stomach growled as she stepped onto the long wooden porch. The hinges on the screen door announced her arrival, and a few of the ranch hands looked up from their plates. Roughly eight cowboy hats hung on hooks by the front door. The room looked exactly as it had the last time she’d stepped inside. Pine floor, whitewashed walls, red and white gingham curtains, and the same duo of Frigidaire refrigerators. The only thing different was the shiny new stove and oven.
She recognized a few of the men’s faces as they rose to their feet. She motioned for them to remain seated and then her gaze found her father, his head bent over his plate, wearing the same classic Western work shirts he always wore. Today it was beige with white pearl snaps. Her stomach got tight and she held her breath a little. She didn’t know quite what to expect. She was thirty-three and still so unsure around her father. Would he be warm or unavailable?
“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
