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 year, 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
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
“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
