someone seen them in that room?
He didn’t say a word. Just raised a dark brow up his forehead.
“Yeah. If my daddy had been hurt, I would have run out without saying good-bye to anyone, too.”
Relief dropped her shoulders and Vince laughed. A deep, amused rumble. She was too tired to care.
“Well, I gotta go,” Becca announced. “See you around, Sadie.”
“Bye, Becca.” She snagged a big bag of Chee-tos and headed to the coolers. When she returned to the front of the store, she was alone with Vince. A tight white T-shirt hugged his big shoulders and chest and was tucked into a pair of beige cargo pants. A rack of various brands of cigarettes hung behind him. Had he looked that hot the night of the wedding? No wonder she’d let him stick his hand up her skirt.
She set her Coke and Chee-tos on the counter next to a box of Slim Jims. Hopefully, he wouldn’t mention the other night. “So you work here now?”
“Yeah.” He looked her up and down, his green gaze pausing for the briefest of moments on the front of her dress. “You look like shit.”
“Wow.” And here she’d been thinking he looked hot. “Thank you.”
His long fingers punched numbers on the cash register. “Just saying maybe you should brush your hair before you go out in public.”
She pulled her wallet out of her purse. “Didn’t they teach you charm in SEAL school?”
“Yeah, at Camp Billy Machen. It was taught between recon and demolition.”
“Well, you obviously flunked.” So far so good. He hadn’t brought up the other night. Talking about how bad she looked was much preferable.
“Can’t flunk any part of SQT or you ring the bell.” He pushed total.
“What’s SQT?” She watched him shove her Chee-tos into a bag.
“SEAL qualification training.”
“And exactly what do SEALs train for?” Not that she was all that interested, but it was a safe topic.
“Hunting down bad guys. Fixing the world.”
“I guess they didn’t teach you how to fix broken-down trucks on the side of the road. I thought SEALs were trained to go all MacGyver in any situation.”
“Yeah, well, I was all out of paper clips and sticks of gum that day.”
She almost smiled. “What do I owe you?”
He looked up at her and smiled, but it wasn’t the nice, pleasant smile she’d seen the night of Tally Lynn’s wedding. Gone was the nice guy. “At the very least, a thank-you.”
She pointed at her purchases. “You want me to thank you for buying a Diet Coke and Chee-tos?”
“For the Coke and Chee-tos, five dollars and sixty cents.”
She handed him six bucks.
“But you still owe me for the other night.”
She guessed she’d hoped for too much. He wanted to talk about it. Fine. “Thank you.”
“Too little, too late.”
His gaze lowered to her mouth. The other night she’d found him watching her lips sexy. Tonight, not so much. “How much is an orgasm worth these days?”
“That one?” She’d been raised to be nice. To be a lady, no matter how rudely she was being treated. To smile, say, “Bless your heart,” and walk away, but she’d hit her quota of nice. She was all filled up with smiling at obnoxious, rude men. “Keep the change and we’ll call it good.”
One corner of his mouth slid up. “Honey, you think that orgasm was worth forty cents?”
“I’ve had better.” Maybe, but none faster.
“Still worth more than forty cents. You said, ‘Oh God’ at least twice.”
“If it’d been a really good orgasm, I would have said it more than twice.”
“I barely touched you and you went off.” He held out her change and dropped it in her palm. “That makes it worth more than forty cents.”
She closed her hand around the coins and shoved them in the pocket of her hooded jacket. “So, I take it we’re not square anymore.”
His lids lowered over his light green eyes, a smile turned up his lips, and he shook his head. “Payback’s hell.”
She grabbed her bag as the door chime rang. She pointed to the ceiling and said, “Saved by the bell.”
“For now.”
“Sadie Jo?”
Sadie looked across her shoulder at the woman carrying a toddler on one hip while two other little kids trailed behind. Her blond hair had an inch of brown roots and was pulled on top of her head. “RayNetta Glenn?”
“It’s RayNetta Colbert now. I married Jimmy Colbert. Remember Jimmy?”
Who could forget Jimmy Colbert? He’d had a taste for Elmer’s Glue and smoked pencil shaving wrapped up in lined paper. “You have three kids?”
“And two on the way.” She moved the little girl she held to one side. “Twins due in September.”
“Oh God!” Sadie’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God!”
“That’s two ‘oh gods,’ ” Vince said from behind the counter. “You owe that woman forty cents.”
She ignored him.
“I heard about your daddy.” RayNetta adjusted the toddler on her hip. “How’s he doin’?”
“Better.” Which was true, but still not good. “I’m moving him to a rehab hospital in Amarillo.”
“Bless his heart.” The two little boys behind RayNetta ran around her and headed to the candy rack. “Only one,” she called after them. “Kids.” She shook her head. “You married?”
There it was. “No.” And before RayNetta asked. “Never been married and don’t have any kids.” She adjusted the plastic bag in her hand. “It was good to see you.”
“Yeah. We should get together and catch up.”
“I’ll be in town for a while.” She glanced over her shoulder. Vince had planted his hands on his hips, and her gaze climbed up the ladder of chest muscles, past his square jaw, to his green eyes. “Good-bye, Vince.”
“See you around, Sadie.” It wasn’t a good-bye as much as a warning.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. She supposed she should be scared or at least apprehensive. Vince was definitely big and overpowering, but she didn’t feel the least threatened by him. If he’d wanted to use his strength to get a “payback,” he would have at Tally Lynn’s wedding.
She moved out into the deep shadows of night toward her Saab. She’d be in town for only a few days before she headed back to Laredo, so she doubted she’d run into Vince. Especially if she stayed away from the Gas and Go.
Other women might crave chocolate, but she craved Chee-tos, and on the fifteen-minute drive to the ranch, she ripped open the bag and chowed down, careful not to leave cheese fingers on her steering wheel. She cranked up her iPod and filled the car with My Chemical Romance. Sadie had been a fan since their first album, and she sang “Bulletproof Heart” at the top of her lungs. Sang like her life hadn’t turned to utter crap. Sang like she was carefree.
Rocks crunched beneath her tires as she pulled to a stop in front of the dark ranch house. She hadn’t let anyone know she was coming home. She didn’t want anyone waiting for her. She just wanted to go to bed early.
Not a single light burned within the house, and Sadie walked carefully into the living room and flipped a switch. An enormous chandelier made of a tangle of antlers lit up the cowhide furniture and huge rock fireplace. Framed photographs of her with her mother and father were placed on the different tables. Those same photos hadn’t moved since her mother’s death twenty-eight years ago. Above the fireplace hung a painting of her father’s biggest accomplishment and his greatest love: Admiral, a Blue Roan Tovero. He’d been Clive’s pride and joy, but he’d died of colic after just five years. The day the horse died was the only time she’d ever seen her father visibly upset. He hadn’t shed a tear in public, but she imagined he’d cried like a baby in private.
She made her way to the kitchen, snagged a glass of ice, and continued upstairs. She moved past the ancestral portraits and into her bedroom. A lamp sat on the stand beside her bed and she turned it on. Light spilled across the bed, and she tossed the bag from the Gas and Go on the yellow and white spread.
Everything about her room was cozy in a familiar sort of way. The same clock sat on the nightstand next to the same lamp with the same floral shade. The same painting of her and her mother when she was born still sat on the
