Rescue Me

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.”
    “Well, I . . . I beg to differ with you,” Luraleen sputtered as she made change. “We don’t