Rescue Me

dear?”
    She’d smiled. “Not yet, Mrs. Jinks.”
    Luraleen had owned the Gas and Go for as long as Sadie could recall. Cheap booze and nicotine had tanned her wrinkly hide like an old leather coat. “You’ll find someone. There’s still time.”
    Meaning she’d better hurry up. “I’m twenty-eight.” Twenty-eight was young. She’d still been getting her life together.
    Luraleen had reached out and patted Sadie’s ringless hand. “Well, bless your heart.”
    She had things more figured out these days. She felt calmer, until a few months ago when she’d taken a call from her aunt Bess, on her mother’s side, informing her that she was to be in the wedding of her young cousin Tally Lynn. It was such short notice she had to wonder if someone else had dropped out and she was a last-minute substitute. She didn’t even know Tally Lynn, but Tally Lynn was family, and as much as Sadie tried to pretend she had no roots, and as much as she hated the idea of being in her young cousin’s wedding, she hadn’t been able to say no. Not even when the hot-pink bridesmaid’s dress had arrived at her house to be fitted. It was strapless and corseted, and the short taffeta pickup skirt was so gathered and bubbled that her hands disappeared into the fabric when she put them to her sides. It wouldn’t be so bad if she was eighteen and going to her prom, but her high school years were a distant memory. She was thirty-three and looked a little ridiculous in her prom/bridesmaid’s dress.
    Always a bridesmaid. Never a bride . That’s how everyone would see her. Everyone in her family and everyone in town. They’d pity her, and she hated that. Hated that she still gave a damn. Hated that she didn’t currently have a boyfriend to take her. Hated it so much she’d actually given some thought to renting a date. The biggest, best-looking stud she could find. Just to shut everyone up. Just so she wouldn’t have to hear the whispers and see the sideway glances, or have to explain her current manless life, but the logistics of renting a man in one state and transporting him to another hadn’t been real feasible. The ethics didn’t trouble Sadie. Men rented women all the time.
    Ten miles outside Lovett, a weather vane and a part of an old fence broke up the brown-on-brown scenery. A barbed wire fence ran along the highway to the rough log-and-wrought-iron entry to the JH Ranch. Everything was as familiar as if she’d never left. Everything but the black truck on the side of the road. A man leaned one hip into the rear fender, his black clothing blending into the black paint, a ball cap shading his face beneath the bright Texas sunlight.
    Sadie slowed and prepared to turn up the road to her father’s ranch. She supposed she should stop and ask if he needed help. The raised hood on the truck was a big clue that he did, but she was a lone woman on a deserted highway and he looked really big.
    He straightened and pushed away from the truck. A black T-shirt fit tight across his chest and around his big biceps. Someone else would come along.
    Eventually.
    She turned onto the dirt road and drove through the gate. Or he could walk to town. Lovett was ten miles down the highway. She glanced in her rearview mirror as he shoved his hands on his hips and looked after her taillights.
    “Damn.” She stepped on the brake. In the state only a couple of hours and already the Texas in her reared its hospitable head. It was after six. Most people would be home from work by now, and it could be minutes or hours before someone else drove by.
    But . . . people had cell phones. Right? He’d probably already called someone. Through the mirror, he raised one hand from his hip and held it palm up. Maybe he was in a dead zone. She checked to make sure her doors were locked and put the car into reverse. The early evening sunlight poured through the back window as she reversed out onto the highway, then drove up alongside the road toward the big truck.
    The warm light bathed the side of his face as the man moved toward her. He was the kind of guy who made Sadie a little uncomfortable. The kind who wore leather and drank beer and crushed empties on their foreheads. The kind who made her stand a little straighter. The kind she avoided like a hot fudge brownie because both were bad news for her thighs.
    She stopped and hit the power button on her door handle. The window slowly lowered halfway, and she looked up. Way up past the hard muscle beneath