He raised one brow up his forehead and set the cheese on the counter. “I didn’t believe you the last time you threatened me with your make-believe stun gun.”
She smiled but didn’t admit anything as she pointed to the pantry. “Grab some chips, please.” She set the croissants and a pickle on the blue Wedgwood. When he returned, she arranged the Lay’s on the plate. “Water, beer, or sweet tea?”
“Water.”
She poured a glass of tea and one of filtered water, and then together they carried the plates and glasses into the formal dining room. She set the table with her mother’s best linen placemats and napkins. “We never really eat in here except for Christmas and Thanksgiving.”
“Kind of fancy.”
She looked around at the heavy mahogany furniture and damask draping. Company always ate in the dining room on the good china. It was a rule her mama had drilled into her head. Like chewing with your mouth closed and showing “uglies.”
He picked up a chip. “Where do you eat?”
She placed her napkin on her lap. “Growing up, I always ate in the cookhouse or in the small breakfast nook in the kitchen.” She took a bite of her sandwich, then swallowed. “I’m an only child, and after my mama died, it was always just me and Daddy.” She took a drink of her tea. “It just made sense that we ate in the bunkhouse so Carolynn didn’t have to run back and forth.”
“How old were you when your mother died?” He took a big bite of his croissant.
“Five.”
“Mmm.” He took another bite and chewed. “This is really good, Sadie,” he said after he swallowed. “I’m not usually a croissant kind of guy.”
“Thanks. Sandwiches are easy. Seven-course meals are tough.”
He reached for his water and paused with it before his mouth. “You can cook seven-course meals?”
“It’s been a while, but yeah. Along with manners and charm, and all the many, many classes I’ve taken in my life, I’ve taken a few cooking classes.” She took a bite of her light, flaky sandwich. The turkey, avocado, and pepperoncini a perfect complement of tastes. “My mother was a fabulous cook and a stickler for manners. Not that I really remember. My daddy tried to raise me like he thought she would. Of course he often forgot.”
He took a drink and set the glass on the table. “Are you like her?”
“She was Miss Texas and came really close to winning Miss America.” Sadie popped a salty chip into her mouth and crunched. That’s what she loved about Lay’s: the salty crunch. Of course, Chee-tos were the best snack ever. “Mama was really beautiful and could sing.”
“Can you sing?”
“Only if I want to piss people off.”
He chuckled. “Then you must look like her.” He took two more bites.
Was that a compliment? Was she really going to blush? “I don’t know. People say I do, but I have my daddy’s eyes.” She took her own bite and chewed.
“Were you a beauty queen, too?”
She shook her head and reached for her tea. “I have a few sashes and trophies, but no. I have a hard time walking and waving at the same time.” She took a drink. “Queening is hard work.”
He laughed.
“It is.” She smiled. “You try singing, dancing, and sparkling and shining all at the same time. You think being a SEAL is tough? You think terrorists are hard-core? Piece of cake compared to the pageant circuit. Some of those pageant moms are brutal.” Somewhere in her manners book there was a rule about talking about yourself too much. Besides, she wanted to know more about him. “Why did you join the Navy SEALs?”
“Blowing up stuff and shooting guns for Uncle Sam sounded fun.”
“Was it?”
“Yeah.” He shoved some chips into his mouth and reached for his water. He obviously wasn’t much of a talker. At least not about himself. That was all right. One of the reasons she was such a successful real estate agent was that she got people to trust her enough to talk about anything. Sometimes about stuff she didn’t care to know. Like bodily functions and strange behaviors. “Don’t SEALs have to swim a lot?”
“Yeah.” He took a drink, then offered, “We train in the surf, but in the current conflict the teams spend most of the time on land.”
“I’m not a great swimmer. I prefer to watch the tides from the beach.”
“I love the water. When I was a kid, I spent most of my summers in a lake somewhere.” He picked up the last bite of croissant. “I hate the sand, though.”
“There’s a lot of sand near lakes and oceans, Vince.”
He smiled with one corner of his mouth. “In the Middle East, too. Sand and dust storms.” He popped the last of the sandwich in his mouth.
“Did you have to learn Arabic?”
He shook his head and swallowed. “I picked up a few words here and there.”
“Didn’t that make it hard to communicate?”
“I wasn’t there to talk.”
He wasn’t here to talk, either, and he didn’t give a lot away about himself. That was okay. He was nice to look at with his big muscles and startling green eyes staring back at her from his handsome face. She’d been with fine- looking men. None as fine as Vince, but with all that fineness came a real reserve. A refusal to give anything to a woman but his body. Which was okay with Sadie because that’s what they’d agreed she’d get. And that’s all she truly wanted.
“Why do you live in Phoenix when you could live here?” he asked.
Obviously they were done talking about him. “I know that ranching sounds romantic, in a sort of taming the Wild West sort of way, but it’s
He put his napkin on his empty plate. “Isn’t this all going to be yours one day?”
Suddenly she wasn’t hungry as the old feeling of dread landed like a ball in her stomach. “What makes you think that?”
“People talk, and working in a convenience store is like being a bartender.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Only not as many drunks and without the tips.”
People loved to talk, especially in Lovett. “Yes, but I’m a girl.”
He sat back in his chair and folded his big arms across his bare chest. His gaze moved from hers, down her chin and neck to the front of her shirt. He smiled and looked back up into her eyes. “That’s obvious.”
“My daddy wanted a boy.” She took a drink of tea. “He doesn’t want to leave the JH to me any more than I want a ten-thousand-acre ranch, but I’m the only child of an only child. There isn’t anyone else.”
“So you’re going to inherit a ranch you don’t want.”
She shrugged. Her feelings about the JH were confusing. She loved and hated it all at the same time. It was a part of her like her blue eyes. “I don’t know what my daddy has in mind. He hasn’t told me and I haven’t asked.”
“And you don’t think that’s odd?”
“You don’t know my daddy,” she said just above a whisper.
He turned his head slightly to the left as she noticed he did sometimes and watched her mouth. “How old is your father?”
“Seventy-eight.” Why all the questions? He couldn’t be that interested in her life. She was a one-night stand. Nothing more. She pushed her plate aside.
“Are you done eating?”
“I am.”
