CHAPTER ONE

“Do you remember that old country song, “Tequila makes her clothes fall off?” That is pretty much how I was conceived from all I can tell from the few questions my mother would answer. Homecoming queen, Elizabeth Lorranie Evans, high school graduation night in the back of a pickup truck doing tequila shots with the boy’s baseball team. One thing led to another and nine months later I came along. When I used to ask my mother who my father was, before I gave up asking stupid questions, she would just smile and shrug, which I took to mean there were multiple possible candidates. She had left Berkshire Michigan and came to my Aunt Connie’s as soon as her belly began to swell, and I was born in Texas on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. I still have a picture of my mother at eighteen, blond haired and beautiful in a ten-gallon hat leaning against a broken-down fence, her belly with me inside it out to here, a big smile on her face and a Lone Star beer in her hand. In the spirit of my conception, she named me Sunrise, after the old Eagles song Tequila Sunrise, but everybody has always called me Sunny.

My mother, a doting parent that she was not, had a tendency to disappear for months or even a year or two at a time 2 only returning to Connie’s ranch when she was broke or beaten up or between men. I hadn’t seen her much over the years and when I did see her, we never seemed to have anything to talk about or

say to each other, I got all my love and support as I grew up from my Aunt Connie. My twenty-seventh birthday happens to be today, and my mother is supposed to show up, but absolutely nobody thinks she really will, the string of broken promises made by her over the years could reach to the moon and back easily.

Aunt Connie is a rangy washed-out blond in her mid-fifties with wrinkles on her face and a wide-open smile. She married young and her husband died less than a year later and left her a 20,000-acre ranch in Texas that she’s run by herself ever since. She takes in stray dogs, stray cats, and stray people, which is why I grew up there and I’m back visiting, it’s always been my home base and probably always will be. I’m a singer of sorts, I’ll probably never have a hit record or anything, but I’ve got a good enough voice for the bar circuit and while I’m no Eric Clapton I get along on my old Gibson guitar well enough to make a decent living.

As I pull my Jeep Wrangler off the main road and through the ranch gate with Circle C Ranch burned into it with a branding iron, I think about all the times I’ve returned to Aunt Connie’s place wounded or hurt from a bad breakup, a job-related disappointment or even just because I miss the battered ranch house and the woman inside. Maybe I’m not so different from my mother after all, although I never touch tequila and I’m religious about birth control.

The ranch is almost six miles from the main road, a dusty

track with the typical Texas scenery of sagebrush and grass and low rolling hills. There were scattered bunches of cows grazing, mostly Herefords or Angus but with an occasional longhorn that Connie had acquired because she thought every Texas ranch should have some. I can see the old house in the distance, it looks like it belongs on a movie set, it is so stereotypical of what a western ranch house from back in the cowboy days should look like. It’s made from big logs with a front porch the whole width of the house and halfway down each side. There is a huge set of elk antlers on the peak above the door that Connie shot herself and a half a dozen rocking chairs spread out here and there for people to set in after the chores are done.

My Aunt Connie is pretty stereotypical as well, I’ve never seen her in anything other than jeans and cowboy boots with her yellow-blond hair pulled into a ponytail and stuffed under her cowboy hat, and when she rides the range checking out cattle, she wears a single action .45 Army Colt on her hip with an old Henry carbine in her saddle scabbard. She made me learn to shoot too, and although I don’t wear a .45 on my hip I do have a little .38 Special that I carry in the glove box of my Jeep just in case I need it and it’s come in handy a couple of times on the road too, discouraging would be Romeos that think because I’m a woman alone performing in bars I am willing to perform other things in the parking lot as well.

Most men are pigs with a very few exceptions, and one that I

used to think was an exception but acquired pig status years ago was parked in Aunt Connie’s driveway as I pulled up. Jess Hanniford’s blue one-ton four-wheel drive Chevy sat dust covered and dirty between the house and the barn. Jess and I had gone to high school together, the Hanniford’s were Aunt Connie’s closest neighbors, so Jess and I had ridden to school together most days, the twenty mile trek a morning ritual for years. We’d been childhood friends, ramming around the two ranches on horseback or his old beat-up Jeep raising as much Hell as we could. Jess was a star athlete in high school and had multiple scholarship offers from colleges for football or baseball, but instead he had traveled for a few years on the rodeo circuit, riding bulls and wild horses. He had a drawer full of gold belt buckles, almost as many as the number of bones he’d broken to acquire them.

When his father had died suddenly of a stroke, he’d dropped out of the rodeo circuit and taken over running the family ranch. His mother had died a year later, leaving just him and his younger brother Ray to manage the sprawling H&H Ranch. I hadn’t seen Jess in a couple of years, I’d been on the road, and he’d been running a 22,000-acre spread which didn’t leave him much time for socializing.

“Well, if it ain’t Dolly Parton,” the rough male voice spoke from the porch, “as I live and breathe.” “My boobs aren’t that big,” I threw my duffel up onto the porch hard enough he had to step aside to keep from getting hit, “I’m more Faith Hill size.” “Either

one of them I’d like to see naked,” he smiled his trademark smile that most women seemed to find irresistible, but I just found irritating, “or even you for that matter.” “Been there done that,” I shrugged, “I wasn't that impressed.” “Oh man that hurts,” he clutched his chest as if he’d been shot, “we could go out to the barn over there and you could slip out of those jeans, and I could see if I could impress you.”

I felt a little flutter in my stomach, well maybe a little lower, Jess was joking probably, but if I agreed to a little trip to the barn to call his bluff, I wasn’t 100% sure he wouldn’t take me up on it. “Cheryl Jean wouldn’t like that,” I said instead. “Cheryl Jean is old news,” he smiled again, “haven’t seen her in a couple of months.” “So, who is sharing your king-sized bed now cowboy?” I asked. “Nobody, it’s empty just waiting for you,” he pushed his cowboy hat back, “you interested?”

“Not even one little bit,” I shook my head, “that mattress must be about used up by now.” “You agree and I’ll go buy a new mattress,” Jess said, “and some new silk sheets.” “Pass,” I said, stepping up on the porch, “but if you promise not to grab my ass, I’ll give you a hug.”

“Can’t promise that” he chuckled and threw his arms around me, “good to see you Sunny,” he squeezed me so hard I couldn’t breathe, “it’s been kind of dull around here without you.” “I doubt that” I said, “how’s Ray doing?” “Pretty good,” he turned me loose but not before he grabbed my ass and squeezed anyway, “he’s

over to Milford looking at a breeding bull, but he’ll be here for your party.”

“Not a party,” I groaned, “do you remember what happened the last time?” “I don’t think birthday party brawls are that uncommon in Texas,” Jess smiled, “nobody went to the hospital after all.” “Happy Birthday to me,” I said, “no fatalities.” “Besides,” Jess grabbed me again, “it’s our tenth anniversary too, remember you and me naked down at Chandler’s Creek on your seventeenth birthday?” “Let go of me you moron,” I shoved against his chest with no results what-so-ever, the man was solid muscle. “We’re not celebrating that.” “We could go back to the scene of the crime,” his lips whispered in my ear, “a little skinny dipping, a little Jack Daniels, you know see what comes up. “Aunt Connie voice spoke from behind us, “If you two are gonna do it right here on the porch let me get a blanket to throw over you so I don’t have to watch.” “We are not doing any such thing,” I finally pushed away from Jess, “he’s just being his usual obnoxious self.”

“Hell,” Aunt Connie snorted, “half the gals in three damn counties would disagree with you on that one.” “Obviously they don’t know him as well as I do,” I said, picking up my duffel, “of course since he only dates girls with double digit IQs, and a 38 double D bra size or bigger it’s no surprise they find him irresistible.” “Hey, hey,” Jess protested, “that ain’t true!” “Really? What do Cyndi Barnes, Arlene Turner, Becky Sandoff and Cheryl

Jean all have in common?” “Well,” Jess pretended to scratch his head, “I don’t know, they’re all blond?” “None of them naturally,” I snorted, “or probably their boobs either.”

“If you two wanna quit jawing at each other, I’ve got lunch made,” Aunt Connie interrupted, “and a couple of homemade pies for dessert.” “You don’t have to tell me twice,” I said, “I haven’t had anything to eat since Durango.” “I’ll go along,” Jess agreed, “I haven’t had any homemade pie in quite a spell.” “Got another surprise for you,” Aunt Connie said, “your mom is here.”

“Happy Birthday baby,” the blond-haired blue-eyed woman got up out of her chair and gave me a hug, “you’re looking good.” “Thanks mother,” I hugged her as well and then stepped back, “you are too.” And it was true, she was looking good, fantastic even, the last time I’d seen her over two years ago she had been fresh off another breakup or marriage or whatever she’d been in, and she’d been forty pounds overweight with bags under her eyes and bruises courtesy of whatever man she’d been with. Today she looked ten years younger than her forty-four years, skin perfect, eyes bright and shining and larger cleavage than I remembered under her expensive cocktail dress.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jess said, never one to miss a chance to charm a woman, “you look good enough to eat.” “Careful young man,” my mother smiled her patented smile which was just as good as Jess’s, “you’ll make a middle-aged woman blush.” “Middle aged?” Jess clutched his chest as if he was having a

heart attack, “my God I was worried you weren’t twenty-one yet and I wouldn’t be able to ask you out for a drink.” “Enough with the comedy routine you two,” I interrupted them, “I’m about to starve to death, can we eat now?”