Rescue Me

roller. That thing has to go. Luraleen calls it ‘seasoned.’ ” He shut the door and screwed off the bottle tops. “I call it a lawsuit waiting to be filed.”
    The convenience store certainly needed work. It pretty much looked the same as it had for twenty years. “Who’s doing your renovations?” She took the bottle he held toward her. “I can’t tell you who to hire, but I can tell you who works on Miller time.”
    “You’re looking at the guy doing the renovations.”
    “You?”
    “Yeah, me. I’m going to hire some buddies to come down and help me lay tiles.”
    She was close enough to inhale the scent of him. He smelled like man and clean sweat. The grayish light in the store darkened his five o’clock shadow to at least nine-thirty.
    In college she’d taken a mosaics class. “Are you good at laying tiles?”
    He grinned, his teeth a white flash in the variegated light, and raised the bottle to his lips. “Among other things.”
    They probably shouldn’t talk about the other things he was good at laying. “What’s Luraleen up to these days?”
    He took a drink and swallowed. “Right now she’s in Vegas spending the money I paid her for this place.” He lowered the beer. “One nickel slot and cheap shot of whiskey at a time.”
    “Not a high roller?”
    “The velvet sofa in her house is from the seventies and all her music is on cassette tapes.”
    Sadie laughed. “Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn?”
    “Yeah.” He took her hand in his, warm and hard and rough. “Right now, I’m taking care of her house for her, but I’m going to need a place to live once she gets back. If I have to hear one more ‘cheatin’ song’ while she and Alvin get it on in her bedroom, I’m going to stab my head.” He pulled her behind him down the hall and into the office. Nails and a few splinters of wood were scattered about on the floor and the paint on the walls was a different color where there had once been cabinets hanging on the walls. An olive-colored countertop, an old chipped sink, and one more cabinet still occupied the room. A pair of clear safety glasses sat on an old wooden desk; a sledgehammer rested against the leg.
    “Alvin Bandy?” She stopped in the middle of the room and her hand fell from his. “I know him. Short guy with a big mustache and ears?”
    “That’s him.”
    “Oh my God. He worked at the JH for a while when I was growing up.” She took a drink of beer and swallowed. “He’s not that old. Probably in his forties and Luraleen is what?”
    “I think she’s sixty-eight.”
    And Lily Darlington worried that she was a cougar. “Holy moly. I know women can be desperate.” She shook her head and thought of Sarah Louise Baynard-Conseco. “But I didn’t know men were really desperate, too. Dang, that’s just nasty.” She stopped short. “Oh. I’m sorry. Luraleen is your aunt.”
    He raised one dark brow up his forehead. “He isn’t her only boyfriend.”
    Sadie gasped.
    “He’s just her youngest. She has several.”
    Lordy. “Several?” She sat on the edge of the desk. “I haven’t had a boyfriend in about a year and Luraleen has several . What’s up with that?”
    He shrugged one big shoulder. “Maybe you have standards.”
    She chuckled. “You probably wouldn’t say that if you met my last boyfriend.”
    “Loser?”
    “Boring.” She shrugged. “So are you like your Aunt Luraleen? Several women on a string?”
    “No. I don’t string anyone along.”
    She believed him. The night of Founder’s Day he’d told her he wasn’t good with relationships. “Have you ever had a serious girlfriend? Ever been engaged?”
    “No.” He took a drink.
    Subject closed. She supposed she could ask why, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood to answer. “Is Luraleen your mother or father’s sister?” she asked instead.
    “Mother’s, but they were nothing alike.” He leaned his hip into the one remaining counter. “My mother was very religious. Especially after my father left.”
    At least her daddy hadn’t abandoned her. “When did your daddy leave?”
    “I was ten.” He took a drink, then lowered the bottle to his side. “My sister was five.”
    “Do you still talk to your dad?”
    He tapped the bottle against his thigh like he might not answer. His gaze moved across her face before he said, “I talked to him a few months ago. He contacted me out of the blue and wanted to suddenly see me after twenty-six years.”
    “Did you meet with