Sunrise Ranch - Carolyn Brown Page 0,2

the kitchen. “Come July, Cooper says that we’ll be begging for rain and even a mosquito or two.”

“Not me.” Shiloh picked up the dirty glasses and the beer bottle and followed her sister. “This canyon grows mosquitoes as big as buzzards. I don’t believe that they’ll all be dead in a month. They’ll be hiding up in the rock formations, and they’ll swoop down on us and suck all our blood out when we’re not looking.”

Was the fact that her half-sisters had figured out love meant more to them than the ranch the sign she was looking for? Abby Joy had given up her right to the place when she married Cooper Wilson, a cowboy rancher whose land was right next to the Malloy Ranch. Shiloh had married Waylon Stephens, the cowboy who owned the ranch across the road from the Malloy place, just a few weeks ago. From what Bonnie could see, neither of her sisters had a single regret for the decision they’d made.

But finding love and settling down wasn’t the right thing for Bonnie. She was born to fly, not grow roots in the canyon, and by the time New Year’s Day rolled around, she would spread her wings and take off. Maybe she’d start with going to Florida or California to see the ocean. She loved bringing up the site for a little hotel in the panhandle of Florida and listening to the sound of the ocean waves.

“Wouldn’t it be something, after everything is said and done, if Rusty bought this place when I sell it?” Bonnie picked up the pitcher of lemonade and a platter of cookies and carried them to the living room.

“Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if all Rusty’s children were all daughters?” Shiloh plopped down on the sofa and picked up two cookies.

“Serve Ezra right for throwing away his own daughters.” Abby Joy eased down into a rocking chair and reached for a cookie. “Y’all ever wonder why he brought us back anyway. He didn’t want us when we were born because we weren’t boys, so why would he even give us a chance to inherit his ranch?”

At least once a week, the sisters had an evening at one place or another, and tonight was Bonnie’s turn. She might be the one who’d showed up at the ranch six months before with her things crammed into plastic bags, but she knew how to be a good hostess.

Shiloh raised her glass. “To all of us for not killing each other, like Ezra probably wanted.”

“Hear, hear!” Bonnie said as all three sisters clinked their glasses together.

* * *

Rusty Dawson stopped at the small cemetery on the way home from his weekly poker game with several of the area ranchers. That night Cooper, Waylon, and Jackson Bailey had been over at Cooper’s place, and they’d all four played until almost midnight. Rusty had walked away five dollars richer, which was unusual for him. Usually, he was at least a dollar or two in the hole when the last hand was played.

He sat down on a bench that faced Ezra’s grave and stared at the inscription on the tombstone for a long time. By the light of the moon, it was just obscure dark lines. So much had happened in the six months since the man died and his daughters had showed up at the ranch. Pictures from the day of the funeral flashed through his mind. Abby Joy had arrived just seconds before the graveside service began. She’d shown up in full camouflage and combat boots, and she’d snapped to attention and nodded smartly when it was her turn to walk past the casket. He’d always wondered if maybe she was showing Ezra that she was every bit as brave and tough as any son he might’ve produced. Shiloh was already there, of course. She looked like she’d just walked away from a line dance in a bar like the Sugar Shack up on the other end of the Canyon—pearl snap shirt that hugged her curves, starched jeans, Tony Lama boots, and a black Stetson hat.

Bonnie, the youngest of the sisters, had put a little extra beat in his heart from the first time he laid eyes on her. She drove up in an old rattletrap of a truck with duct tape holding the passenger-side window together, tires so bald that he was amazed she hadn’t had a blowout on the trip and rusted-out fenders. She was wearing tight jeans, a leather jacket, and some