Sadie turned and looked at her father’s foreman. She’d known him all her life, and like her father, he was a real cowboy. Work shirt with pearl snaps, Wranglers, and boots covered in cow shit and dust. He was hard and grizzled from the Texas wind and sun and a pack-a-day habit.
“Hey, Snooks.” Sadie opened her arms as she moved toward him.
“There’s my girl.” He was the father of six boys, in his mid to late sixties, and like Clive, was showing his age. But unlike Clive, Snooks had a belly and a sense of humor.
“You look as handsome as ever,” she lied. Even on a good day, Snooks had never been handsome, mostly because he was allergic to ragweed and dust. As a result, his eyes glowed an eerie red. “How’re your boys?”
“Good. I got eight grandkids.”
“Good Lord!” She really was the last person in Lovett over the age of twenty-five who was childless. Her and Sarah Louise Baynard-Conseco, but that was only because Mr. Conseco was a guest of San Quentin.
“And I don’t have a single one,” grumbled Clive from behind Sadie.
Was that why her father was crabby all the time? Because she hadn’t spanked out six grandchildren? What had been his excuse when she’d been twelve? “You’ve never mentioned grandkids before.”
“Didn’t think I had to.”
“Well, I’ll let you two catch up,” she said, and made her escape.
She spent the afternoon tending to exciting details like having her car serviced. She was lucky enough to find a hair salon that looked halfway decent, and she made an appointment to come back and have her roots touched up. She returned to the hospital to check in on Clive, then drove home. She ate dinner with the ranch hands and filled them in on her father’s progress.
She watched television in bed. Mindless reality shows with people whose lives sucked worse than hers. So she didn’t have to think of the reality of her own sucky life.
The whir of a ceiling fan stirred the cool night air across Vince’s bare chest. Slow, even breaths filled his lungs. Within the guest room of Luraleen’s seventies ranch-style house, he slept in the frilly twin bed, but behind his closed eyes, Vince was back in Iraq. Back in the huge cavity of the C–130 Hercules, stowing the last of the team’s essential gear. Dressed in light combat gear, desert khakis, and Oakley assault boots, he stowed his tired body in a thick mesh hammock. Several hours before he’d been ordered to join Team Five at the U.S. air base in Bahrain, he’d been knocking in doors and rounding up terrorist leaders in Baghdad. The more they rounded up, the more seemed to pop up in their place. Al Qaeda, Taliban, Sunni, Shiite, or a half dozen other insurgent groups filled with hate and fanaticism and hell-bent on killing American soldiers, no matter how many innocent civilians got in the way.
“Haven, you ugly son of a bitch. What are you doing up there? Jerkin’ off?”
Vince recognized that voice and cracked open his eyes. He turned his head toward the bald SEAL cramming his body into a mesh seat across from him. “Sorry to disappoint you, you dirty hooker, but I already took care of my business.”
Wilson shook his head. “Yeah, I heard about that ammo dump business this morning.”
Vince winced. He’d been sent out with three other SEALs to secure an insurgent ammo dump and blow it the fuck up. There hadn’t been time to wait for an explosive ordnance disposal tech, and the dump was small, or so they’d thought. They’d planted their own explosives and lit that building up and up and up. Concrete and dust and debris had rained down for several minutes. “We may have underestimated the English we put on it.” Actually they hadn’t known about a hidden room under the mud and concrete building, filled with grenades and bombs, until they’d lit it up and the explosion grew bigger and bigger and they’d dived for cover. No one wanted to talk about the oversight though. It was just a damn good thing they’d moved way back and no one got hurt.
Wilson laughed. “ ‘There’s enough bang in there to blow us to Jesus.’ ” He was a lieutenant, smart as hell, and the king of movie quotes. Vince hadn’t seen Pete for a while, and it was good to see his buddy.
“Hooyah!” The two had gone through BUD/S together, almost drowned in the surf, and had their asses chewed by Instructor Dougherty. He’d stood next to Wilson as they’d both had their Tridents pinned on their dress uniforms, and he’d stood up with Pete when Pete married his high school sweetheart. The marriage hadn’t lasted past the five-year anniversary, and Vince had been there to help his buddy drown his sorrows. Divorce was a reality of military life, and operational SEALs were no exception to that reality.
The loading ramp rose, and the pilot fired up the huge turbo-prop freighter, filling the cavity with the rattle of steel and horsepower and ending any further conversation.
He fell asleep somewhere over the Gulf of Oman. The last untroubled slumber he would have for several years. Once the Hercules touched down in Bagram, his life would change forever in varied and unforeseeable ways.
His life was different now, but the dream was always the same. It started in the mountains in the Hindu Kush with him and the guys on a routine mission. Then the dream changed, with him scrambling for cover, loaded down with enough firepower to fight his way out of any Taliban fight. It ended with him kneeling over Wilson, his head spinning and ringing, nausea turning his stomach and the dark corners of his vision closing in on him as he thumped his best friend’s chest and forced his own breath into Pete’s lungs. The unmistakable beat of howling U.S. airpower, rotors screaming, thundering and whipping the dust into sandstorms. The ground shuddered as the military blew the hell out of slopes and crevasses of the Hindu Kush Mountains. Blood stained his hands as Vince thumped and breathed and watched the light fade from Pete’s eyes.
Vince woke, his heartbeat pounding in his head as it had that day in the hell of the Hindu Kush. He stood somewhere, disoriented, his eyes wide, lungs pulling air like bellows. Where was he?
In a room. A soft streetlamp burned in the distance and lacy curtains were wrapped about his fist.
“You okay, Vince? I heard thumpin’.”
He opened his mouth but a gaspy wheeze came out. He swallowed. “Yeah.” He purposefully opened his shaking hands and the curtain fell to the floor, the thin rod a tinny clang.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Everything is okay.”
“Is someone climbing in your window? If so, have her use the front door.”
Which would explain why she wasn’t busting down his door.
“No one’s in here but me. Good night, Aunt Luraleen.”
“Well, night then.”
Vince scrubbed his face with his hands and sat on the too small, too frilly bed. He hadn’t had that dream in a while. Not for a few years now. A Navy shrink had once told him that certain things could trigger posttraumatic stress. Change and uncertainty were two of the big ones.
Vince was a SEAL. He did not have PTSD. He wasn’t jumpy or nervous or depressed. He had a recurring nightmare.
One. That was it.
That shrink had also told him that he’d shut down his feelings. And that as soon as he started to feel, he would heal. “Feel to heal” had been that shrink’s favorite catchphrase.
Well fuck that. He didn’t need to heal from anything. He was fine.
Chapter Nine
Every year on the second Saturday in April, the Lovett Founder’s Day kicked off at nine A.M. with the Founder’s Day parade. Ever year, the reigning Diamondback Queen rode a huge rattlesnake made of tissue and toilet paper. Its big head and bejeweled eyes looked out at the crowd while its forked tongue flicked the morning air. The queen sat atop the coiled body, waving for all she was worth, like she was the Rose Queen making her way down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.
This year, the float was hauled down Main by a classic 1960 Chevy F–10 furnished by Parrish American Classics car restorers. A second restored car followed behind the float. Twenty-three-year-old Nathan Parrish drove the completely restored 1973 Camaro; its big V–8, 383 eng
ine pounded the morning air and vibrated the Diamondback so bad the tongue fell out around Twelfth Street. Marching closely behind and sucking up fumes, the Lovett High School band played the “Yellow Rose of Texas” while the dance team shimmied in their sequins and fringe.
After the parade, Main Street was closed off to cars. Vendors’ booths ran up and down both sides of the street selling everything from jewelry and hair bows to pepper jelly and knitted cozies. The beer court and food vendors were set up a block off Main on Wilson and were crammed with people from as far away as Odessa.
The Lovett Historical Society members dressed in period costumes. By noon it had warmed up to sixty-three degrees; by five, it was a balmy seventy-two and the society was looking a bit damp. In the Albertson’s parking lot, artists and cloggers performed throughout the day. That night, a local favorite, Tom and the Armadillos, was set to play at one end of the big lot while a pool tournament took place at the other end.
At seven P.M., Sadie pulled her Saab into a parking slot in front of Deeann’s Duds and hit the vendors down the street. What else was she going to do? Go home and stare at the walls? Watch more television? Check out YouTube until her eyes bled? God, how many talking dog and teenage prank videos could she watch?
She needed a life beyond the rehab center. Her father had always refused to give her responsibilities at the JH. Granted, at the moment she couldn’t analyze grazing reports and animal tracking data, but she’d taken plenty of college courses and was sure she could read graphs if someone took the time to show her.
There had to be something for her to do besides making her bed and washing her own dishes. Something easy. Something to keep her occupied that didn’t carry with it a big weight of responsibility. The responsibility of maintaining ten thousand acres, over a thousand head of cattle, and a herd of breed horses. Not to mention two dozen or so employees. Because she was a girl, her father had never taught her the business. Beyond just the basics she learned from living at the JH for eighteen years, she didn’t know a lot. She didn’t know what she would do once her daddy died. She’d been thinking about it a lot lately, and just the thought of the responsibility made her fidgety and filled her with an overwhelming urge to jump in her car and get the hell out of town.
After she’d visited her dad earlier, she’d gone home and changed into jeans, blue T-shirt, and a Lucky zip-up sweatshirt with a Buddha on the back. She dug out the white cowboy boots and white Stetson she’d worn in high school. The boots were a bit tight, like maybe her feet had grown half a size, but the hat fit like she’d worn it just the day before. She found her old custom-made belt with the JH brand worked into the leather and “SADIE JO” etched in the back. It was a bit stiff, but thank God it still fit.
She might live in Arizona, but she was a Texan and Founder’s Day was no joke. It was an occasion to “dress.” As she walked to the food vendors, she was glad she’d duded up. Given the size of the hats and belt buckles, teased hair and tight Wranglers, no one was messing around.
At the food booths, she bought a hot dog with mustard and a bottle of Lone Star.
“How’s your daddy?” Tony Franko asked as he handed her the beer.
She knew Tony from somewhere. She wasn’t quite sure where. Just like most everyone else around her, she’d grown up knowing them and they her. “Better. Thanks, Tony.” It had been a week since she’d moved him from Laredo.
As she moved down Main, she was stopped several times by well-meaning people who asked about her dad. She paused at the bead booth long enough to buy two coral bead bracelets for the Parton twins.
“How’s your daddy?” the woman asked as she took Sadie’s money.
“Better. I’ll tell him you asked.” She slipped the bracelets into her pocket and moved past the pottery and beeswax candle booths. As she looked at little armadillos and corncobs carved from stone, she polished off her hot dog and felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Dooley and me was real sorry to hear about your daddy, Sadie Jo. How’s he doin’?”
She looked across her shoulder at a woman she recognized from her childhood. Dooley? Dooley? Dooley Hanes, the veterinarian. “He’s doing better, Mrs. Hanes. How’s Dooley?”
“Oh dear, Dooley died five years ago. He had the cancer in his testicles. It was advanced by the time they found it.” She shook her head and her big gray dome wavered. “He suffered something fierce. Bless his heart.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She took a drink of her beer and listened as Mrs. Hanes listed all the poor misfortunes that had befallen her since the demise of Dooley. Suddenly, sitting at home watching dog videos didn’t sound so bad. Dog videos and a hammer upside the head sounded like heaven.
“Sadie Jo Hollowell? I heard you were in town.” Sadie turned and looked into a face set with dark brown eyes and a huge smile.
“Winnie Bellamy?” She’d sat behind Winnie in the first grade and had graduated with her. They hadn’t been best friends, but they’d hung out with the same group. Winnie had always had long dark hair, but she’d obviously given in to the Texas in her and had dyed it blond and poufed it up.
“Winnie Stokes now.” She pulled Sadie against her chest. “I married Lloyd Stokes. He was a few years ahead of us in school. His little brother Cain was our age.” She dropped her hands. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Cain’s single and he’s a catch.”
“If he’s such a catch, why didn’t you marry him instead of his brother?”
“He’s a catch now.” Winnie waved the question away. “He and Lloyd are playin’ in the pool tournament. That’s where I’m headed. You should come and say hey.”
The offer sounded better than Mrs. Hanes, dog videos, or a hammer. “Excuse me, Mrs. Hanes,” she said, and she and Winnie caught up on old times as they made their way to the Albertson’s parking lot a few blocks away.
Orange and purple streaked the endless Texas sky as the giant sun sank lower west of town. At one end of the grocery store’s parking lot, two rows of five pool tables were set up beneath strings of Christmas lights. Cowboy hats crowded the spaces around each table, broken up by the occasional trucker’s hat. Only one man braved the event out of costume.
Beneath the white Christmas lights, Vince Haven leaned a big shoulder into one of the square posts. He wore non-issue, beige cargo pants, plain black T-shirt without any sort of flag ironed or embroidered on it, and his head was bare. Obviously the man didn’t know the seriousness of the day, and he stuck out like a sinner among the converted. He held a pool cue in one hand and his head was cocked to the side as he listened intently to the three women gathered about him. Two wore straw cowboy hats; the other had teased her red long hair into a massive pouf like the Little Mermaid. She held a cue in one hand, and as she bent over the table, her hair flowed down her back to her butt in a pair of tight jeans.
“Sadie Jo Hollowell!” someone yelled.
Vince lifted his gaze from the women in front of him and his eyes locked with hers. He watched her for several long seconds before she turned just in time to be caught up in a big hug that lifted her off her heels.
“Cord?” Cordell Parton was three years younger than Sadie and had taken odd jobs at the JH off and on with his aunts.
“It’s good to see you, girl.” He lifted her up higher and his hat fell to the ground.
He’d gotten huge since she’d seen him fifteen years ago. Not fat. Just solid, and he squeezed her tight. “Lord love a duck, Cord. I can’t breathe.” Had she just said, “Lord love a duck”? If she wasn’t careful, she’d be saying “crying all night and pass the tea towels.” Maybe it was the hat. She was starting to sound like a Texan.
“Sorry.” He set her back on her feet and bent to retrieve his Stetson. “How’s your daddy?”
“Getting better.”
“My aunts said you’ve been spending a lot of time in Laredo with him.”
“He was moved to Amarillo last week.” She looked over Cord’s shoulder a
nd her gaze landed on Vince’s butt as he leaned across the next table over and took a shot. Lord love a duck, he was hot. Judging by the three women watching his butt, too, she wasn’t the only one who thought so. He made those non-issue cargo pants look good.
“Come say hey to Lloyd and Cain,” Winnie said, and took Sadie’s elbow.
“It was great to see you, Cord. Come out to the ranch and have a beer with me one of these days soon. We’ll catch up.”
“Sounds good.” He slid his hat back on his head. As she walked away, he called after her, “You’re still as pretty as a Sunday sermon. I always had a crush on you, you know.”
Yeah. She’d known. She smiled and glanced at Vince out of the corners of her eyes. He lined up another shot, then laughed at something one of the women said to him. She wondered which one was his girlfriend, because, after all, he’d been in town for over a month. In Lovett, that was plenty long enough to meet someone, get married, and start a family.
“Hey. It’s Sadie Jo Hollowell,” Cain Stokes said as she and Winnie approached the table. He leaned over and lined up the white ball, and Sadie got a chance to look at him. She didn’t know if he was a catch, but he’d certainly improved since high school. He was taller. Leaner. And somewhere he’d developed a killer smile that filled his blue eyes with mischief. He also knew how to dress for Founder’s Day in a pair of tight Wranglers that outlined his package. Not that she cared to know.
“Hey, Cain.” She turned to his brother. “How’s it going, Lloyd?”
“Can’t complain.” Lloyd wasn’t as handsome as his brother, but he was better husband material. Sadie could tell just by the way he looked at his wife.
“I heard you were back in town.” He gave her a quick hug. “How’s your daddy doin’?”
“Good and getting better.”
She pointed to the pool table. “Who’s winning?”
“Cain.” Lloyd raised a beer to his lips. “He’s a hustler.”
In more ways than one. Cain came around the table and gave her a hug that lingered a bit longer than his brother’s. “Lookin’ good, Sadie Jo.”
Rescue Me lt-3 Page 10