“Well, as my grandmama used to say, ‘She lets her hair down and everything else.’ ” She dropped her hand to the table. “And she took up with my ex Ricky for a time.”
Sadie gasped. Deeann had been friends with the Young girls since charm school. “That’s against the rules.”
“She thinks I don’t know.” Deeann shrugged and toyed with her silver necklace. “If she didn’t buy jewelry from me, I’d freeze her out.”
Ah, Deeann didn’t let the friend code get in the way of her mercenary heart. Good for her.
“Her old boyfriend was way better in the sack than Ricky. It’s a miracle I got two boys out of that man.”
Sadie laughed and the two ordered another round. She sipped it as the Road Kill filled with people she’d known most of her life. She played pool in the back room against Cain Stokes and Cordell Parton and managed to lose to both. She had a good time, but by eleven she was ready to leave. The veterinarian was coming out to the JH in the morning to check out Maribell and give her a Pneumabort shot. Tyrus was capable of taking care of the mare, but Maribell was getting older and this would be her last foal. The last of her daddy’s foals, and Sadie just wanted a second opinion that everything was progressing as it should.
She put her cue away and headed out of the back room to find Deeann.
“I was just coming to find you,” Deeann said from the middle of the bar. “Vince is here.”
Sadie lifted her gaze above the pouf in Deeann’s hair to the defined pecs in a T-shirt several feet behind her. He wore his customary brown T-shirt and cargo pants, and the sight of him made her heart squeeze. She lifted her gaze up his wide neck and chin to his green eyes looking back at her.
“Do you want to go?” Deeann asked.
“No.” She shook her head even though she’d been planning on leaving. In a town the size of Lovett, she was bound to run into him. Best to get it over with. He moved toward her and she forced herself to stand perfectly still. Not run away or swing at him or wrap her arms around his big chest.
He tilted his head to one side and looked into her face. “How are you, Sadie?” he said above the noisy bar.
The sound of his voice brushed against her and tugged at her insides. “Getting by.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you staying in Lovett?”
“For now.” Small talk. With Vince? She couldn’t do it. Not without falling apart.
“This is my buddy Blake,” he said, and motioned to the man standing beside him. “He’s helping me with the counters at the Gas and Go.”
Sadie turned to the man she hadn’t noticed before and wondered how she could have missed him. He was big and blond and obviously military. She stuck out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Blake.”
Blake grinned and took her hand. “Pleasure’s mine, sweetheart.”
Vince stuck his arm out and placed a palm on his friend’s chest. They exchanged looks, and Blake turned his attention to Deeann. “I love redheads. What’s your name, beautiful?”
Sadie fought not to roll her eyes but Deeann ate it up like a peanut patty. The two had hardly exchanged names before they were off to the back room to play pool.
“You need a drink?”
Standing so close, her heart pounded in her chest and throat. “I was just on my way out.”
His gaze lowered to her lips. In that way he had of watching her talk. “I’ll walk you.”
“No need.”
He placed his hand on the small of her back and she let him. Like it was no big deal. Like he hadn’t shattered her heart. Like his touch didn’t make her want to curl into his chest. Like she didn’t hurt so badly she wondered why she didn’t die from it.
“How are things at the JH?”
Like the touch of his hand and the smell of his skin didn’t muddle her head and confuse her senses. “I might have a sister,” she blurted as they stepped out into the cool May night. She hadn’t meant to confess that to anyone. Especially not Vince. They weren’t friends anymore. He didn’t need to know her business, but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t mention it to anyone. She didn’t have to ask him not to.
“What?”
“Nothing. Forget it. Never mind.” Once outside, she stepped away and his hand fell to his side. “It might not even be true, and I wouldn’t even know how to find her if it is true.”
They moved beneath the stars cramming the dark Texas sky, but Vince found no calm on this night. Peace did not soothe him. He hadn’t known Sadie would be at the Road Kill. Hadn’t known how he would feel the first time he saw her again. Hadn’t known it would feel like the world was falling apart beneath his feet even as it stood absolutely still. Hadn’t known his lungs would burn with each breath he tried to catch.
“There’s my car.” She pointed to the left, and the crunch of gravel beneath the heels of her boots filled the space between them. The last time she’d worn those boots, he’d been deep inside her, up against his refrigerator. Lost in her and not thinking about the end. Not thinking about anything but how good being with her felt. “You can go back in now,” she added.
He couldn’t go back. Not now. They stopped by her driver’s side door and he reached for her. She stepped back, and once again his hand fell to his side. “I never wanted to hurt you, Sadie,” he said.
She looked down at the toes of her boots. “I knew you’d get bored and move on.”
“I wasn’t bored.” He didn’t make the mistake of reaching for her again and curled his hands into fists. “Never bored.”
She shook her head, and the moon shone in her pale hair and the side of her face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“Then why did you treat me like I didn’t matter?” She looked up and placed a hand on her chest. “Like I was nothing.”
Because she’d seen him at his worst. Because he hated that he had nightmares like a little girl and now she knew about them. Because he’d felt lower than nothing. “You were never nothing.”
“I always knew you’d move on. I always knew it would end, but did you really have to break my heart on the same day I buried my daddy?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Couldn’t you have waited? At least one day?”
He hadn’t meant to end things at all. He’d give anything to take back that night. To have stayed awake all night and not allowed himself to fall asleep. To have stayed awake and watched her while she slept. “I’m sorry, Sadie.”
Moonlight bounced off her forehead as she lowered her brows. “Sorry. People who step on my foot say they’re sorry. You stomped on my heart and that’s all you can say? You’re sorry?”
“Yeah.” Mostly he was sorry that he was standing next to her and couldn’t touch her. He couldn’t talk to her about all the stuff he’d done at the Gas and Go and listen to her talk about everything happening in her life.
She moved before he saw her coming at him. She placed her hands on his chest and pushed hard. “Sorry?” She was so angry she actually shoved him back on his heels. “You probably think that makes everything okay.”
“No.” He placed his hand over hers. “Nothing is okay anymore.” He slid his palm to the side of her head and lowered his face to hers. “I want you,” he whispered. “I’ve never wanted anything like I want you.”
“Vince.” His name on her lips brushed his and blew him apart. He came undone. He kissed her. Devouring her with a hot hunger he didn’t even know rested in his soul. It burned him up in a raging inferno of primal need and longing. Bursting and unrestrained. Wild and out of control. His hands moved over her. Touching, pulling her against him as his mouth ate her up. He wanted to pull her in, eat her up, and never let her go again.
“Vince!” She pushed him and took several steps back. “Stop it.” She raised the back of her hand to her mouth. “I won’t let you hurt me anymore.”
His lungs ached as he pulled air deep, trying to catch his breath. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But you will.” She opened the door to her Saab, but she wasn’t going anywhere. She was his. He could change her mind.
He grabbed the top of the doorframe. “You said you love me.” He wanted her to love him. Wanted it more than he could recall ever wanting anything in his life.
“I’ll get over it.” Beneath the light of the moon, a tear ran down her pale cheek. It punched him in the gut and he dropped his hand to his side. “Stay away from me so I don’t love you anymore. Stay away so I don’t feel anything for you anymore.”
Sadie didn’t cry. Not on the day her daddy had died or the day she’d buried him. Vince watched her drive away, feeling numb and gutted at the same time. Helpless. Like when he’d tried to save Pete.
The primal inferno raging through him turned outward. Real rage. The kind of rage he’d felt during the days after Pete had died. During the days he’d fought to get his hearing back and later after leaving the teams he’d loved. And the rage he’d felt the night he’d taken on a bar of bikers.
Chapter Nineteen
Sadie arranged the pillows on her bed and stood back to study her handiwork. Perhaps a splash of purple was needed. The next time she drove to Amarillo, she’d look for something at a bed and bath store.
She looked around the master bedroom with a mix of sadness and peace. She’d made the room her own, with her white bedroom furniture and big white area rug, and she felt at home. Comfortable. Captain Church Hill still hung above the stone fireplace and her mama and daddy’s wedding photo sat on the mantel, but everything else had been taken out and stored in the attic. Everything but the silver brush and comb set she knew her father had given her mother on their wedding night. She’d found the set in her father’s sock drawer with an old string tie and had decided to leave both on her own dresser.
The veterinarian had stopped by earlier and checked on Maribell. He and Tyrus had done an ultrasound on the fetus and learned that the mare would deliver a little stallion next fall. Somewhere in heaven, her daddy was doing a happy jig. Probably with her mama.
Sadie moved from the room and down the hall filled with portraits, still unsure what she wanted to do with all those old pictures. She walked down the stairs to her daddy’s office and sat behind the old wood and hide desk that would definitely have to go. The old leather and Navajo chair was comfy and might stay though. She opened up her laptop and wrote “finding lost relatives” in the search engine. She had to find something interesting to fill her days. Fill the lonely void. She couldn’t call Vince to rescue her anymore, and finding a long-lost sister—if she had a long-lost sister—seemed like the right thing to do. If Sadie had been kept in the dark her entire life, what did her sister know? And if she really did have a sister, what was she like?
Finding her was like flying blind. She didn’t know how to go about finding a long-lost person. She had a mother’s name, birth date, and hospital. The information of her daddy’s trust he’d set up and a bank account number, but she didn’t know what to do with the information. She didn’t know whom to trust with the information, either. It wasn’t something she wanted to get out. At least not yet. The only person she’d told was Vince, and that had been a total accident.
She glanced up from the computer screen. Seeing Vince had been hard. Just looking at him made her battered heart ache all over for him. Then he’d kissed her with more passion and lust than she’d ever felt from him before. He’d packed more need in that kiss than all kisses combined. Probably because he hadn’t found a replacement for her yet, and it would have been so easy to kiss him back. To let him touch her and go home with him and make love. He wanted her. He’d said it himself, but he didn’t love her. And she was through loving men who couldn’t love her as she deserved to be loved. If nothing else, her daddy’s death had taught her not to wait around and hold her breath for a big declaration that some men just weren’t capable of giving or feeling.
The doorbell rang and she waited for Clara Anne to answer it. When it rang again, she rose and moved to the entry. She swung open one side of the big doors and Vince stood on the JH’s big welcome rug. Gone was his usual uniform of T-shirt and cargos, today he wore a white dress shirt and khaki pants like the night of Tally’s wedding. All that was missing was a tie. He was big and strong and looked so good it tied her stomach in a knot.
He stared at her through those green eyes of his, seeming to take her in all at once. Touching her here and there with his gaze. “Sadie” was all he said.
After a few long moments she asked, “Why are you here?”
“I brought you a name.”
“Of?”
“Someone who can find out if you have a sister.” He handed her a slip of paper he’d folded in half. “He’ll do as little or as much as you need.”
“Thank you.” She took it from him and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. “You didn’t have to drive all the way out here to give this to me. You could have texted me the information.”
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Invite me in.” He cleared his throat. “Please.”
More? How could he know more? She hadn’t given him any information. She stepped aside and he moved past her in the entry. She turned and leaned her back against the closed door.
“Last night after you left the bar, I wanted to kick some ass. I felt like shit and I wanted to make someone feel as bad as I was feeling. I would have done that in the past.”
Sadie glanced at his hands then up to his clear face. “But you didn’t.”
He shook his head, and a lopsided smile twisted his lips. “If I show up with a black eye at my sister’s wedding, she’ll kick my ass.” He paused and his smile fell. “Mostly I didn’t because I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of guy who can’t control himself. For the first time in my life I care what a woman thinks of me. I care what you think.”
The bottom of her heart squeezed a little and she tried not to make his words mean something they didn’t. Caring what someone thought wasn’t love.
“Last night when I saw you, I thought we could just go back to the way things were. That we’d just pick up where we left off.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I know. I never meant for you to be anything other than a one-night stand.”
“I know.” She looked down at the floor beneath her feet. She’d never meant for him to be anything but a friend with benefits. But the friend part had turned to love.
“But one night turned into two and two into three and three into a week and a week into two weeks. Two weeks into two months. I’ve never been with a woman as long as I was with you.”
She looked up. “I guess I should be flattered that it took you longer to get bored.”
“I told you last night I wasn’t bored. I wasn’t ready for it to end.”
“Then why did it?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Because you saw me that night. I never wanted you to see me like that. No one besides a Navy doc knows about the dreams and I never wanted anyone to know. Especially you.” He shook his head. “Never you.”
She pushed away from the door. “Why?”
“Because I’m a man.” He shrugged and dropped his hands to his sides. “Because I’m supposed to handle everything. Because I’m a Navy SEAL. Because I’m a warrior and don’t have PTSD. Because I’m not supposed to be afraid of a little dream.”
“It’s not a little dream.”
He looked over her shoulder at a vase filled with yellow roses Clara Anne had cut from the garden. He opened his mouth and closed it again.
“How long have you been having them?”
“Since Pete died. On and off for about six years.”
“Your buddy, Pete Wilson?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Pete?”
He looked at her, but once again, she thought he was seeing beyond her to something she couldn’t see. And like the last time, it broke her alread
y broken heart. “It should have been me. Not him. We were pinned down, taking heavy fire, bullets slamming into trees and rocks, coming from every side. Pete blasted away, shooting at everything with one hand as he radioed for air support with the other. We were boxed in, with the Marines below us firing straight up at the Taliban. But there were so many of them. Hundreds. No way to fall back off that fucking mountain. Too many terrorists. Nothing to do but slam new magazines in the breech and hope to hell the airstrike happened in time to save our asses.”
She felt an urge to place her hand on the side of his face and look into his eyes. But she didn’t. She loved him but she couldn’t touch him. “I’m glad you didn’t die that day.”
He looked to his left again. “Pete took three bullets. One to his left leg and two to the chest. I didn’t get hit. At least not by Taliban bullets. The fighter-bombers and attack choppers screamed in and blasted the living hell out of the crevasses until all those Taliban fighters were obliterated. When the rescue helos finally rocketed in from the south, Pete was gone. I was deaf and puking my guts out, but I was alive.”
Sadie held up one hand. “Wait. You were deaf?”
“From the concussion of the airstrike.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “I got it all back but about sixty percent in my left ear.”
So that’s why he watched her talk sometimes. She’d thought he liked watching her lips.
“I’ve never told anyone about Pete, but you saw me at my worst, I thought you should know that. I came out here today to tell you why I acted the way I did after you saw me pathetic and . . . Well, saw me in the corner of the hall.”
He didn’t owe her an explanation. “You weren’t pathetic.”
“A woman should feel safe around a man. Not find him shaking in a corner, yelling at shadows.”
“I always felt safe around you. Even that night.”
He shook his head. “A man should take care of a woman. Not the other way around. You saw me at my worst and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry for a lot of things, especially that I just dropped you off that night. I was kind of hoping you could forget that whole night ever happened.”
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