Rescue Me

“Sixteen? And your girlfriend was eighteen? That’s illegal.”
    “It was my idea and she wasn’t my girlfriend.”
    “You weren’t even a relationship guy at sixteen?”
    He glanced at her and smiled. “I had a few girlfriends in high school.”
    “What about since?”
    He glanced across at her. At the flat Texas plains, the green and brown grasses passing in the window framing her head. At the desperation in her blue eyes, pleading with him to talk. Just to keep talking so she didn’t have to think about her daddy and the reality of what waited for her in Amarillo. “Nothing really since I joined the teams.” He’d never been good at small talk or talking just to talk. He’d give it a try if it distracted her. “I don’t know anyone on his first marriage, but I know a lot of guys on their third. Good guys. Solid.” He pulled to the left lane and passed a Nissan. “The divorce rate in the teams is around ninety percent.”
    “But you’re not in the military now. It’s been five years.”
    “Almost six.”
    “And you’ve never fallen in love?”
    “Sure.” He hung his wrist over the steering wheel. “For a few hours.”
    “That’s not called love.”
    “No?” He looked over at her and turned the tables. “Have you ever had a real serious relationship? Ever been engaged?”
    She shook her head and set the bottle in the cup holder. “I’ve had relationships, but no one’s ever put a ring on it.” Her anxiety leaked out her fingers and she drummed the console. “I date emotionally unavailable men, like my dad, and try and make them love me.”
    “Did a shrink tell you that?”
    “ Loveline with Mike and Dr. Drew.”
    He’d never heard of Loveline , but he’d certainly had a shrink tell him why he ran from relationships. “Apparently I have a disconnect with deep emotions.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Or so I’ve been told.”
    “By a woman?”
    “Yep. A Navy psychiatrist.” He could feel her gaze on him. “A damn smart woman.”
    “Why are you emotionally disconnected?”
    He was willing to distract her . . . to a point. That point did not include digging into his head or his past. “It’s easier.”
    “Than what?”
    Than living with guilt. “Did Mark and Dr. Drew give you tips on avoiding emotionally available men?”
    “They gave me warning signs.”
    “Did you heed their advice?”
    Sadie studied Vince’s profile from the passenger side of his big truck. His strong jaw and cheeks were covered in dark stubble. He hadn’t shaved since she’d seen him earlier, but he looked like he’d showered, and he’d changed his clothes. “The fact that I am in any way involved with you points out the glaringly obvious fact that I didn’t listen.” Just below the surface of her skin, she could feel her pain and grief aching. It was so close. So close to leaking out if she let it.
    “Clearly.”
    She looked out the window at the dusty Texas plains. Her daddy was dead. Dead. It couldn’t be possible. He was too cantankerous to die.
    For the next half hour, Vince kept up her plea for him to talk. He didn’t run on and on, just a few observations about Texas and Lovett. Every time the silence pushed her close to the edge, his voice drew her back. She didn’t really know why she’d pulled into the Gas and Go. She could have driven to Amarillo, but she was glad for his strong, solid presence.
    At the hospital, he placed his hand on the small of her back and they moved through the automatic doors. He waited outside her father’s room with the nurse while she moved inside. The daisies she’d left the other day sat on the bedside table next to his nonskid socks she’d left out for him. Someone had pulled the sheet up to the chest of his pajama shirt. His old hands lay at his sides and his eyes were closed.
    “Daddy,” she whispered. Her heart pounded in her chest and throat. “Daddy,” she said louder as if she could wake him. Yet even as she said it, she knew he wasn’t asleep. She took a step closer to the side of his bed. He did not look asleep. He looked sunken . . . gone. She placed her fingers in his cool hand.
    He was gone just as she was beginning to understand him.
    One tear and then another slid down her cheek. She closed her eyes and shoved it all down until her chest ached. “Sorry, Daddy. Two got out,” she said. He’d been her anchor when she hadn’t even known she needed one.
    She slid her hand from her father’s and dried