Sunrise Ranch - Carolyn Brown Page 0,8

his shoulder but still didn’t turn around.

You’ve met your match. Her mother was in her head again, and this time she was laughing out loud. Bonnie heaved a long sigh and wondered if he’d felt the same attraction and little shocks of desire that she did when they were together. If so, why was he holding back? Should she talk to her sisters about the way she felt?

She shook her head as she finished off the last sip of her tea. No, she wouldn’t talk to anyone about anything until she sorted it all out herself. She might find that the old saying about being out of sight, out of mind worked in this instance.

Chapter Three

Rusty had no intentions of going to the Sugar Shack on Saturday night, not after spending the whole day sitting in a tractor seat. He was dog-tired and ready to throw back in Ezra’s old recliner and watch Longmire on television. Ezra had bought the DVDs of both that and Justified, and Rusty had watched them many times. But neither show held his attention, and he was bored. He’d gotten soft in the past six months. Any old time he wanted company he could go up to the ranch house and visit with the sisters.

He went into the bathroom where he stared at his reflection in the mirror. Light brown hair that needed cutting, a couple of days’ worth of scruff on his face. “I am a loner,” he whispered. “I don’t need a gaggle of women around me to keep me company.”

He picked up his razor and shaved, then took a shower and put on a pair of pajama pants. He opened a can of chili, poured it into a bowl, and warmed it in the microwave. Once that was done, he poured himself a glass of sweet tea, and carried both to the living room. He set it on the end table beside his recliner and settled in to watch something on Netflix. At the end of the first episode of The Ranch, he realized he hadn’t been paying enough attention to it to even know what had happened, so he got up and turned off the television.

Feeling cooped up, he went outside to sit on the porch and pet the dogs, but they weren’t anywhere to be found. “Probably at the ranch house,” he muttered. “Since women came onto the ranch, they’re gettin’ plumb spoiled.”

So are you. Ezra’s voice was back in his head. Since them girls came around, you’ve gotten spoiled to having company all the time.

“Maybe so,” Rusty agreed. “So what?”

Ezra didn’t have an answer for that.

Rusty walked from the bunkhouse to the ranch house and found the dogs lyin’ on the porch—right where he figured they would be. Martha opened one eye and yipped one time. Vivien and Polly didn’t even bother to do that much.

“I’m going to the Sugar Shack,” he announced and headed back to the bunkhouse to get dressed. “Maybe I’ll feel better after a few beers and when I dance some leather off of my boots.”

* * *

Bonnie’s thoughts all through the day had been constantly on the ranch and the insane attraction she’d felt for Rusty. It seemed even stronger since they were the only ones left on the ranch. She had no intentions of ever doing anything about it, so why wouldn’t it just disappear? Too bad there wasn’t a delete button for times like this, or for just time in general. Push the button and the chemistry she felt for her foreman would disappear. Push it again, and a whole year would disappear. She’d be on a beach somewhere in a cute little bar—hell, she might even own the bar—drinking a margarita and dancing with handsome beach boys.

She’d been restless after she finished cutting hay all day, so she’d gone to the grocery store in Claude to buy food for the week. She was pushing her cart toward the checkout counter when the message came over the PA system saying that the store would be closing in fifteen minutes. “Bring your purchases to the front of the store, please.”

Evidently she was the last remaining person in the store, because no one else was pushing a cart toward one of the three cashiers. Bonnie unloaded her cart onto the conveyor belt and then stuck the ranch credit card into the machine to pay for everything.

“Been a long day,” she said in way of conversation.

“Yep, and I can’t wait to get home, get my