Run To You

work part-time while I go to school.” She stood because she was too restless to sit while she boldly lied. “Beautiful horse,” she said, and pointed to the portrait above the fireplace.
    “That’s Admiral. He was Daddy’s Blue Roan Tovero. The day Admiral died was the only time I’d ever seen Daddy close to tears.” She moved and stood next to Stella. “Daddy cared for horses more than he did people.”
    Stella looked up at her sister. Her sister. She still couldn’t believe she stood in her father’s house looking at his Blue Roan Tovero. Stella actually did know a thing or two about paint horses. She’d written a paper on them in high school because she’d thought they were pretty. “I feel weird being here. Clive never wanted me here.”
    “My daddy . . . our father was a difficult man.” Sadie turned her attention to the painting. “I never understood him. I spent a lot of time trying. I spent a lot of time trying to please him, too. I never did.”
    “But he loved you.” The implication hung in the air, sounding a lot like Stella cared, and she didn’t.
    “In his way, I guess.” Sadie shrugged a shoulder and turned to look at Stella. “But if he really loved me, why didn’t he tell me I had a little sister? I had a right to know. I had a right to know you.” Her eyes got a little watery. “I would have reached out to you, Stella. I would have made sure you were in my life.”
    “That’s probably why he never told you.” Stella drained her wine. Did she really feel a little bit sorry for Sadie? Her sister who had everything? Not that she cared about things and possessions, but at least their father had loved her. Even if it was in his own way . “He never wanted me in his life.”
    “That’s just mean. I always knew he could be cold, but that’s just cruel.” Anger tightened her lips. “How could he abandon a child?”
    “He made sure my mother had money to raise me.” Was she really defending Clive?
    “Well, I should hope to shout. That was the very least he could do.” She turned her attention back to the horse painting. “A few days before he died, I thought we’d gotten closer. We didn’t fall on each other’s necks, and there was no touching Hollywood moment, but I thought we were finally relating on some adult level.” She laughed without humor. “He told me he’d never liked cattle and always wanted to be a truck driver.”
    Stella couldn’t imagine the tall, thin man she knew driving the big rigs.
    “Like telling me that he’s always wanted to be a trucker was more important than telling me I have a sister. He was sick. He knew he was dying. He was almost eighty, and still he couldn’t tell me? He couldn’t say, ‘I always hated cattle and wanted to be a king of the road.’ ” Sadie paused to hold up one finger. “ ‘Oh, and by the way, Sadie Jo, you have a sister’? I had to discover it on my own when I read his will?” She looked at Stella and again placed a hand on her stomach. “Here I am, getting angry all over again while you have a right to be more angry than anyone.” She took in a deep breath, and the light from the antler chandelier shone in her hair. “More wine?”
    “Is the pope Catholic?”
    Sadie smiled. “Lord, I hope so. If not, he’s just some old person with a preference for weird hats, like my dead Aunt Ginger.”
    Stella laughed. “My uncle Jorge has a sombrero with shot glasses hanging on it like tassel fringe. Some are chipped and broken, but he wears it every Cinco de Mayo. It’s lovely.”
    “I could use a shot of Patron.” Sadie glanced at Stella out of the corners of her eyes as they moved down a hall past a fancy dining room with heavy drapery. “Maybe two, but I don’t want you to think I’m a big drinker.”
    “Then I’ll pour.”
    V ince Haven had always had an affinity for the Marine Corps. The blood and guts sledge hammers at the point of the spear. Usually the first infantry units to arrive and deliver the big thump. They were tough and mean and convinced of their own superiority. Vince liked that about Marines, even though everyone knew Navy SEALs were the elite within the special operations community. He’d hate to have to physically prove that point to Sergeant Junger, though. He’d cleared a few bars with the Junger boys, then watched in complete bafflement as they turned on each other. Knocking the snot out of each other until they both lay on the ground. Too winded to move, but still