Rescue Me

his wife’s back with Tamara Perdue. Deeann owned Deeann’s Duds and was a pretty thirtysomething divorced mother of two. She let him know she was interested in more than a candy bar and gossip and that she was free every other weekend. As long as she wasn’t looking for a daddy for her kids, he might take her up on it. He didn’t have anything against kids. Just mamas who wanted a new husband.
    He heard that someone ran over Velma Patterson’s little dog, and that Daisy and Jack Parrish were expecting a baby girl. He learned that Sadie Hollowell was in Laredo with her sick father. Everyone seemed to have an opinion about the Hollowells in general and Sadie in particular. Some, like Aunt Luraleen, thought she was an ungrateful daughter. Others that her father was neglectful, more concerned with his cattle and horses than his own child. Whatever the opinion, they all loved to talk.
    Like Vince gave a shit.
    Besides the average customers who just stopped when they needed a fill-up, the Gas and Go had regulars. People who stopped in every day or so at the same time for a fountain Coke or gas or beer.
    One of those regular customers who stopped by for a nightly fountain Coke turned out to be Becca Ramsey. Which he did mind.
    “Vince!” she’d shrieked as if they were old friends the first time she’d seen him in the Gas and Go. “Are you stayin’ in Lovett?”
    He wondered if he could get away with lying to her. “For a while yet.” After that, she came in for a pack of gum, a candy bar, and a Rockstar on her way home from the Milan Institute in Amarillo. Apparently young Becca was going to beauty school, and for some reason thought Vince gave a flying fuck.
    “If I have to give one more old lady a perm,” she said, her words drawn out, “I swear I’m goin’ to flip the freak out!”
    “Uh-huh.” He rang up her energy drink.
    “I saw Slade drivin’ around in that slut Lexa Jane’s truck. He’s so broke down he can’t even afford his own vehicle.”
    He felt a sudden stabbing pain in his left eye. Like a nail driven into his iris. The next day, she stopped in to tell him she’d cut her first wedge. Apparently it was a type of woman’s hairstyle, and for the first time in six years, he could imagine an upside to his hearing loss. Maybe if he turned his bad ear toward her, he could block out her voice. Or maybe she’d run out of words and shut the hell up.
    “And she didn’t look like she had dog ears when I was done.” She laughed. “You just can’t believe the number of girls who can’t cut a wedge.”
    No such luck. Vince had been trained by the finest military in the world on how to escape and evade. He could get out of tight spots, but there was no way to E and E Becca without putting her in a sleeper hold.
    “Next week I’m having a birthday party.”
    “How old are you going to be?” he asked as he rang up her Big Hunk. Vince would guess, barely legal. Some men might find a young, attractive girl fair game. Vince wasn’t one of those guys. He liked mature women who didn’t weep all over him.
    “Twenty-one.”
    When he’d been twenty-one, he’d just finished SQT and was headed to the teams. He’d been full of himself and riding high on testosterone and invincibility. He’d been arrogant and tenacious with a full bag of skills to back it all up.
    “You should come and take shots with me.” She dug in her wallet and handed him a five.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not? We’re friends now.”
    He made change, then looked at the silly girl in front of him. She actually thought they were friends. “Since when?”
    “Since we talked at Tally Lynn’s wedding. You were there for me, Vince.”
    Jesus, she thought he’d sat in that bride’s room because of her. He’d been there because he’d had a hard-on for Sadie Hollowell and he’d had to wait it out.
    “You helped me see that Slade is shallow and that I’m better off without him.”
    “I did?” He didn’t remember saying that.
    She smiled. “I want more. I deserve more, and I’ve moved on.”
    Suddenly he had a very uncomfortable feeling. Like someone had a bead between his eyes and he was caught completely unarmed.
    The chime above the door rang and he looked from the big brown eyes in front of him to the woman strolling into the Gas and Go. Into the face of the woman who’d made his life uncomfortable in more ways than one. Her blond hair was pulled back into a loose, messy ponytail. She wore a rumpled