“Everyone calls me Vince.” He continued behind the counter and stood next to his aunt. “I got a tow this morning. The alternator went out, but it should be fixed by Monday.”

No doubt the guy in front of her would know what to do and get the job done. Guys like him always knew the ins-and-outs of bed. Or against the wall, on the beach in Oahu, or in the car overlooking L.A. Not that she knew. Of course not. “So you’re here until Monday?” And why was she thinking of Vince and the sack anyway? Maybe because he looked so sackable in his brown T-shirt stretched across his hard chest.

He slid a gaze to his aunt. “I’m not sure when I’m shipping out.”

Sadie pushed a twenty across the counter. She looked up into Vince’s light green eyes within his dark, swarthy face. He just didn’t seem like a small-town kind of guy. Especially a small-town Texas kind of guy. “Lovett isn’t quite the Seattle area.” She guessed him to be in his midthirties. The women of Lovett would love him, but she wasn’t sure how many of those women were single. “There isn’t a lot to do.”

“Well, I . . . I beg to differ with you,” Luraleen sputtered as she made change. “We don’t have big museums and fancy art galleries and such, but there’s lots of goin’s and doin’s.”

Sadie had obviously hit a nerve. So she didn’t argue that there was little in Lovett to go and do. She took her change and put it in her wallet. “I only meant that it’s a family-oriented town.”

Luraleen slid the cash drawer shut. “Nothing wrong with family. Family’s important to most folks.” She pushed the bag of Diet Coke and Chee-tos toward Sadie. “Most folks come visit their poor old daddies more than once every five years or so.”

And most daddies stayed home when their daughters came to visit after five years. “My daddy knows where I live. He’s always known.” She felt her face turn hot. From anger and embarrassment, and she didn’t know which was worse. Like most of the people in Lovett, Luraleen didn’t know what she was talking about, but that didn’t keep her from talking like she did know. She wasn’t surprised that Luraleen knew how long it had been since her last visit. Small-town gossip was just one of the reasons she’d left Lovett and never looked back. Sadie dropped her wallet into her purse and glanced up at Vince. “I’m glad to hear you got towed into town.”


Vince watched Sadie grab her bag of Diet Coke and Chee-tos. Watched her cheeks turn a darker shade of pink. There was something going on behind those blue eyes. Something more than anger. If he was a nice guy he might make an effort to think of something nice to say to soothe the obvious sting of Luraleen’s comment. The woman had done him a favor, but Vince didn’t know what to say, and had never been accused of being a nice guy. Except by his sister, Autumn. She’d always given him a lot more credit than he deserved, and he’d always figured if his sister was the only female on the planet who thought he was a nice guy, then he was pretty much an asshole. Which was surprisingly okay with him. “Thanks again for the ride,” he said.

She said something but he didn’t catch it because she turned her face away. Her blond ponytail swung as she turned on her heels and marched out the door. His gaze slid down the back of her coat, down her bare calves and ankles to a pair of red fuck-me heels.

“She always did think she was too good for her raisin’s.”

Vince glanced at his aunt, then his gaze returned to Sadie’s back as she moved across the parking lot. He wasn’t sure what raisins had to do with anything, but he was sure that he was a huge fan of fuck-me heels. “You were rude to her.”

“Me?” Luraleen put an innocent hand on her skinny chest. “She said there was nothin’ to do in town.”

“And?”

“There’s lots!” Not a gray hair on her head moved as she vigorously shook her head. “We got the Founder’s Day picnic, and the Fourth of July is a big whoop-de-do. Not to mention Easter is coming up in a month.” She motioned for Alvin, who stood back with his case of Lone Star. “We got some real nice restaurants and fine dining.” She rang up the beer. “Isn’t that right, Alvin?”

“Ruby’s serves a real good beefsteak,” the cowboy agreed as he handed over two folded bills. His big hat seemed to be held up by his jug-handle ears. “Seafood’s not too great though.”

Luraleen waved away the criticism. “This is cattle country. Who cares about seafood?”

“What are you doin’ after you close up for the night, Luraleen?”

She cast a sideways glance at Vince and he tried not to notice. “I got my nephew in town.”

“If you want to go out with friends, that’s fine with me.” After last night and most of today, he could use a break from his aunt. He still had to think over her offer. His first instinct had been to turn her down, but the more he thought about it, the more he was tempted to take her up on it. He didn’t plan to stay in Lovett, Texas, for the rest of his life, but maybe he could turn the Gas and Go into another nice investment. A few minor improvements here and there, and he could sell it and make a pile of cash.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He was sure. His aunt’s idea of a good time was Tammy Wynette plugged into the “cassette player” and a fifth of Ten High. He wasn’t much of a bourbon drinker, especially cheap bourbon, and he didn’t know if his liver could take much more.

She slapped the change into Alvin’s outstretched palm. “Fine, but make sure everything is operatin’ this time or don’t bother.”

Operating?

Alvin turned red but managed a wink. “You got it, darlin’.”

What the . . . ? Vince had been exposed to some real disturbing shit in his life, most he stored away in the black locker of his soul, but his wrinkled aunt, heels to Jesus, with Alvin was right near the top of the disturbing shit list.

Luraleen shoved the cash drawer closed and announced, “We’re closin’ up early. Shut down the hot dog roller, Vince!”

Less than an hour later, Vince was dropped off at his aunt’s house. She’d slapped some pink, Pepto-colored lipstick on her wrinkly, horsy lips and jumped in Alvin’s truck, off to do things Vince didn’t even want to contemplate.

Vince was left alone to sit in an old iron chair on the screened porch. He raised a bottle of water to his mouth, then set it on the warped wood by his left foot. He’d never been good at relaxing. He’d always needed something to do. A clarity of purpose.

He tied the laces on his left running shoe and then switched to his right. When he’d been a member of the teams, there was always something that needed doing. He’d always been downrange or training and preparing for the next mission. When he’d come home, he’d kept himself busy with work and family. His nephew had been only a few months old and his sister had needed a lot of help. His purpose had been clear. There hadn’t been a mental vacuum. Not a lot of time to think. About anything.

He liked it that way.

The screen door slammed behind him as he set off into the cool March air. A sliver of a moon hung in the black night crammed with stars. Seattle, New York, and Tokyo had stunning skylines, but none of them could compare with the natural beauty of billions of stars.

The soles of his running shoes thumped a silent, steady pace against the paved street. Whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or the deck of an oilrig in the calm waters of the Persian Gulf, Vince had always found a certain peace within the dark blanket of night. Ironic, he supposed, given that, like most Special Forces, he’d often operated in the dead of night, the familiar rat-tat of an AK–47 in the distance, and the reassuring answer of an M4A1. This dichotomy of equal parts comfort and fear of the night was something that men like him understood: taking it to the enemy was much better than waiting around for the enemy to bring it to them.

In the calm Texas night, the only sound to reach his ears was the sound of his own breathing and a dog barking in the distance. Rottweiler maybe.

On nights like this, he could fill his head with either the future or the past. With the faces of his buddies. Those who’d made it out and those who hadn’t. He could let his mind recall the guys in Team One, Alpha Platoon. Their fresh faces changed over the years by the things they’d seen and done. He’d grown up in the Navy. Grown into a man, and the things he’d seen and done had changed him, too.

But tonight he had other things on his mind. Things that had nothing to do with the past. He had to admit the more he thought about buying the Gas and Go from Luraleen, the more the idea appealed to him. He could buy it, fix it up, and sell it in a year. Or hell, he could become the next John Jackson, the owner and founder of about a hundred and fifty convenience stores throughout the Northwest.

True, he didn’t know shit about convenience stores, but John hadn’t known that much, either. The guy had been a Chevron marketer from a small town in Idaho and was worth millions now. Not that Vince wanted to be a mogul. He just wasn’t a suit-and-tie kind of guy. He didn’t have the temperament for the boardroom. He knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t very diplomatic, if at all. He liked to cut through the bullshit and get things done. He’d much rather kick a door down than talk his way through, but he was thirty-six and his body was pretty beat up from too many years of kicking down doors, jumping from airplanes, and fighting waves like a bronc rider and dragging his Zodiac up the beach.

He passed beneath a weak streetlamp and turned north. He’d made it through BUD/S hell week, and served for ten years with SEAL Team One out of Coronado. He’d been deployed around the world, then moved to Seattle to help raise his nephew. A job that had sometimes made him long for the days of relentless sandstorms, putrid swamps, and teeth-rattling cold. He could manage one small convenience store, and truth be told, he wasn’t doing anything else right now anyway.