Read Daisies in the Canyon for Free Online Page B

same with the table and it worked.
    The next thing that came out of the duffel bag was an oversized case of CDs. She flipped through them until she found the ones by Travis Tritt and started to take one out. She stopped and stared at the picture that reminded her so much of Cooper.
    “No! Not these. Not today,” she said. Instead she chose Blake Shelton. She wiggled her shoulders to the music when it started and wondered if Cooper Wilson liked country music. What kind of dancer would he be? She imagined herself with those big strong arms around her. One around her waist, maybe dipping down lower until it rested on her butt; the other with his fingers laced with hers as they swayed to the music. She inhaled deeply and imagined looking deeply into his eyes.
    “Dammit!” She stomped her foot and swore. She didn’t need to be thinking of anyone. Especially not the sheriff, who was also the neighbor, and she damn sure didn’t care what kind of music he liked. A vision of his swagger as he walked away from her in the cemetery appeared in spite of her determination to forget all about him.
    “Stop it right now. He’s too damned sexy not to have a girlfriend or maybe . . .” She stopped unpacking and blinked several times to get rid of the image.
    Wife? The voice in her head asked.
    She shook her head. “There’s no ring, so there is no wife. Dammit again! What am I doing? Get a hold of yourself, Malloy! Put a bullet in that biological clock that starts ticking every time you talk to Haley.”
    She hit the “Forward” button on the CD player again and sang along with several songs while she hung her meager supply of clothing in the closet. Two pairs of camo pants and three pairs of jeans occupied one end. A couple of sweaters and a long skirt on the other. Two or three shirts and a little black dress with a jacket, just in case she had to go somewhere important. Her combat boots would have to be cleaned up and polished before she set them on the floor beside her cowboy boots and one pair of high-heeled shoes.
    She picked up a long, hard plastic case and very gently put it on the bed. She didn’t need to open it to see what was inside, but she did anyway. There was her history right there in the gun case. Her mother’s pump shotgun, all cleaned and ready for use, not that it had done a damn bit of good when those three drug addicts came into the doughnut shop and killed her when there was only $110 and change in the cash register.
    The .22 rifle was a perfect match to Haley’s. The two girls had gotten the smart idea that they wanted to be hunters in their early teenage tomboy days. They’d asked for .22 rifles and for Haley’s dad and brothers to take them squirrel hunting with them. Haley was a natural just like her brothers and her father. She could aim, shoot, and a squirrel fell out of the tree every time. Not Abby. She could aim, but she couldn’t pull the trigger any more than she could eat the squirrels that Haley’s dad fixed on the grill.
    The Glock was hers and she fully intended to find a site at the back of the ranch, maybe up against the canyon wall, for target practice at least once a week when spring came. She’d finally learned to shoot in the army and had scored so high on target they’d thought about sending her to sniper training. But that had fallen through when she took the psych exam. She had found out early on that it was easy to shoot someone coming toward her with a pistol in one hand and a grenade in the other, but she had never been able to shake the nightmares when that had happened.
    When Blake started the last song on the CD, she sat down in the rocking chair and stared out the window. He sang about his granddaddy’s gun. She’d never known any of her grandparents. Her maternal ones had been gone before she was born. Cancer took them and her mother had always feared she’d contract it early and not live to see Abby raised.
    Tears rolled down her cheeks and left wet spots on her