Rescue Me

by Rachel Gibson

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  He looked up and gave her a tired smile that didn’t quite work its way to the wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes. “There you are, Sadie Jo.” He placed his hands on the table and rose, and it seemed to take him longer than normal. Her heart fell to her tight stomach as she moved toward him. Her father had always been a thin man. Tall. Long-limbed and high-waisted, but he’d never been gaunt. His cheeks were sunken and he looked like he’d aged about ten years since she’d seen him in Denver three years ago. “I expected you about an hour ago.”

  “I gave someone a ride into town,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his waist. He smelled the same. Like Lifebuoy and dust and the clean Texas air. He lifted one gnarled hand and patted her back. Twice. It was always twice, except on special occasions when she’d done something to garner three pats.

  “You hungry, Sadie girl?”

  “Starving.”

  “Grab a plate and sit down.”

  She dropped her arms and looked up into his face as a selfish fear settled on her shoulders like a thousand-pound weight. Her daddy was getting older. Looking every bit of his seventy-eight years. What was she going to do when he was gone? What about the JH? “You’ve lost weight.”

  He returned to his seat and picked up his fork. “Maybe a pound or two.”

  More like twenty.

  She moved to the stove across the room and dished herself rice and grabbed a piece of freshly baked bread. Other than raising a few sheep and Herefords for 4–H years ago, Sadie didn’t know a lot about the day-to-day running of a cattle ranch. And in the pit of her traitorous soul, down deep where she kept dark secrets, was the fact that she had no interest in knowing, either. That particular Hollowell love of the land had totally skipped her. She’d rather live in town. Any town. Even Lovett: population ten thousand.

  The screened back door slammed against the frame as Carolynn Parton stepped into the cookhouse. She squealed and threw her hands in the air, and except for the prairie skirt and ruffled blouse, she looked just like her sister. “Sadie Jo!” Sadie set her plate on the chipped counter a second before she was smashed against Carolynn’s big, soft bosom.

  “Lord, girl, it’s been a coon’s age.”

  Sadie smiled as Carolynn kissed her cheek. “Not quite.”

  After a few moments of chitchat, Carolynn took Sadie’s plate and loaded it with ribs. She poured a glass of sweet tea and followed Sadie across the room to the table. A few of the cowboys left, and she took a chair next to her father.

  “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,” Carolynn told Sadie as she set the tea on the table. Then she turned her attention to Clive. “Eat,” she ordered, then walked back across the room.

  Clive took a bite of cornbread. “What are your plans while you’re here?”

  “I have the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night and the wedding is at six on Saturday.” She took a bite of Carolynn’s Spanish rice and sighed. The warm comfort of the familiar settled in her stomach along with the rice. “I’m free all day tomorrow. We should do something fun while I’m here.” She thought about what she and her father had done together in the past. She took another bite and had to think hard. “Maybe shoot traps or ride over to Little Tail and shoot the breeze with Snooks.” She used to love to shoot traps with her daddy and ride the trail to Snooks. Not that she had that often. Usually if she nagged him, he’d make one of the hands take her.

  “Snooks is in Denver looking over some stock for me.” He took a long drink from his sweet tea. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Laredo.”

  She wasn’t even surprised. “What’s in Laredo?”

  “I’m taking Maribell down there to breed with a Tobiano stud named Diamond Dan.”

  Work came first. Come rain or shine, holiday or homecoming. She understood that. She’d been raised to understand, but . . . the JH employed a lot of people. A lot of people who were perfectly capable of dropping off a mare to be bred in Laredo. Or why not just have some of Diamond Dan’s semen shipped overnight? But Sadie knew the answer to the question. Her daddy was old and stubborn and wanted to oversee everything himself, that’s why. He had to see the live coverage with his own eyes to make sure he was getting the stud he paid for.

  “Will you make it back for the wedding?” She didn’t have to ask if he’d been invited. He was family, even if he wasn’t a blood relation, and even if her mama’s people really didn’t care for him.

  He shook his head. “I’ll be back too late.” He didn’t bother to look heartbroken. “Snooks should be home Sunday. We can ride over then.”

  “I have to leave Sunday morning.” She picked up a rib. “I have a closing Monday.” Renee could probably handle the closing just fine, but Sadie liked to be there just in case something unexpected came up. She paused with the rib in front of her face and looked into her daddy’s tired blue eyes. He was just a few years shy of eighty. He might not be around in another five years. “I can move appointments around and leave Tuesday.”

  He picked up his tea, and she realized she was holding her breath. Waiting like always. Waiting for him to show her a sign, a word or touch . . . anything, anything at all that he cared what she did. “No need to do that,” he said, and took a drink. Then in typical Hollowell fashion, he changed the subject away from anything that might touch on important. “How was your drive?”

  “Great.” She took a bite and chewed. Small talk. They were good at small talk. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. She suddenly wasn’t very hungry and set her rib on the plate. “There’s a black truck on the side of the road,” she said, and wiped her fingers on a napkin.

  “Could be one of Snooks’s.”

  “He wasn’t from around here and I dumped him off at the Gas and Go.”

  Her dad’s shaggy white brows lowered. “Lovett isn’t the same small town as when you were growing up. You have to be careful.”

  Lovett was almost exactly the same. “I was careful.” She told her father about taking the guy’s information. “And I threatened him with a stun gun.”

  “Do you have a stun gun?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll get your twenty-two out of the safe.” Which she supposed was her daddy’s way of saying he cared if a serial killer hacked her up.

  “Thanks.” She thought of Vince and his light green eyes, looking at her from the shadow of his ball cap. She didn’t know what had gotten into her when she’d asked him to take her to her cousin’s wedding. Her mother’s people were very conservative, and she didn’t know anything about him. For all she knew, he really could be a serial killer. Some sort of homicidal maniac, or worse.

  A Democrat.

  Thank God he’d turned her down, and thank God she’d never have to see Vincent Haven again.

  Chapter Four

  Sadie pulled the Saab into the Gas and Go and stopped beneath the bright lights of the gas pumps. A dull thump pounded her temples. The rehearsal dinner hadn’t been the complete hell she’d feared. Just a warm-up version for the following night.

  She got out of the car and pumped premium into her tank. She’d been right about one thing. All the other wedding attendants were about ten years younger than Sadie, and they all had boyfriends or were married. Some had children.

  The groomsman she walked down the aisle with was Boner Henderson’s cousin Rusty. She wasn’t sure if Rusty was his real name or a nickname. The only thing that was for sure was that the name fit him. He had red hair and freckles and was pale as a baby’s butt. He was about four inches shorter than Sadie and mentioned that maybe she should wear “flat shoes” to the wedding.

  As if.

  She leaned against the car and crossed her arms over her beige trench coat. A cool night breeze played with her high ponytail and she hugged herself against the chill. Her aunt Bess and uncle Jim had seemed genuinely happy to see her. During dessert, Uncle Jim st
ood and gave a really long speech about Tally Lynn. He began with the day his daughter was born and finished with how happy they all were that she was marrying her high school sweetheart, an all-around “great guy,” Hardy Steagall.

  For the most part, Sadie had evaded questions about her love life. It wasn’t until the dessert plates were cleared that her uncle Frasier’s wife, Pansy Jean, warmed to the topic. Thank God it had been several hours after cocktail time and Uncle Frasier had been tanked and talkative and he’d interrupted Pansy Jean with his stupid jokes. It was no secret that Frasier controlled his drinking by waiting until after five to tank up. It had been past eight when he’d unwittingly saved Sadie from Aunt Pansy Jean’s interrogation.

  The gas shut off and Sadie returned the nozzle to the pump. She couldn’t imagine getting married so young and to someone from high school. She hadn’t had a high school sweetheart. She’d been asked out, gone on some dates, but she’d never been serious about anyone.

  She screwed on the gas cap, then opened her car door and grabbed her purse from the seat. She’d had her first real relationship her freshman year at UT at Austin. His name had been Frank Bassinger, but everyone called him Frosty.

  Yeah, Frosty.

  He’d been beautiful, with sun-kissed hair and clear blue eyes. A true Texan, he’d played football and had been clean-cut, like a someday senator. He’d taken her virginity, and he’d made it so good, she’d gone back for more that very same night.

  They’d dated for almost a year and, in hindsight, he was probably the only real good guy she’d ever dated, but she’d been young and started to feel trapped and restless and wanted to move on from Frosty and Austin and Texas altogether.

  She’d broken his heart, and she’d felt bad about that, but she’d been young with a wide-open future. A future even more wide-open than the flat Texas plains she’d always known.

  The heels of her four-inch pumps tapped across the parking lot as she made her way to the front of the store. She wondered what had become of Frosty. Probably married to one of those perfect, perky Junior Leaguers, had two children, and worked in his father’s law firm. He probably had the perfectly perfect life.

  She moved between a white pickup and a Jeep Wrangler. After Frosty, she’d had a series of boyfriends at different universities. Only one of them had been what she’d consider a serious relationship. Only one of them had twisted and broken her heart like a pretzel. His name had been Brent. Just Brent. One name. Not two. No nickname, and she’d met him at UC Berkeley. He hadn’t been like any guy she’d ever known. Looking back now, she could see that he’d been a rebel without a clue, a radical without a cause, but in her early twenties, she hadn’t seen that. Hadn’t seen that there’d been nothing behind his dark, broody moods. The son of privilege with nothing but pretentious anger against “the system.” God, she’d been crazy for him. When he’d dumped her for a black-haired girl with soulful eyes, Sadie had thought she was going to die. Of course she hadn’t, but it had taken her a long time to get over Brent. These days, she was much too smart to love so blindly. She’d been there and done that and had no interest in emotionally unavailable men. Men like her dad who shut down when anyone got too close.

  She opened the door to the Gas and Go, and a little chime rang somewhere in the store. Her nostrils were assaulted by the smell of popcorn, hot dogs, and pine cleaner. She moved down a row of chips to the glass refrigerator cases. Her last relationship had been short-lived. He’d been successful and handsome, but she’d had to kick him to the curb because his sexual technique hadn’t improved after three months. Three frustrating months of him falling asleep before he finished the job. She didn’t need a man for his money. She needed him for things she couldn’t do for herself like lift heavy objects and knock boots.

  Simple, but it was always shocking how many guys weren’t that great at knocking boots. Which was just baffling. Wasn’t sex their number one job? Even above actually having a job?

  She grabbed a six-pack of Diet Coke and slid past a middle-aged cowboy reaching for a case of Lone Star in the next cooler. Beneath his hat, his big mustache looked somewhat familiar, but she didn’t stop for a close look. She was tired, and after the rehearsal dinner, preceded by lunch with the Parton twins, she was talked and tuckered out.

  Tuckered out? Lord, she hadn’t used, or even thought of, that expression in a raccoon’s age. Maybe a raccoon and a half even.

  She grabbed a bag of Chee-tos and set it by the six-pack on the counter in front of Luraleen Jinks. If it was possible, Mrs. Jinks had even more wrinkles. She wore a neon pink blouse and pink skull earrings with jeweled eyes.

  “Well Sadie Jo,” she greeted, her voice as rough as sixty-grit sandpaper.

  “Hello, Mrs. Jinks.”

  “You’re just as pretty as your mama.”

  She guessed she should return the compliment, but that would require lying skills she didn’t possess. Even for a native. “Thank you, Mrs. Jinks. I really like your skull earrings.” Which was still a lie but not as big as telling Luraleen she was pretty.

  “Thank you. One of my gentlemen gave them to me.”

  She had gentlemen? As in more than one?

  “How’s your daddy?” She scanned the Diet Coke and placed it in a plastic bag. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

  “He’s good.” She set her Gucci bag on the counter and pulled out her wallet.

  “I hear you’re in town for Tally Lynn’s weddin’.”

  “Yes. I just came from the rehearsal dinner. Tally looked very happy.” Which was true. Happy and glowing with young love.

  She rang up the Chee-tos. “Vince told me you helped out and gave him a ride into town last night.”

  She looked up. “Vince? The guy stranded out on the highway?” The one who’d turned down the chance to escort her to her cousin’s wedding? The last guy on the planet she’d hope to see again?

  “Yeah. He’s my nephew.”

  Nephew? When she’d left the JH earlier, she’d noticed that his truck was no longer on the side of the road.

  Luraleen hit total. “He’s in the back puttin’ boxes away for me. I’ll get him.”

  “No really I—”

  “Vince!” she called out, then broke out in a coughing fit.

  Sadie didn’t know whether to run or to jump across the counter and pound on the woman’s back. Running really wasn’t an option, and she wondered if she pounded on Luraleen’s back, would smoke signals pour out of her ears with each thump?

  From the back of the store she heard the slight squeak of a door and the heavier thud of boot heels a second before the deep rumble of masculine voice. “You okay, Aunt Luraleen?”

  Sadie glanced to the left, at the tall dark presence moving toward her. A shadow of black scruff covered the bottom half of his face, making his eyes a more vivid light green. If it was even possible, he looked bigger and badder than he had the night before. Without his ball cap, he was even hotter. His dark hair was cut short, about an inch shy of a crew cut.

  He stopped when he saw her. “Hello, Sadie.”

  He’d remembered her name. “Hi, Vincent.” And even though he obviously found her resistible, she once again fought the ridiculous urge to twist her hair and check her lip gloss. Which just proved to her that she needed to start thinking about a new relationship. This time with a man who was good in the sack. “I didn’t see your truck on the side of the highway. So I take it you got a tow.”

  “Everyone calls me Vince.” He continued behind the counter and stood next to his aunt. “I got a tow this morning. The alternator went out, but it should be fixed by Monday.”

  No doubt the guy in front of her would know what to do and get the job done. Guys like him always knew the ins-and-outs of bed. Or against the wall, on the beach in Oahu, or in the car overlooking L.A. Not that she knew. Of course not. “So you’re here until Monday?” And why was
she thinking of Vince and the sack anyway? Maybe because he looked so sackable in his brown T-shirt stretched across his hard chest.

  He slid a gaze to his aunt. “I’m not sure when I’m shipping out.”

  Sadie pushed a twenty across the counter. She looked up into Vince’s light green eyes within his dark, swarthy face. He just didn’t seem like a small-town kind of guy. Especially a small-town Texas kind of guy. “Lovett isn’t quite the Seattle area.” She guessed him to be in his midthirties. The women of Lovett would love him, but she wasn’t sure how many of those women were single. “There isn’t a lot to do.”

  “Well, I . . . I beg to differ with you,” Luraleen sputtered as she made change. “We don’t have big museums and fancy art galleries and such, but there’s lots of goin’s and doin’s.”

  Sadie had obviously hit a nerve. So she didn’t argue that there was little in Lovett to go and do. She took her change and put it in her wallet. “I only meant that it’s a family-oriented town.”

  Luraleen slid the cash drawer shut. “Nothing wrong with family. Family’s important to most folks.” She pushed the bag of Diet Coke and Chee-tos toward Sadie. “Most folks come visit their poor old daddies more than once every five years or so.”

  And most daddies stayed home when their daughters came to visit after five years. “My daddy knows where I live. He’s always known.” She felt her face turn hot. From anger and embarrassment, and she didn’t know which was worse. Like most of the people in Lovett, Luraleen didn’t know what she was talking about, but that didn’t keep her from talking like she did know. She wasn’t surprised that Luraleen knew how long it had been since her last visit. Small-town gossip was just one of the reasons she’d left Lovett and never looked back. Sadie dropped her wallet into her purse and glanced up at Vince. “I’m glad to hear you got towed into town.”

  Vince watched Sadie grab her bag of Diet Coke and Chee-tos. Watched her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink. There was something going on behind those blue eyes. Something more than anger. If he was a nice guy he might make an effort to think of something nice to say to soothe the obvious sting of Luraleen’s comment. The woman had done him a favor, but Vince didn’t know what to say, and had never been accused of being a nice guy. Except by his sister, Autumn. She’d always given him a lot more credit than he deserved, and he’d always figured if his sister was the only female on the planet who thought he was a nice guy, then he was pretty much an asshole. Which was surprisingly okay with him. “Thanks again for the ride,” he said.