Rescue Me

would be no miracle recovery for her father. He was in for a long recovery, and she was in for a long absence from her real life.
    Each day, he spent a bit more time off sedation, and they started the process of weaning him off the ventilator. When she entered the room a week and a half after the accident, the ventilator was gone, replaced by a nasal cannula. Her father lay in bed, asleep. A little touch of relief lifted her heart as she moved to the side of his bed.
    “Daddy?” She leaned over him. He was still hooked to monitors and bags of saline and medication. His skin was still pale and drawn. “Daddy, I’m here.”
    Clive’s eyelids fluttered open. “Sadie?” His voice was a painful rasp.
    She smiled. “Yes.”
    “Why . . .” He coughed, then grabbed his side with shaky hands. “Son of a bitch!” his croaky voice swore. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! My goddamn side is on fire.”
    Yolanda, of the smiley rainbow scrubs, was back on duty. “Mr. Hollowell, do you need some water?”
    “I don’t need”—he broke into another coughing fit, and Sadie cringed—“any goddamn water. Goddamn it!”
    Yolanda turned to Sadie as she poured the water anyway. “Some patients wake up cranky,” she warned. “It’s just stress and confusion.”
    No. It was just Clive Hollowell’s natural disposition.
    T he Monday after the ridiculous fuckery at the wedding palace from hell, Vince called a bank in Amarillo and made an appointment to talk to a business loan officer in two weeks’ time. Years ago, he’d borrowed money to buy a Laundromat, and he knew the drill. This time, though, he wouldn’t be using the VA loan program. This time he’d need more cash than the half-million-dollar cap.
    In anticipation of the meeting, he got the names of a commercial inspector and appraiser and set up appointments with both. He wrote out a business plan and got his financial documents in order. Everything from his banking history, retirement savings, and stock accounts. He got the financial records for the Gas and Go for the past five years, and he had his sister go to his storage shed in Seattle and send him his tax records for the past two years. For some reason, she’d also sent a few boxes of personal stuff. Loose photos and medals and patches and commendations. The Trident Wilson’s mother had given him on the day he’d buried his friend.
    By the time he walked into the bank with the appraisal and inspection in hand, he was prepared. Just as he liked to live his life. Prepared. Not like a Boy Scout. Like a SEAL. If anything was going to hold back the sale, it was Aunt Luraleen’s loosey-goosey way of keeping records. Her assets and liabilities sheets were a mess, but the Gas and Go had passed inspection with flying colors. Luraleen’s financials might be lax, but she was in complete compliance when it came to environmental infractions. The building itself might need some attention, but the fuel tanks were solid. And the fact that Luraleen was offering the business several hundred thousand dollars below appraisal made Vince fairly confident that the loan would be approved. Of course, there were always unknowables that could stall the process.
    Vince hated unknowables even more than he hated owing anyone anything.
    While he waited to hear from the bank, he learned as much as he could about running a convenience store. He met the store’s suppliers and Luraleen’s two employees, Patty Schulz and George “Bug” Larson. Both seemed capable enough, but nether struck him as particularly having a fire in their bellies for anything. Except maybe jalapeño cheese dogs. If and when he took over the Gas and Go, Patty and Bug were going to do more for their ten bucks an hour than sit on stools and ring up cigarettes and beer. He was going to make other changes, too. First, he would take a sledgehammer to the place. As a member of the SEAL teams he’d been an insertion specialist, but he did love to demo. Second, when he reopened, the Gas and Go would close at twenty-four hundred hours. Not twenty-two-hundred or whenever the mood struck Luraleen.
    His second week in Lovett, he took over his aunt’s night shifts and the responsibility of closing the place. And over the next few nights he discovered that the people of Lovett gossiped like it was a natural reflex. Like breathing and saying y’all.
    One night over a Snickers and a cup of decaf, Deeann Gunderson told him that Jerome Leon was “skirtin’ around” behind