read that book about the little monkeys to her so many times that Bonnie had memorized it before she was three years old and knew when Vivien left out a single word. Maybe the memory was so strong because her mama soon left off reading to her, and there weren’t many other books in their trailer house.
Bonnie smiled as she picked up her bottle of beer and took a long drink from it. “Three sassy sisters livin’ on a ranch,” she singsonged. “One got married and went away. Two sassy sisters livin’ on a ranch, one got married and went away. One sassy sister livin’ on a ranch”—she paused—“it’s mine now. All I have to do is sit still for another six months and it’s mine, and then I can sell it and go wherever I want. Whatever I decide I’ll never have to get up at five o’clock in the morning to feed cows in the cold or heat again. Do I go east or west? Both have a beach. All I need is a sign to point me in the right direction.”
The sun dipped below the crest of the Palo Duro Canyon, leaving streaks of purple, red, pink, and orange in its wake. Black Angus cattle grazed in the pasture between the Malloy ranch house and the horizon. A gentle breeze wafted the scent of red roses and honeysuckle across the porch.
The sun set every evening. Cattle roamed around the pastures in search of green grass every day. Flowers bloomed in June in the panhandle of Texas. Not a single sign in any of that.
“Hey, we’re here,” Abby Joy and Shiloh yelled at the same time as they came around the end of the house.
Bonnie looked up toward the fluffy white clouds moving slowly as the breeze shifted them across the sky. “Is this my sign?”
Six months before, the three half-sisters had showed up at the Malloy Ranch to attend Ezra Malloy’s funeral. He was the father they’d never met, the one who’d sent each of their mothers away when she’d given birth to a daughter instead of a son. Then he’d left a will saying that all three daughters had to come back to the Palo Duro Canyon and live together on his ranch for a year if they wanted a share of the Malloy Ranch. If one of them moved away for any reason—love, misery, contention with the other two sisters—then she got a small lump sum of money, but not a share of his prized two thousand acres of land at the bottom of the Palo Duro Canyon.
With both sisters now married and moved away in the last six months, Bonnie was the last one standing. All she had to do was live on the ranch until the end of the year, and every bit of the red dirt, cactus, wildflowers, and scrub oak trees belonged to her. If she moved away from the ranch early, for any reason, then the whole shebang went to Rusty Dawson, the ranch foreman and evidently the closest thing to a son that Ezra ever had. Unless that cowboy had enough money in his pocket or credit at the bank, he could forget owning the ranch, because Bonnie had full intentions of selling it to the highest bidder.
She’d liked Rusty from the first time she laid eyes on him. He’d taught her and her sisters how to run a ranch—at least what he could in six months. At first, he’d seemed resigned to the fact that one or all of Ezra’s daughters would own the place and had voiced his wishes to stay on as foreman at the end of a year. That had been the fun Rusty. After Abby Joy had married and left the ranch, Bonnie had seen a slight change in him—nothing so visible or even verbal, except for a hungry look in his eyes. Now that Shiloh had married Waylon and moved across the road to his ranch, he had changed even more.
Tall and just a little on the lanky side, he had dark hair, mossy green eyes that seemed even bigger behind his black-framed glasses, and a real nice smile. It didn’t matter how handsome he was, he was out of luck if he thought he could get rid of Bonnie and inherit the ranch. No, sir! She’d already given up six