Rachel Gibson - Rescue Me

He thought of her face. The way she’d looked at him as they’d hurriedly dressed. Waiting for him to say something he hadn’t been able to say. Something he’d never told anyone outside his family.

She’d said she loved him, and he’d hurt her. He hadn’t even had to look into her eyes as he’d dropped her off at the JH to know how deeply he’d hurt her, and hurting Sadie was the last thing he wanted. For the first time in his dealings with women, he did give a shit about what that said about him. He just didn’t know what he was going to do about it. If anything. It was probably best if he did nothing at all.

Sadie hit the button on the door panel of her Saab and the window slid down an inch. Cool air whistled through the crack and across her cheek. The breeze caught several strands of her straight blond hair, blowing them about her face as she headed toward Lovett and home.

Home. Unlike that day several months ago when she’d driven toward Lovett, she didn’t feel anxious and antsy to leave again. She felt at peace with her past. She didn’t feel trapped or tied down. Okay, maybe a little, but her future was wide open and that allowed her to breathe when her chest got tight.

For the past week, she’d been in Arizona throwing away dead plants and packing up. She’d tied up a few loose ends, put her little house on the market, and hired a moving company.

The Monday after her father’s funeral, she’d met with Dickie and the rest of the managers and foremen as well as various lawyers in Amarillo. She’d had meetings with them in the following days before her trip to Arizona, and she’d learned a lot about the business of running the ranch. She knew she had a ton more to learn, but she had to admit, she liked the business end. All those years of never earning a degree in anything was kind of paying off. Well, except for that Zombies in Popular Media class. She didn’t know how the study of zombie movies and their impact on society would be helpful, but who knew what apocalyptic event might happen in the future? She’d never thought there’d be a day when she’d actually want to live at the JH. Never saw that one coming, but she was looking forward to schmoozing lenders as she had as a real estate agent. Working with hard and soft deadlines, and keeping everything organized. She could be involved in as much or as little of the day-to-day running of the JH as she chose. She hadn’t really decided how much she would take on yet, but she had come to the conclusion that she was a lot like her daddy. She loved the JH, but hated cattle. Stupid, smelly animals only good for T-bones, shoes, and really good handbags.

She turned off the highway through the gates of the JH. Unlike the last time two months ago, there was no black truck broken down on the side of the road. No big, strong man who needed a ride into town.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Vince had returned from Seattle. Not that it mattered. Their friends-with-benefits relationship was over. Done. Dead. Buried. He hadn’t tried to call or even text her since that night in his apartment, and she wished she could take back the words she’d said that night. She wished she hadn’t blurted that she loved him. Mostly, she wished it wasn’t true.

Still.

The late afternoon sun blazed through the front windshield, and she lowered the visor against the piercing rays. She’d fallen in love with an emotionally unavailable man. A man who couldn’t love her back. A man who’d pulled her in, only to push her away. After she said she loved him. On the worst day of her life. Which pretty much made him the biggest jerk on the planet.

Other than her daddy, she’d shed more tears for him than any man on the planet, too. Certainly more than he deserved. She was heartbroken and sick and she didn’t have anyone to blame but herself. He’d told her up front he wasn’t a relationship kind of guy. He’d told her he got bored and moved on. She wished she could hate Vince, but she couldn’t. Each time she worked up to a full head of anger at him, and it wasn’t hard for her to do, the image of him naked, pulling air into his lungs, and staring at things only he could see, entered her head, and her heart broke all over again. For her and for him.

Once again she’d fallen for an emotionally stunted man. This time she’d fallen harder and deeper, but as with all the other stunted men who had ever taken up space in her life, she’d get over him.

She pulled the Saab to a stop in front of the main house and grabbed her overnight bag and purse from the backseat. The Parton sisters were still around someplace, but the house was silent when she entered. A copy of her daddy’s will sat on top of a stack of mail and other documents on the table in the entry. She dropped her bags and carried the stack into the kitchen. She grabbed a Diet Coke from the refrigerator and moved to the breakfast nook where Vince had once sat, chowing down on Carolynn’s ranch hand special.

She flipped through the will that included the letter her daddy had written to her and smiled. Unlike the Hollowells of the past, she would be modernizing the house. She would have all her father’s bedroom furniture stored and her own things moved in. The cowhide couch and all the portraits of her father’s horses were going into storage also. If she was going to live at the JH, she wanted to make it her own. She was also giving serious thought to taking down the numerous portraits in the hall upstairs. If and when she ever did have children, she didn’t want all those ancestors scaring the crap out of her kid as they had her.

She flipped to the part of her daddy’s will that had provided for any unnamed beneficiary, which she’d assumed meant any child or children she might have. She raised the bottle of Coke to her lips and frowned. She didn’t know if she’d misheard the clause or if it hadn’t been read right, but the clause talked about a trust fund set up for an unnamed beneficiary. An unnamed beneficiary born June tenth of 1985 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

June tenth of 1985? What the hell did that mean? Las Cruces, New Mexico? The trust fund couldn’t be about her. She’d been born in Amarillo. And it couldn’t have anything to do with any future children she might have. What did this mean?

The back door screen slammed shut and Sadie jumped.

“I saw you drive up,” Clara Anne said as she entered the kitchen. “If you’re hungry, I can get you something from the cookhouse.”

She shook her head. “Clara Anne, you were there when my daddy’s will was read.”

“Sure was. Such a sad day.”

“Do you remember this?”

“What, honey?” Clara Anne bent over the document and her hair dipped a little to one side. She shook her head. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure, but why would my daddy set up a trust fund for an unnamed beneficiary born in New Mexico, June tenth of 1985?”

She scrunched up her nose and brow. “Is that what that says?”

“I think so. Did you hear this read in the lawyer’s office that day?”

“No, but you can’t go by me. I fell apart like a flour-sack dress that day.” She straightened. “June tenth of 1985,” she pondered, and clicked her teeth with her tongue. “I wonder if this has to do with Marisol? She left in such a hurry.”

Sadie lowered the Coke to the table. “Who?”

“Ask Mr. Koonz,” Clara Anne suggested, then bit her lips together.

“I will. Who’s Marisol?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

“You already did. Who’s Marisol?”

“The nanny your daddy hired right after your mama died.”

“I had a nanny?”

“For a few months and then she left. She was here one day and gone the next.” Clara Anne folded her arms beneath her breasts. “She came back about a year later with a baby. We never believed that baby was your daddy’s.”

“What?” Sadie stood before she realized she’d jumped to her feet. “What baby?”

“A girl. At least the blanket was pink. If I remember right.”

“I have a sister?” This was crazy. “And I’m just now hearing about it?”

“If you had a sister your daddy would have told you.”

She scrubbed her face with her hands. Maybe. Maybe not.

“And don’t you think everyone in town would have talked about it?” Clara Anne shook her head and dropped her arms. “They’d still be dinin’ out on it at the Wild Coyote Diner.”

Now that was true enough. If Clive Hollowell had an illegitimate child, it would be the topic of the century at every dinner table in town. She would have certainly heard something by now.

“Then again, me and Carolynn were the only two here when Marisol showed up that day. And we never spoke about it.”

The Road Kill bar hadn’t changed much in ten years. Country music poured from the same Wurlitzer jukebox. Old road signs and stuffed critters still decorated the walls, and fashion-minded patrons could purchase rattler skin belts and tanned armadillo handbags from a display case behind the mahogany bar. The owner of the Road Kill was a taxidermist on the side. And it was said that Velma Patterson, bless her heart, had hired him to stuff her poor yappy dog, Hector, the unfortunate victim of some maniac hit and run driver.

Sadie sat at a table near the back corner beneath a stuffed coyote, its head lifted and howling at the ceiling. Across from her, dim bar lights reflected off Deeann’s red pouf as the two of them threw back a couple of margaritas. Deeann had called earlier and talked Sadie into meeting her at the bar. Not that she’d had to twist Sadie’s arm. Sadie hadn’t had anything else going on and a lot on her mind. She’d met with Mr. Koonz that morning and discovered that her daddy had been supporting “the unnamed beneficiary” for the past twenty-eight years. There was no acknowledgment of any paternity. Or even any name on the Wells Fargo bank account in Las Cruces. At least that’s what her father’s lawyer told her, but Sadie didn’t believe him.