Rachel Gibson - Rescue Me

She screwed on the gas cap, then opened her car door and grabbed her purse from the seat. She’d had her first real relationship her freshman year at UT at Austin. His name had been Frank Bassinger, but everyone called him Frosty.

Yeah, Frosty.

He’d been beautiful, with sun-kissed hair and clear blue eyes. A true Texan, he’d played football and had been clean-cut, like a someday senator. He’d taken her virginity, and he’d made it so good, she’d gone back for more that very same night.

They’d dated for almost a year and, in hindsight, he was probably the only real good guy she’d ever dated, but she’d been young and started to feel trapped and restless and wanted to move on from Frosty and Austin and Texas altogether.

She’d broken his heart, and she’d felt bad about that, but she’d been young with a wide-open future. A future even more wide-open than the flat Texas plains she’d always known.

The heels of her four-inch pumps tapped across the parking lot as she made her way to the front of the store. She wondered what had become of Frosty. Probably married to one of those perfect, perky Junior Leaguers, had two children, and worked in his father’s law firm. He probably had the perfectly perfect life.

She moved between a white pickup and a Jeep Wrangler. After Frosty, she’d had a series of boyfriends at different universities. Only one of them had been what she’d consider a serious relationship. Only one of them had twisted and broken her heart like a pretzel. His name had been Brent. Just Brent. One name. Not two. No nickname, and she’d met him at UC Berkeley. He hadn’t been like any guy she’d ever known. Looking back now, she could see that he’d been a rebel without a clue, a radical without a cause, but in her early twenties, she hadn’t seen that. Hadn’t seen that there’d been nothing behind his dark, broody moods. The son of privilege with nothing but pretentious anger against “the system.” God, she’d been crazy for him. When he’d dumped her for a black-haired girl with soulful eyes, Sadie had thought she was going to die. Of course she hadn’t, but it had taken her a long time to get over Brent. These days, she was much too smart to love so blindly. She’d been there and done that and had no interest in emotionally unavailable men. Men like her dad who shut down when anyone got too close.

She opened the door to the Gas and Go, and a little chime rang somewhere in the store. Her nostrils were assaulted by the smell of popcorn, hot dogs, and pine cleaner. She moved down a row of chips to the glass refrigerator cases. Her last relationship had been short-lived. He’d been successful and handsome, but she’d had to kick him to the curb because his sexual technique hadn’t improved after three months. Three frustrating months of him falling asleep before he finished the job. She didn’t need a man for his money. She needed him for things she couldn’t do for herself like lift heavy objects and knock boots.

Simple, but it was always shocking how many guys weren’t that great at knocking boots. Which was just baffling. Wasn’t sex their number one job? Even above actually having a job?

She grabbed a six-pack of Diet Coke and slid past a middle-aged cowboy reaching for a case of Lone Star in the next cooler. Beneath his hat, his big mustache looked somewhat familiar, but she didn’t stop for a close look. She was tired, and after the rehearsal dinner, preceded by lunch with the Parton twins, she was talked and tuckered out.

Tuckered out? Lord, she hadn’t used, or even thought of, that expression in a raccoon’s age. Maybe a raccoon and a half even.

She grabbed a bag of Chee-tos and set it by the six-pack on the counter in front of Luraleen Jinks. If it was possible, Mrs. Jinks had even more wrinkles. She wore a neon pink blouse and pink skull earrings with jeweled eyes.

“Well Sadie Jo,” she greeted, her voice as rough as sixty-grit sandpaper.

“Hello, Mrs. Jinks.”

“You’re just as pretty as your mama.”

She guessed she should return the compliment, but that would require lying skills she didn’t possess. Even for a native. “Thank you, Mrs. Jinks. I really like your skull earrings.” Which was still a lie but not as big as telling Luraleen she was pretty.

“Thank you. One of my gentlemen gave them to me.”

She had gentle men ? As in more than one?

“How’s your daddy?” She scanned the Diet Coke and placed it in a plastic bag. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He’s good.” She set her Gucci bag on the counter and pulled out her wallet.

“I hear you’re in town for Tally Lynn’s weddin’.”

“Yes. I just came from the rehearsal dinner. Tally looked very happy.” Which was true. Happy and glowing with young love.

She rang up the Chee-tos. “Vince told me you helped out and gave him a ride into town last night.”

She looked up. “Vince? The guy stranded out on the highway?” The one who’d turned down the chance to escort her to her cousin’s wedding? The last guy on the planet she’d hope to see again?

“Yeah. He’s my nephew.”

Nephew? When she’d left the JH earlier, she’d noticed that his truck was no longer on the side of the road.

Luraleen hit total. “He’s in the back puttin’ boxes away for me. I’ll get him.”

“No really I-”

“ Vince! ” she called out, then broke out in a coughing fit.

Sadie didn’t know whether to run or to jump across the counter and pound on the woman’s back. Running really wasn’t an option, and she wondered if she pounded on Luraleen’s back, would smoke signals pour out of her ears with each thump?

From the back of the store she heard the slight squeak of a door and the heavier thud of boot heels a second before the deep rumble of masculine voice. “You okay, Aunt Luraleen?”

Sadie glanced to the left, at the tall dark presence moving toward her. A shadow of black scruff covered the bottom half of his face, making his eyes a more vivid light green. If it was even possible, he looked bigger and badder than he had the night before. Without his ball cap, he was even hotter. His dark hair was cut short, about an inch shy of a crew cut.

He stopped when he saw her. “Hello, Sadie.”

He’d remembered her name. “Hi, Vincent.” And even though he obviously found her resistible, she once again fought the ridiculous urge to twist her hair and check her lip gloss. Which just proved to her that she needed to start thinking about a new relationship. This time with a man who was good in the sack. “I didn’t see your truck on the side of the highway. So I take it you got a tow.”

“Everyone calls me Vince.” He continued behind the counter and stood next to his aunt. “I got a tow this morning. The alternator went out, but it should be fixed by Monday.”

No doubt the guy in front of her would know what to do and get the job done. Guys like him always knew the ins-and-outs of bed. Or against the wall, on the beach in Oahu, or in the car overlooking L.A. Not that she knew. Of course not. “So you’re here until Monday?” And why was she thinking of Vince and the sack anyway? Maybe because he looked so sackable in his brown T-shirt stretched across his hard chest.

He slid a gaze to his aunt. “I’m not sure when I’m shipping out.”

Sadie pushed a twenty across the counter. She looked up into Vince’s light green eyes within his dark, swarthy face. He just didn’t seem like a small-town kind of guy. Especially a small-town Texas kind of guy. “Lovett isn’t quite the Seattle area.” She guessed him to be in his midthirties. The women of Lovett would love him, but she wasn’t sure how many of those women were single. “There isn’t a lot to do.”