Daisies in the Canyon by Carolyn Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

scratching her ears.”
    “What about ears?” Bonnie stepped out on the porch. She wore a stained work coat over her mismatched pajama pants and flannel shirt and cowboy boots on her feet.
    “Your mama is the bitch over there eating the last of the dog food,” Shiloh said.
    “My mama might not be a saint, but you ain’t got no right to be callin’ her a bitch,” Bonnie said stiffly.
    “I’m not. Ezra named his three dogs after our mothers. Mine is Polly. That would be the lazy old gal who’s now curling up on the rug in front of the door. Vivien is eating and this one who wants to be petted is Martha, Abby’s mama.”
    “The old bastard.” Bonnie sucked in a lungful of air and went back into the house.
    Abby followed her without saying another word and Martha tagged along behind her all the way into the bedroom, where she curled up in the recliner and went to sleep. Abby grabbed her bathroom gear with the intention of taking a shower, but the tub looked so good that she turned on the water and adjusted the temperature. She shucked her clothing, leaving them hanging on the nail beside the door, and slid into the warm, steamy water.
    “Oh. My. God!” she muttered, leaning on the sloped back and sinking down until nothing but her head was sticking up. The only thing better would be a Jacuzzi in a hotel suite with a cowboy like Cooper.
    She opened her eyes wide and focused on the water faucets. She was not going to think about Cooper anymore. She’d gone for a whole hour without letting him into her mind so it wouldn’t be that difficult.
    She closed her eyes again, and as if on cue, a picture of him at the cemetery with that black hat pulled down over his eyes popped into her mind. She let her eyes drop to the way his butt filled out the jeans as he walked away from her in that sexy swagger. Mentally she brought him into the bathroom with her and watched him undress slowly, then slide into the bathtub with her.
    She blinked several times and then swore when the visual refused to leave. “Dammit to hell on a rusty poker. I can control this. I can and I will.”
    She banished every thought or picture from her mind and dozed, dreaming of a little girl peeking out of an upstairs window of a building. The child waved shyly a split second before the whole building went up in smoke and crumbled to the ground. Abby had given the command for the soldiers in her company to paint the building. The planes flying away had bombed it on her command and now that sweet little girl was dead. If she’d had a drop of parental instinct in her body, she would have sent someone inside to check for civilians, especially kids, before she gave the signal to light it up.
    She awoke with a start. The water had gone lukewarm, so she pulled the plug and crawled out, goose bumps dancing down her back as she tucked a towel around her body. Shiloh stepped out into the hallway and closed her door softly, nodded at Abby, and carried her own supplies into the bathroom. In seconds, the shower was running. More country music came from Bonnie’s room; this time it was Conway singing, “Goodbye Time.” No wait a minute—that was Blake Shelton’s voice, not Conway’s.
    Abby had watched the video of that song so many times it was burned in her memories. Be damned if Bonnie didn’t look like the girl in the video. Kind of rough and yet innocent at the same time when she looked up with those blue eyes. When the song ended, it started all over again. Had Bonnie said good-bye to some old boy back in Harlan, Kentucky, to come to Texas? Would he follow her?
    She shut the door to her room as the song started over for the third time. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought. If Bonnie had given up a man for this dream of having her own ranch, she wouldn’t budge as quickly as Abby had figured. One thing for sure—it was past time for her to say that it was good-bye time to those crazy feelings that Cooper had stirred up, so maybe the song