Sunrise Ranch - Carolyn Brown Page 0,31
the front of the church. He met her halfway back down the aisle and hugged her tightly to his chest.
“I’m the luckiest man alive this day,” he whispered.
“I’d say we’ve made our own luck,” she said. “Now let’s go get married so we can tell the whole world about this baby we’re going to have in four months.”
He tucked her free hand into his, and together, they stepped up in front of the preacher. She handed her bouquet to Shiloh and turned to face Rusty, just like they’d rehearsed, but the night before, she hadn’t looked so much like an angel straight from the courts of heaven. Suddenly, he was tongue-tied and was glad that he’d written his vows on a piece of paper.
* * *
The party for just the wedding party after the reception was held at the newly named Sunrise Ranch. While the ladies were in the bedroom helping Bonnie get out of her fancy lace dress and into a pair of jeans, Rusty slipped away and walked down to the cemetery. The wind whistled through the bare tree branches and blew powdery snow up from the ground, which chilled the bare skin on his face. He pulled the collar of his fleece-lined jacket up to keep his ears warm and bent his head against the cold.
The gate into the cemetery squeaked loudly as if it were competing with the noise of tree limbs rattling against each other. He wasn’t aware that the dogs had followed him until he had brushed away the snow and sat down on the bench in front of Ezra’s tombstone, and the three of them gathered around him.
“My faithful old friends.” He took time to pat each of them on the head with a gloved hand. “We’ve come together to tell him goodbye, haven’t we?”
He sat there for a full minute before he began to talk to the tombstone, which was half covered by a drift of snow. “I’m here again, Ezra. It was a year ago today that we put you in the ground, and I doubt that you would believe how much things have changed. Why you did what you did is still a mystery to me, but I have to admit, there’s three cowboys in this part of the canyon now who are mighty glad that you did it for whatever reason. When Abby Joy got married and left the ranch, the other two sisters came right here and talked to you. When Shiloh did the same, Bonnie came to talk to you. I figure now that everything is settled, it’s my turn.”
He patted the bench, and all three dogs jumped up on it with him.
“They never knew I saw them make their journey here, and I’ll never know what they said to you, but I don’t imagine any one of them was telling you that she loved you. I may never come back here again except when it’s time to mow and keep the cemetery cleaned up. I owe you that much. But this will be our last conversation. Abby Joy has a beautiful little son, and Shiloh will be having a boy in a few months, so you see if you’d kept either of them around, you would have had a grandson to leave your ranch to, and it would most likely remain the Malloy Ranch. Bonnie and I got married today, and we’re having a daughter. We just found out yesterday that it’s a girl, and we’re so excited about her. I don’t care if we have all girls or if they want to be ranchers when they grow up or not. I can’t imagine some of them not wanting to take over for me and Bonnie when we get old, but that will be their choice. One thing for damned sure, they won’t be sent out into the world to fend for themselves like your daughters were. They’ll be raised right here on Sunrise Ranch. And another thing just as sure, they will be loved.” Rusty ran out of words and sat silent for a time. “I just wanted to tell you that, Ezra, and to thank you for giving me a job, because now I have a family. Goodbye, now, and I don’t know why I should, after the way you treated folks while you were here, but I hope you find peace somewhere along your eternal journey, because you sure brought happiness to a lot of us, whether you intended to or not.”
He stood