glance and then it was gone.
“I would have wandered back here though.” His voice turned to his usual gruff. “I’m a Texan. This is where my roots are. And if I’d traveled the country, I wouldn’t have bred so many fine paints.”
And the good Lord knew he loved his horses.
“You’ll understand someday.”
She thought she knew what he meant, but he’d just been full of surprises today. “What?”
“That it’s easy to roam if you have an anchor.”
Sometimes that anchor was a heavy burden, weighing a person down.
He hit a button on his bed and raised the head a bit more. “It’s the breeding season for horses and cattle and I’m stuck in here.”
“Have the doctors said when you might be able to come home?” When that happened, she’d hire a home health care worker to look after him.
“They don’t say. My old bones aren’t healing like they would if I was younger.”
Yes. She knew that. “What has your doctor said about your higher temperature? Other than you’re obviously tired.”
He shrugged. “I’m old, Sadie Jo.”
“But you’re tough as old boot leather.”
One corner of his mouth turned up a little. “Yeah, but I’m not what I used to be. Even before the accident, my bones hurt.”
“Then take it easier. Once you’re out of here, we should go on vacation.” She couldn’t recall a time they’d ever vacationed together. As a kid he’d always sent her off with her mama’s relatives or to camp. She didn’t think he’d ever left the JH unless it was business-related. “You said you wanted to travel the country. We could go to Hawaii.” Although she could never imagine her father in a floral shirt sipping umbrella drinks on the beach with his boots on. “Or you could come stay with me in Phoenix. There are whole retirement cities in Arizona.” Old people
“The ranch will survive long after I’m gone.” He looked at her, the whites of his eyes a dull beige. “It’s set up that way, Sadie Jo. We’ve never talked about it because I thought I had more time and you’d come home on your own. I—”
“Daddy, you—” she tried to interrupt.
“—got good people runnin’ everything.” He wouldn’t let her. “You don’t have to do anything but live your life, and someday, when you’re ready, it will be waitin’ for you.”
His words hit her in the chest. He never talked like this. Never about business or the ranch or someday when he was no longer around. “Daddy.”
“But you can never sell our land.”
“I wouldn’t. Ever. I never even thought about it,” she said, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She’d thought about it. More than once, but as soon as she said the words, she knew they were true. She’d never sell her daddy’s land. “I’m a Hollowell. Like my daddy and granddaddy and great-granddaddy.” She was a Texan and that meant deep roots. No matter where a person lived. “All my anchors.”
Clive patted her hand once. Twice. A rare three times. It was the most affectionate he got. It was like a big old hug from other fathers.
Sadie smiled. “It’s a shame I didn’t know Granddaddy.” By the time she’d been born, both her grandparents had passed.
“He was mean as a skillet of rattlers. I’m glad you never knew him.” He pulled his hand from hers. “He’d tan my hide for looking sideways.”
She’d heard rumors here and there that Clive Senior had been volatile, but like most rumors involving her family, she’d mostly ignored them. She had vague memories of her mother’s opinion of her grandfather, but her father had never said a word. Of course he hadn’t. Wouldn’t. She looked at her daddy’s profile. Closed and harsh, and she felt like a gauzy curtain was pulled aside for a moment, and the confusing love and longing and disappointment of her life became clearer. She’d always known he didn’t know how to be a father, but she’d assumed it was because she was a girl. She hadn’t known it was because he’d had a really shitty example. “Well, I’m glad you’re my anchor, Daddy.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, then barked, “Where’s that damn Snooks? He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
Typical. When things felt a little mushy, Clive got irritable. Sadie smiled. Their relationship might always be difficult, but at least she understood her daddy just a bit more than before. He was a hard man. Raised by an even harder man.
After she left the rehabilitation hospital that afternoon, she thought about her father and their relationship. He would never be a candidate for father of the year, but maybe that was okay.
She also thought about texting Vince. She wanted to, but she didn’t. She wanted to see his green eyes as he tilted his head to one side and listened to her talk. She wanted to see his smile and hear the deep timbre of his laughter, but she didn’t want to want it too much.
Instead, she went home and ate dinner in the bunkhouse with the ranch hands and went to bed early. She and Vince Haven were nothing more than friends with benefits. It’s what both of them wanted. She’d never had an FWB relationship before. She’d had boyfriends and a few one-night stands. And she really didn’t know if she could even call Vince a friend. She liked him, but at this point, he was more a benefit than a friend, and the last thing she wanted was to fall for her benefits man.
Vince parked his truck in front of the main house and walked around the side. In the light of day, the JH was alive with activity. Like a base camp, only with more animals and slightly less dust. And like a base camp, at first glance chaotic, but it was organized and well-orchestrated chaos.
In the distance to his left, calves were herded into a metal chute one by one. The clang of heavy metal carried across the distance. He couldn’t see what the men were doing or hear if the calves objected.
It was half past four, and he’d been working all day ripping up old floor tiles inside the Gas and Go. About an hour ago, Sadie had finally texted him. He hadn’t seen or heard from her for four days. Not since the morning she’d accused him of expecting a blow job. He wasn’t going to pretend that hadn’t annoyed him. He wasn’t that kind of bonehead, but neither was he the kind of bonehead who sat around waiting for a woman who said she’d contact him and didn’t.
He’d spent the past few days working hard, demolishing the store and filling up the Dumpster. At night, he’d hit a few local bars. He’d raised a Lone Star at Slim Clem’s and shot back tequila at the Road Kill, and both nights he’d returned home before midnight. Alone. He could have brought someone back with him if he’d stayed long enough, but as much as he hated to admit it, he’d been tired from hours of hard physical labor. There’d been a time when he’d survived on little or no sleep for days on end. When he’d hiked or jogged or swum against the current for miles, in unbearable heat or bone-numbing cold, often packing sixty to a hundred pounds of essentials, but he wasn’t in that kind of physical shape these days, and as much as he hated to admit it, years of pushing his body beyond its limit had taken a toll. These days his pain reliever of choice wasn’t tequila. It was Advil.
After four days of not hearing from Sadie, she texted him and invited him to the JH. Clearly she just wanted sex. That was it. He’d never known a woman who just wanted sex and nothing more. Not after he’d been with her a few times. He didn’t think he was being egotistical. He liked to excel. To be the best. There was no quit until the job was done. Women appreciated that and always wanted more. But not Sadie. She didn’t want more, and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He should be thrilled. It was perfect. She was beautiful. Interesting. Good in bed, and only wanted to use him for sex. Perfect.
So why did he feel mildly pissed? And if all she wanted to do was fuck, what was he doing here in the light of day? With all the ranch hands around? Why hadn’t she asked him to drive out this evening after dark?
He had a lot he could be doing right now. A lot before his buddy Blake Junger finished up his own business and got his ass to Lovett. Blake was a master of many trades. Deadly sniper and licensed carpenter just two among them.
“Vince!”
He turned his attention to the right and spotted Sadie standing beside a corral attached to a big barn. She wore
