Rescue Me

is worth it.” Did she say lonely? She didn’t consider herself lonely, but she supposed as a kid she’d been very alone.
    He put his napkin on his empty plate. “Isn’t this all going to be yours one day?”
    Suddenly she wasn’t hungry as the old feeling of dread landed like a ball in her stomach. “What makes you think that?”
    “People talk, and working in a convenience store is like being a bartender.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Only not as many drunks and without the tips.”
    People loved to talk, especially in Lovett. “Yes, but I’m a girl.”
    He sat back in his chair and folded his big arms across his bare chest. His gaze moved from hers, down her chin and neck to the front of her shirt. He smiled and looked back up into her eyes. “That’s obvious.”
    “My daddy wanted a boy.” She took a drink of tea. “He doesn’t want to leave the JH to me any more than I want a ten-thousand-acre ranch, but I’m the only child of an only child. There isn’t anyone else.”
    “So you’re going to inherit a ranch you don’t want.”
    She shrugged. Her feelings about the JH were confusing. She loved and hated it all at the same time. It was a part of her like her blue eyes. “I don’t know what my daddy has in mind. He hasn’t told me and I haven’t asked.”
    “And you don’t think that’s odd?”
    “You don’t know my daddy,” she said just above a whisper.
    He turned his head slightly to the left as she noticed he did sometimes and watched her mouth. “How old is your father?”
    “Seventy-eight.” Why all the questions? He couldn’t be that interested in her life. She was a one-night stand. Nothing more. She pushed her plate aside.
    “Are you done eating?”
    “I am.”
    He smiled. “Are you good to go again?”
    Ah. He was just killing time with questions until she finished eating. She looked at the clock. It was a little after one A.M. The Parton sisters wouldn’t arrive for five more hours. No, it wasn’t the most romantic sex, but it was amazing. He wasn’t much of a romantic guy, but she wasn’t looking for romance. What he was , was a one-night stand and he’d given her something she hadn’t had for a while.
    A good time. “Hooyah.”

Chapter Eleven
    “W ho buttered your muffin?”
    Sadie turned and looked at her father, an oxygen cannula in his nose, glasses on the top of his head, and a new pair of nonskid purple socks on his feet. Had he found out about Vince? Had someone seen his truck leave at about three A.M. and ratted her out? “What?”
    “You’re humming.”
    She turned back to the sink filled with yellow daisies. “A person can’t hum?”
    “Not unless there’s somethin’ to hum about.”
    She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. She felt more relaxed than she had since the morning she’d headed her Saab toward Texas. For the first time since she’d arrived at the JH, she’d spent the night thinking of . . . well, thinking of nothing. Just feeling pleasure. Of doing something other than watching television, worrying about her daddy and her career and her future. And that was something to hum about.
    She cut an inch off the stems and arranged them in a vase. “Is there anything I can do for you, Daddy?”
    “Not a thing.”
    “I can take over some of the responsibilities at the ranch.” For a while. Until he could go home. “You could show me your accounting software and I can do your payroll.” Once she was shown what to do, it couldn’t be that hard.
    “Wanda does all that. If you take Wanda’s job, she can’t feed her kids.”
    Oh. She didn’t know Wanda. “You’ll be vaccinating and tagging the new calves soon. I could help out with that.” One of her least favorite jobs, but it would give her something to do besides hang out in a rehab hospital with her grumpy daddy.
    “You’d be in the way.”
    True, but he could have lied and spared her feelings. Wait. He was Clive Hollowell, no he couldn’t. “I thought these flowers might cheer you up,” she said and gave up trying. Daisies had been her mother’s favorite flower.
    “Going home will cheer me up.” He coughed and grabbed his side. “Goddamn it!”
    She glanced over her shoulder at him but knew there was nothing she could do. Her father’s ribs were healing, but slowly. He was still in pain but refused to take pain medication.
    “Why don’t you take something,” she said as she filled the vase with water.
    His painful fit went on for several