adie stumbled out of bed and stepped over her black lace panties, which lay on the floor. A smile tilted her lips as she reached for her robe and remembered Vince shoving her underwear down her thighs the night before. “You didn’t notice my underwear,” she’d complained as she’d reached for his belt buckle.

“I noticed,” he’d answered, his voice rough with lust as he’d pushed her onto the bed. “I’m just more interested in what’s beneath your underwear.”

The fact that they’d lasted until after traps before they’d torn at each other’s clothes had been a miracle. A frustrating, sexually charged miracle.

She threaded her arms through the purple satin sleeves and tied the belt around her waist. She was competitive, but Vince was super competitive. She supposed she should have guessed that about him. He’d missed the first two clay targets, but once he got the hang of the long barrel and adjusted his shots for accuracy, the guy was deadly. He’d hit forty-one out of fifty pigeons.

Sadie had been shooting clay pigeons for as long as she could recall. She was rusty, which accounted for her score of thirty-three.

She moved into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her hair was a tangled mess from Vince’s hands and she looked like crap. Once again, she’d fallen asleep before he’d left, and she was glad he wasn’t around to see her so scary.

Eyes still a little bleary, she walked down the hall and back stairs to the kitchen. The ends of her robe flapped about her calves and she came to a dead stop on the last step.

“More coffee, Vince?”

“No thank you, ma’am.”

“Oh you. I told you to call me Clara Anne.”

Sadie slid her bare feet to the hardwood floor and squinted across the kitchen to the cheery breakfast nook. Bathed in golden morning light, Vince sat at the table, the remnants of a feast in front of him.

Well, this was awkward and embarrassing. “Good morning,” she said, and tucked her robe more securely.

Vince glanced up and didn’t appear the least bit embarrassed. “Hello.”

“Look who I caught sneaking out,” Clara Anne said as she reached into a cupboard and pulled out a coffee mug.

She supposed that was a rhetorical question since he was sitting at the table. She took the mug from Clara Anne and poured coffee into it. She’d woken with men in the past, but seeing Vince threw her. Maybe because he was a benefits man. Maybe because now everyone at the JH knew he’d spent the night. Or maybe because he looked so damn good and she looked a mess. If she’d known, she would have at least brushed her hair.

“You cooked for Vince?” she asked as she poured a generous amount of hazelnut creamer into the mug. Clara Anne never cooked.

“Goodness no. Carolynn brought him over a plate from the cookhouse.”

Great. No doubt they’d already started to plan her wedding. She raised the mug to her lips and blew into it. Her gaze met Vince’s as she took a big drink. She recognized the look in his eyes, reminding her that she was naked beneath the silk robe.

“I have to get going,” he said as he tossed his napkin on the table and stood. “It was nice to meet you, Clara Anne. Tell Carolynn I enjoyed her breakfast very much.”

“I will and don’t be a stranger.” Clara Anne gave him a hug and he patted her twice on the back. “You’re as big as hell and half of Texas.”

He looked over at Sadie, who shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. Hey, he was in Texas. Around natives. Natives were huggers.

Clara Anne let him go and he moved toward Sadie and took her free hand. She was careful not to spill her coffee as they walked to the front door. “I sacked out. Sorry, I don’t know how that happened. It never happens,” he said in the entry. “Then I got caught sneaking out like a felon.”

“And Clara Anne forced you to eat breakfast?”

“She offered and I was hungry.” He smiled. “I worked up an appetite last night.”

“And wore yourself out?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s fine.” Although she would have liked a little warning so she could have brushed her hair. “Except you look good and I look like shit.”

He kissed the messy part in her hair. “That’s the thing about you, Sadie. You can look like shit and I still want to get you naked.” He lifted his head and reached for the knob behind him. “See you later.”

She nodded and took a step back. “Maybe I’ll swing by the Gas and Go.”

“Do, and maybe I’ll let you swing my sledgehammer.” He opened the door and stepped outside. “Or put you to work prying up old vinyl floor tiles from the fifties.”

“Yuck. I’ll text first to make sure you’re done with that.” She said good-bye and closed the door behind him. She let out a breath as she leaned her back against it. She took a sip and figured she had two choices. Head upstairs and take a shower or retrace her steps to the kitchen and convince Clara Anne that a wedding was not in the cards. She took the easy way out and headed up the stairs. She jumped in the shower and washed her hair. She exfoliated with a loofah, then brushed her teeth in the sink. For the past few days, her daddy had talked more and more about the ranch and the day he wouldn’t be around much longer. She wished he wouldn’t talk like that. It gave her a panicky tightness in her chest. Not just because she wasn’t ready for the responsibility of the JH, but because she didn’t want to think of her daddy not being here. On the ranch. Breeding his paints. Being a cranky pain in the ass.

Her anchor.

She dried her hair and pulled on a blue sundress over her white bra and panties. Maybe she’d swing into the store and buy him some flowers to cheer up his room. Not that it ever seemed to make a difference.

The phone rang as she swiped her lashes with mascara, top and bottom until they were long and lush. She wasn’t much of a beauty queen like her mama, but she did give special attention to her hair and lashes.

“Sadie Jo,” Clara Anne called from the bottom of the stairs. “The phone is for you. It’s the rehab hospital in Amarillo.”

She set down the mascara and moved down the hall to her bedroom. It wasn’t all that unusual for one of her father’s doctors to contact her after his morning calls. “Hello.” She sat on the side of her unmade bed. “This is Sadie.”

“It’s Dr. Morgan,” the geriatric specialist said.

“Hi, Doctor. How’s Daddy this morning?”

“When the morning shift nurse checked in on him, she found him unresponsive.”

Unresponsive? “Is he just really tired again?”

“I’m sorry. He’s no longer with us.”

“He left? Where’d he go?”

“He passed away.”

Passed away? “What?”

“He died in his sleep between three A.M. when the night nurse checked on him and six this morning.”

“What?” She blinked and swallowed hard. “He felt better yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. Are you alone? Do you have someone who can drive you to the facility today?”

“My daddy died? Alone?”

“I’m sorry. We won’t know the cause of death until after autopsy, but it was peaceful.”

“Peaceful.” Her face felt tingly. Her hands were numb and her heart felt tight and on fire in her chest. “I... I don’t know what to do now.” What was she going to do without her father?

“Have you made arrangements?”

“For what?”

“Come in and talk to someone in the administration office.”

“Okay.” She stood. “Bye.” She hung up the phone on the bedside table and stared at it. Thump-thump-thump, her heart pounded in her chest and head and ears. She grabbed her flip-flops and purse and headed down the hall. Past the wall of Hollowells. The doctor was wrong. Her dad had been himself yesterday. Cranky and cantankerous. Fine.

She moved out the front door to her car. She thought maybe she should tell Clara Anne. Clara Anne would cry. Carolynn would cry. Everyone would cry and the news would beat her to Amarillo. She wanted to hold it in. Hold it inside herself for a while. Until she talked to the doctors. Until she knew... she didn’t know what.

Miranda Lambert blared from the car speakers as she turned over the engine. She turned down the volume and headed toward Amarillo. Her daddy couldn’t be dead. Wouldn’t she have known it? Wouldn’t she have somehow felt it? Wouldn’t the world be different? Look different?

Her mouth was dry and she took a drink from an old fountain Diet Coke in her cup holder. Her ears had a strange, high-pitched buzzing. Like cicadas were in her head. Her fingers tingled and she wondered how it could be that the wildflowers on the side of the road weren’t wilting and dying like she was inside.

She drove through Lovett and past the Gas and Go. Vince’s truck was parked by the Dumpster in back. Had she just seen him a little over an hour ago? In her kitchen? Eating breakfast? It seemed like more time had passed. Like a week. Like a lifetime. Like when her life had been whole.

Before.

Before her world came apart.

Vince plugged the coffeemaker into the socket in the office and pushed the on button. Most of the demolition was done and the remodeling would begin soon.

A soft rustle drew his attention to the doorway. Sadie stood there. Keys in one hand and a pair of flip-flops in the other.

“Change your mind about ripping up those floor tiles?” he asked.

She looked at him and licked her lips. “I need a fountain Diet Coke.”

He slid his gaze over her, from the top of her blond hair to the toes of her bare feet. There was something off about her. “I threw the fountain machine away and ordered new.”

“I’ll take a can.”

Something wasn’t right. “I emptied the refrigerators and pulled them out. All that stuff’s stacked in a corner of the storage room.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take one anyway.”

“You want a hot Diet Coke?”

She nodded and licked her lips again. “My daddy died last night.” She shook her head. “This morning, I mean.” The keys rattled in her hand and her brows lowered. “The hospital called. I have to go make arrangements.” Her brows lowered as if nothing made sense. “I guess.”

He dipped his head and looked into her eyes. “Did you drive here, Sadie?”

She nodded. “My mouth is dry.” Her eyes were wide, glassy, with the thousand-yard stare of someone in deep shock. He recognized that look. He’d seen it in the eyes of hardened warriors. “Do you have water?”

He grabbed his coffee mug and filled it with water from the sink. He took the keys and shoes from her and handed her the water. “I’m sorry about your daddy.” He put her things on the old desk and walked back toward her. “I didn’t know him, but everyone who mentioned him had good things to say.”

She nodded and drained the mug. “I need to go.”

“Hang tight.” He took her wrist and placed his fingers over her pulse. “Not yet.” He looked at his watch and counted her heartbeats. “Do you feel light-headed?”

“What?”

“Is someone in your family driving you to Amarillo?” Her pulse was fast but not dangerously high. “One of your aunts or cousins or uncles?”

“My daddy was an only child. My aunts and uncles are on my mama’s side.”

“Can one of them drive you?”

“Why?”

Because she shouldn’t be driving around in shock. He let go of her wrist, then grabbed her shoes and keys from the desk. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t have to.”

He dropped to one knee and put her flip-flops on her feet. “I know I don’t.” He rose and placed his hand on the small of her back.

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

She wasn’t hysterical, but probably not anywhere near okay. They moved down the hall, her shoes softly slapping the soles of her feet. “Will Clara Anne contact everyone for you?”

“I don’t know.” They stopped and he pulled a set of keys out of his pants pocket. “I should probably tell her.”

Vince looked across his shoulder into Sadie’s face as he locked the back door of the Gas and Go. “You didn’t tell her before you left?”

Sadie shook her head. “She would have asked questions and I don’t know anything yet.” Together they moved to his truck and he helped her into the passenger seat. “I’ll call her from the hospital when I know something.”

Vince grabbed a bottle of water out of the cooler in the bed, then moved around to the other side and climbed inside. As he started the car, he handed her the water and studied Sadie’s face. She looked a bit pale, that certain shade of shock white. Her blue eyes were dry, and for that he was grateful. He hated to see women or children cry. It was a cliché, he knew, but he’d rather face a tribe of Taliban insurgents. He knew what to do with terrorists, but crying women and children made him feel helpless.

He pulled out of the parking lot and asked for the address of the hospital. She gave it to him and he plugged it into his GPS. Silence filled the truck as she unscrewed the bottle. He didn’t know what to say, and he waited for her to talk so he could take his cue from her. He drove a few blocks and turned onto the highway. When she finally did say something, it was not what he expected.

“Am I the only woman you’re sleeping with at the moment?”

He glanced at her, then back at the road. “What?”

“It’s okay if I’m not.” She took a drink. “I’m just wondering.”

Okay his ass. No matter what a woman said, she was never “okay” with that shit. “That’s what you want to talk about?”

She nodded. “It’s half an hour to Amarillo, Vince. I can’t talk about my daddy right now.” She placed a hand on her chest as if she could keep everything inside. She took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “I can’t do it. Not yet. Not until after I know everything.” Her voice wavered and almost broke. “If I start to cry, I won’t stop. Talk to me please. Talk to me so I won’t think about my daddy dying all alone without me there. Talk about anything.”

Shit. “Well,” he said as he looked back at the highway, “you are the only woman I’ve slept with for a long time.” He still couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep in her bed. He hadn’t allowed that to happen since he’d left the teams. If that hadn’t been bad enough, he got busted like a kid sneaking out. “And ‘at the moment’ you are the only woman I’m having sex with.”

“Oh.” She looked out the passenger window and screwed the cap back on the bottle. “At the moment you are the only man I’m having sex with.” She paused for a few seconds, then added, “In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. No offense, darlin’, but I’ve met some of the single men Lovett has to offer.”

She looked down and almost smiled. “There are some really good guys here. Not that I want to date any of them. Mostly because I’ve known most of them since grade school and remember when they used to pick their noses.” The corner of her lip quivered as if for a few seconds she’d forgotten where they were going and why, then suddenly remembered. “Thank God I didn’t sleep with any of them.”

That surprised him a little. Probably because he’d grown up in several small towns and there hadn’t been a lot to do but roll around in hay fields. “None?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t lose my virginity until I went away to college.”

“What was his name?”

“Frosty Bassinger.” Her voice wavered.

“Frosty?” He chuckled. “You gave it up for a guy named Frosty?”

“Well, his real name was Frank.” She unscrewed the cap and took a drink from the bottle. “How old were you?”

“Sixteen. She was eighteen and her name was Heather.”

Sadie choked. “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 her cheeks with a tissue on the nightstand. Even in her raw grief, she couldn’t lie to herself. He hadn’t been a perfect dad, but neither had she been a perfect daughter. Their relationship had often been difficult, but she loved him. Loved him with a deep, soul-devastating ache. She took a breath past the pain in her chest and blew it out. “You did the best you could.” She understood that now. Understood it, given his own difficult past. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you passed. I’m sorry you were alone. I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

She kissed his cool cheek. There was no reason to stay by his bedside. He wasn’t there. “I love you, Daddy.” Emotion clogged her throat and she managed a weak “Good-bye.”

She moved out into the hall and made the difficult call to the JH. Vince stood beside her, his hand on her back as he spoke in a low tone to the nurses. Predictably, the Parton sisters fell apart, while Snooks and Tyrus were deeply saddened but not surprised. They were tough old cowboys like Clive and would make sure the JH ran smoothly like always.

She didn’t know how she was going to live without her anchor, and over the next five days, she just went through the motions. She ate little and slept less. Her life was a blur. A numb, hazy blur of people stopping by the JH to talk and remember her father. A constant stream of casseroles and Clive stories. A fog of picking out a casket and burial clothes. Of signing documents and writing the obituary. Of discovering that her father had died of heart failure due to deep vein thrombosis. Meeting with the estate lawyer, Mr. Koonz, and the executor of Clive’s will.

She’d sat within the lawyer’s office, the scent of leather and wood polish filling her blurry head. She sat with five of her father’s loyal employees and listened as each was bequeathed fifty thousand dollars and guaranteed employment at JH Ranch for as long as they chose. The lawyer mentioned a trust to an unnamed beneficiary that Sadie assumed was set up for children she might have.

Everything else in his estate was left to Sadie. Everything from his old Ford truck and unexpired insurance policies to the JH.

There was a time, a few short weeks ago, when the weight of responsibility would have overwhelmed her. It overwhelmed her now, only maybe not as much. Now the JH felt a bit more like an anchor than a noose.

He left a letter for Sadie. One that was short and to the point:

“Talking never came easy to me. I loved your mama and I loved you. I wasn’t the best daddy and I regret that. Don’t let the folks at the funeral home put makeup on me, and keep the lid to my casket closed. You know how I hate people gawking and gossiping.”

And through the worst of it, Vince was there. His strong, solid presence just when she seemed to need him. He’d helped her gather her father’s things, then driven her to the funeral home the next day. Mostly he’d been with her at night. When everyone was gone. When the house was too quiet. When she was alone with her own thoughts and the numbing grief threatened to swamp her. He came and pressed his body into hers. His solid warmth chasing the chill from her bones. It wasn’t about sex. It was more like he came to see how she was holding up and stayed for a few hours.

He never made the mistake of falling asleep in her bed again, and when she woke from a restless sleep in the darkness, he was always gone.