Rescue Me

up that way, Sadie Jo. We’ve never talked about it because I thought I had more time and you’d come home on your own. I—”
    “Daddy, you—” she tried to interrupt.
    “—got good people runnin’ everything.” He wouldn’t let her. “You don’t have to do anything but live your life, and someday, when you’re ready, it will be waitin’ for you.”
    His words hit her in the chest. He never talked like this. Never about business or the ranch or someday when he was no longer around. “Daddy.”
    “But you can never sell our land.”
    “I wouldn’t. Ever. I never even thought about it,” she said, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She’d thought about it. More than once, but as soon as she said the words, she knew they were true. She’d never sell her daddy’s land. “I’m a Hollowell. Like my daddy and granddaddy and great-granddaddy.” She was a Texan and that meant deep roots. No matter where a person lived. “All my anchors.”
    Clive patted her hand once. Twice. A rare three times. It was the most affectionate he got. It was like a big old hug from other fathers.
    Sadie smiled. “It’s a shame I didn’t know Granddaddy.” By the time she’d been born, both her grandparents had passed.
    “He was mean as a skillet of rattlers. I’m glad you never knew him.” He pulled his hand from hers. “He’d tan my hide for looking sideways.”
    She’d heard rumors here and there that Clive Senior had been volatile, but like most rumors involving her family, she’d mostly ignored them. She had vague memories of her mother’s opinion of her grandfather, but her father had never said a word. Of course he hadn’t. Wouldn’t. She looked at her daddy’s profile. Closed and harsh, and she felt like a gauzy curtain was pulled aside for a moment, and the confusing love and longing and disappointment of her life became clearer. She’d always known he didn’t know how to be a father, but she’d assumed it was because she was a girl. She hadn’t known it was because he’d had a really shitty example. “Well, I’m glad you’re my anchor, Daddy.”
    “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, then barked, “Where’s that damn Snooks? He was supposed to be here an hour ago.”
    Typical. When things felt a little mushy, Clive got irritable. Sadie smiled. Their relationship might always be difficult, but at least she understood her daddy just a bit more than before. He was a hard man. Raised by an even harder man.
    After she left the rehabilitation hospital that afternoon, she thought about her father and their relationship. He would never be a candidate for father of the year, but maybe that was okay.
    She also thought about texting Vince. She wanted to, but she didn’t. She wanted to see his green eyes as he tilted his head to one side and listened to her talk. She wanted to see his smile and hear the deep timbre of his laughter, but she didn’t want to want it too much.
    Instead, she went home and ate dinner in the bunkhouse with the ranch hands and went to bed early. She and Vince Haven were nothing more than friends with benefits. It’s what both of them wanted. She’d never had an FWB relationship before. She’d had boyfriends and a few one-night stands. And she really didn’t know if she could even call Vince a friend. She liked him, but at this point, he was more a benefit than a friend, and the last thing she wanted was to fall for her benefits man.
    V ince parked his truck in front of the main house and walked around the side. In the light of day, the JH was alive with activity. Like a base camp, only with more animals and slightly less dust. And like a base camp, at first glance chaotic, but it was organized and well-orchestrated chaos.
    In the distance to his left, calves were herded into a metal chute one by one. The clang of heavy metal carried across the distance. He couldn’t see what the men were doing or hear if the calves objected.
    It was half past four, and he’d been working all day ripping up old floor tiles inside the Gas and Go. About an hour ago, Sadie had finally texted him. He hadn’t seen or heard from her for four days. Not since the morning she’d accused him of expecting a blow job. He wasn’t going to pretend that hadn’t annoyed him. He wasn’t that kind of bonehead, but neither was he the kind of bonehead who sat around waiting for a woman who said she’d contact him and didn’t.
    He’d spent the past few days working hard, demolishing the store and