Run To You

saw Stella’s sunglasses and laughed. “How’s your head feeling?”
    “Like I drank too much tequila.”
    “Me too.” Sadie sat on the end of the bed and grabbed the ornate iron frame. “Sorry.”
    “Don’t be sorry. I’m twenty-eight.”
    “Your first day here, and I lead you astray.” Her blue eyes looked into Stella’s, and Stella still couldn’t believe she was here at the JH. “I feel like I’ve failed in my big sister duty.”
    “Well, you haven’t been a big sister very long.”
    “I’d planned to take you for a nice lunch and then a massage at my favorite spa in Amarillo. Really impress you, but I am surely draggin’. Do you mind too much if we stay home today?”
    “Not at all.” Stella sat on the bed next to her sister. “You can show me around here, if you’d like.”
    Sadie nodded. “This used to be my bedroom.” She ran a hand across the iron frame. “This was Great-Grandmother’s bed, and I spent a lot of time in this room as a kid. A lot of time alone.”
    “Didn’t you have friends?” Stella joked.
    Sadie nodded. “Sure, but they all lived in town.” She crawled across the bed, laid her head on the pillow, and stretched out her long, tan legs. “Town is a long way if you’re ten and all you have is a Schwinn.”
    Stella straightened the covers and put her sunglasses on the nightstand. “What did you do for fun?”
    “Sheep.” Sadie yawned. “I raised sheep and cows for 4–H. I couldn’t wait to get out of Lovett. When I turned eighteen, I left and I never really came back.”
    Stella spread out next to Sadie. Was she really lying next to her sister? Feeling comfortable enough to confess, “I always thought you must be perfect because our father loved you. I thought living here with him, you must have had the perfect life.” We think we want what we never had , Sadie had said.
    “No. I loved Daddy, but he didn’t know what to do with me once my mama died. I ran wild until he’d remember that he had a daughter, a girl , and then he’d send me to charm school or drag a piano teacher out here or make the Parton sisters teach me how to cook and do laundry.” She rolled her head on the pillow and looked at Stella. “I could shoot and spit straight. Muck out stalls in the morning and serve finger sandwiches and tea on Mama’s Wedgwood that afternoon.” She smiled. “I was really confused about what I wanted to be when I grew up. It took me a long time to figure it out.”
    Stella had always thought her sister had her act together. Born knowing her place in the world. “How long?”
    Sadie grinned. “Thirty years.”
    They had that in common and Stella felt comfortable enough so say, “I always feel like everyone has some sort of plan but me.” But not comfortable enough to tell her about Carlos and Vegas, though. Maybe someday. “I’ve just always worked. If I don’t like the job, I find a different one. I’m twenty-eight. I need a plan. A goal.” Yeah, she needed to figure it out.
    “I spent a lot of time and Daddy’s money going to college. I went to four in four different states, and it wasn’t until I was thirty that I figured out I wanted to sell houses. It cost me about a thousand bucks and one hundred and sixty-four hours. I loved it. I loved being top seller at the brokerage and kicking butt on people who thought they were better because they’d been selling longer. Or were older.” She looked up at the ceiling and smiled. “Men.”
    Stella laughed. “Male bartenders think they are sooo much better than woman bartenders. The only thing they’re better at is lifting kegs of beer or crates of liquor.”
    “You’re a late bloomer like me,” Sadie said through another yawn. “You have a few years to figure out your life.”
    Like me . She’d spent twenty-eight years thinking her sister was smarter, surer, and taller. Well, she clearly was taller but not surer. Were they really alike? It was the old environment versus genetics question. Stella had spent twenty-eight years thinking her sister was one way when she was . . . asleep?
    “Sadie?” she whispered. Instead of an answer, Sadie turned on her side and showed Stella the back of her blond head. Stella reached across the pillows and touched her sister’s hair, and the sunny highlights woven throughout. They were both so different. Tall. Short. Light. Dark. Raised in not only different states, but different worlds. Yet . . . they had things in common, too.
    Stella pulled her