Vince glanced at his aunt, then his gaze returned to Sadie’s back as she moved across the parking lot. He wasn’t sure what raisins had to do with anything, but he was sure that he was a huge fan of fuck-me heels. “You were rude to her.”
“Me?” Luraleen put an innocent hand on her skinny chest. “She said there was nothin’ to do in town.”
“And?”
“There’s lots!” Not a gray hair on her head moved as she vigorously shook her head. “We got the Founder’s Day picnic, and the Fourth of July is a big whoop-de-do. Not to mention Easter is coming up in a month.” She motioned for Alvin, who stood back with his case of Lone Star. “We got some real nice restaurants and fine dining.” She rang up the beer. “Isn’t that right, Alvin?”
“Ruby’s serves a real good beefsteak,” the cowboy agreed as he handed over two folded bills. His big hat seemed to be held up by his jug-handle ears. “Seafood’s not too great though.”
Luraleen waved away the criticism. “This is cattle country. Who cares about seafood?”
“What are you doin’ after you close up for the night, Luraleen?”
She cast a sideways glance at Vince and he tried not to notice. “I got my nephew in town.”
“If you want to go out with friends, that’s fine with me.” After last night and most of today, he could use a break from his aunt. He still had to think over her offer. His first instinct had been to turn her down, but the more he thought about it, the more he was tempted to take her up on it. He didn’t plan to stay in Lovett, Texas, for the rest of his life, but maybe he could turn the Gas and Go into another nice investment. A few minor improvements here and there, and he could sell it and make a pile of cash.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He was sure. His aunt’s idea of a good time was Tammy Wynette plugged into the “cassette player” and a fifth of Ten High. He wasn’t much of a bourbon drinker, especially cheap bourbon, and he didn’t know if his liver could take much more.
She slapped the change into Alvin’s outstretched palm. “Fine, but make sure everything is operatin’ this time or don’t bother.”
Operating?
Alvin turned red but managed a wink. “You got it, darlin’.”
What the . . . ? Vince had been exposed to some real disturbing shit in his life, most he stored away in the black locker of his soul, but his wrinkled aunt, heels to Jesus, with Alvin was right near the top of the disturbing shit list.
Luraleen shoved the cash drawer closed and announced, “We’re closin’ up early. Shut down the hot dog roller, Vince!”
Less than an hour later, Vince was dropped off at his aunt’s house. She’d slapped some pink, Pepto-colored lipstick on her wrinkly, horsy lips and jumped in Alvin’s truck, off to do things Vince didn’t even want to contemplate.
Vince was left alone to sit in an old iron chair on the screened porch. He raised a bottle of water to his mouth, then set it on the warped wood by his left foot. He’d never been good at relaxing. He’d always needed something to do. A clarity of purpose.
He tied the laces on his left running shoe and then switched to his right. When he’d been a member of the teams, there was always something that needed doing. He’d always been downrange or training and preparing for the next mission. When he’d come home, he’d kept himself busy with work and family. His nephew had been only a few months old and his sister had needed a lot of help. His purpose had been clear. There hadn’t been a mental vacuum. Not a lot of time to think. About anything.
He liked it that way.
The screen door slammed behind him as he set off into the cool March air. A sliver of a moon hung in the black night crammed with stars. Seattle, New York, and Tokyo had stunning skylines, but none of them could compare with the natural beauty of billions of stars.
The soles of his running shoes thumped a silent, steady pace against the paved street. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the deck of an oilrig in the calm waters of the Persian Gulf, Vince had always found a certain peace within the dark blanket of night. Ironic, he supposed, given that, like most Special Forces, he’d often operated in the dead of night, the familiar rat-tat of an AK–47 in the distance, and the reassuring answer of an M4A1. This dichotomy of equal parts comfort and fear of the night was something that men like him understood: taking it to the enemy was much better than waiting around for the enemy to bring it to them.
In the calm Texas night, the only sound to reach his ears was the sound of his own breathing and a dog barking in the distance. Rottweiler maybe.
On nights like this, he could fill his head with either the future or the past. With the faces of his buddies. Those who’d made it out and those who hadn’t. He could let his mind recall the guys in Team One, Alpha Platoon. Their fresh faces changed over the years by the things they’d seen and done. He’d grown up in the Navy. Grown into a man, and the things he’d seen and done had changed him, too.
But tonight he had other things on his mind. Things that had nothing to do with the past. He had to admit the more he thought about buying the Gas and Go from Luraleen, the more the idea appealed to him. He could buy it, fix it up, and sell it in a year. Or hell, he could become the next John Jackson, the owner and founder of about a hundred and fifty convenience stores throughout the Northwest.
True, he didn’t know shit about convenience stores, but John hadn’t known that much, either. The guy had been a Chevron marketer from a small town in Idaho and was worth millions now. Not that Vince wanted to be a mogul. He just wasn’t a suit-and-tie kind of guy. He didn’t have the temperament for the boardroom. He knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t very diplomatic, if at all. He liked to cut through the bullshit and get things done. He’d much rather kick a door down than talk his way through, but he was thirty-six and his body was pretty beat up from too many years of kicking down doors, jumping from airplanes, and fighting waves like a bronc rider and dragging his Zodiac up the beach.
He passed beneath a weak streetlamp and turned north. He’d made it through BUD/S hell week, and served for ten years with SEAL Team One out of Coronado. He’d been deployed around the world, then moved to Seattle to help raise his nephew. A job that had sometimes made him long for the days of relentless sandstorms, putrid swamps, and teeth-rattling cold. He could manage one small convenience store, and truth be told, he wasn’t doing anything else right now anyway.
A car headed toward him and he moved closer to the curb. He hadn’t felt so aimless in a long time. Not since his father had walked out on him and his mother and sister. He’d been ten when his old man walked out and never looked back. Ten when he’d first felt confused about his place in the world. He’d been too young to help his mother, been too old to cry like his sister. He’d felt helpless. A feeling he hated to this day.
At the time, they’d been living in a little house on Coeur d’Alene Lake in northern Idaho. To escape the pain of his father’s abandonment and his mother’s inability to cope, he’d spent most of that first summer exploring the underwater world of those freezing waters. Every morning he made his sister breakfast and watched her until his mother got out of bed. Then he put on his trunks, grabbed his fins and goggles, and pushed himself. He’d swim farther than he had the day before, dive deeper, and hold his breath longer. It was the only thing that gave him purpose. The only thing that made him feel not so helpless. The only thing he could control.
Over the next eight years, he and his mother and sister moved four more times. Sometimes they’d stay in the same state, but never in the same county or school district. Every place they moved, he got a job delivering newspapers before school. Because of his size and natural athletic ability, he’d played some football, but preferred lacrosse. During the summers he worked, and in his free time, he hung out at the closest body of water. Swimming, diving, or making Autumn pretend she was a drowning victim so he could tow her to shore. On the occasions his sister wasn’t with him, he checked out the girls.
The summer of his sixteenth y
ear, they’d been living in Forest Grove, Oregon, and he’d spent most days at Hagg Lake. He’d lost his virginity on the beach, beneath the stars and full moon. Her name had been Heather, and she’d been eighteen. There might be some people who’d consider the age difference a problem. Vince hadn’t been one of them. He’d had no problem having sex all night with Heather.
He’d always known he wanted to join the military, but he’d promised his mom he’d try college first. He got a lacrosse scholarship to the University of Denver, and he’d played for two years. But he’d never really felt as if it was where he needed to be. The day he walked into a Navy recruiter’s office, he felt like he was coming home. He’d taken one look at a mural of a SEAL team, deep blue ocean in the background, fast roping from a CH–53 onto the deck of a ship, and he’d felt like his whole life was on that wall.
These days, there was no clarity. No purpose. He was restless, which was never good. Restless led to bar fights and worse. And there were worse things than getting your ass kicked by a bar full of bikers. Worse things than an explosion that ended everything you worked so hard to accomplish. Worse things than the loss of hearing in his left ear.
He was a SEAL. A shadow warrior, and getting his ass kicked by nightmares, waking up freezing with a pool of sweat on his chest, was worse than anything he’d ever faced.
But was a little convenience store in bum-fuck Texas what he needed to give him clarity? Did he really want to hang out in a small Texas town? For at least a year? Selling beer and gas and Wound Hounds while fixing the place up?
He’d run the idea past his sister, Autumn. She owned a successful events planning business in Seattle, and he’d be interested to hear her take on Aunt Luraleen’s offer. The last time he’d talked to Autumn, she’d been all slap-happy about planning her own wedding. To the son of a bitch ex of hers.
The same son of a bitch who’d bailed him out of jail after the biker bar butt whupping, and had given him the name of a kick-ass attorney. Which meant he owed the guy, and Vince hated owing anyone.
There were a few rules that Vince lived by, and they were set in stone. Keep your head clear and your equipment in clean working order. Never leave a buddy behind, and never leave owing anyone anything.
Chapter Five
Sadie stood to one side of the heart-shaped arbor, the second in a line of bridal attendants covered in hot-pink taffeta. The wood and wire arbor was covered in roses and tulle. Sadie fought the urge to yank up the top of her strapless dress. When she had the dress fitted, she hadn’t had it on for more than a few minutes, and she’d never realized the dress was so low across her breasts. The other girls in the wedding party didn’t seem to think anything of it, but Sadie had never been a fan of short and tight. It just wasn’t comfortable or, in her line of work, appropriate. She wasn’t used to anything that pushed her up and out, but she supposed if she were still in her early twenties, she’d think the pink taffeta dress was cute. The other wedding attendants looked cute, but she was thirty-three and felt ridiculous.
“If there is anyone who can show just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace,” the minister said as he neared the middle of the ceremony.
Directly behind Sadie, bridesmaid number three, Becca Ramsey, whispered something, then sniffed softly. The night before, Becca’s boyfriend, Slade, had been caught cheating with “that slut Lexa Jane Johnson,” and Becca wasn’t taking it well. She’d arrived at the Sweetheart Palace Wedding Chapel with puffy red eyes and runny nose. As they’d all sat in salon chairs getting their hair and makeup done, Becca had cried and carried on until Tally Lynn had had enough. She’d stood, big hot rollers in her blond hair, one false eyelash freshly glued into place, and white “I’m the Bride” robe around her skinny shoulders.
“You will NOT ruin my day, Becca Ramsey!” she’d said in a voice so scary even Sadie had pushed back in her chair. Tally Lynn’s eyes narrowed and a vein popped out on her smooth forehead as she pointed one perfectly manicured finger at her bridesmaid. “This is MY day, not yours. Everyone knows Slade’ll hump any hound that’ll hunt. He’s been skirtin’ around on you for two years. You’ve been puttin’ up with that no-good dog, so shut the hell up about Slade. And if any of the rest of y’all are thinkin’ of ruinin’ my day, you can follow Becca out the dang door.” Then she’d sat back down and motioned for the makeup artist to continue as if she hadn’t just turned into a female Satan. “More eyeliner, please.”
Sadie had smiled, proud of the fierce little cousin she didn’t know very well. Proud despite the fact that Tally was making her wear a mini prom dress and big Texas hair. The kind she’d never even worn when she’d considered herself a Texan.
“You may kiss your bride,” the minister announced, signaling the groom to grab Tally Lynn, bend her over his arm, and lay one on her. A little twinge of something fluttered across Sadie’s heart. It wasn’t envy. It was more like a reminder that someday she’d like to find someone who wanted to stand in front of a minister, promise to love her forever, and bend her over his arm.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy Steagall.”
Sadie turned and prepared to follow the bride and groom back down the aisle and into the foyer. Maybe mixed with the little twinge was that tiniest dab of melancholy.
She moved from the arbor and wove her free hand through Rusty’s arm. She wasn’t quite sure why she felt even the tiniest dab of melancholy. She wasn’t sad about her life. She liked her life.
“Ready to party?” Rusty asked out of the side of his mouth as they moved down the aisle.
“Yeah.” She could use a glass of wine. Maybe it was seeing her cousin and Aunt Bess and Uncle Jim so happy. Maybe it was her bubble gum dress and the small bouquet of pink and white flowers in her hand. Maybe it was being back in Lovett where the purpose in life was to marry and have children. She wasn’t quite sure of the origin of her sudden mood, but felt very single and alone. Even Rusty was on loan to her. His girlfriend was in the crowd somewhere. As far as she knew, she and newly single Becca were the only solo girls at the Sweetheart Palace. Even her cougar aunt Charlotte had managed to find herself a date.
Sadie took her place in line for pictures. She smiled for the photographer and pretended that her mood hadn’t flatlined. She was happy for her cousin. Truly. But she couldn’t wait to get back to her real life where she didn’t feel like quite the manless loser.
After the pictures were taken, they all moved to the dining room swathed in pink and gold and white. Tally Lynn grabbed Sadie in a tight hug against her white meringue of a dress. “I’m so glad you could come.” Her face all lit up with love and plans of a happy future ahead of her, she added, “Gosh, Sadie, I just know you’re next.”
Her cousin meant it as a kindness, a reassurance, and Sadie pushed up the corners of her lips and managed a cheery “Maybe.”
“I had you seated at a table with a couple of the aunts.” She pointed to one of the round tables tricked out with roses and pink tea light centerpieces. “They’re just so happy you’re here and it will give y’all a chance to catch up.”
“Fabulous.” The aunts. Sadie walked between the tables covered in white linen and crystal, Caesar salad on each china plate. She moved slow and steady toward the inquisitioners with white cotton candy hair and red rouge on their octogenarian cheeks. “Hi, Aunt Nelma and Ivella.” She placed a hand over her cleavage and bent forward to kiss each of them on their thin skin. “It’s wonderful to see you two again.”
“Lord, you look like your mama. Nelma, doesn’t she look just like Johanna Mae when she won Miss Texas?”
“What?”
“I said,” Ivella shouted, “doesn’t Sadie look just like Johanna Mae!”
“Just like,” Nelma agreed.
“It’s the hair.” She sat across from her aunts and next to a bigger girl who looked a little familiar.
“Such a sad thing,” Ivella said with a shake of her head.
What was a sad thing? Her hair?
“Poor Johanna Mae.”
Oh that sad thing. Sadie placed her linen napkin on her lap.
“Her heart was just too big,” Nelma yelled. She might have problems with her hearing, but there was nothing wrong with her voice.
The older Sadie got, the more her memories of her mother faded. And that was a very “sad thing.”
“Too big,” Ivella agreed.
Sadie turned her attention to the woman on her right and offered her left hand. “Hi, I’m Sadie Hallowell.”
“Sarah Louise Baynard-Conseco.”
“Oh, Big Buddy’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“I went to school with Little Buddy. What’s he up to these days?” She picked up her fork and took a bite of lettuce.
“He’s working in San Antonio for Mercury Oil.” Like all the people around Sadie, Sarah Louise’s voice was thick, and words like “oil” came out sounding like “ole.” Sadie used to sound like that, too, but not so much these days. “He’s married and has three kids.”
Three? He was a year younger than Sadie. She signaled a server, who poured her a glass of merlot. She took a long drink before she set the glass back on the table.
“How’s your daddy?” Nelma loudly asked.
“Good!” She took a few more bites of her salad, then added, “He went to Laredo this morning to breed a horse.”
Ivella put her fork down, a frown pulling her thin white eyebrows together. “Why on earth would he leave while you’re in town?”
She shrugged, remembered her neckline, and pulled up the top of the dress. He’d left before sunup and she hadn’t even told him good-bye. She knew him well enough to know that he intended to tell her good-bye before she left Texas, but he’d put her on the back burner until he got back.
While they ate, everyone chitchatted about the wedding. The dress and vows each had written and that kiss at the end.
“Very romantic,” Sarah Louise said as the salad plates were taken away and the entrée was placed on the table.
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